BUMAN204A Business Relationship | Problem Solving Techniques

Introduction

The presence of many teams can be seen within the business organizations for the completion of the business objectives and goals. At the time to manage the teams, the team managers are needed to take into consideration different aspects or factors; and Team Conflict is one of them (Katz and Flynn 2013). Team conflict can be considered as an organizational conflict or state of disorder caused by the differences in needs, values and interests of team members working together. The presence of team conflict affects the performance as well as productivity of the teams. For this reason, the need for the team managers is to develop strategies that can eradicate these team conflict for increasing the team’s performance and productivity (Lyons and Kuron 2014). The main aim of the report is to analyze as well as evaluate different aspects of a hypothetical team conflict between cross-generational members as a result of the merger of two companies. 

Hypothetical Situation

As per the above discussion, this section of the report involves in developing a hypothetical situation of conflict in a hypothetical company named A&Z Limited, emerged from the merger of ABC Limited and XYZ Limited. In the newly formed company, a team has been developed with the employees of both the companies where the presence of cross-generational members can be seen in team. Jennifer (28 years old) and Mr. Smith (50 years old) are the two supervisors of the team; and they are from ABC Limited and XYZ Limited respectively. After the formation of team, the team manager notices a development of conflict within the team. The conflict is around the Monday morning meeting. According to Jennifer, the Monday morning meeting is a waste of time (Hendricks and Cope 2013). The value of freedom to work is more to her and she prefers quick discussions with her team members as she does not want to be involved in big discussions. On the other hand, Mr. Smith prefers the Monday mornings meetings. According to him, a meeting at the beginning of the week is important for the team members to share data and to set the targets and objectives for the whole week. Mr. Smith does not see how Jennifer can get the required information in a meeting of minutes. In addition, he is not sure about the fact that whether Jennifer is serious about the works of the ongoing project or not. In this situation, both the parties are determined in their situations that lead to the creation of conflict within the team. As the team is in the forming stage, it is needed for the team manager to provide serious attention towards this conflict and develops strategies for the resolution of the same (Hendricks and Cope 2013).

Assessment of the Type of Conflict

In order to resolve this team conflict, it is needed for the team manager to assess the whole situation related to the conflict. It can be seen from the provided hypothetical situation that some of the major reasons for this conflict are the presence of cross-generational members in the team, difference in organizational culture in the companies, different ways of working and communication gap (Hendricks and Cope 2013). The team manager has to understand the fact that both Jennifer and Mr. Smith have different working style. According to Jennifer, there are many ways to complete the tasks of the project; and she prefers informal meetings between team members, texts, impromptu discussions within the organization related to the project and others. For this reason, Jennifer may feel forced in these kinds of meetings. The opposite aspect can be seen in case of Mr. Smith. In XYZ Limited, Mr. Smith was habituated to work in a more formal business environment in order to keep all the lines of the communication open. According to him, there needs to be a specific agenda that will govern the work of the team members; and it is needed for all the employees to bring all the issues at the meeting for discussion. All the works need to be done in the office (Roebuck, Smith and El Haddaoui 2013).

Thus, it can be seen from the above discussion that there is a major conflict in the organization among the two team supervisors around the occurrence of the Monday morning meeting. More specifically, it can be assessed that the presence of multi-generational employees within the organization is the major reason for this types of conflict. At the same time, difference in organizational culture is another major reason for the conflict among the team members. This is the type of conflict occurring between team members (Becton, Walker and Jones?Farmer 2014).

Conflict Roles and Individual Responses

          In this context, it needs to be mentioned that the team members of the company has different relations and attitudes related to the conflict. It can be observed from the above discussion that the two team members have different opinions about the occurrence of Monday morning meeting (Rudolph and Zacher 2015). This particular aspect has created a bitter relationship among the team members due to the absence of mutual agreement on a particular matter. It can also be seen that due to the presence of conflict, the team members have negative attitude towards the accomplishment of the team objectives and goals. Most importantly, these negative attitudes and relationships between the team members of the company affect the performance as well as productivity of the team (Teclaw et al. 2014).

Apart from this, it also needs to be mentioned that the different team members of the company have different response towards this conflict over the Monday morning meeting. At the time of conflict, it can be observed that different members of the team have different response towards the conflict. The team members who are from ABC Limited are supporting Jennifer as they are habituated to work in more informal working environment. On the other hand, the response of the employees from XYZ Limited is to organize the Monday morning meetings (Murray 2013).

References

Becton, J.B., Walker, H.J. and Jones?Farmer, A., 2014. Generational differences in workplace behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(3), pp.175-189.

Hendricks, J.M. and Cope, V.C., 2013. Generational diversity: what nurse managers need to know. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(3), pp.717-725.

Katz, N.H. and Flynn, L.T., 2013. Understanding conflict management systems and strategies in the workplace: A pilot study. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 30(4), pp.393-410.

Lyons, S. and Kuron, L., 2014. Generational differences in the workplace: A review of the evidence and directions for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(S1), pp.S139-S157.

Murray, E.J., 2013. Generational differences: Uniting the four-way divide. Nursing management, 44(12), pp.36-41.

Roebuck, D.B., Smith, D.N. and El Haddaoui, T., 2013. Cross-generational perspectives on work-life balance and its impact on women’s opportunities for leadership in the workplace. Advancing Women in Leadership, 33, pp.52-62.

Rudolph, C.W. and Zacher, H., 2015. Intergenerational perceptions and conflicts in multi-age and multigenerational work environments. Facing the challenges of a multi-age workforce: A use-inspired approach, pp.253-282.

Teclaw, R., Osatuke, K., Fishman, J., Moore, S.C. and Dyrenforth, S., 2014. Employee age and tenure within organizations: relationship to workplace satisfaction and workplace climate perceptions. The health care manager, 33(1), pp.4-19.