A520.2.3.RB - Conflict Resolution

At my previous job, right before I joined the team I was on, there was a big shakeup in the company.  My whole team was relocated to another building that was incomplete, and placed in a warehouse.  The initial conflict that came up was that the members on my team did not want to leave their original workspace.  It was close to the people they worked with, had adequate lighting for color matching, and provided a pleasant environment overall.  There was a a lot of initial conflict over this because the reasoning did not make sense as to why we were needing to move 5 miles away, in another building, away from the people we actually worked with. 

My role was a smaller role, and really didn’t make an impact until I merged with this new team.  As a new employee, I had not experienced life over at their previous area, therefore, I did not share the same initial desire to move back – I was overall, indifferent to the situation.  The longer I remained there; however, the more I realized how difficult the move actually was for us all.  It made doing our jobs a lot more difficult.  We knew that moving back was out of the question, so as a team, we went together to speak with out VP of the creative dept. and expressed our initial opinions and reasons why we didn’t approve of the move. 

Instead of laying out anger toward him, we tried to negotiate a plan that would allow us to utilize the new space better for the work that we do.  It’s no good for our company if we are unable to do our jobs because of lack of resources.  Because of that, we decided to take the negotiation approach and see if we could make the best out of a bad situation.  Once we expressed our reasoning for our negative reaction toward the move, we laid out what we would like to see as a substitute for our previous space.  The VP made our allocated budget work for the new improvements and allowed us to use our own judgment to make the space feel more creative and personal.  While we are still not closer to the people we work with located 5 miles away in another building, we now have more space for building boards, printing large pieces of artwork, and other daily routine tasks that we previously lacked resources for.  In a lot of ways, it reflects what SAS was achieving at that company.  If and when bad news occurs, being able to meet the needs of your employees can help to alleviate any negative reactions to a change. 

While all of this was going on, we did also have role incompatibility affecting the outcome of our efforts as well.  With the new team merged, we had new members who all brought diversity and different backgrounds to the group.  Unfortunately, not all of the personalities got along together.  While the main negotiation with our VP was going on, we also had internal conflict in our team between two individual who disagreed on practically every solution the other person brought up.  This took a lot of patience and creating win-win situations for both of them, so that neither of them felt the other members of the team were taking sides between the two.