Archi Dream is a newly established architectural design office composed of five individuals which I am one of them.
As the firm begins business, John Ellis, the leader, called for meetings to discuss about the business. In that meeting, I observed that there was obvious conflict of opinion among the members. I observed that John Ellis, the leader of the team, is quite insensitive to other’s feeling, as Kristine Evans complained about her experience the company he has chosen to be a business partner of Archi Dream.Secondly, there was an obvious disagreement of opinion between the members of the group; Kristine Evans and Edward Mojica had been in conflict during the first and the second meeting that caused resentment and distrust with one another. This kind of unsettled conflict of opinion not only hurt but it downgraded morale, and encouraged group distrust.
Lastly, the team’s working relationship is weak. Though John Ellis displayed a good leadership character, everyone noticed that Kristine had conflict with Edward Mojica during the first meeting and again, on the second which she burst out in protest of the other’s idea.Habitual conflict of personnel certainly is bad in the firm’s image especially that theirs is just a newly established one. The firm would surely not benefit from conflict of personnel rather it is creating a negative image. Besides, it will draw more conflicts as others may join either side.
Over familiarity, which may be evident between Kristine and Mojica, is detrimental in the working relationship of the employees. In view of my participation to these meetings, I am giving three recommendations as suggested by experts on the field of human relations and working relations.These recommendations are not suggestions to help the company improve but as options for them to adopt. Recommendation #1 Archi Dreams personnel should attend leadership training. John Ellis, no doubt, has good leadership qualities.
He handles people generally well but given the fact that he has only five personnel, it is quite easy to handle them. But as the firm expands, more personnel with different background intellectually and culturally will be added to his staff, and conflict will certainly be unavoidable.Chris Stowell has emphasized in his article some benefits the leadership training could offer for managers like him like the flexible leadership approach which seeks to apply situational approaches to problems creatively (Stowell, par. 3). The knowledge this training will give will enhance understanding, awareness and the appreciation of potential leadership. Bass further explained that “increasing awareness of the leadership paradigm, and learning about alternatives that are conducive to improving oneself as well as one’s followers and adapting and internalizing the new ways of thinking and acting” (Bass, p.
9). Recommendation #2 Archi Dreams must include in their priorities Team Building activities.According to David Greenberg, the benefits of Team Building activities as suggested by professional trainers and experts as follows, improve communication and working relationship towards common goals, foster healthy competition, strengthen relationship, break down barriers that reduce conflict, improve problem solving skills, recognize and appreciate each other better, identify and capitalize on the team’s strength, and create motivating enjoyable environment (Greenberg, p. 9).In fact, team building is becoming a trend in resolving conflict in the workplace because it helps people talk with each other, reach better decision and accomplish better results.
In an article of Patricia Bathurst about team building, she implied that team building is a series of activities done throughout the year with specific objectives to be accomplished. She tried to emphasize that it is actually helping people get excited to talk about jobs to be done; and it really was done.Team building really works in their company. If all the personnel of Archi Dreams attend regular team building activities, they will surely have stronger relationships and demolish barriers towards achieving goals; while misunderstanding, conflicts and unrecognized and unappreciated contribution will be avoided.
Conflicts as we know happen everywhere to everyone personally, in school, in work area and in society as a whole. Archi Dreams though, newly established firm, seemed to have established its own course of conflict.During its first meeting, it was quite obvious that the conflict was not managed well so as the second one. Conflict is destructive and it destroys not only the company but the relationship.
Thus, I recommend that the Archi Dreams puts attention on the third recommendation. Recommendation #3 The Archi Dream hire a conflict management specialist that can provide management training to educate team members on the different conflict management styles as well as how to apply them to proper context.Baskerville pointed that “once managers uncover their ability to resolve conflict, and discover how a particular conflict management style motivates their staff the art of creative can become a more productive, less stressful people-moving skill” (Baskerville, p. 18). Baskerville further emphasized that providing conflict management training; persons concerned will acquire understanding on current behaviors such as disconfirming responses that are counter-productive to the team.
Further more, members will also learn to pacify tense situation rather that spread it out. If each member of the team could attend this training, future expansion will not pose problems in terms of conflicts in relationships; because, management personnel are already trained to handle such work disturbances. . Conclusion Working as a leader of the team poses a lot of problems especially in handling different behaviors and situations.Most of the time, varied behavioral pattern of individual which one acquired from previous experiences and training, cause conflict among them.
These individual behaviors would create threat to one’s leadership, because if they are not handled well, this will lead to collapse of the business or organization. Gregorio Bilikopf explained in his article that when choices exist, there arises conflict (Billikopf, par. 3).Thus, conflict is a serious matter which requires careful attention that, according to experts, regular trainings can help shape the mentality and attitude of the staff toward handling individual conflict.
These trainings basically help motivate them to accept each other’s weaknesses and learn from their mistakes, as well as develop loyalty among the staff, which is lacking in the Archi Dreams Company. Steven Beebe and John Masterson once said, “Productivity of the group improves if its members are trained” Beebe and Masterson, p. 18).
