SOO Culture Concept: Putting It All Together
How would you handle these situations?
Read through these short summaries of real-world conflict scenarios, then consider how you would resolve the conflict. How would you employ the skills you learned throughout this portal?
You'll then have a chance to learn about how members of the SOO Culture Team handled each scenario!
Conflict Scenario #1
Short Summary of the Conflict:
A Lead Meteorologist (LM) is growing increasingly frustrated with the requirements of providing IDSS to partners, and has shown an obsession with verification scores over all other methods of providing messaging to core partners. During an evening shift, this LM goes off on a newer meteorologist because they were concerned about not only issuing a warning, but also providing messaging about it. The LM objects to providing additional IDSS, and states that they can read the product off of our webpage. Any attempt to provide this additional IDSS or try to convince the LM to do otherwise was met with a threat about their career if they object to the decision.
Consider how you would resolve this scenario, then click to view the SOO Culture Team member's answer!
Description of how the conflict was resolved:
The meteorologist sent a message to the management team immediately upon the threats being made. The team thanked the meteorologist for the text message, told the individual to provide the IDSS anyway and called the office to speak with the LM. The LM was later disciplined for insubordination and conduct unbecoming of a LM.
How office culture played a role in the development or resolution of the conflict:
At the time of this incident, 4 of the 5 LM thought similarly and worked together to undermine the progression of the mission requirements being asked of the office. The culture of the office revolved around their wishes and desires, as opposed to what the management team was trying to push forward. Accountability of the LMs was necessary through annual reviews, midterms and other appropriate means in order to change mindset on what was expected. It took about a year, and their mentality has greatly changed.
If you could do it all over again, would you have managed this situation of conflict differently for a more positive outcome?
The office management team had known that frustration was building among the LMs about the additional IDSS requirements, and had sought to work with the LMs to overcome their concerns. However, as there were no accountability markers set in order to ensure IDSS was being done, it was difficult to pin these individuals on their inability to complete their work. This made for a hostile work environment for a period of time, as the LMs openly spoke about undermining the management team's stated mission goal.
Additional information you feel is relevant for other SOOs' understanding of this conflict and its resolution:
It is important to note that allowing behaviors to fester can present a toxic office culture environment, especially when there is significant turn over of staff and management. The LMs thought they ran the office, and it took some time to overcome this stated intent on their part.
Conflict Scenario #2
Short Summary of the Conflict:
While serving as an AMIC, One of our new Gen. Mets failed to answer a Facebook Customer's question during a significant weather event. The Customer just wanted to know where a certain location was at, and the Gen. Met requested that they Google it. This did not satisfy the Customer and they kept badgering us to give them a more specific answer. Our Gen. Met began to ignore their posts which led to a problem where the Facebook Customer wanted to contact a Supervisor. Our WCM and Lead were on duty at the time, but the Gen. Met never did not share this with them, because they were working significant weather. Someone also deleted the conversation thread on Facebook. The next day (being the weekend) the Facebook Customer contacted the office and wanted to speak to the Supervisor, but no Supervisor was working and the managers were unaware that this person was trying to reach a Supervisor. In addition, this Facebook Customer was trying to reach out to us through IM, but no one had responded. At this point, the Facebook Customer was really getting agitated .
Consider how you would resolve this scenario, then click to view the SOO Culture Team member's answer!
Description of how the conflict was resolved:
Spoke with the Gen. Met, WCM and Lead on Duty Sunday and Monday about this issue and did some fact finding about what took place from their point of view. I also asked them if they knew who deleted the thread. They were unsure who deleted the thread. Told them to contact a Supervisor anytime someone asks to speak to one. This is important to keep Supervisor's apprised of situations so that we can resolve the matter quickly. Also told the Gen. Met to do your best to answer questions from the Facebook Community. No one ever admitted to deleting the post. Received further guidance on how to handle the situation with the individual who deleted the thread, and was recommended to not to pursue this because it could have been the person who started the thread which was a member of the public. Sent an IM to the Facebook Customer apologizing for our actions and gave them my email and phone# to call me so they could share their concerns. The Facebook follower never did email or call back.
How office culture played a role in the development or resolution of the conflict:
We were in a time of transition between supervisors, and the Gen. Met was unsure on how to handle the situation and did not want to bother the Supervisors since we were off-duty. Sent an email to the staff on proper communication channels and how to handle customers that are acting inappropriately or requesting a Supervisor on Facebook and never remove posts without prior approval from Management.
If you could do it all over again, would you have managed this situation of conflict differently for a more positive outcome?
Overall, I thought the outcome went pretty well, but should have also addressed the shift that ignored the Facebook Customer's Instant Messages. We could have a created a very hostile and unsafe work environment by ignoring or not responding to their messages. Fortunately, there were no life threatening messages.
Additional Resources
From the Severe-Thunderstorm Forecasting Video Lecture Series, watch the following video and consider all the elements of workplace culture that influence effective, collaborative forecast decision-making.
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