MODULE FOUR PAPER 1

Module Four Paper

Donovan Felice

Arizona State University

PMG 321: Project Leadership, Strategy and Scope

Ben Pandya
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Part 1: The Nature of a Leader in Workplace Conflict

The nature of project management requires conflict. This is a natural process which

people can either use as a detriment to a project or idea or use it as a productive catalyst for their

work. Conflict by it’s nature exists as issues arise, preventing work from being done in whatever

form it may be. Conflicts occur from personal, relationship, task-based, work style, creative, or

leadership clashes (Camelo, 2021). A project leader’s role in these conflicts is to confront the

often variant and sometimes hostile incongruities of a workplace environment by

communicating.

As such, a leader must adapt to the conflict and create methods of resolution. The book

titled, Managing Project Uncertainty, written by David Cleden (2009), highlights factors of

confrontation, one is of novelty, there is also complexity, affordability, structure, and capacity (p.

37. An analysis of the current or future status of these factors may result in better decision

making on part of the leader’s decision, or even the other worker’s influence on the decision

(Cleden, 2009). From those factors of analyses, one can choose to suppress, adapt, detour or re-

orient (Cleden, 2009). These methods of approach all are methods to adapt to uncertainty, as

conflict is the creator of more than just workplace issues, but dissent, opposition, and ultimately

a discordant and unproductive workplace, or perhaps no workplace at all. Conflict creates

uncertainty. One might choose to suppress, or reduce the issue and adapt, by not changing the

issue itself but changing their plans or willing to learn and progress in opposition to the issue

(Cleden, 2009). Leaders also have the ability to detour, to “recognize uncertainties”, whatever

they may be and plan once more to overcome or change trajectory based on the issues existence

(Cleden, 2009, p. 38). The most drastic approach, in some respect, is the choice to reorient, to

forgo any former conclusions and plans and to learn, and create a variant plan (Cleden, 2009). A
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plan that may or may not reach it’s new objective, deviating from the previous course and shift

focus to some new horizon.

Personal Experience/ Specific Examples

We can see these approaches in our own lives, or others’, where a leader or company

must make a decision and the fruit of that tree laid bare. Apple, Inc. is a company that, early on,

had to overcome a niche market, as well as adapt to consumer demands when it’s innovatory and

mass appeal rose in the 1980’s (Beattie, 2021). In my own personal experience with making

leadership decisions, I was most affect by the eventual results, or the fruit of my decision.

Consequences are the evil mistress of most leader’s decisions. It most affected me when I was

given the choice to decide whether or not work would continue on a project, or choose to leave

it, and neglect the previous work and move onto another project. In doing so, I would abandon,

the work, the idea, and I think mostly my team. Do I choose to abandon the team I have worked

so hard to build and create? This conflict, in hindsight, is relatively simple now that I have lived

through it, but at the time it was one of the toughest decisions I’ve made in my earlier career in

leadership and management. On one hand, I could leave it all, neglect the workers, leave them

without jobs, focus on a new project, restart, and begin anew. On the other, I could refuse and

continue the project despite it’s difficulty. However ultimately, I was only given one option, to

leave it all. So I decided to create my own option. This change of hands was to transform our

team, our project, and adapt to the difficulty of the project. Major changes needed to happen,

wages were changed, the nature of the work process itself shifted and the way we managed the

project changed drastically. It was largely and issue of unfamiliarity at first but, overtime, we

learned to work in this new way, and eventually achieved greater results. We could produce the
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work we wanted to make to the standard of quality we desired, and it was also in budget. It was a

conflict that I overcame.

Simulation

The project management simulations have been a boon to my thought processes and more

abstract thinking towards what is essentially numbers, these inputs, and outputs of an imperfect

simulation. In reading the text of David Cleden (2009), with these numerous philosophical or

praxeological approaches, such as a forecasting model, adapting to the nature of unknown

quantities, using knowledge properly, and eventually optimizing those ideas to deal with conflict

(p. 57-68). In the simulations most recently, there was competition that resulted in a shift of the

schedule to a far earlier product to-market window. This introduces a conflict, and multiple paths

to approach it. However, I have mostly focused on making the happiest and most productive

teams. With myself mostly acting as an, intermediatory party member, it’s often that I feel less

involved with this facade, the simulation. Where I say there are three meetings a week, but I’m

not there there’s no real conversation, it’s all just a simulation. It’s hard to get a praxeology to

work such as project management when all this really is, is adjusting variables, how you get

there, practically is all in your head. You aren’t reacting to personal issues of the team and having

a meeting about it, you are pressing a button for plus one meeting. The simulation made me think

and realize that ultimately the solution to conflict is often simply to communicate and how well

we can communicate those ideas.

Part 2: Communication of Conflict

A significant portion of managing conflict is communicating those issues and solutions

for real change to be made. Often issues can arise due to a lack of focus on it (London, 2022).

The simulation reflects this through the use of meetings, when lacking proper amount of status
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reviews, one-on-one meetings, as well as stand-up meetings, employees may become frustrated

at a lack of direction, or perhaps, when in excess, bothered by the use of excessive

communication. Due to modern workplace practices, and environmental issues, remote work, has

become an incredibly more common part of work. This provides a “solo” experience often with

channels of communication being limited to the technology and software, through video

interfaces, texts, emails, or voice calls. So, the importance of being able to communicate issues,

conversations, the time between them, and most importantly, being able to be comfortable

working from home (London, 2022). Communication must be done with effort in the workplace

because of it’s importance in solving problems. Jason Fried, a CEO of a blog website, discusses

his experience working from home, and the often the nature of that communication in his blog

called, Getting Together Again. He describes his experience with remote work and

communication, largely the importance of social workspaces (Fried, 2022). Workspaces we

people can bring their own ideas, collaborate, connect to others not only as a sort of social energy

boost but also to create better work (Fried, 2022). Despite the nature of remote work being

inherently limiting in terms of communication, work still can be done. A limited simulation such

as the one provided by Harvard Business Publishing, represents communication with a factorized

facet of a very complex process, into meetings. Similarly, Fried (2022) has underline the

importance of such meetings as vital and “encouraging” to the nature of the work. Ultimately the

sentiment express was that effective meetings, social workspaces, and communication can solve

more issues, especially in an environment where communication is otherwise limited.

As a leader, Jason Fried (2022), discusses it as an almost metamorphosizing process of

collaboration and ideas. Often in conflicts people have trouble communicating ideas, their own

ideas values, or simply the issues they face, or the company might face. If leaders are able to
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transform that process of communication into something more, something tangibly effective

towards workplace conflict, everyone can succeed.

Conclusion

If there is one thing to be learned from conflict as a project manager, it should be that

meetings, communication, and proper analysis of decision-making for the whole, and not just the

target goals or spreadsheet can lead to a greater workplace. A workplace is the environment

which all work is based on and if that environment fails to create solutions to conflict or

misappropriates resources it is doomed to fail. That is why leadership, even in the form of a

project manager is required, to handle conflict stoically and logically, and to communicate

effectively and accurately. All incongruities, trouble or conflict can be solved through several

methods. Any problem can be overcome, as long as someone is willing to lead others over that

hill. The greatest fruit are born from the greatest challenges.
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References

Beattie, A. (2021, September 10). How Did Apple Get So big? Investopedia. Retrieved February
1, 2023, from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/042815/story-
behind-apples-success.asp

Camelo. (2021, April 20). 5 types of workplace conflicts & how to resolve them. The Camelo
Blog. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://blog.camelohq.com/5-types-of-workplace-
conflicts/

Cleden, D. (2009). Managing Project Uncertainty. ProQuest. Gower. Retrieved February 1,

2022, from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib/asulib-ebooks/
detail.action?docID=438596.

Fried, J. (2022, January 1). Jason Fried. world.hey.com. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from
https://world.hey.com/jason

London, S. (2022, June 30). How to stay focused at work as a remote employee. Hive. Retrieved
February 1, 2023, from https://hive.com/blog/how-to-stay-focused-at-work/