In his article titled “Dysfunctional and Functional Conflicts in Buyer-Seller Relationships” author Lionel Bobot talks about problematic employees in organizations and the concept of dysfunctional conflict. The premise in the article addresses the issue of the ‘problematic employee.’ The article conducts an in-depth analysis to determine who in an organization is a problematic employee and who is not and the exact reasons that would make an employee to be termed as being problematic (Bobot, 2014). Specifically, this article talks about the issue of inadequate performance by an employee as well as conflict in the workplace. It discusses the intertwined web of interactions and challenges that may be at the center of conflicts to the extent that it makes it hard for non-dedicated managers to resolve the problems. All through the article, the author talks about dysfunctional conflicts and discusses six significant causes of un-productivity in employees, gives real case examples of dysfunctional conflicts in organizations, and the potential resolutions to handling the issue of low productivity in employees.

In explaining the issue of problematic employees and dysfunctional conflicts in organizations, Bobot emphasizes that communication among people working in an organization and the management is essential in understanding these conflicts. He notes that the lack of proper communication channels contributes to even greater decreased productivity as this will result in numerous blames among team members. According to the author, for management to resolve low productivity caused by conflicting teams, they should put in place factors such as proper understanding of duties by all employees, understanding employee individual attitudes, employee competency levels, support systems for the existing organization, appropriate performance measurement mechanisms, and proper understanding of organizational goals by workers (Bobot, 2014).

The article emphasizes that proper evaluation of the mentioned factors is critical because they are useful in determining the root causes of the real challenges and identify means to resolve them. The author adds that when there is a constant blame game among team members without having effective communication strategies to help understand the root problems, then dysfunctional conflicts will continue to harm the organization.

The last section of the article outlines some methods as well as communication strategies that management can incorporate to identify the root causes that lead to poor job performance. By applying these mechanisms, Bobot asserts that management can effectively get rid of the low productivity caused by conflicting teams within the workplace. The article argues that effective communication is a process. The strategies put forward by the author are identifying the areas of work that are performing poorly, and the ones did well. Secondly, management needs to identify employee competencies that match their skills, conduct evaluation for the work environment, conduct managerial assessments, and implement the plan to deal with the dysfunctional conflicts.

The article finally gives various cases where management was facing challenges of low productivity and how they used effective communication skills to resolve the issue of dysfunctional employee conflicts which impacted negatively on the organizations. The article states that it is not proper for management to assume that employees will always work cohesively for the good of the organization and that sometimes conflicts are arising from management which should be resolved for the success of the organization.

In conclusion, author Frances Kennedy (2013) in his article “Managing a team-based organization: A proposed strategic model” says that the function of management is not to assign tasks to be completed and wait for the results. Kennedy contends that management is a big part of the organization and as such, the communication role of management is significant for creating cohesive groups which do not create dysfunctional conflicts.

References

Bobot, L. (2014). Dysfunctional and Functional Conflicts in Buyer-Seller Relationships. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1611892

Kennedy, F. (2013). Managing a team-based organization: A proposed strategic model. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams (pp. 91-111). Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams, 91-111. doi:10.1016/s1572-0977(02)09007-6

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