Conundrums co-workers face
Sunday, November 26, 2006
By JAN H. KENNEDY Repository STAFF WRITER

CANTON There are those who bring their lunches to work and leave the leftovers in the office refrigerator until they grow their own cheese. The guy who laughs at everything in a roaring voice that irritates those in the farthest cubicles. Those who repeat office and personal rumors to anyone who will listen.

Then there are the touchers, the off-color joke tellers, those who wont take no.

Every office likely has a version of the people who cause office conflicts, and every manager spends time trying to ease those conflicts. The question is: How much?

Accountemps hired International Communications Research last summer to try to figure that out. It asked accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals in the top 1,000 American companies: What percentage of management time is wasted resolving staff personality conflicts?

The average among the 150 senior executives who responded was 18 percent nearly 1.5 hours a day, or almost a full day per week.

The percentage has its skeptics among local business professors, but they agree it is a growing problem. The report says the number was only 13 percent in 1991 and 9 percent in 1986.

Colleges may not prepare management students well enough to deal with personality conflicts, said Cathy DuBois, associate professor of management at Kent State University in Kent. She said the survey results didnt surprise her, only the percentage.

A big problem we have is managers dont have good communication skills. Workers dont have good communication skills, she said. And students we have now have less capacity to write and are more rude.

DuBois says the change is a cultural phenomenon, as witnessed on popular TV shows about people being rude to each other.

Kent has a course on conflict in the workplace, but it is in the Applied Conflict Management Center, not the business college. It was an outgrowth on the May 4, 1970, campus shooting by Ohio National Guard members that killed four students.

It goes way beyond business, but also covers the workplace, and is available as an elective for all students, DuBois said.

The workplace also has a greater need for in-house training, she said, but companies often give training only after a problem surfaces.

MANAGER SKILLS PLAY KEY ROLE

The skills of the manager go a long way in keeping a happy workplace, she said.

If the manager isnt very direct in his instructions, or if he treats employees differently, then youre going to have a lot of problems.

All business courses have an element of dealing with varied personalities, but they probably dont have the depth required today, she said.

John Harris II, director of the graduate program in business at Malone College, said about 5 percent to 8 percent of his consultations with companies are for personality conflicts.

Malone has components on conflict management in several courses in its undergraduate and masters in business curricula, he said, including a negotiation course that includes conflict management, and courses in organizational behavior and management principles. But no specific course is devoted to it.

Harris wondered if surveys would show conflicts are the same in small companies as in large. He speculated they arent because in smaller companies, people have to work closer together and its more likely they can have harmony.

But some conflicts are inevitable, he said. Some say conflict is constructive, because it gets people excited, gets them to thinking creatively.

MANAGER SETS THE TONE

Sandy Kocher is in Malones masters program. She is office accounting manager for Ohio Gratings, responsible for six employees.

There were arguments going on between employees when I came in, she said. It ceased. I think the manager sets the tone.

When people dont get along, it may be because they dont know each other, she added. If you team them up, they begin to learn the others abilities.

Jerry Hall is a professor at Malone and supervisor of about 200 people as vice president of Kimble Mixer Co. in New Philadelphia. He believes that 5 percent of a managers time goes toward resolving conflicts.

We touch on it in about every (business) class, he said. Its mixed in the classes. A mentoring process is the key. If you have a good manager, you learn a lot.

Gina Caskey, another MBA student at Malone, said a key part of her coursework is understanding differences in personalities, ways of thinking and styles of leadership.

Reach Repository writer Jan H. Kennedy at (330) 580-8325 or e-mail: jan.kennedy@cantonrep.com

big and small office behaviors THAT CAUSE CONFLICT

-- The person who finds everything funny and laughs so large it carries to the farthest cubicle;

-- The person who, whether or not on official business, cant be found and rarely shows up for meetings;

-- The person who brings their microwave popcorn or preheated dinner to the work desk, spreading the aroma throughout the office;

-- The person who always is scaring new, and old, employees about how bad the company treats employees and that the boss is an ogre;

-- The person who wont clean up after himself, especially around the office microwave or refrigerator;

-- The person who can never hear or repeat enough gossip about other employees;

-- The person who showers in perfume or cologne before work, or the person who neither showers nor uses deodorants;

Compiled from the International Communications Research report to Accountemps

THE GOOD MANAGER IS ...

-- A person who understands that employees are not a means to an end, but are to be treated as an end in themselves;

-- A person with personal integrity, because employees need someone they can respect;

-- A person with flexible motivational styles, who realizes each employee is a different personality who will have different triggers to motivate them;

-- A person with good skills and knowledge of what is needed to reach the companys goals.

Source: Bert Smith, dean of the School of Business, Malone College