Managerial Communications - Conflict of Job Duties

Managerial Communications

June 17, 2011

Conflict over Job Duties

Conflict occurs when two or more people who, despite their first attempts at agreement, do not yet have an agreement or a course of action, usually because their values, perspectives and opinions are contradictory in nature. The credit and accounting departments are interdependent and share a common goal in the company but conflict arose because of the increase in sales caused the credit and accounting offices to become busier and this has caused conflict between Linda Sims, the accounting department manager and Jose Martinez, the manager of the sales department. Another issue that was causing conflict was whose department workload was more important and limited personnel resources in both the accounting and credit departments. Due to the increase of workload Ruth the administrative assistant for the credit department, is no longer available to make journal entries for the accounting department. When Sims approached Martinez to complain that she needed Ruth more he became defensive because Ruth was his employee who was doing Sims a favor by making the journal entries. Sims first initial conflict strategy was to force Martinez to turn over the services of his employee. He became defensive because he viewed Sims as controlling and trying to coerce him to turn over his employee to make journal entries for Martinez and that caused Sims to become resentful. If Sims would have attained the additional services of Ruth it would have become a win-lose situation for Martinez.

After realizing the error of her ways Sims realized that she should have approached Martinez with a combination of conflict resolution strategies. She could have used the accommodating strategy to emphasize on maintaining a relationship with Martinez and thus creating a peaceful coexistence in the company. Sims should apologize for trying to force Martinez to turn over his employee to make the journal entries. Explain to Martinez that she understands that the workload for Ruth has increased and give him the opportunity to work with her on arriving at a solution to problem. Also, Sims could have used the avoiding strategy approach and avoid creating conflict with Martinez altogether. She could avoid conflict by continuing to use Ruth’ services when she was available than undergo the tension and frustration of having to deal with Martinez. She also could have ignored the work environment in the credit department and Ruth’ increasing workload, have her to continue to make journal entries and not say anything to Martinez. But since this approach really doesn’t allow her to achieve her ultimate goal of getting Ruth to make journal entries more frequently. By trying to force Martinez to turn over his employee it became a win-lose power struggle. Sims attempted