Business Relationship Management: Analyzing Conflict in A&Z Limited

This report analyzes a hypothetical team conflict within A&Z Limited, a company formed from the merger of ABC Limited and XYZ Limited. The conflict arises between Jennifer, a 28-year-old supervisor from ABC Limited, and Mr. Smith, a 50-year-old supervisor from XYZ Limited, regarding the necessity of Monday morning meetings. Jennifer views them as a waste of time, preferring quick discussions, while Mr. Smith considers them essential for sharing data and setting weekly objectives. The report identifies the root causes of the conflict as cross-generational differences, differing organizational cultures, and communication gaps. It assesses the conflict's impact on team relationships, attitudes, and overall performance, noting the varied responses from team members based on their previous company affiliations. The report highlights the need for effective conflict resolution strategies to improve team productivity and cohesion. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and past papers to aid students in their studies.

Running head: BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Business Relationship Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The presence of many teams can be seen within the business organizations for
the completion of the business objectives and goals. At the time to manage the teams,
the team managers are needed to take into consideration different aspects or factors;
and Team Conflict is one of them (Katz and Flynn 2013). Team conflict can be
considered as an organizational conflict or state of disorder caused by the differences in
needs, values and interests of team members working together. The presence of team
conflict affects the performance as well as productivity of the teams. For this reason, the
need for the team managers is to develop strategies that can eradicate these team
conflict for increasing the team’s performance and productivity (Lyons and Kuron 2014).
The main aim of the report is to analyze as well as evaluate different aspects of a
hypothetical team conflict between cross-generational members as a result of the
merger of two companies.
Hypothetical Situation
As per the above discussion, this section of the report involves in developing a
hypothetical situation of conflict in a hypothetical company named A&Z Limited,
emerged from the merger of ABC Limited and XYZ Limited. In the newly formed
company, a team has been developed with the employees of both the companies where
the presence of cross-generational members can be seen in team. Jennifer (28 years
old) and Mr. Smith (50 years old) are the two supervisors of the team; and they are from
ABC Limited and XYZ Limited respectively. After the formation of team, the team
manager notices a development of conflict within the team. The conflict is around the
Monday morning meeting. According to Jennifer, the Monday morning meeting is a
waste of time (Hendricks and Cope 2013). The value of freedom to work is more to her
and she prefers quick discussions with her team members as she does not want to be
involved in big discussions. On the other hand, Mr. Smith prefers the Monday mornings
meetings. According to him, a meeting at the beginning of the week is important for the
team members to share data and to set the targets and objectives for the whole week.
Mr. Smith does not see how Jennifer can get the required information in a meeting of

2BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
minutes. In addition, he is not sure about the fact that whether Jennifer is serious about
the works of the ongoing project or not. In this situation, both the parties are determined
in their situations that lead to the creation of conflict within the team. As the team is in
the forming stage, it is needed for the team manager to provide serious attention
towards this conflict and develops strategies for the resolution of the same ( Hendricks
and Cope 2013).
Assessment of the Type of Conflict
In order to resolve this team conflict, it is needed for the team manager to assess
the whole situation related to the conflict. It can be seen from the provided hypothetical
situation that some of the major reasons for this conflict are the presence of cross-
generational members in the team, difference in organizational culture in the
companies, different ways of working and communication gap (Hendricks and Cope
2013). The team manager has to understand the fact that both Jennifer and Mr. Smith
have different working style. According to Jennifer, there are many ways to complete
the tasks of the project; and she prefers informal meetings between team members,
texts, impromptu discussions within the organization related to the project and others.
For this reason, Jennifer may feel forced in these kinds of meetings. The opposite
aspect can be seen in case of Mr. Smith. In XYZ Limited, Mr. Smith was habituated to
work in a more formal business environment in order to keep all the lines of the
communication open. According to him, there needs to be a specific agenda that will
govern the work of the team members; and it is needed for all the employees to bring all
the issues at the meeting for discussion. All the works need to be done in the office
(Roebuck, Smith and El Haddaoui 2013).
Thus, it can be seen from the above discussion that there is a major conflict in
the organization among the two team supervisors around the occurrence of the Monday
morning meeting. More specifically, it can be assessed that the presence of multi-
generational employees within the organization is the major reason for this types of
conflict. At the same time, difference in organizational culture is another major reason

3BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
for the conflict among the team members. This is the type of conflict occurring between
team members (Becton, Walker and Jones‐Farmer 2014).
Conflict Roles and Individual Responses
In this context, it needs to be mentioned that the team members of the company
has different relations and attitudes related to the conflict. It can be observed from the
above discussion that the two team members have different opinions about the
occurrence of Monday morning meeting (Rudolph and Zacher 2015). This particular
aspect has created a bitter relationship among the team members due to the absence
of mutual agreement on a particular matter. It can also be seen that due to the presence
of conflict, the team members have negative attitude towards the accomplishment of the
team objectives and goals. Most importantly, these negative attitudes and relationships
between the team members of the company affect the performance as well as
productivity of the team (Teclaw et al. 2014).
Apart from this, it also needs to be mentioned that the different team members of
the company have different response towards this conflict over the Monday morning
meeting. At the time of conflict, it can be observed that different members of the team
have different response towards the conflict. The team members who are from ABC
Limited are supporting Jennifer as they are habituated to work in more informal working
environment. On the other hand, the response of the employees from XYZ Limited is to
organize the Monday morning meetings (Murray 2013).

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References
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workplace behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(3), pp.175-189.
Hendricks, J.M. and Cope, V.C., 2013. Generational diversity: what nurse managers
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Katz, N.H. and Flynn, L.T., 2013. Understanding conflict management systems and
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410.
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