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Suzanne: Poor Manager of Conflict
Suzanne managed a twelve-person computer help-desk for a large retail organization. Her department experienced a series of problems, small ones at first, but problems that were cascading into a major headache for Suzanne and for the company. One employee, Mary, was threatening legal action for discrimination, and another, George, had already filed for a work-related stress disability claim. These problems did not come as a surprise to Suzanne, because she was aware of how Mary and George were acting. But she was very upset when human resources called her about Mary’s discrimination complaint, and she was shocked to hear that George was going out on disability. When quizzed about the discrimination complaint, Mary indicated that she did not feel “respected” by Suzanne or her departmental peers. In a conversation with George as he packed his briefcase to leave the office, he complained over and over again about how unfairly he was being treated and how his efforts were never recognized. Suzanne had no idea where these problems originated. In fact, these two events, though unrelated in Suzanne’s worldview, were based on the same underlying cause. If Suzanne could have connected the emotional dots, she would not have been surprised to learn about these problems. Here’s where a what-if analysis is valuable (we’ll talk more about this later in the chapter). Her analysis should have started by asking what causes anger. The answer is that anger often rises from a sense of injustice—a feeling that we are being treated unfairly. Suzanne knew Mary and George were angry, but she didn’t have a clue as to why. The next step of this emotional what-if analysis is to understand how anger grows and changes, even builds, over time. It can start out as a vague feeling of frustration and grow into dissatisfaction, resentment, and anger; if unchecked, it can turn into rage. Mary, a very sensitive person, performs a function that her boss, Suzanne, does not value. Such a lack of respect, although subtle, frustrated Mary. Months of such disrespect took its toll. George’s need for recognition was strong, and without such recognition he felt increasingly unappreciated and devalued by Suzanne and the entire organization.But it was not Suzanne’s failure to identify her employees’ feelings that was the issue. The problem stemmed from Suzanne’s misdiagnosis of the cause of their feelings and the trajectory they would take over a period of time. Suzanne has a limited understanding of emotion.
