Question

This question contains two parts; be sure to answer both.

First, describe the relationship between the amount of conflict in a department or organization and that department or organization's performance. At what level of conflict is performance maximized?

Second, suppose that you are the manager of a store that sells medical supplies for the handicapped or infirm. You see three major sources of conflict at the store: (1) many of the staff members who work the front desk do not like one another, (2) those who stock the shelves and work with the customers are resentful that they are not paid more, and (3) all employees are required to work nights and weekends, which cuts into their family and personal time.

Explain how you would manage any two of the three sources of conflict.

The response/answer to EACH discussion part must be 100 to 125 words for a total of 200 to 250 words.

Answer 1

There is no doubt in the fact that there is a direct relationship between the conflict in a department and the subsequent performance, if the conflicts are more then there would be no synchronisation and the team would not be chasing a shared goal or objective, if the conflicts are less than it would become easy for the team to gel well, plan and strategies to chase an objective that the firm at an organisational level would want to achieve.

Performance is maximised when the conflicts are at the planning level i.e. both parties should be aiming for creating better plan so this positive and healthy argument helps in achieving better results and performance.

The first conflict can be managed by ensuring that the right person is at the right job, since it is the front end so we cannot take any risk, either 2 booths for different purposes can be created and on each booth the similar employees who have no conflicts can be placed or else a reshuffling can be done so that there is no chaos at the front end. The last conflict can be resolved by creating a roaster wherein employees are given enough leaves from work so that they can spend time with the family and the business is also not impacted as everyone is working as per the roaster so at any given point of time there would be enough staff for the customers.