Question

The Research and Development Clinic at your organazation has decided to open one weekend a month to accomidate more test subjects. This has caused a Work-Family Conflict on the team you manage.

Use one of the strategies to resolve it....

Accommodating – This is when you cooperate to a high-degree, and it may be at your own expense, and actually work against your own goals, objectives, and desired outcomes. This approach is effective when the other party is the expert or has a better solution. It can also be effective for preserving future relations with the other party.

Avoiding – This is when you simply avoid the issue. You aren’t helping the other party reach their goals, and you aren’t assertively pursuing your own. This works when the issue is trivial or when you have no chance of winning.   It can also be effective when the issue would be very costly. It’s also very effective when the atmosphere is emotionally charged and you need to create some space. Sometimes issues will resolve themselves, but “hope is not a strategy”, and, in general, avoiding is not a good long term strategy.

Collaborating – This is where you partner or pair up with the other party to achieve both of your goals. This is how you break free of the “win-lose” paradigm and seek the “win-win.” This can be effective for complex scenarios where you need to find a novel solution. This can also mean re-framing the challenge to create a bigger space and room for everybody’s ideas. The downside is that it requires a high-degree of trust and reaching a consensus can require a lot of time and effort to get everybody on board and to synthesize all the ideas.

Competing – This is the “win-lose” approach. You act in a very assertive way to achieve your goals, without seeking to cooperate with the other party, and it may be at the expense of the other party.    This approach may be appropriate for emergencies when time is of the essence, or when you need quick, decisive action, and people are aware of and support the approach.

Compromising – This is the “lose-lose” scenario where neither party really achieves what they want. This requires a moderate level of assertiveness and cooperation. It may be appropriate for scenarios where you need a temporary solution, or where both sides have equally important goals.   The trap is to fall into compromising as an easy way out, when collaborating would produce a better solution.

What strategies and styles will you use to ensure you have the right leadership to guide the organization?

Answer 1

The best strategy to avoid any kinds of conflict in this case will be a Collaborative one. As a leader, I will try to narrow the situation to get a win-win for both the management and the employees. I will conduct a team meeting in which the pros and cons of opening a weekend per month will be highlighted. I will divide the team in 2 groups. If a group is working on the weekend of this month, next group will be called for working in next month. Also, the weekend on which the team will work will be decided by the convenience of the majority members. The profit inculcated by working an extra day can be offered as incentive to the team. However, this depends totally on the business of the Clinic. Each team will have a SPOC who will be monitoring the team on the weekend. Quarterly rewards and recognition will be done to felicitate the best performing team and team member.

This way, both the work life balance of the employees can be adjusted as well as the business will be flourished by working on a weekend.