How to Do Middle-level Management Well —— Resolving Team Conflicts during the Development Period

Last time I talked about how to set goals and divide tasks effectively. In this lecture, I will take you to solve another thorny problem: how to solve the contradiction between subordinates?

1. The root of team discord is unreasonable resource allocation.

Subordinates "complain" in front of you, saying that the public is right and the old woman is right. This is a headache for many managers.

When I was a middle manager myself, this problem was handled badly. At that time, the sales team I was in charge of managed the product sales of 100 stores nationwide.

Every month, I encounter a particularly painful moment, that is, distributing promotional items to the sales managers in charge of these stores.

Store sales managers with big businesses naturally think that they should be divided according to the proportion of business. For example, a store with sales of 65,438+10,000 yuan should get twice as many gifts as a store with sales of only 50,000 yuan.

But the salespeople in the shops with small businesses disagree. Because, if the store with small sales takes less resources, it is easy to form a vicious circle.

The sales business of big stores is getting bigger and bigger, and the small stores are getting smaller and smaller.

So they are more supportive of equal distribution. For example, if there are 1 10,000 gifts and 100 stores, then each store will be divided into 1 10,000. ?

But soon, sales were put forward, and promotional gifts were the resources for our sales and store customers to negotiate. The factors that determine the distribution of gifts should not only consider the proportion of sales, but also consider the comprehensive reasons such as the cooperation between customers and us.

They came to me with their own plans and asked me to arbitrate.

My way at that time was to muddle along. What you said is reasonable, and so is what he said. As a result, both sides are not satisfied.

Later, I arranged several trainings on communication skills and teamwork for the team. As a result, during the training, everyone understood a truth, whether to fight or not to fight when returning to work.

I even tried to make some post adjustments and applied to transfer two team members who have a particularly good relationship to my department. As a result, these two friends for many years, in this position, are still arguing about the distribution of gifts.

I have to give more gifts to whoever quarrels fiercely. My energy is consumed by the endless quarrels of the team.

Did you find out?

The root of team differences lies not in communication skills and teamwork, not in so-called personality disagreement, but in unreasonable resource allocation.

Moreover, the team quarreling in front of you is a very dangerous signal, indicating that there is a serious problem with your distribution mechanism.

If this problem is not fundamentally solved, it is likely to lead to a greater division of the team and eventually even lead to the departure of employees.

2. Principle: rule-based management, not relationship-based management.

So, how to resolve the differences between subordinates?

After I was promoted to the middle level for two or three years, I gradually explored an effective "dispute resolution mechanism".

To sum up: one principle, one set of standards, one third-party arbitration institution.

Let's start with a principle: you should manage based on rules, not relationship management.

For example, you think Xiaohong is lucky today. Her team works overtime every day and should be given more. Tomorrow Xiaoming will come to you and say, "Look, boss, we have just been unreasonably criticized by our customers."

In short, it is not easy for everyone to talk about feelings. If you don't manage this knowledge based on rules, you will never have peace.

So, at that time, I called all the backbones of the team together to talk about my thoughts.

I said, "We must establish a standard for sharing resources. Before, it was basically divided by feelings and experiences, and everyone was dissatisfied. At the same time, your energy is also spent on important resources, and I need to review it. If you agree, we should allocate resources according to a set of standards. Then, let's make this change together. "

Team members also argue miserably every time they divide resources. I kind of said it to everyone's heart So, we soon reached a * * * knowledge.

3. Standards: Use quantitative standards to resolve disputes.

Next, a set of standards is to use quantitative standards to solve disputes.

There are two common methods, one is the weight algorithm and the other is the priority sorting method. The former is suitable for quantifiable resources, and the latter is suitable for resources that are not so easy to quantify.

Let's talk about the weight algorithm first.

When you encounter the problem of allocating resources, you can list all the allocation elements that you think are important, then weigh them and score them, and directly calculate the allocation results.

The weight algorithm has three key points, namely, elements, weights and scores.

Back to my previous example, in this example of gift distribution, I used the weighting algorithm.

At that time, several algorithms mentioned by everyone had some truth, but they were all one-sided.

Of course, sales volume is the most direct factor, but how many posters and promotional piles customers give us, the new product display and shelf share that the company is most concerned about, and so on. It is also my reference.

So, I listed seven elements.

It should be explained here that the general factors are controlled within 10. If there are too many elements, then each one is important, which means that each one is not important. If there are too few elements, there is no need to use this method.

Next is the weight. Among these elements, there are primary and secondary points.

For example, in my case, sales must be the most important reference element, so I give him 50% weight. For other elements, I use this analogy and give them weights ranging from 10%-5%.

Generally speaking, the highest weight does not exceed 50%. If one factor accounts for 80%-90% of the weight, then in fact, you don't need to consider other factors. The following is the template of the resource allocation weight algorithm.

With the weight column, next you have to grade each element.

For the sales volume, it is a number in itself, and you can directly convert it into the business proportion of each store.

For example, if the business volume of a store is 100 stores, accounting for 1%, then even 1. 1 minute X50% weight, and its weight score in sales is 0.5. ?

For those that are not numbers, such as the quality of promoted positions, you need to transform them to quantify them. It is only divided into three grades: good, medium and poor, corresponding to 2 points, 1 point and 0 point respectively.

For example, the location of the promotion area given to us by customers can be divided into three grades: good, medium and poor. Combined with the previous weights, it is assumed to be 10%. Then, the score of an intermediate promotion area is 1 minute multiplied by 10%, which is 0. 1 minute.

In this way, if you add up all the scores, you can get the final distribution coefficient of the store.

Then, this coefficient is the basis for your decision to distribute gifts. Subordinates don't have to quarrel with you. ?

If they have different opinions on this basis, then you can open the window once every quarter or half a year.

At this meeting, everyone fully expressed their opinions. However, once this coefficient is determined, you should not adjust it in the next quarter or half a year.

In short, this is the rules of the game, and everyone plays according to the rules of the game.

This algorithm can not only be used for sales departments to issue promotional gifts, but also help business development departments of some companies to grade potential customers in this way in management consulting practice. It is very useful to help the human resources department establish a mechanism for selecting cadres and so on.

You may say that there are not so clear and quantifiable standards for some resource allocation.

So what should we do?

This brings us to the second algorithm, the priority sorting method.

I work in 1 store as the project director of the project management department. This is a large-scale e-commerce enterprise with a scale of over 10 billion.

The biggest problem we encountered at that time was that every department was asking the company for resources.

The commodity department should develop the price management system, the human resources department should develop the office management system, the warehousing department should develop the supply chain management software, and the technical department itself has the demand of product iteration.

Every department says its own project is very important, but the problem is that there are so many development engineers in the company that even working overtime every day can't meet everyone's needs.

So one of my important tasks at that time was to collect the technical development needs of various departments every quarter, and then give them to the CEO for prioritization.

The CEO gave a clear direction, that is:

All requirements related to improving the user experience are listed as the first priority.

The company is related to business risks and ranks second.

Improve employee efficiency, ranking third.

Reduce the company's operating costs and rank fourth.

And so on.

At the same time, we also calculate how many developers each priority corresponds to. With this priority standard, my colleagues in the technical department and I have a law to follow when allocating development resources.

Originally, a quarterly development resource allocation meeting was held for a week, and everyone was noisy at the meeting. Now it only takes one afternoon, which saves a lot of internal wrangling time.

Of course, if you are on the standards and principles, there is no way to convince your subordinates or stakeholders.

Then, I suggest you seek the help of your superiors.

At the same time, please believe that there is no absolute fair distribution mechanism in the world. Relative fairness is good and unfairness can be changed.

4. Institution: Introduce a third-party arbitration institution.

Finally, I want to talk about the introduction of third-party arbitration institutions.

In fact, in case of conflict, the best way is to find someone who has no conflict of interest with your team. At the same time, they can also serve as providers of quantitative figures in the standard and ask them to be arbitrators in case of disagreement.

Take my own example. I just asked my financial colleagues to help me provide raw data and calculate scores. Similar roles include HRBP, sales operation department and so on. They are not involved in the distribution of benefits themselves, so they may be very fair third parties.

If your management work is relatively complicated, there are many aspects involved in allocating resources. I even suggest that you set up an arbitration committee to involve all stakeholders and decision makers.

For example, if you are a company treasurer, you should allocate the company budget for the next year. Then, you can take the lead in setting up a budget committee. You are HR and want to assess the management cadres of the company. You can take the lead in setting up a talent management committee. Save everyone in these departments from telling you their requirements. ?

Of course, I must remind you not only to find an arbitrator, but also to have an arbitration system.

For example, if you are not satisfied with the result of resource allocation, how long will it take to initiate arbitration? How long will it expire? Once it is finally decided, will it take effect unconditionally?

If these details are not considered clearly, the team will fall into endless disputes.

Summary of this lecture

All right, let's sum up this lesson. I told you a set of dispute resolution mechanism, including a principle: you should manage based on standards rather than relationships; There is also a set of quantitative standards and the timely introduction of third-party arbitration institutions to help you resolve your differences.