Group Conflicts

Being in a conflict is something hard to deal with for both sides. If it is a manager-subordinate situation, the manager needs to decide what sort of action to take, which is based on what type of relationship he wants to have with his subordinates in the future and how effective it will be. It is also important to understand where the conflict originated from. It could have been caused by several things, for example lack of communication, disagreements or power dynamics.

While I have not experienced any major personal conflicts in a work context, there is one that comes to mind which I had brought up in one of my earlier blog posts. Last summer, I interned as an automated tester at an IT company that provides tech consulting and business process services. When I joined the automated testing team, there did not seem to be any conflicts at all. I was going through training for the first week and during that time I noticed that everyone was working hard since there was a backlog of uncompleted assignments. However, this was cleared up quite quickly and within 3 to 4 weeks, the office and everyone seemed much less rushed.

After the backlog was completed and they were waiting to receive assignments is when I was assigned to groups with full-time employees. I quickly noticed that everyone felt tired out after the last couple weeks. Sometimes they would come to the office on Saturday or would work from home if they could not make it, and because of this everyone felt exhausted. However, the manager did not give them any time off (I found this out while talking to two other people in my group who were full-time employees) which irritated some people. I think this is where the problem may have originated from, since this could have created a bit of animosity between the manager and his subordinates. Although I did not think at the time that it was nothing for the manager to worry about since it was not a serious situation, I noticed that most people in the office were not completely understanding the manager’s point of view. From the manager’s point of view, it would be hard to give his subordinates a longer break during the day for completing work they should have completed before. Also, since they were not ahead on their assignments, if they took a longer break and did not work at an effective pace, it could lead to another backlog. At the same time, maybe giving a longer break would have helped not only avoid conflict but also relieve the group of pressure which would have helped them to work harder after the break.

A couple days later, during a meeting in the morning where everyone plans for the day, one of the more experienced employees suddenly told the manager that he felt under-appreciated and felt like his work was not being recognized. Then another person said the same thing but since she was outspoken, this came off on the manager the wrong way and he started to defend himself by saying that he should not have to recognize their work all the time since he also has his own work and that they had not been working effectively. He picked out a few people he had noticed were slacking off over the last few days. This immediately got a bad reaction and this time a few more people started to get angry at him. It became clear at this point that the conflict had reached its boiling point.

After a minute of argument in front of everyone, he said that anyone having a problem with him should go with him to the meeting room to discuss it. He was in the meeting room for over an hour and every now and then, one person would leave the room and would be crying or upset, sometimes even angry to the point that they would storm out of the office. The resulting reactions by the rest of the office was generally unfriendly and unreceptive towards the manager for a short period of time. Over the next couple of days everything seemed back to normal and there were no serious conflicts after that.

I think that the problem could have been avoided had the employees been more understanding of the manager’s point of view and vice-versa. While I am not sure, I doubt the manager explained why he could not give them a long break, since otherwise I think everyone would have been more understanding of his decision. That being said, the problem was only in part caused by this and another reason that caused this problem is the manager’s behaviour to some specific employees (again I do not know what caused this, but I think it was related to the having to work for longer hours due to the backlog). Maybe having such a conflict was necessary for everyone to clear things up and relieve the tension and animosity held against the manager.