Question

Third party conflict resolution: The Seatcor Manufacturing Company

In regards to the scenario below, what is the best strategy to use? Thanks!

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Third-Party Conflict Resolution

Introduction
In addition to being involved in their own conflicts, managers are often called upon to intervene and to settle conflicts between other people. The two activities in this section are designed to explore how third parties may enter conflicts for the purpose of resolving them, and to practice one very effective approach to intervention. In the first activity, you will read about a manager who has a problem deciding how to intervene in a dispute, and you will discuss this case in class. Part 2 of this exercise contains a mediation guide.

Part 1: The Seatcor Manufacturing Company
You are senior vice president of operations and chief operating officer of Seatcor, a major producer of office furniture. Joe Gibbons, your subordinate, is vice president and general manager of your largest desk assembly plant. Joe has been with Seatcor for 38 years and is two years away from retirement. He worked his way up through the ranks to his present position and has successfully operated his division for five years with a marginally competent staff. You are a long-standing personal friend of Joe's and respect him a great deal. However, you have always had an uneasy feeling that Joe has surrounded himself with minimally competent people by his own choice. In some ways, you think he feels threatened by talented assistants.

Last week you were having lunch with Charles Stewart, assistant vice president and Joe's second in command. Upon your questioning, it became clear that he and Joe were engaged in a debilitating feud. Charles was hired last year, largely at your insistence.

You had been concerned for some time about who was going to replace Joe when he retired, especially given the lack of really capable managerial talent on Joe's staff. Thus you prodded Joe to hire your preferred candidate-Charles Stewart. Charles is relatively young, 39, extremely tenacious and bright, and a well-trained business school graduate. From all reports he is doing a good job in his new position. Your concern centers on a topic that arose at the end of your lunch. Charles indicated that Joe Gibbons is in the process of completing a five-year plan for his plant. This plan is to serve as the basis for several major plant reinvestment and reorganization decisions that would be proposed to senior management. According to Charles, Joe Gibbons has not included Charles in the planning process at all. You had to leave lunch quickly and were unable to get much more information from Charles. However, he did admit that he was extremely disturbed by this exclusion and that his distress was influencing his work and probably his relationship with Joe.

You consider this a very serious problem. Charles will probably have to live with the results of any major decisions about the plant. More important, Joe's support is essential if Charles is to properly grow into his present and/or future job. Joe, on the other hand, runs a good ship and you do not want to upset him or undermine his authority. Moreover, you know Joe has good judgment; thus he may have a good reason for what he is doing. How would you proceed to handle this issue? Please answer with the knowledge of Negotiation.

Answer 1

I will handle this situation through applying the integrative negotiation strategy so as to ensure that the relationship between Joe Gibbons and Charles steward is restored. This negotiation strategy will prove effective as it will help resolving the conflict and inturn also help facilitating a positive metorship relation between the two required to support and assist Steward take up the future position once Joe retires. Integrative negotiation will help me to establish a problem solving approach to this situation through identifying and diagnosing the root cause behind the debilitating feud between them so that the problem is addressed properly to suggest measures to build a strong and positive bond between them. As identified the major problem is the non inclusion of Charles in the planning process of five year plan which has resulted in feud. It would be best to separately confront Joe about it with a positive tone so as not to make him feel discouraged and to keep up his morale. After becoming aware about the possible reasons of not including Charles in planning from Joe, I will accordingly communicate it to Joe to rejuvenate their friendship. It would be necessary to separate problem from the person so that no one party is blamed for the conflict.

I will establish effective communication among both of them through first individually approaching them and then collectively trying to hold an interactive session with both of them to enhance the understanding between them which will help rejuvenating their bond. Positive reinforcement such as incentive on achieving the desired outcome for both mentor and protege will help not only in succession planning of Steward but will also help to prevent such conflicts in future...

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Thanks dear student...hope i explained well...Good luck ...rate if satisfied :)