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  • Effective Conflict Management Technique 5

    In the last byte, we looked at how confronting and negotiating could be used as effective mechanisms to resolve conflicts. In today’s byte, we look at the concept of distributive bargaining and integrative negotiating.

    Distributive Bargaining is a negotiating approach in which the goals of the parties are in conflict, and each party seeks to maximize its resources.
     
    Resources are generally limited and each party wants to maximize its share of the resources, and appears as a win-loose approach to negotiations. If a negotiator wants to maximize the value of a single deal and is not worried about good relationship with the other party, distributive bargaining may be an option.
     
    Integrative Negotiation is a negotiation approach that focuses on the merits of the issues and seeks a win-win solution.
     
    This approach focuses on the merits of the issue and attempts to reach a win-win approach. For this attempt to be successful, one has to have faith in one’s own problem-solving ability, a belief in the validity of the other party’s position, mutual trust and clear communication.

  • Effectuation – a theory derived by studying expert entrepreneurs

    Given the form of Uncertainty that entrepreneurs face when building their enterprise, it was often a challenge to explain how enterprises were built. Prof Saras Sarasvathy (currently working at the University of Virginia – Darden School of Business), explored the question of what is teachable and learnable in entrepreneurship and laid the foundation to the – Theory of Effectuation. 

    For those of you who are wondering what effectuation theory is, here is a brief about the theory. But first let’s begin with a couple of examples:

    a. Cooking:
     
    There are two ways you could go about cooking:
    ⦁    In the first case you could decide on a specific dish you would like to prepare, look at the recipe, go to the market, get the ingredients, follow the instructions and cook.
    ⦁    The second case is, you open the refrigerator to see what ingredients are available, think of what you could do with the available means and just begin cooking with the resources currently available.
     
    Both these could turn out to be excellent dishes or could go bad. Without giving much explanation, I would jump the gun and call the first approach described above – a causal approach, and the second approach as an effectual approach to executing things. 

    I shall fall back on the example later on as I explain the various principles of effectuation.
     
    b. Marketing a new product.
     
    Let’s take the scenario of a large corporate intending to launch a new product in the market. The typical approach is to define a specific market – segment the market and decide up on the specific segment to target. Finally you position the product that you intend to sell and thus arrive at the specific customer who would buy your product.
     
    The whole process listed above, involves a lot of thinking expertise and the product hitting the market is only after a long delay and is often after the project has spent all most all its investment.
     
    An alternate approach is to find the first prospective customer, sell the product to him/her, and look if there are more people like the same customer. Once you find a pattern, the segment gets defined automatically, you add in more partners, more segments that could be served and eventually define the market.
     
    The first approach is primarily causal, while the second one is effectual in its approach.
    Principles of Effectuation
     
    The Effectual Theory has 5 principles:
    • Patchwork Quilt
    • Affordable Loss
    • Bird in the Hand
    • Lemonade
    • Pilot in the Plane
    They Dynamic Cycle of effectuation:
     

     
    The above diagram essentially indicates that an entrepreneur could begin with looking at what he/she could do, whom he/she know, and then think of what could be done with the means that are currently available at one’s disposal.
     
    The interactions with the people the network lead one to gain commitment towards the idea that had been suggested. Through the commitments, and addition of stakeholders, the initial idea could transform into a shared goal (which could be extremely different from the initial goal), and also add in new means towards achievement of the goals.

    Thus the starting point of the next iteration of the cycle would – who we are? What we know? And whom we know? Though the various alignments of the commitments, the otherwise unlimited possibilities shrinking to a smaller convergent set of means which could be explored there by creating new markets and new firms to exploit the market.
     
    How is it different from Causation?
     
    Looking at the above mentioned approach, we can easily distinguish it from the classical knowledge being imparted in the causation based approach. Where there is a huge emphasis on prediction, and resource commitment towards achieving the envisioned goal.
    In terms of the principles these two could be distinguished as below:

    For those who are interested in looking for a good resource, visit: http://effectuation.org/ 

    However the suggested guidelines in the effectuation are not without criticism. One of the major criticisms that I find in the theory is essentially the expertise that forms the basis of the theory creation.
     
    In my opinion, the effectuation theory derived through the study of experts – would represent a state when achieved. If I were an entrepreneur who has become an expert over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience, with say more than 2 ventures, 1 IPO experience, 1 failed experience, and I am not talking about being a newbie entrepreneur. Networking, framing the right questions to get the commitments, willingness to modify goals rather than means (aggregating means to achieve the goal) and much more form an essential part of the process suggested. Thus, it is more of a state that would be reached and learning through experience forms the key towards moving towards entrepreneurial expertise.
     
    A newbie entrepreneur has to spend time in building his network, build the phenomenal experience enroute to be able to effectively apply effectuation as a means to starting off a venture. By following the principles, one could definitely create a business with minimal lop side and higher chances of success – I would say this is like giving a surer way of building the business. 

    But, if one has to navigate and the path has been shown, isn’t there some interesting learning that is essential to make an entrepreneur ready missing? I guess it is… What do you say?

  • Effective Conflict Management Technique 4

    In the last byte, we looked how changing the structure of an organization could help reduce conflicts effectively. In today’s byte, we look at how confronting and negotiation help reduce conflicts.

    Some conflicts mandate the use of confrontation and negotiation between parties. Both these strategies need a skillful negotiator and require careful planning when engaging in negotiations. Open discussion is necessary for in these situations and the attempt is to reach towards a mutually beneficial solution.
     
    Negotiation is a joint process of finding a mutually acceptable solution to the conflict under consideration. It has been found to be most useful under the following conditions:
    • There are two or more processes (it is an interpersonal or intergroup process)
    • The conflict is the result of what one party wants is not what the other party wants
    • The parties are willing to negotiate because each believes it can use its influence to obtain a better outcome thanks simply aligning to another parties’ side
    • The parties prefer to work together rather than fight openly, or yield or break off contact etc.

  • Effective Conflict Management Technique 3

    In the last byte, we discussed about some of the effective techniques to resolve conflict. In today’s byte, we look at how changing organization structure could assist in resolving conflict effectively.

    There are many ways to change the structure in an organization and thereby reduce conflict:

    • Use of the integrators’ role:  An integrator is a liaison between groups with very different interests – if this integrator is a neutral third part, it would help disperse even severe conflicts. This is a way of opening dialogue between groups that have difficulty in communicating.
    • Use of Cross functional teams: The traditional method of new product design involved many departments contributing and this created delays due to coordination. The use of cross functional teams reduces delays and by allowing many activities to be performed at the same time instead of sequential execution.
      Also the team approach allows members from different departments to work together and reduce the potential for conflict. Team work helps break the larger tasks into smaller, less complex tasks – this helps reduce conflict, and organizations can potentially improve the performance over the overall team by improving the outcomes in each sub team.

  • Effective Conflict Management Technique 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on effective conflict management techniques. Today, we continue the discussion ahead, with a discussion on the following approaches- superordinate goals, expanding resources and changing personnel.

    Superordinate Goals: In an organizational context, noting that the organizational goal to be more important to both the parties involved in conflict – and thereby making the individual or group goals subordinate – is found to be extremely effective.
    Appealing to the superordinate goal – to get the parties to focus on larger issues on which they both agree. This helps them realize their similarities rather than their differences.

    Expanding Resources: Overlooking a conflict, could be an effective conflict resolution technique. Often scarce resources that are for common use lead to conflicts – expanding the resources could reduce conflicts. 

    Changing Personnel: Often we do not dissociate people from the idea/issue and so specific individuals could be a reason the conflict persists. Separating the people from the situation in case one could identify them specifically to an individual could be used to solve the conflict by eliminating the person from the scenario.

  • Effective Conflict Management Technique

    In the last byte, we looked at some ineffective techniques in managing conflicts. In today’s byte, we look at some techniques that have been found to be effective.

    It is not that all techniques to manage conflict are ineffective. There exists some effective conflict management technique and here is a list of few:
    1. Superordinate Goals
    2. Expanding resources
    3. Changing Personnel
    4. Changing Structure
    5. Confronting and Negotiating
    It would be apt to get into this discussion a bit deeper and we shall do it over the next few blogs.

  • Ineffective Conflict Management Techniques

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on conflict management strategies and techniques that could be adopted. In today’s byte, we discuss briefly about ineffective techniques. 

    We begin with listing these ineffective techniques and what they indicate:
    1. Nonaction – doing nothing in hopes that a conflict will disappear
    2. Secrecy – attempting to hide a conflict or an issue that has the potential to create conflict
    3. Administrative Orbiting – delaying action on a conflict by buying time
    4. Due process nonaction – A procedure set up to address conflict that is so costly, time consuming, or personally risky that no one will use it.
    5. Character Assassination – An attempt to label or discredit an opponent.
    Of the above, is has been noticed that nonaction is not a good technique, and that conflicts don’t go away, but the people involved react with frustration. Similarly, administrative orbiting could also lead to frustration and resentment. Secrecy on the other hand could be seen as leading towards political activity by employees who hope to uncover the secret. Character assassination could backfire and make the individual who uses it appear dishonest and cruel.

  • Conflict Management Strategies

    In the last byte, we looked at the withdrawal response as defensive
    mechanism. In today’s byte, begin our discussion on conflict management
    strategies and techniques. 
    To understand let’s begin with two situations to understand the discussion:
    Situation 1: Two departments of an organization let’s assume an insurance
    company – sales department and claims team. If these two departments are in
    conflict with each other over a budget allocation, the claims manager could ask
    for a cut in sales training staff, while the sales department could look for a
    cut in the claims personnel. In such a conflict situation which emerges to be
    dysfunctional it is the organization that looses overall.
    Situation 2: The two departments choose to have a functional approach and
    eventually decide to cut a minimum number of members in each of the departments
    and this could prove to be a better situation for an organization.
    Situation 1 is indicative of a competitive approach to conflict management
    while the second situation is indicative of cooperative approach. The
    competitive approach is based on the assumption of a win-lose situation and
    could include the following – a dishonest communication, mistrust, and a rigid
    position. The cooperative approach is based on the possibility of a win-win situational
    and includes openness, honest communication, trust and most importantly a
    belief that whole might be much greater than the sum of parts.

  • Withdrawal Defense Mechanisms

    In the last byte, we looked at compromise class of defense mechanisms. In today’s byte, we look at withdrawal as a means of defense in case of conflict. 

    The following table we summarize the various withdrawal defense mechanisms

  • Compromise Defense Mechanisms

    In the last byte, we looked the aggressive defense mechanisms. In today’s byte, we look at the Compromise defense mechanisms. 

    The following table summarizes the various defense mechanisms.