Interpersonal Conflicts that aren’t as Personal
It is no longer news that globalization has prevailed. In view of this, the outsourcing of work across geographical regions has become a norm over the past decade. It is thus commonplace for multi-national corporations to have teams comprising of members across different time zones and cultures, leveraging on electronic-mail (email) as the standard means of communication among members of these teams.
The email above was adapted (with details censored) from an email exchange within a software company between the lead user interface designer in the company’s California office and the lead software engineer in its India office. These individuals are two of the most important people in each product release, and they have to work together to ensure the quality of the product both in terms of its functionality and design.
As is exemplified in the email exchange, interpersonal conflict of varying degrees is common and unavoidable whenever two individuals work together. However, for these two managers, who are talented in their respective fields and well liked among their peers, interaction seems to end up each pointing fingers at the other. Compared with other more serious incidents, this email exchange is a relatively mild example. In addition to obvious lack of cross-cultural understanding with regard to working habits and cultural traditions, the inability to contact each other with short notices has also increased the level of anxiety and mistrust. Communication through email, without personal face-to-face interaction, is also a possible cause for conflict. All this has resulted in both parties often feeling frustrated working together, which in turn has brought about the reduction of efficiency in the company. The Vice-President of Product Development, who oversees both teams, also has to deal with the additional workload of managing the interaction and conflict between the two.
Given the knowledge of the various methods of resolutions for interpersonal conflict, how can we adapt these methods for a similar cross-cultural communication situation using email, a medium that limits the dimension of interaction, as the main mode of communication? In addition, what can we do if in the near future if we encounter a similar situation involving two conflicting parties?
First off, your account of the conflict is very relevant and factual. Clearly, the India Team Leader either ignored or neglected to read the part in the first email that the entire California Team would be at a ski resort during the weekend. The misunderstanding could also have arised due to the different time zones, i.e. California’s Friday was India’s Saturday (I am not too clear about this).
All employees should be allowed to celebrate their own holidays. Thus, when working in a multi-cultural and multi-national office, everyone should be clear when are the public holidays in various countries. This is not that difficult to accomplish, with business planners that have lists of public holidays of different countries (I believe I have one of this). In a reverse situation, certainly the India Team Leader would not expect his Californian counterpart to work during Christmas.
My solution for the VP of Product Development is to schedule a regular meeting every week, fortnight or month depending on the urgency of completion of the project. This online or phone conference should cater to everyone’s time zone and working hours. Failing that, there should at least be a regular email update report. So both sides will have a chance to present their work from time to time.
I think how both parties worded their emails was confrontational. The Californian could have avoided writing “mature and responsible” since it smacks of condescension. The India Team Leader should also not have accused the California Team Leader’s office of negligence. All in all, I believe the India Team Leader made a fundamental error in not reading the initial email carefully, perhaps he/she was too blinded by anger at the accusation of professional negligence in the 2nd email.
We can avoid facing the same problem by reading and checking all our correspondence carefully. Always avoid using words that can be misintrepretated. This would be a tall order as working life would probably be fast-paced and stressful.
Hi HT,
the workplace always generates many conflicts which are inevitable as long as there are humans. One suggestion to lessen any possible conflicts between multi-national companies is to inform the other party in advance what special days they will be unavailable. It is extremely vital when the deadline is close.
In addtion, companies should asign a person from each side to receive emergency notices. It is to prevent any last minutes crop-up from failing to reach the other party.
More importantly. it is to understand the customs and culture of each other countries. In a way, lots of misunderstandings can be prevented.
Hope it helps!
This is a most interesting approach to the assignment, Hong Ting. (In fact, it would have been very well situated as Blog Post #3 as well. See the assignment scope.) I appreciate the clarity and conciseness of your description and the insights that you offer.
I’ll refrain from offering content commentary since that’s the task for your blogging buddies, but I will say this is a very fine effort, which has already generated good feedback.
Thank you!
Hey Hong Ting,
It is interesting to note that email cuts off much of the interpersonal interactions, leaving only the words. We know why emot-icons (emotions like ” :], :’( ” ) were invented, in an attempt to circumvent this great loss of non-verbal communication. Yet this advancement in technology is so efficient and successful that it has become rather unavoidable, thus one has to take caution in properly expressing his thoughts and feelings across through words alone.
A suggestion would be to have a person who is accustomed to the work environment and style of a particular region go to another region, and vice versa. Much like an exchange programme, the representatives would present their own native culture and perhaps work for a short stint so that their colleagues can have a better understanding of their work styles. This is done so that both regions are better able to understand each other through their representatives, face to face. However this is may not practical or economical, but I feel it would be the most effective.
I do support Gillian’s suggestion of having a person on standby, however it does not solve the issues about being too confrontational in their language, as stated relatively succinctly by Annie. Perhaps we could follow in Google’s footsteps and require employees to solve mathematical problems before they can send emails. It is a cunning strategy to ensure that employees are clear headed and awake enough, as well as to make them a little more rational, rather than emotional. (Emotions tend to lead to confrontational language, it seems).
HI Hong Ting,
I feel that the workplace is one of the most common places where interpersonal conflicts will arise. I read the response and reply between the two team leaders and I wonder if it is just me or they don’t really sound very nice to each other?
In my opinion, I feel that conflicts can arise due to many reasons. In this case, it was probably the tone of both parties that makes matters more worse. It could have just been a matter of miscommunication that could have been resolved if either one of the parties is more forgiving. The tone of both parties was not very pleasant and you could sense their anger and displeasure with each other in their email replies.
Perhaps a better approach would be to have an assistant so that even if the message is unable to reach the main person, it will still be able to reach the assistant. Another solution may be to talk things out calmly and try not to show the anger or any bad feelings that you might have on the other party as that will help to ease the atmosphere a little. After all, they are considered working partners and they should try to control their feelings and get things clarified before putting the blame on anyone. This way, a better and more lasting working relationship can be formed.