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How do you deal with conflict in the real business world?

Kiwi Man

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My question seems a little bit vague.

What I'm trying to ask you guys is that how do you come with solutions when you are confronted with challenges between you and your co-workers.

In college, when I dealt with people who were not as cooperative, I'd let them go from my team if I were a project manager for that specific class. This may seem a little bit extreme, but when I said somebody who was not a team player, I meant that he/she has never come to the meeting, seemed to always find reasons to never finish their work on time, and was given so many chances to prove themselves, but still didn't give a damn.

When I was telling this story to somebody, that person said that I was immature because in the real business, you will end up working with somebody who is egoistic and ignorant, but you will to have to tough it out or you simply quit and move on.

Because I don't have a lot of work experience, I don't know what it would be like to deal with this type of people. Any suggestion would be appreciated. In summary, how do you influence others (especially those who are headstrong) to do what they are supposed to do?
 

Nereis

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Ok, picture this situation.

Your organisation has a month to deliver A, B, C results to investors and other stakeholders.

Every single person has been pulling overtime and weekends to get this done.

People are getting short tempered.

You are where the buck stops.

Number 2 just dressed down a senior team member in public for trying (and failing) to optimise something out of his own initiative.

What do you do?

Aspergers boy hasn't been showering in a week and he's routinely insulting his team members for not knowing as much as he does. In fact, there's talk of mutiny and your most senior software guy has just refused to work with him.

What do you do?

These are real issues in the workplace, think these through and good luck.
 

globetrotter

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basically, what he said.

i have one guy on my team that I really hate working with. he's a good producer, but I am convinced that he would be replacable. the thing is, it could take me 6 months to replace him and get a guy up and running, so do I suck it up or do I push him out or fire him? that is the real world.
 

wj4

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This is the stuff you learn through experience and can't be fully learned in school.

I used to work at a manufacturing company, where employees and even some management members don't speak English. There's been a few times when coworkers and employees rebuttal-ed me with comments like "You think you're a hot shot because you have a master's degree? You're 25 years old, I've been at the company longer than you've been alive". I've also been threatened physically several times by employees. I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm sure I will face more interesting situations in the future.
 

Hampton

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This is the stuff you learn through experience and can't be fully learned in school.
I used to work at a manufacturing company, where employees and even some management members don't speak English. There's been a few times when coworkers and employees rebuttal-ed me with comments like "You think you're a hot shot because you have a master's degree? You're 25 years old, I've been at the company longer than you've been alive". I've also been threatened physically several times by employees. I've learned from my mistakes, and I'm sure I will face more interesting situations in the future.
Hot shot, just joking. Couldn't agree more.
 

Temudjin

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Somebody's already said it. Experience is your best teacher. The more business conflicts you're in, the better you will get at handling it as time goes on. Sometimes asking advice from a senior colleague, independent of the conflict, can offer a different perspective that could help.
 

celery

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When you finally grow up you realize that adults are just little children who have developed more complex ways of having tantrums. It's exhausting and everytime I see dead weight at work, I wish HR would go away so they can be canned immediately.
 

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