Case brief

Workplace dispute, as a result of internal promotion, that took place due to the
shifting of operational head to another branch and this case made me learn various
good things about the role of effective communication at each and every level
within the organization.
Description
Harry, James and Kate, being the team leaders, have been working in a local
newspaper agency sharing the same office premises for many years which turned
out the professional relationship among the colleagues into a very close
companionship. After these seven years of strong companionship, there comes a
day when existing operational head of the agency was transferred to another
branch creating vacancy for manager operations in this particular branch. After a
deep discussion in an official meeting about the same, it was decided that James
would be promoted to this particular profile which gave rise to an unwanted
dispute among the two close friends, Harry and James. Kate, being the ideal team
leader, could not be promoted and therefore only these two people were there who
can be considered appropriate for this particular designation of operational head.
Harry and James have been very close friends and professional work colleagues
since many years but this turning point of their life changed the feelings and
bonding they were sharing with each other. This was not the actual tension on
official grounds, actual dispute aroused at that point of time when James, being an
operational head, introduced a new policy which made no sense to the team
members and just increased their existing workload. Although team members were
not allowed to question upon any of the policies being made by operational head
but Harry, being a close friend, lost her temper (Cushman and Cahn, 2005). It was
literally the biggest deal for Kate, being a team leader, to identify the “spark” that
ignited this disagreement and find out the most appropriate solution that can
resolve the conflict and help these two people regain the sense of friendship for
each other.
Conflict
The conflict begins after promotion one of the colleagues to particular profile .
During seven years Harry and James have very good relationship about their work
ground and they were very close friends. But after promotion new post their
attitude became deteriorated . Such as Harry and didn’t accept James’s new
policy and its instructions. For Harry ‘s mind James increased their existing
workload. Although the team members couldn’t question to James about new
policy, Harry was against it. James considered Harry ‘s behavior cause the reason
of split and disrespect of work ground. She thinks Harry was jealous about her
success. Totally this situation leaded deep disagreement between colleagues and
close friends. The third team leader Kate tries to find ways and reasons of this
conflict. She tried to get know how to normalize the situation.
Reasons of Conflict
According views of Harry, working with this newspaper agency for longest time
period, she knows well what initiatives can prove to be helpful for the
organization. She knows how to create workplace issues. It was clear in Harry’s
mind that she felt that James could have expressed firmer opposition to this policy
This have been set by the senior management. This particular thought in Harry’s
mind has ignited the spark of rising to a silent workplace conflict that is quite
difficult to resolve through legal actions. Besides this, Harry believed that being a
less experienced employee, James lacks self confidence and the meetings that are
being called up by James were just wastage of time as she takes a moment to get
started and becomes diverted very easily which creates a feeling of frustration in
the mind of employees. When James was asked to identify her perception of the
reasons behind this conflict, she clearly stated that she is continuously facing split
in the team dynamics and she considers Harry as the reason for this split and sense
of disrespect. More than half of the employees still treat her in the same manner as
they did before this promotion which is quite difficult while challenging the quality
of work and rest of the employees maintain particular distance from her. This
creates an impression that they degrade the performance of James by spreading
negative things in about her in secret and Harry highly favors them which is quite
unbearable for her. Additionally, James believed that Harry just wants to
incapacitate James’ attempt to become a successful manager by making irrelevant
remarks during the meeting which undermines her authority.
Conflict Resolution through communication
Being a team leader and companion of both the parties involved in dispute could
not take any legal action against any of the parties . This informal communication
method called mediation. Mediation can be considered a better option to sort out
this dispute as the two individual were good friends before the promotion and
formal procedures of conflict resolution may cause further harm to the relationship.
For this reason, mediation seems to be a genuine alternative and moral action in
which disputing parties work with a neutral third party to resolve their disputes. In
this process, Kate helped both the parties to find a common ground with the aim of
dealing with unrealistic expectations in an effective manner and regain the sense of
friendship and it actually worked out when the final outcomes were extremely
positive. After this individual and joint communication sessions, both Harry and
James started respecting each other’s opinions as Harry realized that James was
also opposed to the policy of senior management but was under managerial
pressure to implement it regardless of any positive or negative outcomes.
Expected result
From this particular experience of dealing with organizational conflict or where
Kate had to choose between legality and morality, Kate have learnt so many good
things about the role and significance of effective communication at each and
every phase of organizational activity. This situation made Kate learn that the
personal relationships among employees are also sometimes affected by the
decisions that are taken on the senior management level which can be only be
sorted out with the help of strong leadership skills and tactics. Each and every
leader sometimes has to live in challenging times and it is very essential at that
time to be moral while making each and every choice. Although morality does not
work out in all the circumstances but a leader has to keep in mind the moral values
so as to become an ideal leader. In the above case, Kate resolved a conflict
applying an alternative method of conflict resolution keeping in mind the moral
values . Kate ultimately succeeded in effective management of workplace conflict.