“FRONTOFFICE” COLLABORATION
3. CONFLICT RESOLUTION: WORKING WITH OTHERS
The Boy Scout rule is that the campgrounds are always left in the same or better condition than they are found. This is a positive example to follow!
Likewise, generations of Maine woodsmen, upon arriving at a shelter station, chop wood as fuel for heating for the next arrival. As applied to our profession, when a manager vacates his role in purchasing, will the profession have been somewhat enriched by his or her contribution?
As purchasing is a conflict-producing job, there is a need for statesmanship—both with supplier’s representatives and fellow employees.
Take the example of a salesperson that has worked hard to get his products specified by an engineer. Sooner or later, most PMs one day will get a phone call along the lines of, “I just asked your buyer about the status of the expected go ahead, and he told me he gave the order to my competitor who quoted a lower price. I’ve put a lot of time and effort and cost into this job.
Your company owes me. You’ve treated us poorly. You’ve got to make good on this.” Does this salesman have a legitimate beef? What is your best course of action, if any?
One of the secrets of dealing with difficult people is to be able to keep your emotions under control. Dealing with issues and not personalities is
sound advice, and it helps to recognize the basic style of those with whom we work. Understanding the type of personality can help buyers and managers to make some assumptions that are likely to be correct when you don’t know the individual you’re dealing with well.
Always go to visit the highly dominant person. Confront him or her directly. It is sound advice not to attack a person’s basic values, but to follow this advice you first need to understand those values.
Conflict management varies with the different types of personalities we may encounter. Some of these might be characterized as follows:
Passive: They may offer a weak handshake, deadpan face, and blank stare. They avoid any controversy and never let you know where you stand.
Dictatorial: They are bullies who intimidate and are blunt, constantly demanding their way. They can be brutally frank and critical.
Yes-people: These are the opposite of the bully. They agree with any proposition or commitment, but rarely perform. Always sorry for this, and pleasant, but you can’t always rely on them.
No-People: They take an opposite position as a reflex action. Inflexible, resistant to change, they’re quick to prove why something can’t possibly work.
Complainers: Negative and nit picking, they turn others off. They almost never do anything about things they love to complain about.
Know-it-alls: They come to a seminar and know far more than the instructor. They let everyone know during the meeting, and especially the breaks, how little the instructor knows! Arrogant, this type has a ready opinion on any subject. Yet, when wrong they blame others or are defensive.
You may recognize some, if not all of the above characters in the people you buy from!
3.1 Taking positive action
When someone is upset, let them know you are too, but don’t feed into that pattern. Stay calm! You have to disagree sometime. Doing so does not require that you prove the other party is wrong. Direct the discussion toward why you need to accomplish your goal.
The challenge is to learn to deal with difficult people. How to handle complaints and anger might be found from these steps to diffuse the situation:
Summarize what has been said on both sides without arguing for or against either.
Use questions to diffuse anger from disagreement.
Buy time to allow emotions to subside.
In addition to the above areas of friction relating to personality, areas of friction between buyer and seller include the following: specifications and tolerances that are unnecessarily difficult to meet, specifications changed without warning, late payments, cash discounts taken but not earned, unreasonable delivery demands, and excessive “bureaucracy.” Also burdensome are lack of technical knowledge on the part of purchasing personnel, an absence of loyalty to the supplier, ignorance of small supplier problems, frequent changes in personnel, and attempts by buyers to get free technical and engineering services as well as ideas from suppliers while intending to buy elsewhere.
The small supplier, in short, cannot work effectively with the large company buyer unless that buyer is able to represent his company fully and properly. Rather than make contact with others within the company directly, the lenient or easy-going buyer may leave this to the salesperson, who may have neither the time nor the ability to get a decision from them,
Conversely, there are some buyers who go overboard on what they term
“good relations,” often finding themselves more interested in protecting the suppliers’ interest than their own company’s. This type of individual may be constantly battling the production and engineering departments, urging them to accept what the supplier furnishes even if it isn’t quite what they want. In situations where there is a discrepancy in goods furnished, and where considerable unraveling is needed to determine what corrective measures are necessary and who will pay the costs of faulty supplier performance or poor engineering specifications, the buyer sometimes appears to his company colleagues to be in the supplier’s corner. This is proper when the buyer is aware of facts that support that position and is acting in good faith to settle a dispute through negotiation—but he or she had better be able to explain his or her reasoning.
Buyers frequently must defend the supplier against unwarranted criticism and rejection of materials, since the buyer is often the only one in a position to have heard both the company’s and the supplier’s interpretations. In any such situation “firm but fair” should be the guide. There is a time to tell what needs to be done, a time to seek advice on what should be done, and a time to solve the problem in a cooperative manner.
3.2 A Time to Do Nothing!
A Rube Goldberg is the term for doing with great complexity what could and should be done simply. It is often as important in our business world to know what not to do, as it is to know what to do.
President Eisenhower told how Churchill notified Ike of his intent to be with the first troops setting foot in Normandy in the invasion of Europe during World War II. Ike tried to persuade him this was out of the question, as he was too valuable to the cause.22Churchill felt it was his prerogative, and he asked Ike if he had complete authority over the entire invasion. When told that was true, Churchill stated that since the British Navy was a part, he had a right to be on a ship as a member of the crew.
Rather than confront the situation directly, Ike got word to King George, who promptly sent a note to Churchill. Churchill wasn’t ordered not to go, but the king wrote, “Splendid idea Winnie. I intend to be at your side when we step together on the soil of France.” Churchill saw at once the danger of losing his king, and said not another word to Ike about crossing with the troops. This is a good example of handling a conflict without directly challenging the person causing it.