In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:
You have been hired as consultant to provide support during a major company merger. Following the resignation of its CEO, JM&P Health Communications will merge with Results Health Communications. Prior to the merger, JM&P Health Communications was rife with communication and management issues that led to a poor organizational climate.
Results Health Communications is excited to welcome JM&P Health Communications employees; however, they recognize that working in such a difficult environment may have impacted the JM&P Health Communications employees significantly. Situations like those at JM&P Health Communications are often a catalyst for distrust and uncertainty.
JM&P Health Communications is a healthcare telecommunications company that offers the following services:
JM&P Health Communications strives to support its clients and customers by providing compassionate, accurate, and timely support to the clients it serves.
It was known widely that the CEO, Victor Armstrong, avoided conflicts whenever possible. He avoided both internal company conflict and, as the reality that the company was struggling economically came about, he seemingly avoided that as well. Victor was also notorious for having a short temper. As such, all employees were reluctant to come forth with information that Victor would not be happy with for fear of inciting his wrath. In fact, Victor had explicitly stated that he only wanted to hear good news.
The two other high-ranking company executives, CFO Donald Putnam and CIO Jason Venim, were part of Victor’s close-knit inner circle (and they were virtually the only people Victor discussed anything with). Previously, they worked with him at another telecommunications company. It was common that, when a new idea was brought to the table, it would be dismissed because that was not how it had always been done at their previous company. New ideas were generally discouraged, and employees were encouraged to “keep their heads down and do their work.”
Initially, Victor managed to increase the company’s profits from $1 million to $9 million over a period of 10 years through various acquisitions. Their economic success would soon plummet. As JM&P grew, technology increased rapidly. Customer service and technology issues became more complex, as did the need for better technology in order for employees to be efficient in their day-to-day work.
Victor turned the other way when these issues were presented to him. It was well known that, in fact, Victor openly refused to use email to communicate with his employees. For onsite employees, this meant weekly meetings that were becoming increasingly frustrating. Both more tech-savvy and newer employees especially expressed frustration with the basic updates and “too little, too late” tidbits of information that would be much better communicated via email.
Despite its reluctance to embrace technology, JM&P did have a significant number of employees who worked virtually and who lived all over the world. The virtual team members helped ensure that the company could have round-the-clock coverage. Virtual employees reported receiving very little communication from leadership and feeling disconnected from the company. When there were issues such as customer complaints, employees felt that they were treated unfairly by management. Employees were typically written up immediately without an opportunity to share their side of the story, and often little communication was provided about how they could improve or what the issue was.
Jason, the CIO, turned the blame on employees when they voiced a need for better technology resources. He told them, “People have made do with this for the past 10 years. Make it work.” He knew that requesting expensive technology upgrades would make Victor angry.
Victor saw the company revenue decreasing and blamed the employees for being lazy. Donald Putnam encouraged Victor to put the blame on the employees (better them than himself). Though he was part of Victor’s inner circle, he still was not eager to bring him bad news. Instead of creating a long-term financial plan that would work, Victor and Donald enforced sales goals, and if employees did not meet these goals after a specified amount of time, they were fired.
Victor encouraged employees to be dishonest with customers to make sales, and was known for saying things like, “Shareholders are the only people we care about. We need to keep them happy.” He continued to put pressure on employees, and made public examples of those who failed to meet goals. Clients began filing lawsuits, alleging that they had been pressured into making purchases they did not actually need, and claiming that representatives outright lied to them to make a sale. Despite his efforts, stock prices declined, and Victor resigned under pressure from the board of directors.
Results Health Communications is new to the healthcare communications field, but it expanded quickly and continue to grow. When an opportunity for a merger with JM&P came up, the company took it, knowing that it would take some work to get JM&P back on its feet. Results Health Communications strongly believes in and lives by its mission and passion to change people’s lives through offering the right solutions at the right times. The company encourages employees to treat every customer they interact with like they would a friend or family member. Employees describe their work environment as positive, fun, and encouraging. Many employees report that they consider their coworkers friends, and they enjoy coming to work.
Results Health Communications is excited to support its new colleagues through this transition, and it is hopeful that its new colleagues will be much happier with their new home. Often, when a company has been dealing with poor management and inadequate conflict resolution approaches, it can be difficult to adapt to a new culture. Employees might have a difficult time trusting and opening up to new management if they have been accustomed to a culture that discouraged transparent communication.
You have been hired as an outside consultant to provide an action plan and to avoid resistance that may be caused from using a representative from either company. It is important to outline specific steps that should be taken so that management can support employees and ensure an effective transition. For virtual and international employees, consider approaches for communicating information without having the ability to communicate face-to-face as well. These employees are hopeful that, with the merger in place, they will feel more included in company initiatives and will feel empowered to voice potential issues and concerns.
Every project has a deliverable or deliverables, which are the files that must be submitted before your project can be assessed. For this project, you must submit the following:
Conflict Management Action Plan
Create a conflict management action plan to support a successful merger between two telecommunications organizations. The end goal of the action plan should be to provide a conflict resolution that outlines a plan to negotiate and manage conflict in a constructive way and provides recommendations that move the organization forward. Your action plan should be 4 to 5 pages in length.
The following resource(s) may help support your work on the project:
Citation Help
Need help citing your sources? Use the CfA Citation Guide and Citation Maker.
Conflict Management Action Plan Template
Use of the action plan template is optional.