Individual project

BUMAN204A Business Relationship Management

ASSESSMENT 3 PART B
Erica Cong / 806084000

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Table of Contents
Recommendation for problem solving techniques................................................................3
Strategies for managing ongoing performance of the team..................................................4
Evaluation of strategies............................................................................................................ 5
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 5
References................................................................................................................................. 7

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Recommendation for problem solving techniques
The problem that currently occur is due to the merger of two companies, which cause the two
team leaders who are from different generation and have different way in managing their team,
to clash. Gabriella, as someone who is from the generation Z, she’s very acceptable to change
and she has no problem in changing her way of working and she likes to contact her team
members using medium like text message or messenger. While Amanda, who is from the
generation X, she’s used to the old way of direct meeting with team members to share
information and could be quite inflexible to change
The different way in managing team is causing damage to the team themselves as they have
two different leaders that lead the team in different way. That’s why this problem need to be
solved. And the problem-solving method that’s recommended to be used in this situation is the
“Creative Problem Solving” method
The reason why we choose this method is because we need to be creative in order to solve the
problem between the two leaders, so their differences could be merged. By merging the
different views into one, it would make the team become more powerful and also more
knowledgeable, and they could use this knowledge to create a more innovative process to help
the company to continue to grow (Drago, 2006)
The two leaders have different way in looking at things, for example like in this case is the
communication process, is due to the different way they understand how things should be done.
As generation Z, Gabriella is used to the convenient way and she could adapt easily to the
changes because generation Z lives in an era that’s full of surprises and therefore many
changes are made, and she learns how to deal with things by the experience that she had
throughout her life (Benson & Brown, 2011). For Amanda, who lives in the different generation
than Gabriella, she didn’t like change and would like herself to be more comfortable so she
could focus on her work and get the result that she wanted. And Amanda also value the
superiority culture, which is part of her growing up as the generation X, therefore what she
thinks is not entirely wrong (it’s just the way she sees things that’s so different from Gabriella)
That’s why, we recommended the creative problem-solving method because with this we could:
 Identify the solution to the current problem in an innovative way that didn’t follow certain
system and completely break down the “usual” method of solving problem
 It could also allow the participants to talk and discuss the solution to the problem directly,
so they could exchange information and also talk about what was wrong, so they could
get better understanding of each other’s perspectives

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  We could use different approach to see the problem and then to think about what
method that we could use to solve the problem that we currently have, which is the
different perspective between two leaders. This way we won’t get stuck with one method
only to solve the problem and we could be as creative as possible to make the situation
become better

Strategies for managing ongoing performance of the team

The problem that occur this time is due to the different perspective of the two leaders who have
different way of thinking and born (and raised) in different era. Fernandez (2010) determine in
his research that generation X is the generation that didn’t like to change and like for the things
to always be the same. That’s why, for Amanda, the way Gabrielle managing her team is
completely different than what she had known all this time and she couldn’t accept the change
In order to manage the ongoing performance of the team and ensure that the team would not
fall back into the same conflict again in the future, we could do the method below:
 Regular review to be given to the team’s performance, where we could review and
evaluate their skill, performance level, and also their knowledge, whether on certain
criteria on in general/overall performance, so we know how much the team had
improved from the previous result or whether they need to improve more
 Giving training to the team leaders, so they could handle their differences and they could
work together much more effectively with each other in managing their team. Through
this training, the two team leaders could learn how to add their method together so it
could create a new method that works for the both of them. But in order to do this, they
will need the skill and knowledge to support it
 Both leaders will need to have the same goals or objectives so they know what they
need to achieve and what they could do to achieve them. This would give them the
common ground to work with
We also need to make the two leaders see that different way of doing work doesn’t mean it’s a
bad thing, and they will need to adjust or to adopt to this new and different way of managing
team. Different perspective and different method don’t instantly mean trouble, and both team
leaders need to have the common ground where they could agree on something, so the
different perspective could be matched into one and create a new method that’s innovative
(Twenge et al., 2010). This would also help in managing the team’s performance in a more

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stable way for a long time, instead of trying to fix it without knowing what actually happens or
understand why the problem occurs

Evaluation of strategies
Every strategy will need to be evaluated so we could review how well the strategy that we had
implemented in solving the problems. Evaluation will help us to understand whether what we
had done is already good enough, or it needs to be changed/adjusted for better result. The
evaluation of strategies will be as below:
 Meeting with the team members to discuss about the evaluation to the strategy, to
review the current performance level and how the performance is being evaluated.
Evaluation will help the team members to know the effectiveness of the strategy and
what could be changed to make it better
 Understanding the differences between the performance before and after the strategy is
implemented, so the team could use the result as their way to understand their
performance and how it affects their daily performance. This comparison will also help
the team to know how well they’ve become after the strategy is implemented, and could
also be used to detect what problems could be solved in a more effective way
Evaluation of the strategies will need to be made as regularly as possible, so the two team could
review their performance regularly as well. Regular evaluation will make the team able to see
the different much more clearly, and if there’s any changes that will need to be made to the
strategy could be implemented early to manage the problem (therefore the problem could be
handled early in the stage as well)

Conclusion
Beutell (2008) mentioned in his research just how different people from generation X and
generation Z could be. Not only in the way of thinking, but their core values is also already very
different. People from generation X value an autonomy more, where they act in the way that’s
already tested and expected, and there should be no change to occur from it. People from
generation Z is completely different as they prefer flexibility than autonomy, where they’re willing
to learn from past mistakes and make changes from there. From this we could see that the
different core value is what drive the problem or conflict between Amanda and Gabriella.
Amanda who didn’t want to change insist on doing things the same way while Gabriella is open
to different ways as long as she could achieve the objectives or goals for her team. This could

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be used as a way to set the strategy that could work for both leaders so they could learn
together and work together, instead of doing things individually. It would also bring better result
to the team’s performance as they could follow their team leaders without being confused on
which method is wrong or right

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References
Benson, J & Brown, M., 2011, Generations at work: are there differences and do they matter,
The International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol.22(9), pp.1843-1865

Beutell, N., J & Wittig-Berman, U., 2008, Work-family conflict and work-family synergy for
generation X, baby boomers, and matures: Generational differences, predictors, and
satisfaction outcomes, Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol.23(5), pp.507-523

Drago, J., P., 2006, Generational theory: Implications for recruiting the millennials, ARMY WAR
COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS, PA

Fernandez, S., 2010, Comparing Generation X to Generation Y on work-related beliefs, San

Jose State University

Gursoy, D., Maier, T., A & Chi, C., G., 2008, Generational differences: An examination of work
values and generational gaps in the hospitality workforce, International Journal of Hospitality
Management, vol.27(3), pp.448-458

Kaifi, B., A., Nafei, W., A., Khanfar, N., M & Kaifi, M., M., 2012, A Multi-Generational Workforce:
Managing and Understanding Millennials. International Journal of Business and Management,
vol.7, pp.88-93

Lancaster, L., C & Stillman, D., 2004, When generations collide: how to solve the generational
puzzle at work, In The Management Forum Series, pp.1-5

Twenge, J., M., Campbell, S., M., Hoffman, B., J & Lance, C., E., 2010, Generational
differences in work values: Leisure and extrinsic values increasing, social and intrinsic values
decreasing, Journal of management, vol.36(5), pp.1117-1142