Conflict Resolution.
In the YouTube video titled conflict management: conflict in the workplace by IOM -UN Migration, we see a team conflict between two workmates Anna and Sakon. This type of conflict is brought up by differences in ideas and tasks ( Troth,2009 ). For instance, Anna, Sakon, and Emily have a project they haven’t finished, and time is running out. As the deadline approached, the workload seems to be getting heavier, making them work long hours to complete the project. Sakon complains that he is doubtful that he can manage the project with the long hours. He later sends anna an email stating and complaining that she cannot play her part in completing her tasks and carry out her duties. He tells her that she should stop making him do her workload on top of his. He said that he is always forced to complete and finalize Anna’s tasks. Upon receiving this email, Anna feels that Sakon is trying to pass a message to her saying that she is incompetent and misunderstood it to be a personal attack. She then forwarded this message to their leader Emily hoping they can talk about it. Sakon goes ahead with the complaints after sending the email, noting that he is tired of staying long hours while doing everyone else’s work. He thinks that Anna could do a better job, but she seems to don’t care about it. After the email, Emily notices the tension between the two. She decides to send an email to them with an encouraging message and telling them she understands there are tired and lifting their spirit by telling them they are doing a great job. This does not stop the conflict between the two as Sakon feels Anna should have talked to him first before reporting straight to Emily. This changes nothing; instead, it worsens the atmosphere. Sakon feels Anna leaves too early from work. As the due dates near, Emily notices a team is not doing quite well as conflicts lead to low productivity and project delay ( Jaffar et al., 2011). She sees the email she sent both the two teams only worsened the situation between the two. They started missing the usual coffee meeting they used to hold every morning and even stopped talking to each other. Thus, she decided that she must do something since their conflict was affecting their productivity at work. She decides to get advice from another leader on how to solve the issue at hand. She learned that as managers, they should take workplace conflict seriously, and they try to solve the problems individually first to prevent them from escalating. She decides to address the issue repeatedly and handle it more differently as a conflict is inevitable and has negative or positive effects depending on how its handled (Ogunbayo,2013 ).
Emily decides she will start over by asking open-ended questions. This goes a long way as you get to know their views about the problem at hand and know they feel generally. Secondly, she knew she has to listen actively; this way, she will get all the vital information needed to solve the conflict. Also, she has to schedule a meeting with the staff secretly and inquire if they want to discuss. Upon asking, Sokan agrees to give it a try, but he points out that he doubts Anna will agree since she did not want to talk to him about it from the beginning. When Anna is asked about this, she agrees and points out that she was afraid to talk to Sakon all by herself. In the scheduled meeting, she listened to both of them speak and understood that she might have been the cause of all the conflict. She noted that Anna didn’t understand what Sakon expected from her, while Sakon did not know the responsibilities Anna was handling. Emily realized it could mean she was at fault; she did not clearly define their roles, defining their roles could have gone a long way in avoiding these conflicts.
After the discussion, Anna apologized for making Sakon feel like he was being overworked and stated she did not realize that Sakon found her work incomplete. On the other hand, Sakon apologized for the disrespectful email and for not clearly saying what he needed from her to carry out his work. After discussing the underlying issues, they decided to explore options. They both came to an agreement that they should both learn to communicate their needs to One another. After their leader chose to schedule a follow-up meeting after three weeks, they both insisted that it was unnecessary, but she kindly insisted. After a few days, there were notable changes in the office, and even the atmosphere changed. Emily was able to verify if the solutions she took to solve the conflict were working or not, and yes, the solution worked.
References:
Jaffar, N., Tharim, A. A., & Shuib, M. N. (2011). Factors of conflict in the construction industry: a literature review. Procedia Engineering, 20, 193-202. Jaffar, N., Tharim, A. A., & Shuib, M. N. (2011). Factors of conflict in construction industry: a literature review. Procedia Engineering, 20, 193-202.