The reason behind this blog extension is to sift through the great amount of comments our group received from our other classmates - thank you for that!
Some comments did stand out in particular in our two blog posts:
- Seeking management’s decision from different departments is the best way to resolve conflicts within a working group
- Winning Ways of Negotiations: Reframing Inhibitors Into Collaboration
With this blog extension our idea is pick out those comments and based on them to re-assess and re-frame our project documentation and even our conclusions and final recommendations.
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"Seeking management’s decision from different departments is the best way to resolve conflicts within a working group."
Comment made on Feb 25, 2012 01:03 AM
Thank you Beehive for providing us with a classic scenario of what people at workplace usually come across in Hong Kong. I think a lot of us feel déjà vu when we read this example.
I agree with Beehive that indeed it’s a myth. Involving different departments before making a decision is important to get buy-in but not the ultimately best approach. The core of the issue is how people, groups & corporations can capitalize on the different perspectives and conflict of interest among different departments to resolve conflicts, generate different ideas and better their ideas in a timely manner. How can we do that? I think leadership plays an important role in collaboration.
It seems to me that the group can’t collaborate well because they do not have enough interest or care in this particular product, the subsequent policy drafting & discussion it entails and so they only voted for what’s convenient/ best for their respective department(s). Where is the buy-in? There is not enough thawing in Kurt Lewin’s vocabulary of a change process. Where is the project manager?
In the context of Hong Kong where collectivism is high as pointed out by Beehive, I will go one step further and challenge ourselves and think if we can leverage the very same high collectivism characteristic to create a project team with team members with:-
-A high sense of belonging of the group/company
-Depend on one another in decision-making
-Value team work?
Aren’t these familiar attributes of what people in a high collectivism have?
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Agreed with what Kersten said that leadership plays an important role in collaboration between different perspectives and conflict of interest. As one of the in-group person in the conflict, we have reviewed again what is happening out there.
(A) Sources of Conflict (McShane, Von Glinow (2010)):
1. Incompatible Goals
Business – Maximize sales and revenue volume, in terms of actual sales and revenue figure.
Risk Management – Minimize organization’s risks exposure, in terms of loss ratio; bad debt figure; impairment.
Operations – Need easy-to-follow procedures, minimize operational lost.
2. Differentiation
Business – Younger, more aggressive, strike balance in business and risks (what we believe we are and, actually, it should be done with Risk Management).
Risk Management – Middle age, more pessimistic, the department to be blamed when having high impairment, keep as low as possible on their KPIs (bad debt, impairment).
Operations – Generally older, want zero operational defect.
3. Interdependence
No difference for different departments.
4. Scarce Resources
Although it is correct for most of the organizations, departments are inter-related with each other. For example, the more flexible the credit policy is, the more competitive the organization could be, and more business can be generated, thus more resources. But if the credit policy is too loose, although more business can be generated, bad debts will be higher to the organizations, thus revenue cannot be maximized, resources will be less (as a result).
5. Ambiguous Rules
Not really the major source of the conflict mentioned.
6. Communication Problems
a. Lack of opportunity to communicate
We don’t think we have less opportunity to communicate upfront. But once the policy had been discussed several times but no compromising point can be made on all items, people started to communicate in e-mails (to avoid confrontational situation). Communication becomes remote and relies on stereotypes.
b. Some people lack the necessary skills to communicate in a diplomatic, non-confrontational manner
We found that as we are avoiding face-to-face confrontational situation, a more confrontational manner started to show in e-mails. As this manner started from one side, the other will be “fought” back as normally expected; although our perception is that they had “actively” put those confrontational wordings in the discussions.
c. Perception of conflict reduces the motivation to communicate
This is exactly the one of the causes of confrontational manner shown in e-mails
(B) Interpersonal Conflict-Handling Styles (McShane, Von Glinow (2010)):
1. Problem solving (Strive for a mutually beneficial solution-win-win orientation)
Preferred when interests are not perfectly opposing; parties have trust, openness and time to share information; issues are complex.
2. Forcing (Win the conflict at the other’s expense)
Preferred when having a deep conviction on the position; requires a quick solution; the other party would take advantage of the cooperative strategies.
3. Avoiding (Smooth over or avoid conflict situations altogether)
Preferred when conflict becomes too emotional; cost of trying to resolve the conflict outweighs the benefits.
4. Yielding (Giving in completely to the other side’s wishes)
Preferred when other party having substantially more power; issue is less important to certain party.
5. Compromising (Looking for a position in which you make concessions to some extent)
Preferred when parties have equal power; time pressure exists for resolving the conflict; parties lack trust and openness for problem solving.
In the situation, “opposing” parties are having equal power to each other. The said policy had been discussed for over 8 months (for us it is a simple policy), thus time pressure existed. And because of differentiation in different departments, it is quite a problem to seek mutual trust and openness to the solutions. So it seems that Compromising or / and Problem Solving style is suitable for the situation.
But we believe both opposing parties were thinking they have a deeper conviction, and even some would think they have more power (in terms of grading) to another. So finally, some of them were using Forcing to settle the conflict.
(C) Structural Approaches to Conflict Management (McShane, Von Glinow (2010)):
1. Emphasizing Superordinate Goals
We believe it is what leaders should do (in the condition that the senior management of different parties believe collaboration and work together).
2. Reducing Differentiation
One of the ways is to create common experiences, like job rotation between departments. But we don’t think it can be very feasible in the banking industry.
3. Improving Communication and Understanding
Good and an effective intervention can improve understanding of each other.
4. Reducing Interdependence
In terms of polled interdependence, but may not be applicable to this situation.
5. Increasing Resources
Same as 4.
6. Clarifying Rules and Procedures
Same as 4.
As a result, emphasizing superordinate goals and improving communication and understanding with teams by senior management of the organization can improve inter-team relationship and resolve conflicts at the moment and in the future.
(D) ~~CHANGE~~
With the above conflict management styles, the most important and basic thing is to CHANGE.
The mentioned CHANGE does not only relate to the working level of conflicting teams, but also to their management. As we mentioned, this conflict situation must be solved by the management.
According to Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model effective change occurs by unfreezing the current situation, moving to a desired condition and then refreezing the system so that it remains in this desired state.
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| Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model |
The above image indicates that. First of all, management had to increase their communication and fully understand the organization goals (Unfreezing). It can be achieved by regular meetings and having discussion on how to collaborate (Change).
Then, the management team should pass their successful collaboration discussions to their subordinates and increase changes for different parties having the opportunities to meet in formal and casual ways (Refreeze), so that subordinates know what the bosses are doing and they will work like them.
Once a more peaceful environment has been developed, previous conflicts must be settled and new conflicts must be minimized.
(E) Latest updates on relationship between Business and Risk Management:
Certainly, there is no Conflict Management had occurred. During the time that business was cooling down in Jan and Feb of 2012, Risk Management colleagues had changed their manners a little bit. So we also changed ours to avoid a relationship conflict and influence working as partners.
But after entering March, they changed back to the manner they had after the conflict incident by using verbally confrontational wordings during different meetings. For example, in the discussion on a policy’s latest review, our team had suggested to refine wordings in order to make it clearer, they rejected.
References
McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2010). Organizational Behavior (5th Edition). Singapore: McGraw Hill/Irwin.
Photo source:
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"Winning Ways of Negotiations: Reframing Inhibitors Into Collaboration"
Comment made on Feb 25, 2012 05:56 PM
I am glad that Beehive brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory, and the importance of fulfilling higher level of needs. Housing allowance (since it is shelter) achieves the ‘physiological’ of needs, which is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Medical insurance offers a secure environment and absence of illness; fulfills an upper level of needs, which is ‘safety’. Paid annual leave can increase the ‘belongingness’ of the employee. Finally, a better job title accomplishes the need of ‘esteem’. By fulfilling the ego needs, the employee gains respect from others and social recognition. However, in the above win-win outcome, it did not accomplish the need of ‘self-actualization’, which is the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Since ‘self-actualization’ is a growth need, which it constantly develop even after it is achieved, the person will desire more of this need, instead of less (McShane & Travaglione, 2007). In order to achieve ‘self-actualization’, the organization needs to know what the employee wants in long term. Through improving reward effectiveness and re-designing job, the employee can gain self-fulfillment.
Job design is “the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdependency of those tasks with other jobs” (McShane & Travaglione, 2007, p.179). The goal of the corporation in job design is to construct employment that can be performed productively; nevertheless workers are motivated. According to job characteristics model, job characteristics, such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback, can influence the outcome of work motivation, growth satisfaction, and work effectiveness. Rotation, enlargement and enrichment can increase work motivation. Job rotation refers to shifting from one job to another. It allows employees to learn from different roles of company and become multi-skill. Job enlargement is to assign additional tasks within existing job, which permit employees to increase skill variety and combine skills to finish the tasks on hand. Job enrichment is giving the employees more responsibility, through delegation and empowerment.
McShane, S. & Travaglione T. (2007). Organizational Behavior on the Pacific Rim (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
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Based on the above comment we received on our blog entry about negotiations, we would like to re-evaluate our negotiation process. The comment gave us food for thought what our final package result would look like if we would integrate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory to it. To clarify Maslow's theory, let us illustrate it as a pyramid (as it most commonly is depicted).
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| Maslow Hierarchy of Needs |
The primary needs Maslow identified fall into five groups:
- Physiological: breathing, food, water, sex and sleep
- Safety: of body, employment, resources, morality, family, health and property
- Social: love, belongingness, friendship and family
- Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of and by others
- Self-actualization: morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving and acceptance of facts
As the commentator points out that with the housing allowance, our employee is able to achieve the lowest level needs, i.e. the ‘physiological’ needs. What was also mentioned was that the medical insurance offered by the employer will offer a secure environment and absence of illness. This would then again fulfill the needs for safety. When again the paid annual leave can increase the employee's sense of belonging within the work community. Last, but not least a better job title accomplishes the need of "esteem".
It does seem that our negotiated package deal was able to cover all the lower level needs of the employee. Additionally according to Maslow people are motivated to take care of their lower level needs before the higher-order needs.
However due to the comment, we did come to realize a shortcoming in our package deal. Where is the highest need of all? Self-actualization? The commentator suggests to have a look at job design. We thought this was an excellent way to create a sense of higher achievement for the employee.
Job re-design
The goal of job design is simplifying, enriching, enlarging, or otherwise changing jobs to make the efforts of each employee fit together better with jobs performed by other workers. Our idea here is that with the job re-design the employer could enjoy improved performances by the employee. How could this be achieved? In our blog post context, the job re-design for the employee could mean assigning him to work with another team on projects that require a lot of creativity and thinking-out-of-the-box, where he/she would be able use his/her problem solving skills even better. At the same time, we believe the employer should then decrease the employees day-to-day administrative burdens, such as documentation and irrelevant team meetings.
Therefore based on the comment and our re-evaluations, we would like to suggest the following contracted items at the end of the negotiation:
It does seem that our negotiated package deal was able to cover all the lower level needs of the employee. Additionally according to Maslow people are motivated to take care of their lower level needs before the higher-order needs.
However due to the comment, we did come to realize a shortcoming in our package deal. Where is the highest need of all? Self-actualization? The commentator suggests to have a look at job design. We thought this was an excellent way to create a sense of higher achievement for the employee.
Job re-design
The goal of job design is simplifying, enriching, enlarging, or otherwise changing jobs to make the efforts of each employee fit together better with jobs performed by other workers. Our idea here is that with the job re-design the employer could enjoy improved performances by the employee. How could this be achieved? In our blog post context, the job re-design for the employee could mean assigning him to work with another team on projects that require a lot of creativity and thinking-out-of-the-box, where he/she would be able use his/her problem solving skills even better. At the same time, we believe the employer should then decrease the employees day-to-day administrative burdens, such as documentation and irrelevant team meetings.
Therefore based on the comment and our re-evaluations, we would like to suggest the following contracted items at the end of the negotiation:
- Housing subsidy, which will also reduce income tax
- Comprehensive medical insurance
- Increased paid holidays
- New job title
- Job re-design
References
http://blogs.forrester.com/nigel_fenwick/10-03-12-secret_successful_social_communities_4_social_needs
http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2009/09/job-redesign-improving-performance.html
http://blogs.forrester.com/nigel_fenwick/10-03-12-secret_successful_social_communities_4_social_needs
http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2009/09/job-redesign-improving-performance.html
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"Winning Ways of Negotiations: Reframing Inhibitors Into Collaboration"
Comment made on Feb 25, 2012 08:50 PM
I agreed perspective taking is a powerful tactic for negotiation. However, I found that many bosses just pretended to step into other’s shoe, but not really wanted to identify the actual needs of employee. When I resigned last year, my boss negotiated with me over two hours and I told him what my wants and concerns. He pretended to take my perspective and ask many questions about my new company and job natures. He tried to analyze and make comparison between my current and new job for me. However, after negotiation, I found that he still didn’t understand my needs and solve my problems. He challenged my decision of resignation and all his comment on my new job was bad and subjective. I felt a strong antipathy towards him and realized that he took advantage of my trust as I shared information with him and believed that he will provide advice from my points of view.
Obviously, he showed the bad example of perspective taking and turned this useful tactic as inhibitor. Thus, I think the important point to use this tactic is “how to take other’s perspective”.
Here are some tips:
1) Put own perspective away temporarily – before taking other’s perspective, don’t think yours. It will make your mind clear in order to ask and listen from others objectively.
2) Ask and listen - in a negotiating situation, ask simple and open-end questions to find out what the other person's concerns and use listening responses to make sure you heard correctly.
3) Don't argue - arguing is about trying to prove the other person wrong. However, it is useless to prove the other one wrong in negotiation process. You only can state your disagreement or comment in gentle and respective way.
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Thank you for sharing your real-life experience with us. Since we’re taking the role as the employee focusing on the inhibitors, the final win-win outcome inevitably benefits the employer a little bit rather than the employee. In our win-win negotiation process, the employer does has taken into consideration the employee’s perspective and offered what the employee wants. Salary is not the only element that the employee cares about, according to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory, just as our first blog extention mentioned, there’re still higher level of needs that need to be fullfilled. What we offered is not only the money, but also other things such as a sense of security, achievement and etc. In our win-win negotiation process, we’ve done the most for both the employee and the company, we have even generated benefits from a third party.
And also, thanks the respondent for raising quite good tips for the perspective-taking strategy.
For us, using the perspective-taking strategy means that we need to connect our minds, such as our emotional experience and the way we think, with the counterparty. Perspective-taking is not trying to understand others in one’s own perspective, it means change your own perspective to others’ perspectives. However, in the business area, we’re not making friends by using the perspective-taking strategy, we use it to manage employees and generate benefits.
Actually, perspective-taking strategy has two usages:
- One is that taking the perspective of the counterparty to understand what the counterparty really wants and satisfy the wants and needs in order to keep the relationship.
- Another objective of taking counterparty’s perspective is to find out the BATNA of the counterparty in order to offer the not-that-good but reasonable and acceptable offer to save the benefits for oneself. In the real society, we think most of the employers would use the perspective-taking strategy in order to achieve the second objective because they have their own mission as in a higher level of the position, standing for the company and saving profit for the company rather than considering the benefits for the employee.
The position of the employer can not be defined as wrong in this real case, but we have to say that his perspective-taking skill is really weak so his intention is too easy to be exploited. It’s obvious that the boss wants to retain the respondent but he used the wrong expressions.
The most important thing in the perspective-taking strategy is to be a real actor, if one wants to convince others, he/she should convince him/herself so as to gain the counterparty’s consensus.
References
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"Winning Ways of Negotiations: Reframing Inhibitors Into Collaboration"
Comment made on Feb 24, 2012 11:59 PM
I agree with Winky that increase the pie is important and it is somehow the best way to arrive a Win-win outcome in the environment with limited resource. Also, I would like to add my opinion on how to enhance the quality of the outcome by looking at the interest of both parties.
Frankly, if I am the employee, I may not agree with the offers provided in the given example. As mentioned in above we need to take a close look to the expectation and valuation of both side in order to arrive a integrative outcome. The proposal offered by Beehive is good, but as an employee, I would rather the employer offer the paid raise and I would allocate the resource myself. It seems to me that this is just the best offer provide by the employer, instead of a best offer preferred by the employee.
Thus, I would suggest that the Employer and the employee should list out all their expectations and focus what they interested the most and turn it into a “interest-based” negotiation. For example, I try to listed some expectation of the employee and the employer, and I can link up the “performance Bonus” on the employee side and the “increase performance and efficiency” and making more profit” on the Employer sides. The better the performance of the employee, the better the company's performance and his bonus.
Employee's focus:
- paid raise
- career opportunity
- performance bonus
Besides, I think giving a new job title to the employee doesn't help to enhance the employee's satisfaction in long term term. Also, the employee may still ask for paid raise shortly; Or he may use the new job title to look for a new job. On the other hand, promoting the young and in-experienced staff may decrease the loyalty of other unit head. This is actually what happened in my company last year. Thus, the employee should think about the constituency and potential impact of the offers.
Employer's focus:
- reserve talent staff
- increase performance and efficiency
- Making more profit
- capturing opportunities
Besides, I think giving a new job title to the employee doesn't help to enhance the employee's satisfaction in long term term. Also, the employee may still ask for paid raise shortly; Or he may use the new job title to look for a new job. On the other hand, promoting the young and in-experienced staff may decrease the loyalty of other unit head. This is actually what happened in my company last year. Thus, the employee should think about the constituency and potential impact of the offers.
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Thank You for your suggestion, as our initial idea was to break our team into two groups, one acting as the employee and one as employer to give some of constrains and background information for the discussion. We understand some of the situation might not be go exactly as it would in reality, but it brings an idea about different people might have different needs at different level according to the Maslow’s hierarchy needs (see our reply earlier). You are right; the employee might want to have their salary rise instead of other benefits offered by the company. To look at this compensation in a neutral perspective. Using money as an incentive is perhaps the most expansive incentive (Yu and Li, 2000) the company can offer. Our ultimate goal is achieve to a win-win situation instead of one side taking advantage of the other. Therefore we have come up with various solutions that will both benefit the employee and employer.
Employee's focus:
- paid raise
- career opportunity
- performance bonus
Employer's focus:
- reserve talent staff
- increase performance and efficiency
- Making more profit
- capturing opportunities
According to the points listed above, these values are based on self-interests. If one of the side's look solely at their own self-interests, the only way to solve the problem would remain and often a deal would not be easily made. It is because self-interests often lack the willingness of “expanding the pie” and the pie means the focus with different perspective and methods. Self-interests might be the problem that prevent someone from achieving a win-win situation.
- paid raise
- career opportunity
- performance bonus
Employer's focus:
- reserve talent staff
- increase performance and efficiency
- Making more profit
- capturing opportunities
According to the points listed above, these values are based on self-interests. If one of the side's look solely at their own self-interests, the only way to solve the problem would remain and often a deal would not be easily made. It is because self-interests often lack the willingness of “expanding the pie” and the pie means the focus with different perspective and methods. Self-interests might be the problem that prevent someone from achieving a win-win situation.
Indeed in our blog we listed that our employee did not get an salary rise, but he broke it down into different things such as vacation days and medical insurance which are equivalent to the salary rise or of even more value than that. This is the benefit of “thinking outside the box” and preventing self-interest; sacrifice something you were stubborn to get and in return get something greater than you expected.
References
P. L. Yu and J. M. Li (2000) Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, Volume 487, Part 1, 45-5
