Probir is the regional manager of the marketing department of a thriving business. The business has been growing and the regional marketing office has recruited quite a few specialists recently. The functional heads in the company have to meet their staff in an open meeting every two months. Probir detested these meetings. It was open to everyone in the office. The staff came up with a long list of trivial and tiresome complaints and grievances. They repeated the same things and spoke at length.Evenwhenthestaff knew of the constraints,they went on withtheircomplaints.They wanted more space for lounge, for bathrooms and crèche. Probir pointed to lack of space, and yet the staff continued to complain. Probir cultivated a habit of sitting through the meeting with a cheerful face, but with his mind switched off from the proceedings. The meeting became a tiresome ritual he had to get through.
In Probir’s situation what action would you have taken and why?
Probir needs to do the following gracefully:
1. Since the business is thriving and more specialist staffers have been recruited, Probir should expand office facilities quickly say within six-months.
2. Till suchtimethat officeexpansiontakes place relieving thepressure on facilities, he should seek a moratorium on discussion of the same old topic.
3. He need not switch off in the meeting. These meetings serve a purpose. If he ignores all that the staff members have to say, demotivation may set in.
The question focuses on understanding the needs of a team and the leader’s role in resolution of mundane problems of the team members. The source of the problem in this case is perhaps rooted in the fact that success of the regional marketing function has brought forth induction of new team members and the present accommodation has thereby become inadequate. This condition should not be allowed to linger. If it does, dissatisfaction will surely result. He has to get rid of this core problem. For this, he needs to develop a concrete plan of action and follow it up. After he reveals the plan of action, team members will know that the problem will hopefully get resolved soon and they would be willing to accept the moratorium.
Probir’s boredom or frustration in listening to the same set of problems time and again is understandable. He should have been proactive and anticipated the problem. However, problems need resolution. Till the problems are resolved, the affected staff will keep raising them in meetings. That means status quo. He has to break it. He has also to be attentive to what staff members say. Carefully listening to a person and then solving his or her problem are marks of sincere concern for that individual. Leaders in office need to show this quality. So he has to be attentive however much he dislikes the grievances or narration thereof in the meetings.
Conflict management is another skill that managers need. The conflicts here mean the quarrels and disputes which frequently arise in organizations. They are not international or political conflicts. Tact and diplomacy are the two means of handling such issues. The quarrels usually involve people with difficult temperament and/or problematic situations. Auditors, Police and mediators often face such situations.
It is useful to identify potential areas of conflict and the points of dispute. In any organization, there are areas where functions overlap between two divisions. If the work is interesting, people will try to grab it from others. [This is a form of turf war.] If it is tedious, they will try to dump it on others. People get into bad moods and begin to have personal quarrels. Some mangers are antipathetic to one another and there are cliques and groups. These problems afflict most organizations in some measure.
The best way of addressing these problems is to bring them into open and arrange discussions between the concerned people to iron out differences. Open and frank debate is the simple means of settling such differences. Solutions have to be so devised as to satisfy all the parties to the dispute.
Managers have to scale down such disputes. Turning a blind eye or sweeping problems under the carpet will allow them to fester.