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.
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...
...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.).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Simply put, conflict is the disagreement and disharmony that occurs in groups when differences are expressed regarding ideas, methods, and/or members (Engleberg, Wynn, and Schuttler, 2003). Conflict among teams or groups develops in many ways. In developing an effective team, members will generally experience the five stages of evolution: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. The storming and norming stages deal with the process of conflict (storming) and resolution (norming). During the storming stage, exact conflict has not yet been identified, and therefore chaos, disorganization, and disputes are apparent.
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.
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
Differences within the team are the major reason for conflict. This stems from differences in opinion, attitude, beliefs, as well as cultural back grounds and social factors. The Conflict can be positive which is functional and supports or benefits the organization or a person’s main objectives (Reaching Out, 1997). Conflict is viewed as positive when the conflict results in increased involvement form the group, increased cohesion, and positive innovation and creativity. Conflict tends to be positive as well when it leads to better decisions, and solutions to long-term problems.
Look up the word conflict in the dictionary and you will see several negative responses. Descriptions such as: to come into collision or disagreement; be at variance or in opposition; clash; to contend; do battle; controversy; quarrel; antagonism or opposition between interests or principles Random House (1975). With the negative reputation associated with this word, no wonder people tend to shy away when they start to enter into the area of conflict. D. Jordan (1996) suggests that there are two types of conflict: good, which is defined as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict) and, detrimental, defined as affective conflict (A-type conflict). The C-type conflict allows for creativity, to pull together a group of people with different opinions or ideas, to combine and brain storm all thoughts to develop the best solution for the problem. The A-type conflict is the negative form when you have animosity, hostility, un-resolveable differences, and egos to deal with. The list citing negative conflicts could go on forever. We will be investigating these types of conflicts, what managers can do to recognize conflict early, and what strategies they can use to resolve conflicts once they have advanced.
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).
A group of people working on a team means a group of different sets of minds working together. Thus, it is inevitable that there may arise conflicts on a certain topic within the team, as certain viewpoint may seem right for the circumstances for some teammates and may different for others. However, it is not that they are not solvable.
Conflict is a basic aspect of teamwork (Levi, 2001), since the number of decisions that a team needs to make often evokes feelings of discomfort and stress. Conflict very often arises from a clash of different working style, ideas, interests, needs, and wants. Team conflicts can be due to high stress level. It has been experienced that in teamwork there can be conflicts and conflicts creates dissatisfaction among the employees. It is important that conflicts be addressed in such a way that it has adverse effect and it is very important to address the conflicts on the spot otherwise it would be difficult to handle the conflicts. (Jehn, 1995).When team member s disagree about the task themselves that how these tasks should be performed then task related conflicts occurs. It is also called task led-conflicts, it occurs when persons disagree over the understanding of tasks and their goals it is a disagreement between two team members in a group over the decisions. They have differences of opinions about a certain issue. (Stewart, Sims & Manz, 1999). Disagreement can be caused by differences in viewpoint and values, differences of opinion about tasks and differences in expectation about the impact of decisions (Levi, 2001).