Question

THE COMPANY: MORE POWER, INC.

More Power, Inc., is a large, local retail store specializing in the sale and service of hardware, tools, lawn and garden implements, and other materials for the home. More Power operates seven days a week, dawn to dusk. Approximately 120 employees work in distinct divisions within the store, including customer service/return desk; warehouse and delivery; service and repair; and three distinct sections focused on (1) hardware and tools, (2) lawn and garden and outdoors, and (3) home building and improvement. Five assistant managers who oversee these divisions report to the owner/manager. The organizational chart of More Power, Inc., includes the employees who are featured in the case studies.

JOE NEWCOMER, ASSISTANT MANAGER, WAREHOUSE, DELIVERY, AND CUSTOMER SERVICE

As Joe, you are the key figure in most of the case studies. You are an assistant manager and have been working for More Power, Inc., for four months. In your role, you are responsible for overseeing the customer service/return desk and for managing the warehouse and delivery functions. You manage approximately thirty people.

You are twenty-six and married, with a two-year-old daughter. Your wife is pregnant and works full time as an office manager. Although your current position is not perfect, you thought it was the appropriate progression in your career as a manager. In addition, when you accepted the position, you understood that you would have flexibility to pursue other goals. Specifically, you expected the job would allow you to return to night school to work toward earning a four-year degree, adding to your two-year associate degree. The position offered more money and better benefits, which is more important than ever now that you and your wife have a child with another on the way.

Organizational Chart for More Power, Inc.

Now that you are enrolled in night school, it has been difficult balancing school with work and family obligations. Although your boss, Jim Talent, is generally understanding about your need to leave early in the evening to attend school, you have been expected occasionally to stay later and either arrive late or miss class altogether. At home, you are not always fun to be around because you often have to study instead of spend time with your wife and daughter.

It has been especially difficult to balance all these obligations because of the stresses and challenges you face on a daily basis at work. You are expected to address and resolve innumerable employee, customer, and vendor problems every day. You are not always sure whether you have made the right career choice by accepting your current position. You are not always sure you have the skills to handle some of these trying conflicts.

JIM TALENT, STORE OWNER/MANAGER

As Jim Talent, you grew up in the hardware, lawn, and garden business. You worked with your father, who started the business, until he retired. You have worked in virtually every imaginable position in the store and know the business inside and out. You are forty-one, married, and have two teenaged children.

Although you have a four-year degree, which you earned the hard way through years of night school while working full time, you believe your management expertise and leadership style were developed more through the day-to-day grind of work than through formal education. You are a straightforward, direct individual who prefers deliberate action to deep analysis and talk. You can be patient with the assistant managers you supervise and are willing to coach them on how to perform their jobs and become effective managers. However, you prefer that they make decisions on their own, take ownership for those decisions (good or bad), and not always depend on you to bail them out. Your reason for this approach is a matter of both personal management style and practicality. With so many employees to manage and areas of responsibility to oversee, you rely on your assistant managers to be as resourceful and tough-minded as you are.

When you hired Joe, you thought he had a lot of promise. Though Joe seems insecure in his role, he is also task oriented and sincere about being an effective manager. You can tell he cares about his customers and the people he manages, but he often spends too much time deliberating over how to handle difficult situations. You would rather that he jump in headfirst to confront matters, as you would. He could also use a little more experience in delegating. While you support his aspirations for school, you believe all that “head knowledge” is no replacement for the hard knocks Joe needs to be successful. To that end, you believe you can provide a good balance to his college experience as a real-world coach.

FRED STAID, TEAM LEADER, DELIVERY

As Fred Staid, you are comfortable working as the team leader in the delivery section. You oversee the logistics of delivery; arrange deliveries; and direct a small fleet of drivers, loaders, and installers. You know this end of the business well as you have been in this role, in this store, for as long as anyone can remember. You enjoy the security of the position, being the resident authority over a particular area and having a job you can leave at the end of the day without thinking about it.

This security is especially important right now. You are fifty-two, married, with three kids, two in high school and one in college. Your kids are hard working, as they must be. You are encouraging them to seek the opportunities you never had, such as going to college, but are unable to support them financially in these goals. You enjoy spending time with your wife, attending your teens’ football games and band concerts, and fussing with the lawn.

You are a conservative individual and not comfortable with rapid organizational change. You are analytical and good at organization and planning. You don’t like making changes rapidly but prefer to think things through and move slowly. While you realize others may have input in how things should be run in your area, you are somewhat reticent to relinquish even the least amount of control to others.

SALLY AMBITIOUS, TEAM LEADER, WAREHOUSE

As Sally Ambitious, though you like your job, you have no desire to remain in your position as warehouse team leader forever. In fact, you would like to move up to an assistant manager position eventually, though this may take longer than it would others since you have only a high school diploma. At twenty-two, you have plenty of time. You want to attend college but currently are focused on raising two young children. Moving into an assistant manager position might also require accepting a position with another company in another state, something you are not prepared to do. Your husband recently started a new position so moving right now would not make sense.

You are making the most of your current role. You like the idea that More Power management, including both Jim Talent and Joe Newcomer, have given you a great deal of leeway in directing day-to-day warehouse operations. In the year that you have held this position, you believe you have streamlined functions so that products are more effectively inventoried and shelved and that depleted products are replenished more quickly. You also believe that the processes you have implemented have ensured that customers receive ordered products in a prompt manner, either through in-store pickup at the customer service desk or through coordination with Fred’s delivery section. However, you still see ways in which functions between your section and Fred’s may be more efficiently coordinated.

You are an expressive, creative individual with more ideas than you have time to implement. You tend toward impatience. You are prone to making quick decisions, but this is because you are more intuitive than analytical about the best way to proceed on projects. Often, your intuition has led to innovative and successful results. On the law of averages, your approach has proven no less effective than the slower, more deliberate approach others might prefer.

TINA TUMULTUOUS, CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

As Tina Tumultuous, you have a mixed employment record as a customer service representative. When you started working with More Power five years ago, you loved the work and you were quite good at it. You know the retail business and can recite chapter and verse of More Power’s policies and procedures on returns, refunds, and damaged items. You know a great deal about the products More Power sells, where they are located in the store, and where to direct customers to find items or to seek further assistance. You have generally treated customers in a respectful manner. In fact, because of your knowledge and work with customers, you were named Employee of the Month a couple of times in the past few years.

But your attitude has changed recently. You are as capable as you ever were, and if asked, you would acknowledge that you are still committed to your job and to helping make More Power successful. But your personal life is in turmoil. You went through a difficult divorce. You have two kids, one in junior high and the other in high school. Your older child, a son, has been in and out of trouble in school and with the law.

Lately, Jim and Joe have talked with you repeatedly about your behavior and interaction with customers. They have used words such as “curt,” “bossy,” “loud,” “rude,” and “insensitive” in counseling you about customer interactions they have observed. On occasion, you have been disciplined for these behaviors. The stress and anxiety you have been feeling regarding your personal life may account for why you have been acting this way. However, you are reluctant to discuss these issues with management.

PROFESSOR TIMOTHY JUSTICE, PH.D.

As Professor Justice, you are Joe’s professor for Managing Conflict in Work and Life, an elective that Joe is taking toward a degree in management and supervision. You are also Joe’s academic advisor. You are rumpled and gray-haired, with a generous spirit and a passion for teaching. You once worked in an industrial environment but returned to school and earned a Ph.D. in industrial and labor relations. You have been a professor for twenty years and would not think of returning to a position in industry. However, you do serve as an independent consultant for various companies, and you also enjoy helping to equip future leaders like Joe to succeed in their roles as managers.

You like Joe. You find that he has a lot of intellectual curiosity about the theories of management as well as conflict and negotiation. You find, though, that Joe is having a difficult time applying what he is learning in the classroom to the real-world situations he faces at More Power. You teach collaborative and empowerment models of management and conflict intervention and insist that your students get a good grasp of these theories and concepts to apply them in their jobs. You also try hard to balance theory with practical, albeit hypothetical, case studies, exercises, and other applications to give students a picture of how these theories and concepts work on the job. With Joe, you are more than happy to teach him, to listen to his frustrations in dealing with conflicts at work, and to offer advice when you can.

VIC VENDOR, SALES REPRESENTATIVE, DO OR DYE TOOLS, INC.

As Vic Vendor, you are the regional sales representative for Do or Dye Tools, Inc., which has a long-standing relationship with More Power as one of Do or Dye’s largest distributors. You have worked for Do or Dye Tools only a few months, having replaced the former sales representative to More Power, Axel Rod, who had served in that role for almost twenty years. You are young, but you have a good sales record from previous sales positions.

Since you are new to your role and are replacing someone who had a trusted relationship with More Power management, you are careful at first to respect that relationship and the “gentlemen’s agreements” between Axel Rod and More Power. However, you are slowly realizing that your predecessor engaged in all sorts of unsound business practices, such as giving large volume discounts on tools; refunding More Power for defective tools “no questions asked”; and agreeing to endless rebates, “freebies,” giveaways, and other deals that drastically affected Do or Dye’s profit margin.

You think that Do or Dye has been taken advantage of, thanks to Axel Rod’s “old boy” approach. You want to base the relationship on a pricing structure that has some reasonable basis in valuing Do or Dye’s manufacturing and delivery costs, other overhead, expectation for realizing a profit, and similar considerations. You are prepared to introduce a new pricing structure but know this will not be received well by More Power managers.

MARIA SERVICE, CUSTOMER

As Maria Service, you are a professional woman who works as a real estate account manager at a major bank. You and your husband own a home and shop at More Power as your preferred retailer for tools and lawn and garden and home improvement needs. You have generally been pleased with the prices and customer service at More Power. However, you occasionally shop at More Power’s competitors in town. Service is not quite as good, and prices are generally just a little higher.

At times, you have had to return a product to More Power, either because you realized you did not need it after all or because of a slight defect. Returns have generally been honored.

In your daily interactions with others, you are generally pleasant, but you are also confident and willing to press your position if you believe you are not being treated fairly. This has not always been easy for you. You are a second-generation Latina American. Your family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when you were a child. You are well aware of the struggles your family and others in the Latino community must endure to earn fairness and respect in the community and in business affairs. Your family is proud of you for having earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA. Your husband owns a management consultant firm.

KIM KHAN, ASSISTANT MANAGER, TOOLS

As Kim Khan, you have been the assistant manager in the hardware and tools section for three years. You worked for More Power in previous positions, resigned to work in the construction industry as a carpenter, and then returned. You are an expert with tools, and you love sharing your expertise with customers. In fact, in addition to working with customers to select the best tools for their projects, you offer free weekend classes on how to use tools and how to do various construction projects.

You are more effective at working with customers than you are in managing sales or people. You will spend hours working with customers and are not prone to use sales tactics to encourage customers to buy tools. You have developed a loyal customer base among a small group of customers. As a manager, your employees are often frustrated. As the expert, you spend time with customers and, therefore, do not train employees as you should or give them enough opportunities to interact with customers. Employees have complained that you tend to assign menial tasks to them and keep all the interesting work to yourself.

You are not sure how you feel about working with Joe. There is a lot of interaction between you and Joe, as you rely on his area to keep inventory up; handle customer ordering; and work with customers regarding complaints, returns, and other matters. Often, Joe has to come to you with questions. You are a skilled tradesperson by training, not a college graduate. Joe seems to do okay with management issues but lacks the expertise you think is needed to effectively handle More Power’s products and services. It irritates you that he has to come to you so often with questions and seems to do the same with Jim Talent. “Either you can do a job or you can’t,” you say to yourself. “If you can’t, then move on.” Jim is apparently oblivious to this.

ANTON KNOX, A.K.A. “MR. OPPORTUNITY,” DELIVERY TEAM WORKER

As Anton Knox, you are young and irresponsible. You do not take your work seriously. On your best days, you are an average performer. On such days, you usually come to work on time and put in the minimally required effort to keep your job. On your worst days, you are late to work and do not pay careful attention to the work you are doing. You tend to sit around and wait for Fred Staid to give you your next assignment. You like to joke around with the other guys on the delivery team.

You are called “Mr. Opportunity” because you never miss an opportunity to get around doing your work. You also never seem to miss the opportunity to call in sick or come in late. When Fred talks with you about these issues, you find his comments to be outrageous and demeaning. He apparently does not understand all the personal issues surrounding your life that give you legitimate reasons for the behaviors for which you are accused. Nobody seems to have all the troubles that you do because if they did, they would understand.

The way you feel treated at work is enough at times to make you angry. Yet you generally avoid outbursts. You just complain a lot. You also know the store’s policies on sick leave and tardiness and are a master at improving your performance at the point when discipline might be imposed. You have learned to work around Fred and convince him that you will improve your performance. You are grateful that you are not on Joe’s radar—for now.

You are called “Mr. Opportunity” because you never miss an opportunity to get around doing your work. You also never seem to miss the opportunity to call in sick or come in late. When Fred talks with you about these issues, you find his comments to be outrageous and demeaning. He apparently does not understand all the personal issues surrounding your life that give you legitimate reasons for the behaviors for which you are accused. Nobody seems to have all the troubles that you do because if they did, they would understand.

The way you feel treated at work is enough at times to make you angry. Yet you generally avoid outbursts. You just complain a lot. You also know the store’s policies on sick leave and tardiness and are a master at improving your performance at the point when discipline might be imposed. You have learned to work around Fred and convince him that you will improve your performance. You are grateful that you are not on Joe’s radar—for now.

TAMIKO TIMID, DELIVERY TEAM WORKER

As Tamiko Timid, you come to work every day and do your job. You are a consistent, average performer. You are one of only two females on the delivery team. The men on the team like to joke around, which at times makes you uncomfortable. Yet you do not complain about this.

You are not overly excited about working with Fred Staid, though you acknowledge that he knows the business of retail delivery. You respect his authority and always respond to his requests. You wish that others on the team would do the same.

You have not formed many relationships among your coworkers. You are not comfortable with chitchat and want to simply put in an honest day’s work and go home. You do not like complications in your life, nor do you want to form complicated relationships at work. You also worry a lot about losing your job.

There is one person you admire: Sally Ambitious. You have occasionally had lunch with her. She has tried to encourage you to be more confident. She has especially encouraged you to be more assertive about matters that concern you and to communicate your concerns to Fred or others.

Case Questions

Review the role profiles for Joe and other employees at More Power to see how Joe might rate himself and others.

Based on your educated guess for each employee, what would you say is his or her conflict capability? Is the employee an opportunistic, rules-, self-aware–, or goal-level individual?

Answer 1

Joe is new at this job and when compared to other employees he might not be rated best among all.

He has a drive to achieve excellence in work and personal life but that is not enough for his success. Apart from Anton Knox, all the other employees are absolutely best in the work they do. Whereas Joe is still in learning phase and is truggling to maintain balance in his work and life.

Summary of all other employees are in the table below along with answer of second question:

Name	Role	On job since	Job responsibilities	Skills	Personal responsibilities	Issues in life	Conflicts in life	Type of individual
Joe Newcomer	Asst. Manager, Warehouse, Delivery and Customer service	4 months	overseeing the customer service/return desk managing the warehouse and delivery functions managing approximately thirty people.	hardworking dedicated towards job and personal development	26 yr old daughter pregnant wife night study	work-life balance time for family stress at work stress in life	unsure about the decision he made to take this job and continue his studies	Goal-level
Jim Talent	Store owner/ manager	lifetime experience since chidhood	manage, supervise and coach assistant managers delibrate tasks	management expertise know-how of getting things done lots of hands on experience	41 yr old married 2 children			Goal-level
Fred Stand	Team leader, Delivery	long time	oversee the logistics of delivery; arrange deliveries; direct a small fleet of drivers, loaders, and installers	strong knowledge of delivery business analytical	52 yrs old marries 3 children in school		dosent like giving control to others in his area of delegation	Rule-level
Sally Ambitious	Team leader, Warehouse		directing day-to-day warehouse operations	expressive, creative and has a lot of ideas more intuitive than analytical	22 yrs old 2 young children	wants to move out of this job wants to do college husband got new job so cant move	feels fred and her section can be more efficiently coordinated	Self-aware
Tina Tumultous	Customer Service Representative	5 years	deal with customer's queries	great knowledge of policies great knowledge of products	divorced 2 kids not in good condition	trouble in personal life affecting work life anger on job stress and anxiety
Vic vendor	Sales representative, Do or Dye tools	Few months	regional sales representative	good sales records				Opportunistic
Kim Khan	Asst. Manager, Tools	3 years	works with customers regarding tools	expert with tools		his employees are frustrated		Rules
Anton Knox	Delivery Team Worker					waits for fred to give him a job is not dedicated towards his job		Opportunistic
Tamiko Timid	Delivery Team Worker			Average worker		not very excited to work with fred		Rules