Conflict

Conflict mainly refers to some form of friction, or discord arising within our lives, or
within a group when actions of one or more members are seen as unacceptable or resisted
by others. We have observed Conflict on daily basis with oneself, with family and friends or
in the professional life with colleagues, we have faced conflicting situations.

It can depend on the

 personality that the person possesses,

 his/her communication style
 Misunderstandings
 Disagreements about the right way to approach a problem
 Egos
 and various other factors.

From my personal experience I have faced conflict on numerous of occasions and one of the
incident that is more prudent of all, is the one I will be describing below.

Real Life Conflict Situation

The situation that I am going to describe here briefly was faced by me during my
professional career while working with HCL Axon. I started my professional career in June,
2013 with HCL Technologies Ltd. I was a trained SAP Consultant in SAP ABAP, so I was
assigned to one of the Platinum projects in HCL named as ‘Fonterra”.
Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational dairy co-operative owned by
around 10,500 New Zealand farmers.[3] The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the
world's dairy exports[4] and with revenue exceeding NZ$17.2 billion,[5] is New Zealand's largest
company. So, Initially I was assigned as an ABAP consultant whose responsibilities were related to
technical job like designing, coding and helping the functional guys.

After working for almost 9 months as per my interest and opportunity I was shifted to the functional
side of the business where I was responsible for interacting directly with the clients and resolving
the issues or difficulties that are being faced by them on day to day basis. Quickly I was able to grasp
the concepts as already I had the technical knowledge and knew the background of the scenario as
what is really happening in the system. So, because of my hard-work and understanding of the
business my manager was pretty happy with my performance and encouraged me to get involved on
the more sophisticated part of the business which evolved process improvements and
enhancements in the system.

On the Enhancements and Process Improvement part, I worked for almost 2 years before joining the
sabbatical program here at SNU. So, the conflict situation arise when we were assigned on a
Challenging and Time constrained Enhancement, related to Expansion and Improvement of China
Foods Services of Fonterra. As Fonterra was the global leader in the milk industry after Nestle so it
had its presence in almost most part of the world including China.
And China was the most important part of business because it contributed a large share in the
overall revenue and help in increasing the market share.

So, seeing my past performance and ability to handle both technical and functional aspect of the
business, I was assigned to the role of leading the Enhancements from our team i.e. “Sales and
Distribution”. The major challenge with this enhancement was that it was time constrained.
The major challenge was designing the plants in the system that will be used as the warehouse for
transferring and storing the materials and due to business expansion more such plants were needed
in China and in system as well.

So, I decided to involve L1.5 Team which is a junior team mainly comprised of fresher’s but they
knew a little part of the system as they helped us in our day to day activities in supporting us. The
benefit of getting the L1.5 team involved is that their understanding and learning will be improved
which will help them in the later stage of their career and also will give us some breathing time to
handle the other issues involved with this development as well.

But when I pitched this idea to my manager he was a bit reluctant whether the higher management
will allow this or not as this was part of a big external enhancements and client was ready to pay
extra from whatever was mentioned in the standard contracts, so the risk could not be taken, but I
was pretty confident that the L1.5 team will be able to handle the situation and we will be able to
manage any challenges that will come along our way.

So, during the meeting with the management the senior managers simply rejected this idea, but I
was pretty much confident that the guys will be able to handle this situation as they were also very
excited to learn the new techniques and will know about the various scenarios in the business.

So, again I approached the SDM (Service Delivery Manager) and tried to convince him about this
idea, so after few discussions and due diligence he agreed but he stated clearly that I will be held
responsible and had to face the consequences if anything wrong will happen or the task is not
completed on time. So, for one moment I was also shocked like if anything unusual happened all the
blame game will be directed to me.

So, I took a pause and requested him sometime to come up with my decision and after going home
and thinking about the whole scenario for which I was fighting for the past 1 week has held me in a
very difficult position, as I also was very serious about my career and couldn’t risk it, but still I went
ahead with my decision and informed the management that I am ready to take the responsibility of
this task and my manager also backed me and insured me that I have made the right decision.

And finally we were able to complete the assignment after continuous hard and smart work
for 3 weeks, we deployed this Major EMT of 45K NZD and received appreciation from Business and
Project Management as well, and I personally received words of appreciation from both the senior
management and from my manager as well.

7P’s of Conflict Analysis

1. Parties

Main Parties

 Myself
  Senior Management

Other Stakeholders

 My manager
 L1.5 Team
 Other Technical Teams
 Business Client

2. Pressure
 Time Constrained Enhancement
 Very crucial for Business Activities
 Less Resource available
 Crucial Learning opportunity for L1.5 Team to grow
 Needs to resolve the conflict and answer to the senior management at the
earliest
 Need to prove my worth as all the responsibility and risk is on me

3. Projections/Fear/Worry
 Loss to business and customer relationship if EMT not delivered on time
 Senior Management of HCL may get angry
 Risky decision if the L1.5 Team is not able to perform
 Loss of trust from the management on me and all my hard-work and
reputation on stake
4. Past
 Myself – Always top performer, does not matter what work was assigned,
worked hard to reach where I was
 Created trust among managers and team due to my hard work, dedication
and knowledge
 All targets achieved on time successful
 Always acted like a Team player and helped others to grow and achieve their
tasks

5. Problem
 Client wants the EMT to be delivered before or on time
 Very Crucial assignment as further business relationship dependent on this
 L1.5 Team had no experience to handle the similar task
 Management worried about the involvement and needs someone to take the
full responsibility
 6. Possible Solutions/Options
1. Management agrees to my suggestion and team is able to perform the task
successfully, and Win-Win situation for all.
2. Management agrees but L1.5 Team not able to perform the task.
3. Management denies and the team strength that we have, we are not able to
achieve the task.
4. We take help from 3rd party or hire people on contract for this duration

7. Pros and Cons of each solution

1. Option 1

Pros
Conflict will be resolved
Client and top management will be happy
about the achievement
Gain in knowledge for L1.5 Team
I proved my worth in front of Client and
Senior Management
Cons
If not able to achieve then trust my
manager and my team has on me will be
broken
We will be penalized
Customer relationship will be affected
Not able to defend myself as I agreed for
this assignment and loss of knowledge
transfer for L1.5 Team

2. Option 2

Pros Cons
Trust my manager and my team has on
Management show trust in my abilities
me will be broken
Chance of gaining hands on the complex
We will be penalized
system for L1.5 Team
No further assignments like this will be
Stage to prove my worth
initiated for juniors in the future
 3. Option 3

Pros Cons
No Risk involved for me as I am not the sole
Junior Team will be discouraged
owner
Opportunity for me to work freely without My efforts for trying will be in vain and
any responsibility trust issues can occur in future
Chance to prove my worth with the senior
Gain more knowledge for self
management is gone

4. Option 4

Pros Cons
Experts help available Expensive and budget constraints

Need to share confidential info. With

Client and top management will be happy
them
Gain contacts and network which can help Not showing confidence on the internal
in future team available

Possibility of Dealing with situation in other way?

I think the way I handled the situation was optimal and there was no better solution
available, as the management wanted someone to take sole responsibility and this was a
good chance to prove your worth which I think I did very efficiently, and moreover the L1.5
team was also able to gain the hand on experience on the business scenario which will help
them in their future prospects and this turns out to be a win-win situation for the
stakeholders involved in this situation. So, I think this was the best way of dealing with this
situation.

Mode of Conflict Resolution

It is of 5 types – Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding and

Accommodating. Based on the Thomas-Kilmann test, it came out to be “Competing” for me.

It is quite evident in the way I handled the situation where I was trying to prove my
worth to the management and was ready to take the risk as well, and also at the same time
promoting the L1.5 team to take this task and add value to the project and their profile as
well.

Personality Type

It is of 5 types – Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and

Openness to Experience. Based on the test results, it came out to be “Neuroticism” for me,
which is the trait of being emotional.

It was quite clear on the way I handled the above situation where I tried not only to
solve the problem and was also very eager to involve other team members in the task as
well and put this in front of the management as already I have promised them that this is a
good opportunity that will help them

Communication Style

It is of 4 types – Controller/Director, Promoter/Socializer, Supporter/Relater and

Analyzer/Thinker. Based on the test results it came out to be “Promoter/Socializer” for me.

It was again quite evident in the way I handled the situation, I promoted for L1.5
team and convinced my senior management to go with this idea which in the end turned
out to be beneficial for everyone.