Reference no: EM133450961

Answer the following questions based on manage team conflict " Gobal green books" for the case study:-

1. In own words, explain the importance of team conflict management skills for Global Green Books.

2. Identify 3 ways the conflict management approach, as presented by the group, could be improved.

Case study:-

Global Green Books Publishing Inc. ("Global Green") was started two years ago by two friends, Jim King and Brad Mount, who met in college while studying at Seneca. The two friends graduated in May of 2018 and launched Global Green later that fall. Global Green Books strives to become the most profitable publishing company in Canada and currently serves the academic community. During their first few years of business, Global Green obtained 6 large clients in the post-secondary education field. Global Green established itself as an organization capable of producing very high quality soft or hard cover textbooks to meet the unique needs of post-secondary teachers. Jim and Brad's first client was one of their former teachers. Shaleen Patel taught entrepreneurship at their college and she was world renowned for her own entrepreneurial successes and innovative teaching methods. When she decided to author her own book, she naturally turned to Jim and Brad. Shaleen generously offered to introduce Jim and Brad to her many connections in the academic community.

 

This allowed the pair to conduct some invaluable sector research and obtain some new clients. Jim and Brad's research led them to the discovery that many Professors have tremendous subject matter expertise but considered themselves to be novice authors. As a result, Professors set out in search of good freelancers for content editing, copyright management, cover design, publishing and promotion. Unfortunately, determining which freelancers to work with is rarely easy because few offer all the services required. This discovery validated Jim and Brad's decision to launch their own publishing business. As a full-service provider, Global Green does not aim to compete on price. Instead, they charge a premium for the management of the end to end publication process. Organizationally, Jim is accountable for sales and marketing and Brad is accountable for editing, assembly and publishing. Each of the company's clients creates their own course material from scratch and this means each order is unique. These unique orders are treated as individual projects. Like many sectors, the publishing business is in a constant state of change. Global Green became aware of the growing interest in eBooks. This was due in part to their greater portability, accessibility and environmental benefits. When the global pandemic hit in March of 2020, many Professors around the world began to realize they could no longer rely on their college bookstores to meet the needs of their international students. Shipping textbooks all over the world was costly, time consuming and in some countries, prohibited.

 

Jim and Brad recognized the new business opportunity and decided to launch a new product - the eBook. They knew the business risks were significant - more and more publishing companies began to catch wind of the new business opportunity and some publishing houses were already offering eBooks because they were capitalizing on the pre-pandemic trend of open source materials, fondly referred to as the "OER' (open education resource) in academic circles. OERs were part of a trend to make education more accessible by eliminating the cost of textbooks. Academic institutions venturing into the OER space invested in open educational products because they believe it would increase student enrollment, improve their reputation and motivate their faculty to find new ways to improve student engagement. Jim and Brad had a lot to learn about eBooks and they wisely recognized that the launch of a new service is a project. They decided to interview Samantha Proulex as the Project Manager for the launch of the new eBook offering. Samantha was one of several part-time Desktop Publishers hired by Global Green to help the organization get through their busy periods. Samantha was in her final semester of the Honours Bachelor of Commerce - Business Management (BBM) Program at Seneca. Jim and Brad often reached out to students from their alma mater when looking for reliable and experienced students to join their organization in a part-time capacity. Their time at Seneca was some of the most enjoyable years of their life and staying in touch with this organization kept them connected to their memories of fun and tremendous personal growth. Samantha had taken a project management course at Seneca and she was open to potentially pursuing a career in the profession after graduation. Samantha had not found a full-time job yet and since she knew Global Green well, she decided to accept the job offer. A full-time job in project management would allow her to determine if the profession was really for her in the long run. If it wasn't, she knew the knowledge and skills she would obtain in leading teams and supporting organizational transformation would be widely transferable. Samantha would begin her new full-time role as soon as she graduated in May of 2020. 75% of her salary would be guaranteed and the other 25% would be determined by her performance over the next 12 months. In her new position, she would report to the head of Marketing, Alan Mathews. Alan is one of Jim's Managers and often very open to change.

 

On Monday July 6, 2020, Global Green signed the first eBook contract with a new college. Since it was the first opportunity for the Desktop Publishers to put Samantha's newly created eBook publishing processes into practice, they discovered some limitations with their existing image editing software. These challenges were easily overcome with an investment in new software. Their first client was very pleased with the eBook they produced. This client helped them spread the word that they now had the ability to offer this service. It wasn't long before they secured their second client. By the end of 2020, they had 10 new orders to deliver in the first quarter of 2021. Jim and Brad realized they didn't have enough staff or space to fulfill these orders. They contemplated making an investment in a remote workforce but decided against it because the Desktop Publishers loved being able to work together during the creative design process. In addition, the large monitors and specialized software would be very costly to replicate in many remote working spaces. So, on one warm fall day in October of 2020, Jim and Brad concluded it was time to move to a larger location.

On Monday, November 2, 2020, Jim and Brad met with Samantha to ask her to lead the office move project. They asked her to put together a team of representatives from all the various departments in Global Green to ensure the right subject matter experts would participate in planning and implementation of this office move project. Samantha was excited about the opportunity to lead another project for the organization. During the meeting, she began to brainstorm the work that would need to be done. She invited Jim and Brad to brainstorm with her. They came up with a good list of deliverables and Samantha turned this into a WBS. During the brainstorming, Jim and Brad let Samantha know that the move would have to be completed by Friday, April 2, 2021. Existing sales volumes had already indicated they outgrew their current space and fulfilling the 10 new orders was going to be a challenge in their existing facility. They felt a sense of urgency to move as quickly as possible in order to allow the company to continue along its growth path.

Within a week, Samantha completed the Project Charter to confirm her understanding of the project's objectives, financial and non-financial benefits, primary constraints, assumptions, stakeholders and key milestones. Jim and Brad signed off on the Project Charter on Tuesday, November 10 and effectively gave Samantha the go ahead to form the cross functional project team. In order to support Samantha in her project leadership role, Jim and Brad issued an all staff communication that formally introduced the need to move to a new facility. The communication went out the afternoon of November 10 and it announced the launch of the office move project and introduced Samantha as the project leader. The communication let all the departments know that Samantha would be asking for 1 representative from each department to join the project team, thereby ensuring the impact of the project on all staff would be considered in the project's decision-making processes. Samantha wanted to capitalize on the momentum created by Jim and Brad's announcement so she quickly reached out to all the department heads to invite them to a project Kick Off meeting on Wednesday November 18. Samantha invited the following people to the Kick Off meeting:

• Alan Mathews (Manager, Marketing)

• Alle Persson (Manager, Sales)

• Flora Berggren (Lead Editor)

• Katelyn Damingo (Manager, Human Resources)

• Abiodun Ojo (Manager, Accounting)

• Riya Damania (Manager, Technology)

• Dev Panchal (Manager, Facilities)

Along with a meeting invitation, Samantha shared the recently approved Project Charter and a rough draft of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). She wanted to give everyone some time to consider how the office move project would affect them and their teams so she scheduled the Kick Off meeting for November 18 in the hope that everyone would have a chance to assess departmental impacts. Samantha began to prepare for the Kick Off meeting. She knew stakeholder management would be very challenging on this project because the timeline was aggressive and moving office locations could have a big impact on the professional and personal lives of Global Green employees. She started to reflect on what she knew about the management team and how they may react to the office move project. She would use this knowledge to conduct a stakeholder assessment and develop a communications plan. Alan, a lifelong bachelor, was generally a "happy go lucky" guy. He was very creative. The social media campaigns he put together with his team were fun and always had a strong call to action. He told Samantha that he believed the company could easily be twice it's current size if the Sales department could clinch the leads his marketing campaigns produced. Alle had 5 kids, all under the age of 12 and she was really shaken by the pandemic. She struggled to keep up with her day to day responsibilities and keep her kids engaged in online learning. Her partner's parents were coming from Tuscany to help out with the kids and keep the household running. Alle was a gifted story teller who had yet to lose a sales deal and invested heavily in the professional development of her team.

 

Flora had written several children's books before she came to Global Green. She deeply appreciated the challenges of the writing process and worked very well with Global Green's clients as a result. Flora came from a very wealthy family and her colleagues often wondered why she worked. Recently, one of her Desktop Publishers asked her this question, in a very sarcastic tone, when the Flora called her out for producing copy full of grammatical errors. Flora and her team were feeling the pressures associated with having to fulfill all the new orders that recently came in. Although she didn't disagree with the need to move to a larger office location, she was not shy about letting everyone know that she believed it couldn't have come at a worse time. Preparing for a move and fulfilling orders was going to be very stressful.

 

Flora told Samantha that she was debating speaking to Jim and Brad directly to let them know the office move project was going to put the work of her team at real risk of failure. Katelyn joined Global Green in the last year. She came from an art gallery and loved working with people who had a real flair for creativity. She joined Global Green because she knew they had grown tremendously in the last few years and suspected their management infrastructure was lacking and holding them back from further growth. Katelyn loved a challenge. She was invigorated by the degree of challenge that lie ahead of her. She hired to 2 HR consultants who had worked with her in the past as she knew having a team of trusted professionals would be key in allowing her to formalize the job descriptions, implement a performance management system and conduct a compensation review as quickly as possible. Abiodun was shy, came from a software start-up that failed miserably. He didn't seem to have recovered from this challenging side step in his career and generally looked upon most people in the company with a distrustful demeanor. Riya loved all things new and was very well versed on the latest technologies. She told Samantha she was excited about the move because she hoped it would lead a big upgrade in the software and hardware used throughout Global Green. She immediately began researching software alternatives well suited to the recent foray into eBooks and frequently sent her wish list ideas to Samantha. Dev loved the current building.

As facility manager, he was both excited about the prospect of a new office building and deeply worried that the aggressive timeline would cause them to settle into something badly out of repair and a real maintenance nightmare for him. In addition, Dev recently moved his family to within a 5-minute walk of the current office location. His daughters were attending the nearby school and his partner was able to work at the local library which she deeply loved. The project Kick Off meeting was somewhat successful. Samantha received some great input on the draft of the WBS. Samantha felt good about having a clear understanding of the work required and everyone's role in it. She would share the updated WBS with Jim and Brad in the next day or two and begin working on the project's schedule and project budget. However, she wasn't sure about what to do about all negativity she heard in the meeting. It seemed everyone had something to gripe about and she was overwhelmed with it all. The negativity began to spill out to the rest of the staff. She was having her lunch in her office one day when a group of Desktop Publishers shared their concerns about the timing of the move. They argued that they were the ones most impacted by the move and therefore they should have more say over the plans than anyone else. Samantha found herself wanting to argue against their demands but was able to demonstrate a lot of self-control and instead choose to simply listen. By the time they left, Samantha's head was spinning. How was she going to manage this? She should tell Brad and Jim about what happened. Before she took any action, she decided to assess the project's stakeholders - who really was in the position of great power and interest? Understanding this would help her determine her next steps, the project's decision-making structure and an effective communications plan. Dev Panchal, Global Green's Facility Manager informed Samantha that he not been involved in the purchase of a new office building before. Samantha was grateful that Dev let her know during the project's Kick Off meeting because it allowed her to realize very early on that they needed the expertise of a real estate professional to help them locate available properties that could meet their needs. Dev had little outsourcing experience as their current facility was maintained by an internal cleaning team and most of the needed repairs were performed by Dev himself as he was a skilled tradesperson in plumbing and electrical. He realized that once they moved to a much larger office, he would have to obtain the services of a professional cleaning company and skilled tradespeople as he would not be able to keep up with the demands associated with a large office space. Dev agreed to take on the team leader role for the facility work package and, with Samantha's support, he agreed to develop a procurement management plan, including vendor selection criteria for the real estate, cleaning, maintenance and repair services they needed to outsource. He felt it was likely they would have to engage other vendors during the project and would give this serious consideration as he put together the procurement management plan. On Thursday, December 3, Dev and Samantha delivered their recommendation for a local commercial real estate professional to Jim and Brad. Natalie Henry had been a commercial real estate professional with CBRE Limited for over 15 years. As a Toronto native, she had a lot of experience watching commercial development like The Well (King West), Commerce Court (Bay Street) and Harbour Front (Queens Quay). On Monday, December 7, Brad and Jim met Natalie and had a chance to hear her proposal for how she could help Global Green achieve its growth goals by locating an affordable, modern facility equipped with all the services they would require. Brad and Jim gave Dev the go ahead to develop a contract with Natalie and CBRE. On Wednesday, December 16, Natalie called Dev to let him know she has a list of outstanding properties to show him. Dev spent the next few days touring the properties with Natalie and felt they would be easily able to narrow the list down to 3 potential locations. Before finalizing the top 3, Dev felt it was important to confirm the requirements for the new facility had not changed.

He decided to set up a meeting with Flora as the Desktop Publishing teams would occupy the majority of the new space. Flora informed Dev that she wasn't available but encouraged him to proceed without her. She suggested he could meet with Narinder Kaur and the 3 Desktop Managers that reported to Narinder. Flora felt this team would be able to provide some valuable insights into the space requirements that were developed about a month ago. Dev spoke with Samantha about the approach and she thought it was a good idea to proceed without Flora as the timeline was aggressive and selecting the future location was critical to achieving the project's move date of April 2, 2021. On Tuesday, December 22, Dev met with Narinder and the 3 Desktop Publishing Managers - Jordan Reed, Carlos Llanos and Jody Rose. The meeting was proceeding well and Dev confirmed the number of desks required for each team based on their latest hiring plans. Dev also reviewed the individual desk sizes and number of open collaboration spaces. Dev decided to bring the design to life by showing the Managers the layout he created using one of the potential office building's blueprints. The meeting turned into a disaster. Jordan's team was located closest to the windows and Carlos and Jody 6 | Page adamantly opposed this s because Jordan and team always had the windows and it was time for change. Dev had lots of great ideas for solving this by rearranging the collaboration space and creating a "Management Pod". Unfortunately, his suggestions were not heard. Dev suspected something else was happening within this management team. He knew everyone was under tremendous pressure to fulfill the new orders that came in the Fall but he didn't expect it to escalate so quickly. The conflict among the Managers had become so heated that no one was really listening to anyone. Dev decided to step out of the room and catch his breath. He called Samantha for some advice. When Dev called Samantha for her advice, she was in the middle of creating an earned value status report for Jim and Brad to let them know how the project was going. The project began on Monday, November 2, 2020 and it was Tuesday, December 22, 2020. She was preparing the report for the week ending Friday December 18, 2020 (7 weeks). She wanted to deliver the status before many of the staff headed out to celebrate the holidays. She decided to set the report aside and take Dev's call. This wasn't the first time she had to work well into the evening and it wasn't going to be the last.