Advancing Organization by Conflict Resolution

Currently, I am working as a fundraiser for an international nonprofit organization. It is a common notion that people working in the nonprofit sector have a similar mission, i.e., making a difference in someone’s life, similar values which are honesty, empathy, and servitude, and same vision, i.e., to see the world being a better place for everyone. According to the above statement, it should be the ideal environment to work. However, conflicts and difference of opinions still occur.

1) Things the organization experiences in co-coordinating the practice of your corporate mission, vision, and values in teams and the organization as a whole.

• “Communication- the human connection- is the key to personal and career success.”- Paul J. Meyer

The communication policy of the organization is well-defined and effective in constantly reminding people of their purpose and values. We have regular individual check-ins with the team leaders and manager. It is a half hour session once every week where we discuss the highlights of the previous days, touch base on what improvements are required and discuss our short-term and long-term goals as an employee of the organization.

• One size fits all theory does not work if you want to generate an effective work environment. It is important to build a one-on-one relationship with the members to help them increase their productivity and excel. (Hughes, 2014, p. 158). The organization, therefore, wants us to be clear about the issues we are facing and what’s working best for us. It gives them a ground to work on and help us build on our strengths and act on our weaknesses.
• The fundraisers’ job is a performance-based Constantly being below target puts an employee on a performance improvement plan (PIP) in which the person works in close relation with an appointed team whose job is to work on the obstacles they are facing and help them yield better results in a set period.

2) What is the organization doing to align interests and establish common ground for fulfilling their envisioned practice of mission, vision, and values and create healthy communication and productivity within corporate work environments?

Three days a week we have a briefing period where we talk about the new agendas and give shout-outs to the fundraisers who performed well in the previous week. It keeps people motivated and helps them in acknowledging the difference they are making in someone’s life. Also, it is the time when we practice with the other team members and provide constructive feedback which gives us a chance of improving and learning from the experience of others.

3) How has the conflict affected the organization?

• As I mentioned earlier, having a similar mission, vision and values do not ensure that everything works smoothly. As mentioned by Lepsinger (2010), our organization has a diverse age group of people and conflicts and differences still arise because the methods of working do not match (p. 138). Additionally, the conflicts arise because of people having competitive goals rather than cooperative goals (Tjosvold et al., 2014, p. 554). As we work in close relation to each other, our success also depends on the team efforts as a whole. While some people are good at not letting the external environment affect the way they work. However, this affected the performance of the others bringing their numbers down which in turn affected the organization as a whole.
• Regular check-ins assisted the manager in realizing multiple employees are facing similar issues. The manager then talked to the person teaching them about the best practices and how their habits were affecting other people.
• In my opinion, the first step would be not to be assumptive and ask why they are behaving in such a way (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 126). Furthermore, developing a mutual benefit relationship within the organization having an open-minded discussion about the issues and letting employees know how to resolve a conflict in a way that promotes both parties’ interests simultaneously (Tjosvold et al., 2014, p. 557). Besides this, the analysis and intentional placing of people sharing a similar approach in one team would have been better in providing like-minded people a chance to work together at the same time not affecting those who like to work differently.

References

Hughes, R. L., Beatty, K., & Dinwoodie, D. L. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader: Your role in your organization’s enduring success.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap: How great leaders and their companies get results. Jossey Bass.

Tjosvold, D., Wong, A. SH., & Chen, N. YF. (2014) Constructively managing conflicts in organizations retrieved from

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