Managing a conflict between members of a group, especially in corporate environments, can be very tricky. As Eisenhardt et al (1997) posit, the key challenge is to prevent a descent into a dysfunctional interpersonal conflict situation that will hinder the collaborative effort required to achieve common business goals.
This case study – “Kay Sunderland: Making the Grade at Attain Learning” – highlights a potential dysfunctional interpersonal conflict situation involving two peers at Attain Learning Inc. – Mike Morgan (Content Development Director) and Kay Sunderland (Account Director) – and a major client’s representative, Juan Nunez (Chief Learning Officer of Attain Learning Inc.’s most important client, Gramen Equipment Company). In the case study, Mike Morgan’s decision to by- pass the official client communication focal point – Kay Sunderland – to inundate Juan Nunez with direct phone calls created an unsavoury situation that had the potential to result in the breakdown of the good business relationship between the two companies. The situation was exacerbated by Mike Morgan’s refusal to develop content that was aligned to the client’s requirements and the client’s complaint to Kay Sunderland about Mike Morgan’s incessant and unnecessary phone calls trying to change the client requirements. (Hill & Becham, 2011)
The case study revolves around the five main characters depicted in Figure 1 below:
Attain Inc. COO
D.r John Chama
Attain Inc. CEO
Caroline Nicholas
Gramen Equipment CLO
Juan Nunez
Attain Inc. Account Dircetor
Kay Sunderland
Attain Inc. Content Development Director
Mike Morgan
Figure 1 – Main Characters in the Case Study
As Attain Learning Inc.’s Account Director, responsible for the Gramen Equipment Company’s account, Kay Sunderland was tasked with managing the situation between Mike Morgan and Juan Nunez to prevent the conflict from being dysfunctional and to also ensure that Gramen Equipment Company’s training content would be deployed by the agreed deadline.
1.1. Profiles: Kay Sunderland vs Mike Morgan
To fully appreciate Kay Sunderland’s task and the main issues she faces, it is important to first analyse the personal and professional preferences of Kay Sunderland and Mike Morgan.
In terms of their respective professional backgrounds, Kay Sunderland has worked with large corporations – Oracle and IBM – with clear structures, organizational hierarchy and top-down defined workflow, whereas Mike Morgan has spent most of his professional life, before joining Attain Learning Inc., in small start-up environments with little emphasis on bureaucratic
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corporate structures. One of the main reasons Mike Morgan joined Attain Learning Inc. was his preference for relaxed entrepreneurship environments where he can flex his creativity instead of the stricter, more structured corporate setups that were commonplace in big companies. On the other hand, Kay Sunderland joined Attain Learning Inc. on the basis that she would have more responsibility, control of projects and closer client relationships. (Hill & Becham, 2011)
Despite the difference in professional backgrounds, their individual work styles reveal that they are both achievement-driven and exhibit highly assertive behaviours. However, Kay Sunderland exhibits more cooperativeness which is critical for her role as an Account Director as she acts as a “super-connector” and “broker” linking key parts of the business internally, and being the focal point for key clients, externally (See Figure 2). She also leverages her socialized form of power, strong need for affiliative assurance, and role legitimating influence tactics to work with colleagues and clients to deliver projects. This makes her come across as strict and somewhat rigid to the creatives at Attain Learning Inc. From her demonstrable behaviours, it can be inferred that her natural disposition to work is a collaborative and customer-centric approach underpinned by trust, clear roles, organizational structures and work processes. (McClelland’s Theory of Needs, DEMO Session 1 Slides; Bases of Power, DEMO Session 4 Slides; and Hill & Becham, 2011)
On the other hand, Mike Morgan exhibits a lower level of cooperativeness amongst his peers which is reflected in his strong need for personalized power, reliance on his power of expertise as an experienced content developer, and strong resistance to opposing views. This is reflected in his behaviour towards Juan Nunez and his underlying belief that most clients do not know what they want. His natural disposition to work is a more competitive approach with strong emphasis on heuristics, expertise, reduced reliance on customer feedback, and a propensity for self- interested biases that can compromise decision making. Although this approach has sometimes helped in the development of innovative solutions for clients, it does not promote the cross- functional collaboration required for groups to thrive. (McClelland’s Theory of Needs, DEMO Session 1 Slides; Bases of Power, DEMO Session 4 Slides; Hill and Becham, 2011; Eisenhardt et al, 1997; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, 1984)
Figure 2 – Relationship/Communication Network Diagram
It can be inferred that Sunderland and Morgan, despite working towards a common goal as Attain Learning Inc. employees, are two very contrasting personalities with different working styles and
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professional views, particularly of clients. Although they appreciate each other’s functional contributions as peers, they have a slightly conflict prone relationship that requires careful attention and management to prevent a dysfunctional interpersonal conflict situation that has the potential to affect productivity and revenue. (Hill and Becham, 2011; Eisenhardt et al, 1997)
Based on the case study, the main issues facing Kay Sunderland are provided below:
2.1. Non-adherence to assigned roles and responsibilities by a peer: Kay Sunderland’s first issue relates to Mike Morgan going outside his role as a Content Development Director to encroach into one of Kay Sunderland’s main job tasks – client communication. Attain Inc.’s protocol is for all client communication to be channelled via the assigned Account Director, who in this case is Kay Sunderland. Any deviation serves to undermine Attain Inc.’s set protocols and shall expose the client to multiple communication channels/sources that can lead to the loss of critical information required for project development and deployment.
2.2. Distortion of client requirements: A critical part of Kay Sunderland’s mandate is to capture and clearly articulate client requirements to fellow colleagues. Typically, this involves direct engagement with the client’s Chief Learning Officer, Juan Nunez, who has the best view of his company’s training needs. Mike Morgan’s primary function is the development of training content to meet the client’s needs; he is not expected to directly engage the client to change the focus of the client’s work request. As the accountable party, Kay Sunderland needs to be formally empowered for this activity to ensure she is the only authorised channel for formal client communication. This will prevent scope creep and unnecessary changes to the client’s brief.
2.3. Managing without authority: The current organogram shows that Kay Sunderland and Mike Morgan are peers that report to the COO, Dr. Chama. While Mike Morgan is required to take direction on customer requirements and obtain approval for designs from Kay Sunderland, she does not have any formal authority over him. This empowers him to constantly challenge and question her directions instead of executing based on the customer feedback she provides. In this case, this partly motivated his decision to bypass Kay Sunderland and directly engage the client.
2.4. Close relationship between the Attain Inc. CEO (Caroline Nicholas) and Juan Nunez (Gramen Equipment CLO): Due to the close relationship between Caroline Nicholas and Juan Nunez, there is a potential for the matter to be quickly escalated to the CEO by the client. Based on the importance of this client to Attain Inc., if this issue is not promptly addressed by Kay Sunderland it could have negative repercussions for her, since managing the client relationship is her core job task.
2.5. Personality dynamics between Kay Sunderland and Mike Morgan: As highlighted in Section 1.1., Kay Sunderland and Mike Morgan have contrasting personality traits and motivations that influence their work styles and outlook. Mike Morgan’s preference for less structured work environments and clear disdain for being a “yes man” means that Kay Sunderland, with her preference for order and structure, needs to be delicate in her engagements with him to ensure that she is not being perceived as dictatorial.
2. Case Study Analysis Question 1: Identify and analyse the main issues facing Kay Sunderland?
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2.6. Project delivery time constraints: Due to the time lost in pitching an alternate training program which was subsequently rejected by Juan Nunez, the team must work within very tight timelines to deliver this project, as Gramen Equipment is a very important client with significant prospects for the future. At the same time, Kay Sunderland needs to ensure that the current and prospective clients that she is servicing are not left unattended.
2.7. Kay Sunderland’s perceived lack of exposure to equipment manufacturing accounts:
While her lack of experience in a specific sector is not necessarily a major hinderance – since no one can be an expert in all areas and her focus is primarily relationship management – it may have been a contributor to this specific situation. It appears Mike Morgan’s perception that she was less experienced than himself in this area and would not understand his views on the client requirements, influenced his decision to bypass her and actively engage the client directly to propose alternatives. Unfortunately for Mike Morgan, this move backfired and has resulted in a dire situation that needs be addressed urgently by Kay Sunderland.
To effectively manage the situation between Mike Morgan and Juan Nunez, it is important that Kay Sunderland resists the temptation to go with her emotions in her engagement with Mike Morgan. Her ability to focus on the issue and leverage her insight on how Mike Morgan’s strong need for “personalised power” and achievement – reflected in his desire to influence others and be in control – influences his actions will enable her to constructively engage him, get him to satisfy the customer requirements, and repair the relationship with Juan Nunez. (McClelland’s Theory of Needs, DEMO Session 1 Slides)
Due to time lost in going back and forth with the client and the resulting time constraint, Kay Sunderland will have to urgently deploy the “Competition” conflict-handling mode complemented with elements of “Collaboration” to make up for the “Competition” mode’s shortcomings. (DEMO Session 4 Slides; Thomas & Kilmann, 1974)
By adopting the “Competition” approach, Kay Sunderland will facilitate the quick delivery of the project by exercising her “socialised power” using coalition and legitimacy influence tactics to counter Mike Morgan’s “personalised power” stance which is underpinned by his strong reliance on his expert base of power. Her use of the coalition influence tactic will involve informing her direct supervisor, Dr. Chama, of the situation between Mike Morgan and Juan Nunez, and its potential to affect Attain Learning Inc.’s revenue. Using the legitimacy of her position as the authorised client focal point, she will be able to gain the support of Dr. Chama to use his authority to persuade Mike Morgan to immediately stop direct engagement with the client and expedite the completion of the client’s project in line with the client’s requirements. This would also help her gain power in future projects and prevent similar mistakes by other Directors in the future. (DEMO Session 4 Slides)
It is important to note that this “Competition” approach has the potential to cause larger scale personal conflicts in the future with Mike Morgan which can adversely affect productivity and the successful delivery of future projects. Escalating conflict to a manager is always a tricky action. It could get you what you want, but it would also mean it deteriorates the relationship with your colleagues. (Eisenhardt et al, 1997; DEMO Session 4 Slides)
3. Case Study Analysis Question 2: How should Kay Sunderland manage the situation with Mike Morgan and Juan Nunez?
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In order make up for the downsides of the “Competition” approach, some positive elements of the “Collaboration” conflict handling mode should also be deployed. This will ensure that a functional working relationship between Mike Morgan and Kay Sunderland is maintained. However, this approach requires more time and can lead to a conflict repetition in the future since Kay Sunderland does not have any formal authority over Mike Morgan. Hence the need to leverage her relationship with Dr. Chama as highlighted earlier. (DEMO Session 4 Slides; )
To balance her “competition” approach with some “collaboration”, she should immediately schedule a face-to-face conversation with Mike Morgan. The meeting should take place in his office so that they are in his friendly space, preferably behind closed doors for privacy. The conversation should start with a general discussion on the project to elicit his views on the client’s project requirements. This will require a mix of rational and consultation influence tactics to fully win him over to the client’s side and identify common ground for future engagements. The incident with Nunez should also be raised and she should use legitimating influence tactics to reinforce Dr. Chama’s message that she is fully accountable for client communications. Since Dr. Chama has already engaged him on this, he is unlikely to waste time presenting a strong opposition to Kay Sunderland’s demand. She should quickly close the subject and move on to addressing the additional support that would be required to deliver the project by the deadline.
After the engagement with Mike Morgan, Kay Sunderland should speak to Juan Nunez to reassure him that all future project communications will go through her and apologise for Mike Morgan’s slip. She should also assure Juan Nunez that the project will be delivered on time, in line with his requirements. (DEMO Session 4 Slides)
4. Conclusion
By following the proposed course of action, Kay Sunderland will achieve the following:
▪ Repair the relationship with Juan Nunez by satisfying his requests for Mike Morgan to stop contacting him directly and deliver the project promptly in line with the client’s requirements.
▪ BuildafunctionalworkingrelationshipwithMikeMorganbasedonclearroledelineationwith the support Dr. Chama – their common and direct boss – who will leverage his authority to influence Mike Morgan to leave all client communication to Kay Sunderland and ensure that
the proposed training solution is aligned with the client’s requirements.
▪ MaintainthesupportofDr.Chamabykeepinghiminformedofthesituationandherintention
to engage Mike Morgan to also smooth things out.
▪ Regain her power capital and influence in the organisation, and with the client thereby
reducing the potential for similar conflicts in the future.