Imagine you are a medical records administrator and supervise of a team of three medical records specialists at a busy local hospital. As part of their jobs, each medical records specialist audits medical records specialist's work to ensure compliance with the hospital’s policies and procedures, HIPAA, and other regulations related to medical records.

One of your team members, Hyeon-Ju, recently showed a drop in accuracy below the expectations, and the other team members have noticed this in their audits. The situation has caused some friction between Riley and Hyeon-Ju. Riley made some comments in a team meeting about Hyeon-Ju’s performance. Hyeon-Ju felt defensive of Riley’s comments and suggested that Riley expects everyone to be perfect. Malik stayed quiet during the meeting, usually preferring to avoid conflict with the other team members. Malik shared similar concerns about Hyeon-Ju’s audit results with you privately, and Malik was upset at the way Riley spoke to Hyeon-Ju in the team meeting.

• How might you handle this conflict between Riley and Hyeon-Ju?
• How might the team’s overall performance be affected if this conflict goes unresolved?
• How might you coach Riley, Malik, and Hyeon-Ju to handle their concerns about each other’s audit results in the future?