Organisational Change, Change Stress, and Conflict Negotiation in Organisations - Case Study Example

Name: Tutor: Assignment: Course: Semester: Date: Executive summary Change in many organization often results in undesired implications, most of the problems associated with change and failure of new policies and procedures can be attributed to lack of planning and poorly executed change programs. Lack of proper planning may result in organizational ineffectiveness as relationships between employees become hostile due to actions of the top management. This paper is a case study analysis: Change and stress management at Housing Industry association (HIA). The paper seeks to relate the case study to relevant literature material to bring out the major issues to do with people management in organisations that present themselves in the case study. The three major issues that present themselves in this case study are; organisational change, hostility between Deborah and Melinda, and change stress and conflict negotiation in organisations. Table of Contents CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: Change and stress management at HIA 4 1 Introduction 4 2 Case analysis 5 2.1 Organizational change 5 2.2 Hostility between Deborah and Melinda 8 2.3 Stress associated with organizational change 9 2.4 Organizational culture and conflict management 11 3 Solutions for the issues identified 12 4 Conclusion 13 References 15 CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: Change and stress management at HIA 1 Introduction This case study is about Melinda and Deborah who are former colleagues at Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) office at Brisbane. The organization is quite big with offices all over Australia in major capitals. Melinda had worked in the organization for 2 years as the secretary to the executive director while Deborah was the office manager and has worked in the organization for 15 years. The executive director of the organization visits the Brisbane office and chairs a meeting in which he announces changes in management where he informs Melinda of her promotion as the executive support manager. This effectively puts Deborah under Melinda. Over time the relationship between the two starts getting sour as Deborah’s freedom is curtailed by the new management. Melinda is adamant that Deborah has to conduct herself just like anybody else in the organization. Deborah feels that she should at least be given the freedom of coming in late for work and leaving early plus other privileges since she has worked for the organization for 15 years. The idea of Melinda being promoted while she was not considered while in fact she has worked in the company 13 years more than Melinda, does not sit well with Deborah. She starts badmouthing Melinda within the Brisbane office. Melinda tries so much to make Deborah understand she is answerable to David for everything that happens in the Brisbane office and as such cannot allow inefficiency and time wastage as it will reflect poorly on her. Both colleagues are stressed by the new roles and responsibilities. When everything seems not to work, Deborah asks to be transferred to another role and department where she would not be meeting Melinda. 2 Case analysis 2.1 Organizational change Change always has huge implication on organizational effectiveness. Any management willing to implement change should at least analyze the likely impact change will cause within an organization (Certo, 2011). Change can be implemented successfully only if the management adopts a participatory approach to instituting change in the organization (Vijande, Sanchez, & Mieres, 2012). This way all the parties, employees and the management will be able to discuss how change is to be implemented and in fact identify the need to change such that everybody within the organization owns the process and the results that come out of the change process (Robbins, Judge, Millett, & Waters-Marsh, 2008). Val, Fuentes, & dobon (2012) list some of the expected resistance to change factors in organisation especially in the implementation stage as: Political and cultural deadlocks these would include such issues as Departmental politics, deeprooted values, forgetfulness of the social dimension of change, leadership inaction. In our particular case, these factors are all present as a source of conflict between Melinda and Deborah. The two are victims of inaction by the management to foresee the kind of conflict that would emerge from the promotion of Melinda. Resistance to change goes through defined stages and the management should take note of this development and realize where they went wrong. It starts with disbelief and then anger followed by acceptance. Disbelief Anger Acceptance It should be noted that acceptance does not necessarily mean positive behavior in the work place but may mean the angered party accepts the new situation but deep inside gets determined to show no cooperation with the new policy or management (Val, Fuentes, & dobon, 2012). This is the case with Deborah, it is important to involve employees from the formulation stage to avoid such a problem. The management in this case did not involve the employees in making the change decision in fact David only notifies everybody of organizational change through e-mail while he had decided the change before. Maybe if everybody would have been involved, Deborah would have raised her issue with the management. She feels the management has been unfair to her since she has worked way longer than Melinda yet the management promotes Melinda and makes her answerable to Melinda. Deborah shows her anger and disappointment by being hostile towards Melinda and in fact feels she should continue with her life just like she has been before Melinda came and even after she came in to the company. This; raises another question of what promotion criteria or methodology should management use since it obviously does not sit well with many employees when they see colleagues who have worked for a shorter period being promoted while they are left out. I believe a fair approach should be approached where by hard work and experience should be rewarded and the right methodology used to institute the change. In my view I believe Deborah’s reaction was not justified since in the first place she was not abiding by the rules set out by the organization in terms of working hours. In addition to that it amounts to unprofessional conduct when Deborah starts badmouthing the new Melinda in the office. If Deborah really felt she should have been promoted instead of Melinda, then she should have channeled; her grievances through the right channel and not react in such unprofessional manner. If Deborah discharged her duties in the organization just like anybody else did, then there would have been no conflict between her and Melinda. But then she feels she has worked in the organization for a very long time and deserves some preferential treatment which is not available to others. On the other hand Deborah’s frustrations might be understandable since the management over looked her years of experience and service to the organization to promote another person who had worked for the company for a very short time. This will most likely hurt any employee no matter how much one might want to respect the decision of the management (Manning & Robertson, 2004; Lewis & Weber, 2011). The management does not use proper change management style to institute change in the organization where everybody will feel the process is fair and objective. 2.2 Hostility between Deborah and Melinda Employee hostility is very common in work places considering work places are a kind of community in themselves (Farler & broady, 2012). In the work places the most common causes of conflict and hostility is competition. While competition might yield positive results in some cases, in this particular case competition just worsens relations between Melinda and Deborah. Thomas kilmann model, Source: Manning & Robertson (2004). This model describes five conflict handling modes outlined by Thomas kilmann. The model is basically focused on individual’s behavior in conflict situations which can either be much of assertiveness or cooperativeness. Deborah is very assertive wanting to serve her own interests and not those of Melinda which is not healthy and it can therefore guide the management into understanding how t handle the situation maybe by transferring her or by relieving her of her duties. The latter is extreme and should be the last resort if everything fails. Melinda has recently been promoted as the Executive support to David who is the Executive director. Melinda wants to give her best to the new role she has been given in the organization. She wants everybody to give play his/her part to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in the organization. Deborah feels the management is unfair to her for promoting Melinda instead of her and she shows hostility towards Melinda when she tries to assert herself as the new authority in the office. This shows how relationships within an organization can deteriorate if everybody does not engage in decision making especially when major changes are involved. Organizations ought to consider that roles will most likely fuel conflict especially when new roles are being assigned as individuals will want to assert themselves within the organization this reduces organizational effectiveness (Manning & Robertson, 2004). Melinda tries her best to resolve the issue with Deborah but it yields little results in fact Deborah continues hostility towards Melinda even after they hold a meeting with her in which she explains her dilemma. Melinda has little options to pursue in resolving the problem with Deborah and the only way she could have solved the problem is by involving the senior management who is David in this case to find out the cause of conflict between the two since he is the instigator of the conflict by promoting Melinda and overlooking Deborah who has a longer experience 2.3 Stress associated with organizational change Any organizational change if not handled well is likely to cause stress to the management, team members and team leaders (Rumbles & Rees, 2013). In this particular case, the management does not plan effectively for the change that is instituted in the Brisbane office. As a result the new team leader, Melinda is having a stressful time convincing her new team members and especially Deborah that they have to perform their best to meet the set objectives and be responsible towards their responsibilities as the company demands of them. The person in my view who is much stressed as a result of organizational change is the team leader who bears all the responsibility and blame if the team underperforms likewise the team leader receives all the credit if the team achieves. Melinda is directly answerable to David if any thing goes wrong in the office and in fact her title is executive support mandated to supervise the actions of the other staff members in the office. Melinda tries to make this point to Deborah but she does not identify with her concern and perspective and I believe Melinda was having such a bad time managing a team that is against her leadership One of the major causes of stress in change implementation is the new roles that everybody has in the new arrangement (Farler & broady, 2012). In this case study, Melinda is totally stressed by the new roles and responsibilities she has to perform. In fact it is a problem to everybody understanding the new roles the company has imposed on them. Perhaps the company should have taken care tm ensure that everybody understands his/her roles in the new arrangement of affairs before completely and officially assigning the new roles this is a pointer to the fact that management did not use a participatory approach when deciding on the new changes and even implementing them. Another major cause of stress during changes in organizations is the increased work load (Farler & broady, 2012). in fact the major problem between Melinda and Deborah is the demand by Melinda that Deborah gets to work early and works long hours so that the office can be able to meet its objectives as demanded of it by the central office. This new state of affairs is stressing to everybody including Melinda. New roles and responsibilities may result in increased workload. The management should have involved everybody when reaching for this crucial decision to understand the implication of assigning new roles and responsibilities to the Brisbane office. 2.4 Organizational culture and conflict management From this case study it is evident that organizational culture is either not very strong or does not have any influence on the conduct and the decisions made by staff members and senior managers alike. The company ought to have developed an effective organizational culture to guide the actions of the management and all the staff members. The organizational culture seems to lack a well articulated plan of addressing promotion issues in the organization. A good organizational culture should stay true to the commitment of ensuring everybody feels a part of the organization. This should be evidenced by the reaction of staff members whenever key decisions are made in the organization (Val, Fuentes, & dobon, 2012). Organizational culture should guide decision making and implementation of change but in this case the executive director makes all the decisions and everybody has to abide. He may consider the decision later but he is fully unaware of the implication of his decision to the organizational effectiveness of his teams in the company. In fact the organizational culture should guide the communication aspect of change in the organization (Murray & Grant, 2006; Invernizzi & Rometi, 2012). Communication is not effective in this case; we have a scenario where by the management on0ly communicates change in a rather unprofessional manner when change has been instituted. The organizational culture should have been used to prepare the team members to the new reality that will be effective once change has been implemented, but instead the management assigns new responsibilities and expects the teams to perform. There is no proper conflict negotiation in the organization. The management seems to react to symptoms of conflicts in the organization without really getting the root cause of the conflict which can ensure the conflict is not repeated in future (Lewis & Weber, 2011). David grants Deborah another role in the organization without finding out the real cause of the conflict and addressing it. As a result the two colleagues don’t interact and in fact avoid each other. This shows they lack cohesion as team members meaning organizational culture in conflict resolution is not effective. Organizational culture demands that staff members should work as a team and any conflict should be resolved to the satisfaction of everybody but then this does not happen (Manning & Robertson, 2004). 3 Solutions for the issues identified In the case of hostility between Deborah and Melinda, Maybe things would have been better if proper communication and participatory change management would have been carried out. If David explains to Deborah the new arrangement, things would have been better if everything no improvement s noted then Melinda should ask David to transfer Deborah since it is impossible to work with her. The management can follow a conflict negotiation model to solve the problems such as NSQ whereby, the following stages can be followed (Manning & Robertson, 2004): Preparation-Establishing the issues and getting quality information about the issue Opening the dialogue by creating a positive environment for discussion by letting Deborah and Melinda feel they will not be victimized for anything Getting movement to reach agreement by making concessions. In this case the management can admit by passing Deborah and offer something in return as a sign of concession on the side of management Closure in which agreements will be recorded and monitored to ensure Deborah and Melinda continue to be productive in the firm Organizational change in many places always causes conflict since some people may show emotional dissatisfaction with the new state of affairs, but the effects would be minimal if the management adopts an approach of involving everyone in the process of making major decisions in the company, that way people would own the change process and even participate in making the objectives of the change process realizable. People can voice their dissatisfaction with decisions before they are implemented giving the management a chance to rethink their strategies (Invernizzi & Rometi, 2012). Management should consider how people cope with change in the organization, new roles and responsibilities may mean the staff members have even heavier load of work than they had before thereby reducing their productivity. Employees should be involved in deciding just how much work should be allocated to them if some feel it is too much, the management may wish to relook at the work and decide whether it is appropriate considering the qualification and abilities of the staff members. This will reduce stress associated with changes in organizations (Invernizzi & Rometi, 2012; Rumbles & Rees, 2013). 4 Conclusion From this case study it is evident the management did not factor in all the probable issues that might arise out of the organizational change they wanted to institute as a result the relationship between two co-workers deteriorates due to poorly implemented change process. Management in any organization should understand that promotions and other organizational changes are very sensitive to the productivity of teams and as such should be approached in a participatory manner whereby everybody is involved in the decision making. At the end it will be the company to benefit as there will be little resistance to the change process since everybody in the organization participated in the decision making process and will there fore participate too in its implementation and own the success that comes out of the change process. Conflicts should also be resolved by getting to the rot cause instead of reacting to symptoms of underlying problems through fixes just like David does when he transfers Deborah to another department. References Certo, S. (2011). Modern Management: Concepts and Skills, Pearson Education Farler, L., & broady, J. (2012). Workplace stress in libraries: a case study. Aslib proceedings: New information perspectives, (64)3 , 225-240. 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