Comm. 1080

April 1, 2018

When I worked at a metal recycling facility there was always an issue with people getting in trouble for doing what the boss told them to do. Many of the coworkers would just accept the consequences and be too afraid to speak up for themselves. I was getting in a lot of trouble because I was never afraid to speak my mind. When we had a client that ordered a certain method for a project to be done, I watched my other coworkers sitting around the table not say anything when our manager spent $17,000.00 on something the wrong method for the project. My other coworkers didn’t say anything about it, but I just kept saying that we should use the method that the customer paid us to do; and I would get in trouble because once the boss realized that we used the wrong method, he started saying that as long as the job got done then it was ok; but I kept reminding him that the customer was going to know what method we used once we gave them their order. Finally my boss got sick of me and decided to fire me. 

1)                  Identify the most common reasons for conflict in that workplace.

The most common reasons for conflict in that work place was miscommunication with the boss and his employees, misinterpreting customer requests; and employees like me that weren’t afraid to speak up when there was a problem. 

 

2)                  Analyze the list in light of what you have learned in this class.

Miscommunication with the boss and his employees could have been solved with some better intercultural communication skills for conflict management so that the boss could realize that the Latino guy was still working hard even though he was always laughing and being loud when it was time to work. Misinterpreting customer requests was probably the most expensive thing to the company, but probably could have been solved with better listening skills so we could avoid unnecessary conflict all together. For people like me who would speak up when there was a problem, maybe I could have gotten more support from my coworkers to create a power imbalance; so that the boss would be more likely to listen to what we had to say. 

 

 

3)                  Advice you would give to the supervisor about conflict management.

I would have asked him to take Hom’s COMM 1080 class for conflict management; and when there is a conflict then he should head for the high road instead of firing employees. 

4)                  Analyze the possible outcomes. Which outcomes would you be satisfied with?

We could have made sure that everything was down on paper so that the employees and the boss could understand what the customer wanted; and we could have avoided unsatisfied customers. Maybe the boss didn’t intend to be mean to his employees; but that is the vibe that everyone received. I would have been satisfied with keeping my job.

COMM 1080

Damarr Jones

Power Imbalances

Example: A supervisor in the United State Airforce can gain his or her position but simply passing a test, doesn’t mean they are totally qualified but on paper it looks like the perfect fit. Depending on what rank you hold determines the level of power you have. So many times, an issue would arise and right or wrong the person with the higher rank wins.

The conflict: 

I had a supervisor who was a Master sergeant, when I was just a staff sergeant (to ranks down from the Master position) who just came over to our section from another shop. HE had no prior experience in the shop I was currently in but had to be our leader because his rank required him to run a shop.  One afternoon I came to him with a problem concerning the trucks and I offered him a solution that could fix it that was outside of technical data but was approved many times before because it works. He not knowing anything about the system demanded me to stick to the technical data and said if I did my solutions I would be punished. I reminded him that I have been doing this for many years and it works every time I just needed permission from him to get the job done. He began to get angry because his pride got the best of him and he didn’t want to be told by an airman of lesser rank how to do his job or how to lead so he demanded I do it like the book says. Long story short the truck could not be fixed, and we went a week under code. Because it was a master sergeant over a staff sergeant the master sergeants word is above all.

This example of personal power imbalance happens because of his refusal to negotiate the issue and hand. Instead he lived by my way or the highway mentality instead of learning what can be done and find a construct way to solve the problem. Because of the way he handled this, or airman refuse to come to him with a problem in fear that it would not be received well. 

A good way the sergeant could have solved this is to see how the book did it and be show the new process and ask another expert how it was handled in the past to effectively get the job done.

COMM 1080 - Hom

5 April 2018

Principle Negotiation is an approach to negotiation that focuses on conflict management and conflict resolution. It focuses on a more ‘win-win’ result where both parties walk away without having ‘lost’ the negotiation. The parties instead favor a mutually shared outcome. 

In my years of laboring in the workplace, I have come in frequent contact with the same occurring problem: Supervisors/Management being out of contact with the parties they are supervising. Whether they have no idea what the work actually entails, the people performing the work, or the nooks and crannies that have become ‘tribal knowledge’ that keep the workflow going. 

A good example would be at my last job, Airliquide. At Air Liquide, I was an operator I kept the machines going and the chemical flowing to the Clean-room above us. The biggest concern the managers cared about was keeping the chemical flowing. Though I know for certain, neither of them had done a change out in their careers. As such, they didn’t understand the pressure it took to keep the place running. We were understaffed and so after you were wore to the bone, you expected something, a promotion, a raise. Which the management would offer but never fulfill. You would be stuck in a limbo, waiting for promises you never recieved. The biggest concern resulted in the management didn’t want to promote anyone to keep their own positions secure. 

2. 

I have from this class that a little communication can go a big way to solving problems. A little communication between the employees and supervisors could have solved a few of the problems above.

3.

My advice to a supervisor is to lead by example. A true leader is someone who is down in the trenches fighting the fight, not someone back at base barking commands. If a supervisor is having issues in the workplace they should go work in the place thats having conflicts. They should do the tasks and see for themselves what makes the employees struggle. Only by getting in someone’s shoes can you really understand them. It will build morale for your team and gain trust in those your supervise. 

4.

In the example with Airliquide, we as employees would have been satisfied if any of the following occured: A) Seeing Management/Supervisors ‘in the trenches’ doing the work with us instead of bossing us around. B) Getting the promotions and raises when they promise them, not taking the responsibility of a position until getting properly paid to do so. C) Having a system worked out where we could show our skills and become the bosses. Not have people in the system withholding valuable knowledge to secure their own job. Any of these 3 would have helped. Though I understand the management needs to feel like they also win with principled negotiation. The win would be uninterrupted flow of chemical to the clean-room, making our position there more valuable to the customer and leading to overall company worth. 

After having taken this class, if I was in that situation again I would use the principled negotiation approach.  I would try talking to the Jeff and say something to the effect like “I see you think this is the best solution to cover the branch.  However, there are 14 of us here. We should explore more options to see if we can be satisfied with an outcome”.  I would offer suggestions such as maybe giving people a full day off during the week when we have to work Saturdays, instead of two-three lunch hours.  I would outline the experienced employees in the branch and the effect it would cause to the branch if they were to leave.  I would talk to him about going back to one platform person on Saturdays so that it would allow the other banker and I to work every other Saturday.  I would try to get him to see how the schedule was affecting people.  Most people lived far away and with such long lunches, they would be in the breakroom waiting for their lunch to be over because otherwise it would be spending double the money in gas to be able to spend an hour at home.  I would inform him that I would be satisfied with a day off during the week and working every other Saturday.  In the real scenario, we had enough coverage to do that, I just don’t think Jeff explored that idea.  This way he would have avoided losing his experienced platform employees and seasoned tellers.

Jeff was dismissed from the bank about a year or so later.  Unfortunately, it was too late, most of the employees had either transferred to another branch or had quit.   He made the weekly schedule very complicated, but I should take responsibility that we did not know how the process of principled negotiation.  I believe we focused our disagreement on him and not his actions, we took positions and were not willing to compromise.  Well, we did not have an option but to do as he said but even if he had compromised on part of the schedule, most employees would still have been upset because they saw him as a dictator over our branch.  Someone that looked only for his benefit and would not be concerned with other’s well being.  If back then, I had had  the knowledge I have acquired throughout the years and this class, I would have been more apt to act as a liaison between Jeff and the rest of our team to come to an understanding.    

 

 

Journal 5

COMM-1080 Hom

 

Principled Negotiation would have improved the following situation by allowing the manager to do his job and allowing the employees to have a voice. The importance of this is shown in the attitudes towards managers and why being forceful wouldn’t work in the managers favor. Principled Negotiation is when there is an emphasis on conflict management and conflict resolution. 

Looking at my last job the main reason for conflict was lack of communication. There were weekly updates that only the manager could access and he rarely printed or went over those with the store. This caused a lot of issues when there were promotions or anything specific that was advertised to customers through social media or the app. The easiest way this could have been handled is through printing the weekly updates and having employees read them before picking up any tips they may have. He would have also benefitted from allowing people to read them at some point during a scheduled shift. Through this class I have learned that some form of communication would have worked, and it could have been improved from there. The issue was also an unwillingness to compromise on the shift managers and lower employees ends. That manager was brought in after a firing because of how the manager prior was running the show, they did have a temporary manager and assistant manager but both were only meant to be there until they finished training someone to take over. With that mess and also the turn-over from getting rid of the old manager while not really doing her job properly she was liked among the employees. The old employees had to deal with new people being hired like crazy so training was rough and managers switching every few months I can understand why it was a mess when he came in. The store had to be able to survive without a manager is kind of what was taught during the shift in between managers so when he came we were all pretty distrustful, they were kind of useless in our minds except for the weekly updates. To help with this issue I would have encouraged him to have more meetings both one-on-one and gathering the whole store to build morale. No one was willing to listen when in our experience he would be gone in one or two months, and then someone else would come in to start the cycle over. This manager was asked to step down due to the fact that many employees weren’t cooperating but I did encourage the new manager to work on trust despite my no longer working there. The store is doing better morale wise but it has a long way to go before they will be stable. 

Comm 1080

Damarr Jones

            I have had my fair share of conflict with supervision, some of it being my fault due to the natural sense of rebellion to authority that lives in me, but most of it comes from the lack of communication. When it is time to solve a problem certain skills are needed to resolve conflicts. I will give an example of a conflict I have currently dealt with at my place of work along with a skill I’ve learn to manage differences and resolving conflicts.

                        Principled Negotiation is an interest-based approach to negotiation that focusses primarily on conflict management and conflict resolution. One day at my office my boss asked me to come see him in his office, I am new to the job and I have had one project under my belt. He seem a bit angry and before I could clearly understand what was going on he began to yell at me. Asking me why I didn’t have a certain file in the group site. In my mind I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and I was not even sure he knew who he was talking to at the moment. But I let him get close to finishing before he called me out of my name, a dumb ass to be exact, all hell broke loose after that it became a yelling match with me telling him not to ever talk to me that way, and that I had no idea what file he was referring to. At that moment he hurried around to his desk to pull it up to show me. Following a long pause he just stared at me saying nothing. Then he says “I read the wrong name in the file get out of my office.” I was left think what the hell just happened. No apology or nothing.

            His natural response to conflict was to let his emotions govern his behavior, and after seeing how he handle the situation I became close minded on anything else he had to say from then on. Both reactions are horrible ways to resolve a conflict. Instead of assuming I was the guy to yell out, or even choose yelling as a form of communication in that conflict, maybe he should have just SLOWED DOWN.  SLOW and acronym we learned in class meaning: Setting a positive and collaborative tone, Listening and acknowledging feelings, emotions, and experiences, Observing and organizing from an outside perspective, Working to find a creative, win-win solution.  First his tone was off, I would have been more connected to what he had to say if he just would have come into the conversation with a mean to solve the issue instead of blame. He also calling me out of my name was defiantly a bad move. I should have not cut him off only to yell back, I allowed my emotions to upgrade the conflict. It was all a misunderstanding that didn’t have an apology to follow. The win-win was never established.