Conflict in the Work Place

Pulling from chapter 8 of Reframing Organizations, Artistry, Choice, and leadership, by Bolman and Deal, employees contribute personal and social friction to the work environment. This is caused by the various personalities interacting in a work setting.

This friction or mismatching between personalities can be said about the upper management of the internship I worked for this past summer. The business was family owned, and the CEO happened to be the eldest of five brother that worked either directly for, or indirectly with the company. The company had been previously owned by the five brother’s father. For privacy sake we’ll say that the current CEO’s name was Tony. Ranging from management to consultation and marketing, the brothers played pivotal roles in the success of this company. The origin of conflict began when the company began the process of getting acquired. The youngest brother, Timmy, with some help of his father, was placed in a role working directly with the private equity firm and getting this deal to pass. Clearly, this aggravated some of the other brothers. It should also be pointed out that the CEO was not confrontational at all, and allowed Timmy to take this role without any problems. The elder brothers felt that they deserved, at the very least, a little more control of the major decisions that were going to be made in the following months. Due to a lack of communication between the middle brothers and the CEO, Timmy went ahead and essentially ran the makings of the deal with the help of his father and eldest brother Tony.

One situation that particularly irritated the other brothers, was the decision to potentially change the company name. The private equity company was unsure of whether they would keep the original name that the company had for many years or whether to change it to something easily recognizable with their portfolio. From Timmy’s side, he was trying to negotiate the highest price possible, and something like a company name might not be a subject he was willing to fight for. A choose your battles type of situation. The middle brothers began a plan of pushing the original companies name and history, by updating the office with pictures of the founder, and other historical touches to the office space. The original name and brand had a lot of branding put into it, after all the company was previously successful and buyers knew this company the way it was. This is where the lack of communication between the brothers became the main reason for conflict. If the middle brothers had just say down and expressed their desire to keep the original name, maybe Timmy would have realized its importance and pushed to keep it that way. In the end, the company was allowed to keep its original name while the Private Equity firm decides how to further its branding. Although this was a rather positive outcome, it did not stop the occurrence of various arguments between the brothers that had nothing to do with the original problem.

In the end, I think that if the CEO had been more commanding of the situation, and understood the desires of all the brothers, he could have diffused the situation. This particular conflict arose from members having informal roles and a lack of leadership from the CEO. It was his job to reach out and understand the way the others operate, specifically on a task and processes level.

Team Production and Gift Exchange

       In an article by Jonathan Haidt, from nytimes.com, he discussed gift exchange with regards to different make ups of team production and related it to the United States economy and Obama’s efforts to raise taxes on the one percent. Essentially, if people are not working together then they are much less likely to share rewards with one another. This reminds me of some of my experiences with group work in college.

               There has been only one group that I participated in that I felt every member carried their own weight. We were forced to elect a team “captain” that was intended to delegate tasks in a fair manner to the rest of the group. After electing this captain we decided to collaborate on each other’s tasks through google docs instead of working solo. For those not familiar with google docs, if you are invited by the creator of a document to edit, then you can freely edit the article without the owner’s permission. The quality of work that we produced was way more polished than the original creators work. On top of that when one person edited your work, it encouraged you to at least take a look at theirs. The more we collaborated the more we cared about the final product of the project. We received an A, and each of our members received the highest peer rating grade you could get.

               Clearly, I think the findings in the article relate to my experience. One example the article gives discusses a situation where two people pull ropes in tandem and receive marbles for their efforts. When both players do the same amount of work the player that receives more marbles is very inclined to share the deficit in pay. In my case, sharing the workload led to better grades and peer reviews. If we had handled our project without collaboration we would have been more selfish. We wouldn’t have contributed ideas to each other and most likely would have turned in lower quality work.

I have been in many groups where members are assigned tasks and then turn them in on the due date without other members reviewing their work. It has always led to lower quality work. Without collaboration, good ideas are not shared and single members are allowed to slack off on tasks. In the group that collaborated we kept everyone in check and were rewarded accordingly.  

 Evidently, working together has many benefits and this article by Haidt highlights that. When we work together, we not only begin to care for one another but we begin to care more about what we're working towards. It is only when every member of a team goes all-in do they create the optimal and most efficient outcome.

Managing Future Income Risk

                With regards to the future, I do believe I have put myself in a comfortable spot, financially, with a lot of help from my parents. Being an economics major, I believe that this bachelor’s degree alone will not fulfill my future expectations. I have chosen to add a business minor and am currently considering going to graduate school in an attempt to further my studies as well potential in the job market. Prior to being an economics major, I was within the industrial engineering program here. Having an engineering degree would presumably offer more job security and maybe a more financially stable future compared to a bachelors in economics alone. I have chosen to switch to economics, some could consider this a risk, because I find it more suitable to my interests. 

                This past summer I held an internship at a manufacturing company doing competitive pricing reviews as well as reviewing their current business plan. Besides this being a great experience and immersing me in a well-run business, it was also a great addition to my resume. I intend to use this as a springboard into a different summer internship in 2016. With aspirations to work for a private equity firm, I hope to get an internship at an investment banking firm. There is a lot of opportunity to create wealth in this industry

As far as debt goes, I have not accumulated any because I have very generous parents. I understand this is a luxury not all have but it is going to reduce my future risk immensely. When I leave college I will attempt to get a job near my parents so I can reduce living costs for the first years of my working life. After I have accumulated two years of savings I will begin to invest! Watching my brother invest for the long term over these past five years has really sparked my interest in investing. If you stay up to date with the market, diversify, and do your homework on your stocks, I see an enormous potential to reduce income risk.  

Aside from watching my brother invest, I have been lucky enough to experience both of my older siblings to enter the working world and purchase homes. Having not moved from the same suburb of Chicago all my life I had either naively assumed purchasing a house was simple, or just never thought of it at all. The whole concept of real estate was new to me. So many outlaying factors go into buying a house that turn it into a large investment. For example, buying a house in a neighborhood where property values are rising can aid financial stability in the long run. 

As a junior in college I would say I have made some solid choices with guards to future risk. Choosing a major I’m passionate about, my internship experiences and lack of debt should provide a smooth transition out of college. On top of that I have witnessed two sibling transition into their later lives. I believe these combined experiences have greatly lowered my future financial risk.