Case Study II – Jo Soap Helena is deputy head of department and is in charge of
ID: 468507 • Letter: C
Question
Case Study II – Jo Soap Helena is deputy head of department and is in charge of the office when the boss is away. Her usual duties involve preparing departmental budgets and reports for the company’s directors and handling complaints and other difficult problems both by letter and over the telephone. She is tactful, efficient and cooperative. Jo Soap is in charge of the secretaries and manages a group of five female employees. She has to ensure that clerical work is progressed when it is passed on by the department head, Helena or any of the administrative assistants in the department. Unfortunately, Jo tends to have an authoritarian attitude which is resented both by the women who work under her direction and other people in the department. She has demonstrated her rigidity to Helena on many occasions in the past, insinuating that Helena has not been reasonable in expecting work to be done by a particular time because reasonable advanced notice has not been given. There is little truth in these allegations, though on occasion expectations might have been regarded as ambitious by some people. A short while ago an official complaint was lodged with the head of department by the secretaries about Jo Soap’s approach to managing their work. The women even cited Jo’s inappropriate behaviour towards Helena as evidence to support their complaint. The head of department had approached Helena concerning the matter, but the latter thought she was well equipped to handle her personal difficulties herself – a response which seemed to please the boss, who did not really want to get involved in hassles of this type. In the last few weeks, Jo’s attitude towards Helena has become more hostile. Finally, just before Easter, when the head of department was away for a few days, Jo told the secretaries that they need not come in the two days before the start of the holidays. She also said that she would not be in, either. This was something that had not been the custom and practice in the past, and secretarial support was always available up until the start of the holiday period. Helena did not know about the planned additional holidays until the day before the women were about to take the time off. Furthermore, Jo had been taken ill and was not available for consultation. The result was that there were pressing jobs that required doing and no one to do them. However, following a persuasive talk with Helena, a couple of the women agreed to make themselves available to cover any necessary work that was required to be done. After the break, Jo complained bitterly to Helena about interfering in her work. She was extremely rude to Helena, despite Helena’s explanation that at the time Jo had been ill and she had therefore to intervene herself as there were urgent jobs to be done. Helena recognizes that Jo is very efficient in her job but is rightly concerned that matters could get out of hand, and she dreads having to interact with Jo at all. Something will have to be done about the problem, but she is unsure what action to take.
Question: How would you advise Helena? Use synectics to gain some insights into the problem.
with reference plz
Explanation / Answer
Conflict is a normal part of the workplace environment, however, what matters is how it is resolved and if the disputes are facilitated with effective communication.
William J.J. Gordon designed an effective method of problem-solving methodology called Synectics which makes use of brainstorming, analogies, metaphors for stimulation of thought processes that the subject does not even know exists internally. This helps to create solutions rather than only defining the problem (George M. Prince, 1951)
The group will give certain impossible solutions; however these can be converted to practical ideas.
The method of Hicks (1991) can also be used which is called fantasy excursion. In this case, the group including Helena will be asked about word association and create a story inspired from the last item part of the word association exercise. Every group member after saying their story will be asked to repeat solutions to the problem in the story and write in on the flip chart. This will provide sensible solutions which will appeal to the group.