Question

Imagine that you manage to employees who dislike each other and have engage in heated arguments in front of customers. What specific steps could you take following the five-step critical thinking model (observe, interpret, analyze, evaluate, and explain), to resolve the situation?

Answer 1

Often managers are confronted with a couple of employees who don’t get along and their open quarrel not only affects the work of others around them but also the customers coming in. This often creates an uncomfortable atmosphere in the workplace and a terrible experience for the customers. It is important in these cases to intervene right at the beginning and ease the tension in the workplace. From the five-step critical thinking model, the case can be taken up as follows –

1. Observe – It is important for the manager to acknowledge the presence of this uneasiness and take note of any heated arguments or scuffles taking place either in front of him or in his absence. Some clear observations would be loud discussions or quarrels, one of the employees ignoring the other, one employee free-riding at the cost of the other or even employees complaining about improper behavior from the staff.
2. Interpret – The manager needs to understand the root cause of such a behavior and the initiator of such uneasiness in the workplace. It is important to understand the trigger and the frequency of this discordant atmosphere. Identifying the key triggers and the behavioral nature of his team is very important for further analysis to arrive at the pain points.
3. Analyze – On understanding the case better, one can easily identify the underlying conflicting reasons. This could be any instances like a particular employees not pulling her weight into the task at hand, gossiping nature of some employees, and some kind of personal jealousy or clash in personalities, unfair pay structures or some unknown favoritism conferred on one and not on the other or some perceived inequity in the job profiles or roles.
4. Evaluate – It is important to re-look at these causes, you can also take some assistance from the HR team if needed. All factors mentioned above or some other, should be re-considered and provisions should be made to create a level field for all those triggers creating the difference.
5. Explain – Reach out to the concerned employees and brief them about the impact they have had both internally as well as externally. It would be advisable to meet them one on one and listen to their part of the story individually. It should be made clear to both of them as to what is expected of them and what aspects of the other would be solely decided on by the manager and not by each other. It should be made clear that it is the manager’s job to ensure that either of their work is done and one is not accountable to the other.

Once this entire process is completed, it is important for the manager to have a follow-up inspection and discussion with either party. This would help the manager to gauge the impact of the intervention better and help him/her to decide on the future course of action better.