A successful conflict resolution that I participated in was in my last job function as a Merchandising Manager and Trainer with ULTA Salons, Cosmetics and Fragrance. We had just hired a new CEO, whom acquired feedback from several departments over the first few months in his job function.
One of the first 'orders of business' was to completely change the way in which weekly shipments were received, scanned, and unloaded. Before this change was implemented, each store was free to operate the shipment process as they wished, as long as the bill of lading was properly documented, filed and the boxes scanned. ULTA had 600 stores at that time, each with a shipment team ranging from 3 to 10 people.
The change was to standardize the process, eliminating a lot of repetitive motions. An example of this is boxes were unloaded from the pallet directly onto the sales floor prior to store opening. The boxes were sorted and items put away directly from that point. Previously, the pallets were unloaded in the back holding area, sorted, placed on carts and THEN put on the sales floor (a lot of extra work).
The conflict: Anytime, you have a group of people used to doing things a certain way, change is usually met with resistance. I knew I had to be creative as a trainer! The conflict arose in the way the change was brought up by top management. I remember hearing, 'shipment procedures are changing, they will be inspecting the process after implementation, to make sure each store is complying and 'good luck with that'.
This sort of mind-set seemed a bit toxic to me. So what, if it was changing, WHY is is it changing, is all I wanted to know. I knew if I could get to the bottom of 'why', that I could sell it to the teams a hell of a lot better than Corporate 'sold' it to me.
My Role: As stated above, anytime there is a group of people used to doing things a certain way, change is usually met with resistance. I knew I had to be creative! My role in this aspect was to be a master negotiator, though I joked at the time that I was just a con artist masquerading as a Manager at ULTA!
The key to my role being successful was to make sure the subordinates knew I was in it with them and that in the end, this process was going to equal less work for them. The key was being more efficient and eliminating extra steps.
Part of my negotiating process was showing the trainees that the new process would take them less time, and was actually less work in the end!
I bought pedometers and for the fun of it placed them on each employee during the last week of shipment using the 'old system'. Then again on the second week of the new, more efficient, system. Once they all SAW how much more productive they were, while doing less physical work they were SOLD!
The other participants in the negotiation were the Merchandising teams in the Midwest region (20 stores) responsible for shipment each week! (about 120 employees)
The result: I realize, as stated in the video, "Just because the subordinate agrees, does not mean they will do the work to the best of their abilities". This challenge was eliminated when members of the shipment teams pulled me aside, telling me they were initially leery of the new process, but now couldn't imagine any other way! They also said, "Why didn't WE think of that"? ha ha
The room fror improvement was definitely on the upper management side. It was completely up to me to get my teams excited for this change, because it was obvious that upper management wasn't excited about the change at all. I feel the change would have been accepted EVEN GREATER had the negotiating style been used from the very tip top, down to the very bottom.
ALSO, the 'inspection' statement was just a threatening measure to get the regions to comply (I never told my team there would be one)...there was never an inspection. Frustrating!
No comments:
Post a Comment