LIVE PROJECT CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Company Name:

Infosys Technologies

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my faculty guide Mrs.P.V.L.Ramana for her kind cooperation and guidance in this live project and for her helping support and valuable suggestions at every stage of this live project. This will surely help in boosting my career in future and will certainly stand in good position in my future academic pursuits. Last but not the least I would like to thanks INC for supporting me to complete my project successfully.

CONTENTS

1. COMPANY PROFILE 2. INTRODUCTION 3. CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 4. STRATEGIES FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 5. THE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS 6. ROLE CONFLICT Impact on organizations commitment 7. APPROACH TO HANDLE EMPLOYEE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 8. DOS AND DONTS

Company Profile

Infosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) was started in 1981 by seven people with US$ 250. Today, Infosys is a global leader in the "next generation" of IT and consulting with revenues of over US$ 4 billion.

Infosys defines, designs and delivers technology-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a Flat World. Infosys also provides a complete range of services by leveraging there domain and business expertise and strategic alliances with leading technology providers.

Infosys' service offerings span business and technology consulting, application services, systems integration, product engineering, custom software development, maintenance, reengineering, independent testing and validation services, IT infrastructure services and business process outsourcing . Infosys pioneered the Global Delivery Model (GDM), which emerged as a disruptive force in the industry leading to the rise of offshore outsourcing. The GDM is based on the principle of taking work to the location where the best talent is available, where it makes the best economic sense, with the least amount of acceptable risk.

Infosys has a global footprint with over 40 offices and development centers in India, China, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, Canada and Japan. Infosys has over 91,000 employees.

Infosys takes pride in building strategic long-term client relationships. Over 97% of there revenues come from existing customers.

History of Infosys

1981: Founded. 1983: Moved its headquarters to Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka 1987: Got its first foreign client, Data Basics Corporation from the United States 1992: Opened its first overseas sales office in Boston. 1993: Became a public limited company in India with an initial public offering of Rs. 13 crores. 1996: First office in Europe in Milton Keynes, UK 1997: Office in Toronto, Canada 1999: Listed on Nasdaq. 1999: Attained a SEI-CMM Level 5 ranking and became the first Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ 2000: Opened offices in France and Hong Kong 2001: Opened offices in United Arab Emirates and Argentina 2002: Opened new offices in Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland. 2002: Business World named Infosys "India's Most Respected Company".[6] 2002: Started Progeon, its BPO (business process outsourcing) subsidiary[7] 2003: Acquired 100% equity of Expert Information Services Pty Limited, Australia (Expert) and changed the name to Infosys Australia Pty Limited. 2004: Set up Infosys Consulting Inc., U.S. consulting subsidiary in California, U.S. 2006: Became the first Indian company to ring the NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell 2006: August 20, N. R. Narayana Murthy retired from his position as the executive chairman[8] 2006: Acquired the 23% stake Citibank had in its BPO offshoot Progeon, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys and changed the name to Infosys BPO Ltd.[9] 2006: December, became the first Indian company to make it to Nasdaq-100[10] 2007: April 13, Nandan Nilekani stepped down as CEO and made way for Kris Gopalakrishnan to occupy his chair effective June 2007 2007: July 25, Infosys bags multi-million dollar outsourcing contract with Royal Philips Electronics in the area Finance & Accounting services strengthening its European operations. 2007: September, Infosys establishes a wholly-owned Latin American subsidiary, Infosys Technologies S. de R. L. de C. V., and opens its first software development center in Latin America in the city of Monterrey, Mexico. 2008: Agreed to buy British consultancy Axon Group Plc for 407 million pounds ($753 million) [11]

Conflict Management
Definition A team is a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.1 Although student teams may not satisfy all the requirements of the definition, the degree to which they do often determines their effectiveness. Rationale "Students do not come to school with all the social skills they need to collaborate effectively with others. Therefore, teachers need to teach the appropriate communication, leadership, trust, decision making, and conflict management skills to students and provide the motivation to use these skills in order for groups to function effectively."2 Faculty must take responsibility to help students develop their skills to participate on and lead teams. Conflict is an inevitable occurrence in projects as in life. The really important question is how we choose to address conflicts as they arise. Historically, perhaps even innately, most people immediately interpret conflict as negatively weighted as bad. Many people also find that they instinctively hesitate to engage in conflict, often searching for a path to avoidance. Over the last 30 years or so, much research has been done around the topic of conflict, and in that time, much of our view has shifted away from conflict as innately negative toward a more neutral view, in which the impact of the conflict becomes the defining factor in any judgment of good or bad. Introduction Students bring different ideas, goals, values, beliefs and needs to their teams and these differences are a primary strength of teams. These same differences inevitably lead to conflict, even if the level of conflict is low. Since conflict is inevitable, one of the ways in which faculty members can help students improve their abilities to function on multidisciplinary teams is to work with them to develop their understanding of conflict and their capabilities to manage and resolve conflict.

What is conflict and conflict management? Why learn more about conflict and conflict management? How do people respond to conflict? What modes do people use to address conflict? What factors can affect our conflict modes? How might you select your conflict management style? How might you apply this information?

What is conflict?

Defintions vary, depending on the source of the definition. Psychologists define conflict in the perspective of intra-mind differences. Sociologists tend to define conflict as differences between the interests of people or groups, and so it goes. When we examine the common elements in almost all of these various definitions, we find that a definition of conflict can be reduced to: Conflict occurs when there are two or more competing responses to a single event. (Cummings, Long, and Lewis 1983) This sort of impact-neutral definition allows us to focus on the context and sources of conflict rather than exclusively on the result or impact of the conflict. Cummings, Long, and Lewis, in their 1983 book, Managing Communication in Organizations, suggest six contexts for conflict. 1. Intrapersonal - the internal, mental struggle to select from among alternatives. 2. Interpersonal - differences between individuals 3. Intragroup - differences between members of a group pursuing a similar corporate goal 4. Intergroup - differences between groups with competing goals 5. Intraorganizational - generalized differences in goals or perceptions of various factions within an organization 6. Interorganizational - differences between organizations (companies or governments) competing for a similar goal or to advance competing ideologies Hans Thaimhain and David Wilemon studied and identified seven potential sources of conflicts in projects, which they went on to correlate with the various phases of the project life cycle (nitiation, planning, execution, and closure). The seven sources of conflict include (in order of intensity):

Schedule conflict Conflict of priorities Resource conflict Technical conflict Conflict over administration Personality conflict Cost conflict

What is conflict management? Conflict may be defined as a struggle or contest between people with opposing needs, ideas, beliefs, values, or goals. Conflict on teams is inevitable; however, the results of conflict are not predetermined. Conflict might escalate and lead to nonproductive results, or conflict can be beneficially resolved and lead to quality final products. Therefore, learning to manage conflict is integral to a high-performance team. Although very few people go looking for conflict, more often than not, conflict results because of miscommunication between people with regard to their needs, ideas, beliefs, goals, or values. Conflict management is the principle that all conflicts cannot necessarily be resolved, but learning how to manage conflicts can decrease the odds of nonproductive escalation. Conflict management involves acquiring skills related to conflict resolution, self-awareness about conflict modes, conflict communication skills, and establishing a structure for management of conflict in your environment.

How do people respond to conflict? Fight or flight?

Physiologically we respond to conflict in one of two wayswe want to get away from the conflict or we are ready to take on anyone who comes our way. Think for a moment about when you are in conflict. Do you want to leave or do you want to fight when a conflict presents itself? Neither physiological response is good or badits personal response. What is important to learn, regardless of our initial physiological response to conflict, is that we should intentionally choose our response to conflict. Whether we feel like we want to fight or flee when a conflict arises, we can deliberately choose a conflict mode. By consciously choosing a conflict mode instead of to conflict, we are more likely to productively contribute to solving the problem at hand.

STRATEGIES FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT As we begin to consider specific strategies for managing conflict, it is appropriate and useful to revisit the decision-making process model. In his book, Effective Project Management, Third Edition, Robert Wysocki describes six phases in decision-making. First is Situation Definition in which the situation is investigated and clarified. Next, there is Situation Decision Generation where the team identifies and accumulates alternatives. The Ideas to Action phase is next, when the team defines and agrees on criteria for evaluating and selecting among the alternatives. Following the Ideas to Action phase is the Decision Action Plan phase in which the team determines how and when to implement the selected alternative. Next, Decision Evaluation Planning phase provides a learning opportunity for the team through the examination of lessons learned relative to the executed decision and its results. Decision Evaluation Planning also involves the development of plans for improvement in the future. Finally, Evaluation of Outcome and Process looks at quality of decision outcomes. This decision process model provides an excellent foundation for any strategy of conflict management. The most common elements in any conflict management strategy are the early recognition of the conflict and keeping attention focused between the conflicted parties. Both of these elements are important for the management of either functional or dysfunctional conflict. Clifford Gray and Gary Larson, in their book, Project Management: The Managerial Process, Second Edition, observe that, The demarcation between functional and dysfunctional conflict is neither clear nor precise. The distinguishing criterion is how the conflict affects project performance, not how individuals feel, as long as the disagreement furthers the objectives of the project. Then the conflict is functional. On this basis then, all approaches to conflict management must seek early identification of the conflict, early evaluation of the impact of the conflict on the project, and specific plans for encouraging functional conflict or managing dysfunctional conflict. Larson and Grays list of five strategies for managing dysfunctional conflict provides a good summary of approaches.

Mediation. Based on a search for common ground, this strategy provides an opportunity for negotiation between the parties in conflict. The goal is to identify multiple possible alternatives and to mutually select one that is acceptable to all involved parties and in the interest of project objectives. This strategy is based on the confrontation approach described earlier. Arbitration. This strategy requires the project manager to provide a safe and productive opportunity for the conflicted parties to air their disagreements. After careful attention and fully listening to each party, the project manager should formulate, define, and provide a solution to the parties. This strategy is based on the forcing approach to conflict described earlier. Arbitration can often be effectively combined with mediation by forcing an initial conflict solution and then allowing the parties to negotiate to a more mutually acceptable alternative.

Control. Based on the smoothing approach described earlier, this strategy seeks to bring tension and emotions down to a level at which productive discussion and negotiation can occur. Humor is often an effective tool, as well as the use of temporary breaks or time-outs in the discussions between conflicted parties. Acceptance. The decision can be made that the conflict consequences are negligible relative to project objectives and, therefore, require no action. This strategy carries significant risk of later escalation and should be combined with specific plans for monitoring the situation to ensure that the conflict remains at an acceptable level. (This strategy is obviously similar to the PMBOK Guide risk management strategy of active acceptance.) Elimination. Finally, the elimination strategy is reserved for those conflicts that have become so dysfunctional that the project can no longer tolerate any impacts from them. Often a last resort, elimination involves the removal of the conflicted parties from involvement with the project. What factors can affect our conflict modes?

Some factors that can impact how we respond to conflict are listed below with explanations of how these factors might affect us. Gender Some of us were socialized to use particular conflict modes because of our gender. For example, some males, because they are male, were taught always stand up to someone, and, if you have to fight, then fight. If one was socialized this way he will be more likely to use assertive conflict modes versus using cooperative modes. Self-concept How we think and feel about ourselves affect how we approach conflict. Do we think our thoughts, feelings, and opinions are worth being heard by the person with whom we are in conflict? Expectations Do we believe the other person or our team wants to resolve the conflict? Situation Where is the conflict occurring, do we know the person we are in conflict with, and is the conflict personal or professional? Position (Power) What is our power status relationship, (that is, equal, more, or less) with the person with whom we are in conflict? Practice Practice involves being able to use all five conflict modes effectively, being able to determine what conflict mode would be most effective to resolve the conflict, and the ability to change modes as necessary while engaged in conflict. Determining the best mode Through knowledge about conflict and through practice we develop a conflict management understanding and can, with ease and limited energy, determine what conflict mode to use with the particular person with whom we are in conflict. Communication skills The essence of conflict resolution and conflict management is the ability to communicate effectively. People who have and use effective communication will resolve their conflicts with greater ease and success. Life experiences As mentioned earlier, we often practice the conflict modes we saw our primary caretaker(s) use unless we have made a conscious choice as adults to change or adapt our conflict styles. Some of us had great role models teach us to manage our conflicts and others of us had less-than-great role models. Our life experiences,

both personal and professional, have taught us to frame conflict as either something positive that can be worked through or something negative to be avoided and ignored at all costs.

THE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESS The process of conflict consists of five stages.

Ways People Deal With Conflict There is no one best way to deal with conflict. It depends on the current situation. Here are the major ways that people use to deal with conflict. 1. Avoid it. Pretend it is not there or ignore it. a. Use it when it simply is not worth the effort to argue. Usually this approach tends to worsen the conflict over time. 2. Accommodate it. Give in to others, sometimes to the extent that you compromise yourself. a. Use this approach very sparingly and infrequently, for example, in situations when you know that you will have another more useful approach in the very near future. Usually this approach tends to worsen the conflict over time, and causes conflicts within yourself. 3. Competing. Work to get your way, rather than clarifying and addressing the issue. Competitors love accommodators. a. Use when you have a very strong conviction about your position. 4. Compromising. Mutual give-and-take. a. Use when the goal is to get past the issue and move on.

5. Collaborating. Focus on working together. a. Use when the goal is to meet as many current needs as possible by using mutual resources. This approach sometimes raises new mutual needs. b. Use when the goal is to cultivate ownership and commitment.

ROLE CONFLICT IMPACT ON ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT Conflict affects employee behaviors, work outcomes, reduce creativeness and innovation and organizational commitment. Intraindividual conflicts are (role conflict, goal conflict and frustration) significantly related to commitment, and that the higher the levels of role conflict, goal conflict and frustration, the lower the levels of commitment. Role conflict (work. family and society) is the most important factor of intra-individual conflict in influencing employees commitment. When the employee feels a mismatch between his/her formal work role, family role and society role, he/she is likely to be depressed, because he/she is not able to meet the needs and expectations of all these parties at the same time. The level of depression will increase as the gap between different parties needs and expectation increases. Therefore, he/she tends to show lower levels of commitment toward the organization, which is one of the parties that causing the conflict. Role conflict is significantly and negatively related to affective commitment, while being significantly and positively related to continuance commitment. Simply, the greater the role conflict reduces employees job satisfaction & organizational commitment. Goal conflict puts pressure on an employee, because he/she has to select between two mutually exclusive alternatives. If the employee often experiences this pressure in his/her work, he is likely to be stressed and anxious; therefore, he/she may show lower commitment levels toward the organization.

That is the higher the goal conflict, the lower the organizational commitment. Frustration has a significant and negative relationship with organizational commitment. When the employee is prevented from achieving a certain objective, or satisfying a certain need, he/she is likely to be depressed, demotivated and unsatisfied. Accordingly, he/she tends to show lower level of organizational commitment, as he/she gets frustrated.

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM IN ORGANISATIONS LEADS TO CONFLICT Communication system between manager and employee can lead to conflict. The manager can counter conflict in supervisor-subordinate relationship, in peer or intergroup relationship, and in relationship with senior management. The way in which theses people related through communication system can lead to conflict. There are: a) Vertical conflict occurs between hierarchical levels, and commonly involves supervisorssubordinate disagreements over resources, goals, deadlines or performance results. b) Horizontal conflict occurs between people or groups at the same hierarchical level, and commonly involves goal incompatibilities, resource scarcities or purely interpersonal factors. c) Line staff conflict occurs between line and staff representatives, and commonly involves disagreements over who has authority and control over certain matters, such as personnel selection and termination practices. The more is clear the communication system the less conflict exists which leads to higher the organizational commitment. Less communication between employees and managers can

lead to three factors of intraindividual conflicts. This will lead to low performance, job dissatisfaction and reduce organizational commitment.

APPRACH TO HANDLE EMPLOYEE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT Managers should: *Listen carefully to employees to prevent misunderstanding. *Monitor employees work to assist them to understand and coordinate their actions.

*Encourage employees to approach you when they cannot solve difficulties with coworkers on their own. *Clear the air with regular meetings that give employees a chance to discuss their grievances. *Provide a suggestion box, check it frequently, and personally reply to all singed suggestions. Offer as mach information as possible about decisions to minimize confusion and resentment. *Use employee surveys to identify potential conflicts that have not yet surfaced.

Some do's and don'ts

If youre faced with a situation in which an employee seems implacably opposed to everything youre trying to accomplish, you might be asking, "What can I do?" Here are some suggestions. Of course, each situation is different, so you have to devise a strategy on a case-by-case basis. Don't ignore the situation for too long While its sometimes wise to let a person blow off steam and sulk for a couple of days, dont let things get out of hand. Once youve decided an employee is not just temporarily upset about a decision that didnt go his or her way, you need to act.

Do confront the employee, politely Being direct can be very effective. You might start the conversation along these lines: Judging from your behavior the past couple of weeks, youre really angry at me. Tell me about it. Then shut up and listen. You have to maintain your poiseresist the urge to get in a tit-for-tat debate on the persons grievances. Don't overcompensate Overcompensation can take two forms. First, you could spend all your time apologizing for things that werent your fault, acting unnaturally chummy and trying to bribe the employee by agreeing to his or her wishes, whether or not they make business sense. The second type of overcompensating comes in when you decide to return hostility with hostility and exclude the employee from project discussions or the best assignments. Do ask the employee about his or her reaction A long time ago, I was promoted to a job that four of my new direct reports had also interviewed for. Three of them wished me luck and worked hard to make me (and the team) successful. One guy, however, just couldnt get past being passed over. When I Asked him about it, he said, Its nothing personal, but Im never going to stop thinking that I should have had your job. In reply, I said, Well, Im not going anywhere, so what are you going to do? He ended up transferring to another group and getting on with his career. Remember that, at some level, this is the employees problem. Dont let that person off the hook. After all, no one has the right to demand that they only work for people they like. Don't forget to look at your role in this Up to this point, weve been assuming that the employee has some groundless reason for not liking you: You didnt approve a funding request, or you turned down a pet project. However, what if youre the one whos been acting like a jerk, and the employee is just responding to your behavior? In that case, the employee could be doing you a favor by warning you of the consequences of continuing to act in such a fashion. Do manage your own expectations Try not to have any illusions about this kind of situation. In most cases, the best you can hope for is that the person will return to behaving professionally. It probably wont mean that youll end up entertaining at each others houses.