Week 6 Discussion and Responses - Org. Behavior

Week 6 Discussion – Conflict and Leadership

Think about a conflict situation that you have experienced or observed in the workplace and describe at a high level what was occurring (feel free to change the names to protect the guilty). 

Next, taking what we have learned this week, identify what could have been done to handle that conflict better. 

Remember to take into account your preferred style of style of handling conflict, as well as any organizational and/or cultural dynamics that may need to come into play.  

REFERENCE:

Reading 

· McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2015). Organizational-Behavior:  Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality (7th eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 11 - Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace (pp. 310-339)

· McShane, S.L., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2015). Organizational-Behavior:  Emerging Knowledge, Global Reality (7th eds.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 12 - Leadership in Organizational Settings (pp. 340-367)

Week 6 Websites and Articles 

· Why we pick bad leaders, and how to spot the good ones

· What Does It Take to Be a Leader

Must be well written and read easy, 1pg, cited per APA

Responses must be respectful, courteous, acknowledge opinions, share difference if needed, and cited per APA.

Discussion 1 Response:

By: N,M

Conflict within the workplace is inevitable and its presence is pervasive, often toxic, and can suggest dysfunction; however, it has the capacity to provide tangible examples in which leadership may grow and develop organizational structure for the betterment of the company.

Within my workplace, we have an interesting dynamic structurally. The entire employee benefits department is broken into two teams: Team 1 and Team 2. Each respective team has 5-6 sales producers that lead subsequent teams of their own that include Account Executives, Account Managers, Client Service Representatives, and Insurance Coordinators. The way in which this functions is set to provide each sale producer with a working team to service clients, which is an efficient way of staffing each specific pod of employees. The main issue, however, is that the servicers (e.g. Account Executives, Account Managers, Client Service Representatives, and Insurance Coordinators) are managed by a set of supervisors that review each domain on each specific team. For example, there is a supervisor for all Team 1 Account Executives, another supervisor for Team 2 Account Managers, etc. The issue at hand is that the supervisors all work independently of one another to complete evaluations, enforce disciplinary action, and provide insight and guidance when requested. While this seems great in theory, the working relationship between the sales producers and the employees designated to supervise often create operational friction that leads to a decrease in productivity and efficiency with servicers. This high-level review of the conflict that happens routinely suggests a rut of repetitive behavior with limited solutions. Specifically, the lack of compromise on both sides is what is the catalyst of all problems to snowball. A sales producer may want their Insurance Coordinators to put together a detailed spreadsheet of all employees eligible for plan coverage; which, in theory, is a fair request, but perhaps the Insurance Coordinator already has a full 50-hour week of other scheduled work and does not have the capacity to take on more work. Instead of open communication between all parties, the way it currently would function is that the supervisor and sales producer would agree to disagree and leave the work undone while a lack of compromise ensued. To effectively handle this situation and continue to operate in the same vein, it is crucial for each party to adapt stronger compromising skills that force each side to entertain the possible value that the other side may carry (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015). In my example, had the sales producer and supervisor sat down to discuss a fair solution to the request and comprise a plan to handle moving forward, there would be a minimized chance for recurrence.

 

References:

McShane, S. L. & Von Glinow, M. (2015). Organizational Behavior (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Discussion 2 Response:

By: D,W

Conflict in the workplace is fairly common. While reviewing this week's assignment, quite a few conflicts I have observed came to mind. After reading the text, I believe some of these conflicts where handled poorly. Here is one of those conflicts. 

On a sales team I was a part of, there was an interesting dynamic. There were 5 sales people that sold new product to customers while the sixth sales person was our "saves guy" in that any time a product was cancelled he would go in and attempt to resell the item to the customer and get the commission on the "save." One perceived problem with this set up was that the "saves guy" was also working with clients so he could almost create his own sale by having them cancel something and then he could resell it to them. The team had seen a lot of turnover as I came aboard and had one more vacant spot. Our manager brought on a sales rep that had plenty of experience. Her name was Michele. Michele sat next to our "saves guy" Bill. Michele didn't require much training as she had already had plenty of inside sales experience. Michele was one that found reasons to complain about many self-perceived unfair situations that she was involved in such as not having as big of a territory or not having the big cities to sell in. One afternoon, Bill was calling on accounts to save product and Michele began listening into his calls. She would then ask him after each call, what shop was that, did you sell them anything, did they cancel any more, etc. Bill began to get upset about this as he felt like she was trying to supervise him. Michele was listening in as she believed Bill was cancelling her sales to create his own. Finally, after about an hour of this, Bill snapped and yelled at Michele. It was highly unprofessional and created a very tense situation. Michele started crying and left for the afternoon. The way management handled it was by bringing both of them into a room and forcing the relationship which wasn't going to solve anything. Both people believed they were right and the other was wrong and both believed that the other was out to cost them sales and their job. This lead to Michele going to HR on not only Bill but the managers for failing to handle the situation correctly. In the end, there was no punishment and both of them sit next to each other with a broken relationship. 

So what should have happened, this situation could look like a win-lose situation however it is a win-win situation. The sales are not limited or capped and there are plenty of customers for each person to sell to. Management attempted to force the relationship without solving the conflict. The best way in my opinion to have dealt with this would have been through compromising which involves looking for a position in which your losses are offset by equally valued gains (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p 321) or through problem solving,  trying to find a solution that is beneficial for both parties (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p 320). The compromising solution would have been for Bill to state he would meet with Michele before doing saves in her territory even though it would cost him valuable time. He could have also offered to send her a list of the products he has resold in order to avoid conflict going forward. For Michele, the compromise would have been that she would trust Bill not to cancel her sales. The problem solving solution would have been for both of them to decide to work together on new products and saves in order to best serve the customer. 

Some of the organizational issues that come into play is that it is uncommon for a retention specialist to be grouped with the sales team. This set up created unnecessary conflict within the team. Another organizational issue is that the manager lacked many of the needed skills to manage. Instead of resolving this issue, it has created a point of tension for both parties involved and lead to a year long issue for the team. It divided the team and has really hurt productivity. 

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational Behavior (7th ed ). New

York: McGraw-Hill