I. INTRODUCTION
When two or more people come together with an aligned goal, a team is formed. This team is comprised of members, each with his own plan of action to best achieve the task at hand. Many times one member believes that his point of view is the most correct or most efficient, while another member of the team may disagree, offering her idea as best. When one individual challenges another, conflict is born. This is a very basic example, and only one type of conflict is addressed. In reality, there are several types of conflict; some positive, some negative. The sources of conflict are as varied as each member’s own personality style. Humans differ in countless ways. These differences contribute to the strength of team members. Each personality brings with it a different interaction and different communication styles, ideas, and varying levels of creativity. With each difference the possibility of conflict increases. Once conflict is encountered, resolution is vital so that the team can again focus on its common goal. Knowing what types of conflicts you will encounter will help you deal with issues when they arise.
II. TYPES OF CONFLICT
There are two types of conflicts, positive and negative:
Positive conflict, although most often referred to negatively, can also positively contribute to the overall performance of the team. Conflict is positive if the team’s ability to perform is improved. This can be through increased involvement and better communication. Once resolved, the conflict may have allowed the members of the team to better understand each other, because they have had the opportunity to communicate beyond trivial pleasantries. Another positive outcome for a team that has worked through their conflicts is increased confidence and team cohesion. When an individual engages in conflict, they usually emerge stronger, no matter the outcome. The challenge alone builds confidence. A more confident team member will inevitably be more assertive, strengthening the team even further. [1]
Negative conflict, though sometimes favorable, is antagonistic by definition, so the negative types cannot be overlooked. If unresolved, this conflict can sabotage the team’s ability to function effectively. One problem arises when one member of the team feels that their opinion is not given equal weight when compared to other team members. Thi...
... middle of paper ...
..., energy, and cooperation. The examples listed with each strategy are just the beginning of a never-ending list of possibilities (and you may use a strategy anywhere in between or even change strategies midstream). The best one can do is to first recognize where all team members are oriented with respect to assertiveness and willingness to cooperate, then have realistic objectives based on the strategy you are about to employ, and finally, take advantage of the negotiating tips mentioned earlier. Finally, this skill can only be developed with time and practice.
[1] DeJanasz-Dowd-Schneider. Interpersonal Skills in Organizations. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2001.
[2] Kernberg, Otto. Ideology, Conflict, and Leadership in Groups and Organizations. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998.
[3]Morton Deutsch, The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 20. This section of Deutsch's earlier work on constructive and destructive conflict resolution processes is closely paralleled by the later chapter in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, which offers a summarized version of his older work.
The work place, social organizations, educational institutes, and community groups all use teams to accomplish projects and goals. The environment of teams determine if these projects and goals will be met in an efficient manner. As businesses and organizations continue to restructure work teams, the need for training in disagreement resolution will grow.
...ure that their team stays motivated, and to be aware of the emotions of the individuals within the team. This, along with proper communication will allow the leader to address any questions or resolve any conflicts that may arise. Questions and conflicts are inevitable within any team. Although, conflicts and questions during the process of the project can become beneficial to the overall success of the team. The team can learn how to better communicate as well as how to ask better questions, ensuring future conflicts will stay to a minimum (module 5 lecture pages, n.d.).
Conflict Resolution: Understand to Achieve. Whenever people unite to work as a team for anything more than a brief duration, some conflict is normal, and should be expected (Engleberg, Wynn & Schutter, 2003). Because of the inevitability of conflict, being able to recognize, address, and ultimately resolve it is vitally important, since unresolved conflict may have undesirable effects, including reduced morale, or increased turnover (De Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2001). Just as conflicts within team environments vary, so do methods for resolving them.
In several occasions, conflict occurs in the communication of one or two people. Several people have thought of conflict as cases involving pouring of furious anger in a communication process. Nonetheless, conflict is the misinterpretation of an individual’s words or values (Huan & YAzdanifard, 2012). Conflict can also be due to limited resources in an organization (Riaz & Junaid, 2010). Conflict may as well arise due to poor communication or the use of inappropriate communication channel of transmission of information between the involved parties. Management of conflict has various conflict management styles that include avoidance style, forcing style, passive-aggressive style, accommodating style, collaborating style and compromising style. Workplace conflict comes in two different kinds: task involving conflict, which focuses on the approaches used in resolving the problem and blaming conflict that has the aspects of blame and never brings element of resolving problems between the conflicting parties. In the perception of several individuals, relationship conflict is negative.
Likewise, the conflict should be acknowledged as soon as it is seen and prepare for the resolution. During such time, the discussion about it plays vital role towards resolving the conflict. In order to maximize team efforts, teammates must cooperate with each other and try to resolve conflict with proper and transparent communication. While resolving a conflict, it is also important for the teammates to remember why they are together in the first place and follow their best foundational strategy.
An effective team typically develops through several stages. Tuckman and Jensen developed a model for how teams should develop that includes five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (as cited in Martin ,2006 and Fulk, Bell,& Bodie ,2011). In forming, the first stage in team development, team members are introduced to the team’s purpose and goals(Martin, 2006 ; Fulk et al. ,2011). Fulk et al. (2011) explain that members are usually motivated and excited about working together to accomplish the specific goal, but they point out that interactions among team members can be affected by uncertainty about purpose, anxiety, mistrust ,and reluctance to share ideas and opinions. Nevertheless, despite such uncertainties, team members usually avoid conflict and move on to the next stage, storming(Fulk et al.,2011). Unlike the forming stage, the storming stage is marked by conflict (Martin...
Conflict Management can often be the toughest task for a leader to handle. It involves dealing with inter-personal and intra-personal conflict. As a team leader of a technical event called Pulse’09 at my university, I had to deal with conflicts on a regular basis. Conflicts usually arise either due to lack of effective communication, different ideologies, lack of resources or due to task interdependence [3]. It was by far my most life changing experience as it taught me the reason behind conflicts and the way to resolve them. In this paper, I will be talking about the way I dealt with conflicts and managed them, the impact they had on the team performance and what I could do to improve my leadership by contrasting my experience to the class readings.
Conflict, when managed effectively, can be constructive. Conflict theorists have labeled this type of conflict as “C-Type Conflict or cognitive conflict” (Amason, Hochwarter, Thompson & Harrison, 1995, p. 22). Conflict of this type is usually centered on issue or opinion related differences and has a positive effect on the team. It increases team member involvement by allowing each member to speak his or her opinion or idea and evaluate the opinions or ideas of others. People change and grow personally from dealing with this type of positive conflict and team cohesiveness is created. Ultimately, “C-Type Conflict” results in a solution to the problem or agreement amongst team members.
To understand the importance of addressing conflict, it is important to understand the definition of conflict and what impacts, both positive and negative, it can have on the organization. Conflict begins when one party believes the actions or lack of actions is having or will have a negative impact on the actions or outcomes of another party or the organization (Robbins & Judge, 2015). Conflict can have a positive impact, as it may offer the opportunity for the two parties to discuss their concerns and work out a viable solution that can be mutually beneficial. This is considered functional conflict. Dysfunctional conflict is when the disagreements or conflicts hurt production or performance (Robbins & Judge, 2015).
For a team to be successful there are several factors that have to be addressed in order for a fluent, functioning group of individuals combined to achieve a certain goal. This goal can be a variety of different endings from producing minor results to making decisions that create a major impact on a large scale. Within a team environment conflict is always presence. Conflict is essential to the advancement of teams and must be managed in a proper way to avoid destruction and division amongst the group of individuals. From sports, to education, and the workplace teamwork is present in everyday life. As a human race we all work in different team oriented situations in order to accomplish a variety of tasks.
Interpersonal conflict is very common with many relationships. It occurs when two people can not meet in the middle or agree on a discussion. Cooperation is key to maintaining a healthy debate. More frequently; when dealing with members of your own family, issues arise that include conflict and resolution. During this process our true conflict management style appears “out of thin air”. (Steve A. Beebe, 2008, p. 191).
Team Dynamics - Conflict Resolution Strategies People work in groups or teams every day, whether in their career, education, political organization, church, or any other social setting. Conflict while working in teams or groups is inevitable. When taking people of different backgrounds, personalities, moral and ethical beliefs, and putting them together in a group, conflict will arise. The key to achieving your team goals is to construct and conquer your goals while keeping the greater good of the team in mind. Conflict, as it arises, should be combated and abated through swift and thorough resolution techniques.
A-type conflict is a dysfunctional type of conflict that is defined as a "disagreement that focuses on individuals or personal issues." When personal opinions about one another become the main influence on motives, the actual issue at hand is forgotten. If in a work place, negative correlations between coworkers or employers can result in a loss of sight of the overall objective of the company. In both environments, the issue never gets confronted, however, it can be used as a tool for blame. One possible way to decrease this type of dysfunctional
A group can only be called a team if the members are actively working together toward a common goal. A team must have the capability to set goals, make decisions, solve problems, and share responsibilities. For a team to be successful, trust must be earned between its members by being consistent and reliable (Temme & Katzel, 2005). When more than one person is working on a particular task, inconsistent views or opinions commonly arise. People come from different backgrounds and live through different life experiences therefore, even when working towards a common goal, they will not always see eye to eye. Major conflict that is not dealt with can devastate a team or organization (Make Conflict Work, 2008). In some situations, conflict can be more constructive than destructive. Recognizing the difference between conflict that is constructive to the team and conflict that is destructive to the team is important. Trying to prevent the conflict is not always the best way to manage conflict when working within a team setting. Understanding conflict, what causes it, and how to resolve conflict effectively, should consume full concentration.
Rahim (2002) differentiated person’s perception towards handling a conflict into two: “concern for self and concern for others” (p. 216). Further, the study explored two types of conflicts and observed that most conflicts arise during the decision-making process. Dysfunctional conflict, which hinders team performance and interpersonal relations due to individual’s self-interest in implementing particular decision. Functional conflict serves organization purpose with employees involved in the conflict regarding which proposal to implement (Rahim, 2011).