How to Handle Aggressive Timelines and Interdepartmental Tensions at Work

In this episode, Simon Goode analyzes a workplace conflict case study involving a cross-department dispute over an aggressive project deadline in a manufacturing company. He explores the roles of interests, structure, relationship dynamics, and different conflict modes—including competing, compromising, and collaborating—in resolving the issues between engineering and production teams. Simon Goode also highlights practical negotiation concepts like BATNA and the importance of clear, future-focused communication to rebuild trust and improve cooperation.

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 Engineering lead responsibilities

03:51 Debating Project Deadlines and Priorities

09:43 Exploring Jordan's negotiation options

13:39 Clarifying expectations and communication

14:42 Resolving workplace conflicts

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hello, welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful to you, please consider pressing subscribe. In the episode today, I'm going to be looking at another workplace conflict case study. This is where I analyze and talk about a number of different frameworks that could be applied to a real world situation. Here we're dealing with a cross-department deadline conflict. Now, by design, I haven't read through this in great detail until now, so I'm kind of giving you a little bit of my first impressions. If you're dealing with a conflict involving cross-department disputes, then obviously some of the different uh topics that I touch on would be extremely relevant for you. But even if you're dealing with different kinds of workplace conflict, I think just you can take those same frameworks or different analysis tools or however you would think about it and often transpose them and apply them to the different context and the different issue that you're dealing with right now. So I'll read through the case study first and then I'm going to be sharing some of my initial thoughts. In a manufacturing company, engineering lead Jordan pushed an aggressive six-week timeline. Pushed an aggressive six-week timeline for a new product prototype to help the sales team meet quarterly targets. Okay, so there's a few different elements that I just want to underline briefly there. First, we've got Jordan, and so he's the engineering lead, although that could take very different shapes depending on the context and the team that he's working in. Like some engineering leads would make more decisions, be involved in more of the day-to-day minutiae in other larger organizations. The lead engineer might be more dealing with things at the strategic or even business development kind of levels. And then we've got this six-week timeline, and that's been described as aggressive. Now, is the six-week timeline aggressive? Is it reasonable? Is it over the top? Is it more than you should reasonably expect from someone? Well, that's in the eye of the perceiver, isn't it? And we've got the new product prototype to help the sales team meet quarterly targets. So there's a little bit of what I would think of there as interest conflict. Who's going to benefit from doing something different? Who stands to benefit or lose if things are just left the way that they are right now? So we've got the structure. How are these tasks delegated? What is the structure of the different role descriptions? That kind of thing. We've got value in terms of whether or not this six-week timeline is aggressive or not. And then we've got interest. We've got this sort of a little bit of an implication around quarterly targets, and sales teams often do uh have more current metrics that they can use for manage perform managing performance, don't they? Like how much sales did you get? How many new clients, or what was the um sort of overall turnover in terms of revenue or something? Whereas engineers, people involved in design, they might not see that same one-to-one correlation. When they're doing something that's working, they might not see those same immediate indicators of success. So we've got a few different factors to consider there. There's the actual quarterly targets, and then there's what level of interdependence exists between the two teams. How do the senior managers, the executive think about these relative priorities? So the next paragraph, production manager Lena argued strongly that the deadline was unrealistic due to ongo ongoing supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages, warning that rushing could compromise product quality and safety standards. So again, we've got a few different implications there about interests. I suppose Lena is suggesting that this is in the company's best interest to take the approach that she's suggesting. There's a little bit of structure here. What is the actual uh interplay between the production manager and an engineering lead? There might be also elements of relationship that go into that. Uh, has Lena and Jordan buttted heads previously? Maybe there's a little bit of history that's going on here. So there might be some tangible aspects that are just about the facts, like what does the actual um how many sales have we had this quarter? But there might be other elements as well, like Jordan might not want Lena to feel like she can push him around. So he's decided to stick to his guns on this decision. And it's not so much about the actual details of today's issue, it's more about the history. I think about this as relationship conflict, those reciprocal back and forth patterns that develop between the people that are involved in the conflict. So Lena argues strongly that the deadline was unrealistic. So that's again one of the aspects of data. What would be a realistic timeline then? Which parts of the project are she concerned that she might not be able to get done? And she's warned about those two issues there. We've got the product quality and safety standards. It's a very, I think, useful topic to go back to, this topic of safety. From Lena's perspective, that's very difficult for organizations to argue against because at least in Australia, the organization has the duty to provide a safe working environment for their employees or to provide a safe product for customers on the other end. So we've got the very high level of interests in terms of what's going to happen if this goes pear-shaped, but we've also got the lower levels of interest too. Like, is there a safety supervisor involved? Uh, how does Lena get punished or rewarded if these metrics change or not? So it's kind of connected inherently to the structure as well, isn't it? Like what is the process or policy around safety guidelines when she's talking about this is compromising standards? Is that just a broad brush perspective that she's got? Or are there specific concerns that she has? I think that would be another potential avenue for either Jordan or Lena to go down, to be frank. And then finally, we've got this last paragraph. Accusations of inflexibility and poor planning flew between the departments. Blame shifting intensified through heated emails and meetings, causing the project to stall completely. Senior leadership eventually had to step in as cooperation between engineering and production broke down entirely. Goodness, so this is an example where there has been some pretty significant tangible negative impacts of the conflict, and you can imagine that the executive would be very motivated for this to change. So previously I've talked about those different conflict modes. We've got competing, collaborating, collaborate. Compromise is there in the middle. Then we've got accommodate and avoid. Now I think from the management's perspective, this might be at a stage where they need to take this competing, or another way of phrasing it, is directing kind of approach. This needs to change, you need to be doing this, and you need to be doing this, this needs to stop immediately. When this happens, this needs to be tweaked or adjusted in the following way. You need to begin doing this or begin doing it more consistently moving forward. There might be some elements of this where I think it would be quite appropriate for management to just step in and say this needs to be different here. That's what we would call the competing or directing kind of approach. Jordan or Lena could also take that competing approach. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be harsh or rude or aggressive or whatever, disrespectful, but you're not flexible. You stick to your guns. Personally, I really like using phrases like it's not negotiable or that's not something that I can agree to, rather than sort of getting more hysterical and treating it more like a personal vendetta or something similar. So we can still be very firm and be very assertive. And I think often that means that well, that's going to leave the person with a choice of whether or not they agree to what we're asking or what their potential plan B is. When we look at negotiation, that sort of concept is often called Batna, B A T N A. That's a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. In other words, if Lena says, I'm not changing, that's not something that I can agree to. Jordan's Batna is where he will be left then. Does he have other options for dealing with the issue? Could he make a formal kind of complaint? Is there a different section of the organization where he could enlist some support in order to meet his needs? What is Jordan's best alternative to negotiating with Lena? So there might be things that Jordan could do that improve his next best alternative. Maybe he's already looked at options for outsourcing the work externally. In that case, when he negotiates with Lena, it would make sense for him to be much more assertive. He can stick to his guns. Because for him, his best alternative to a negotiated agreement is really good because there are these external contractors that could work. But if it's something that's very difficult to outsource, there might be no budget for it, for example, then Jordan's best alternative to negotiating with Lena might be very different. He might be left with weeks or months of frustration and back and forth conflict going on, or maybe he might be worried that he would be looked on negatively for this. After all, it's important that team leads are able to forge effective working relationships with other senior members of the organization. So his best alternative to reaching an agreement with Lena might mean that he gets knocked down a peg, or he's not in a position to apply for a promotion or something similar. Thinking about your best alternative to a negotiated agreement today, that's going to mean that you can negotiate with a lot more power. You don't get pushed around a lot because you've got another option. Maybe Lena has applied for another job and she's got another job offer on the table. Well, that would mean she can negotiate from an extremely strong perspective, wouldn't it? But if she's not sure, she's heard that the job market's really dry at the moment, she's not sure about how she would go if she did need to find another option, well then it might make more sense to compromise. Or maybe that's where we would look at the options like collaborating and seeing if we can come up with something that's a win-win kind of option. Now all of this blame shifting and the back and forth kind of heated emails, I think that sort of stuff as well, I would coin that as relationship conflict. It's like the build-up of all of the back and forth that's going on between them. So there are some things that you can do which will improve that relationship layer kind of side. I think often identifying the patterns can be useful. It seems like when we write you these kind of emails, to you it comes across as quite critical. After all, we are often pointing out things that are not working. And I'm wondering from your team's perspective, if that ends up meaning that they're not very motivated to do what we've asked them to do. Because effectively you're dealing with someone that's basically wagging a finger at you. Like I get where you're coming from, I can understand that perspective. This is a pattern that I've noticed. When we're in these kind of meetings, I've noticed that things often get quite heated. Maybe there's structural options that we could use to manage or mitigate some of that. But sometimes it's just the relationship. Sometimes the person wants an apology. They just want you to admit that you should have done something differently previously. Or some people just want a commitment moving forward that things aren't going to remain the same. They want to see kind of a promise or a commitment, whether it's in writing even in some situations, this is the agreement that we reach. This is what you're going to do moving forward. I think that's often the foundation where trust is rebuilt after this kind of relationship conflict. I don't know that this would necessarily be the kind of situation where there's a lot of benefit of saying, trust us. But maybe this is a situation where very clear expectations and very short-term management make sense. So we're going to do this and this by then, you'll do this and this as a result. Have I got all of that right? How much notice would you need if things change on our end? What's the best way to communicate with with you about that? And then if things change on your end, are you prepared to keep us in the loop? Give us a bit of an update, that kind of thing. So we clarify those expectations very carefully because often when people have told us this is what I'm going to do, and then they actually do it, we do begin to trust them. Whereas when I say to someone, trust me, it's like, what am I even asking you to do? I guess it's give me the benefit of the doubt or give me some flexibility in terms of this and this and this. Like there might be some practical kind of options. I often find it's much more helpful to say, could you do this or stop doing this or start doing this, as opposed to saying, like, you're not taking this seriously, or you're completely against collaboration and interdepartmental working relations, whatever the thing is that we're accusing them of. All of those labels often just trigger defensiveness and resistance, don't they? So we could think about this kind of a case study, looking at those five different conflict modes, the competing, collaborating, compromise, avoid, etc. We could think about things like a best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Where is this going to leave me and where is this going to leave you if we don't reach any kind of middle ground, if we can't resolve it? And then we could think about over all of these different elements, the relationship itself. How has the pattern of build-up affected both of the people that's involved? How are they reacting when the other person does a particular thing? What are the patterns? And what are the goals? I've met with a number of staff and said things like, look, you don't need to be mates with the people that you work with, you don't need to be friends with everybody who's on your team, but you do need to find a way to develop an effective working relationship. So what would that look like from your perspective? What would you be prepared to do? And what would you need to hear from Lena or Jordan in return? If I was Lena and I was talking to Jordan, I might say, look, I'd really like for the relationship between us to become more positive moving forward. I think unfortunately we got off to a pretty brumpy start, and there's been times when a number of different crossed wires have led to a lot of conflict. And from I know that I've contributed to that. I'm not blaming you. I'm not saying this is all your fault, so to speak. I don't want this to continue though. So I'd love to hear from you. How have you had positive relationships with other people who have been in my role previously? And what do you think might work in terms of changing the structure or something that I can do differently so that we can get things more on a positive kind of track moving forward? So I'm discussing the goal. What would that minimum viable workable relationship look like from their perspective and from yours? They might do a little bit of whinging or complaining or something similar. That's the kind of stuff that we might need to just let go through to the keeper, and we can focus on the stuff that's future focused and solution focused. But I don't know, how does that how does that strike you looking at the the sort of cross-department deadline conflict in that kind of a way? Are there some of those different frameworks and approaches that I've mentioned that resonated with you? And what do you think about the approach of analysing these workplace conflict situations overall? I'd love to hear from you. If you've got a question about something that I've talked about today, or maybe a good idea for a future case study that I can cover in the podcast, you can shoot me an email. It's podcast at simongood.com. Let me know how you found the session today. If you're willing to write a quick comment or leave a like, that always makes a big difference for tiny little podcasts like this. So thank you in advance if that's something that you're prepared to do. And otherwise, all the best, especially if you're dealing with a bit of drama between departments in your organization. It's often quite stressful kind of conflict, and it's not easy to untangle all of the complex bits and pieces that often get tied up, isn't it? So I do wish you all the best. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye for now.