Download Team Conflict Management

Team Conflict Management
ADVANTAGE SESSION #15
for Kelley School of Business
X420 Class
presented by Richard D. Attiyeh
Team Conflict Management
Teamwork is essential, but any group effort can
degenerate into argument and anger….


As a member of the
team, or as a team
leader, the goal is to
avoid or eliminate
conflict.
To do this effectively,
one needs to
understand the root
causes of team
conflict.

Research shows that the most significant
roadblock to effective teamwork is….
Sometime it just makes sense to inflexibly follow the rules…
There are other times when rigid
behavior is unreasonable….

Research indicates that the major factor in unreasonable
rigidity is…

Among working teams, self esteem is a major fear
factor
Fear, and rigidity in
belief or opinions,
can lead to anger and
conflict.
Fear frequently manifests as angry behavior

Some personalities
may try to bully other
team members to get
their way.
Other personality types may
internalize their anger until they
explode.

 Some
team
members simply
turn their backs on
the team effort
altogether…..
Basically, people tend to
fall back on rigid
approaches to problemsolving when other
avenues do not seem to
be available.
The ways in which team conflict
occurs are as varied as the
individuals who make up the teams.
As long as rigidity of thought and
attitude rules the day, there can be
no effective solution.
So, what do you do?….
The solution to creating compatible teams is simple,
but it sure is not EASY.
You
must create and support
a team environment of
 OPENNESS,
 TRUTH,
 HONESTY
 and SELF-AWARENESS.
”SERENITY”
OPENNESS
 Attitude
 Posture
 Environment
TRUTH
 Words
 Deeds
and HONESTY
 SELF-AWARENESS
 Mental
 Physical
BEWARE!
As the “official” team leader, or a manager, there are many
ways of committing “teamicide”. A short list of the most
common teamicide techniques include:
Defensive management
Bureaucracy
Physical separation
Fragmentation of people’s time
Quality reduction of the product
Phony deadlines
 Defensive
management
 “People who feel untrusted
have little inclination to
bond together into a
cooperative team.”
NOTE: All quotes taken from Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams,
by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
 Bureaucracy
 “Mindless paper pushing is a waste.” It cripples
productivity and team spirit.
The only red tape your team
needs is the finish tape….
 Physical separation
When what could be a tightly coherent team is
scattered over floors or in different buildings,
casual interactions are sacrificed. Casual
interaction is essential to team formation.
 Fragmentation
of people’s time
“Fragmentation is bad for team formation”
and bad for efficiency.
 Quality
reduction of the team’s product
Almost always referred to as a “cost-reduced” product,
but even when the result is deemed acceptable (less
quality for cheaper and earlier delivery), it can kill a
team.
 Phony
deadlines
Tight deadlines can be challenging. Phony ones
are just deadly.
A flexible approach to internal team dynamics or
the hurdles a team faces is essential.
I found out that if you are going to win games, you had better be ready to adapt.
~ Scotty Bowman (Hall of Fame hockey coach)
Trust builds a team….
Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.
~ Warren Bennis
Honesty is essential in
building trust and dealing with team conflicts
Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
~ Robert Burns
Teams made up of dynamic, creative individuals
will almost always
suffer from periods of conflict.
Team Player
You have worked with six colleagues of the technical support group for almost a year
now, and the team has accepted you. The group manager depends upon your team to sort
things out among themselves when conflicts of opinion arise since she has undertaken
responsibility this past year for the company’s first national consulting venture. The
support group is a pretty independent team, but they’ve earned it with excellent
performance and dependability. Each member of group has their own personality quirks,
but you have noticed that during staff meetings or planning sessions one individual – Vern
- seems to get angry very frequently.
Vern is, however, perhaps the best staff support person in the group. He
has excellent technical skills, and despite being one of those folks who is not
verbally adept, he has been able to establish a rapport with the folks for
which he provides technical support that has been very useful for the group
as a whole. When it comes to finding out which way the corporate winds of
change are blowing, or to breaking bad news to the system users, Vern is the
man to which the team turns.
During a brainstorming session about realigning staff support responsibilities, Vern is
getting visibly more frustrated and upset. He is not the smoothest talker, and has a
tendency to interrupt when he has a point he feels he must make. This causes
miscommunications and a little resentment among the rest of the team members. In turn,
they tend to be defensive and dismissive when Vern butts in. Finally, almost predictably,
Vern jumps top his feet and yells, “Oh give me a break. This is a bunch of crap and you
all know it. I’m out of here.” he storms out of the room, leaving a shocked silence in his
wake.
After Vern slams the door, the rest of the group looks at each other.
One says that they have to come up with a new support plan since
next month they’re being tapped to provide tech support for the
new national consulting initiative. Another points out that it would
be a bad idea to try and decide anything about staff support
without Vern involved. Everyone agrees that a break is in order.
Should you:
1)
Suggest that someone can go and bring Vern back to the table.
2)
Use the break to call the team manager and let her know that all hell has broken
loose?
3)
Use the break to talk to Vern privately, find out what his suggestions are, and
convince him to come back to the table saying that you, for one, want to hear his
ideas discussed.
4)
Le events take their course and try to lean from the situation.
WHY?
Team Player, Part 2
Your support group has been stretched, providing internal staff technical support as well
as assisting your manager’s project team in developing and implementing the company’s
first venture into national consulting. One of the more annoying factors involved is the
necessity for many meetings each week which must be conducted by video conferencing.
These are time-consuming and sometimes not particularly productive since there is a
tendency for each locale to go off on tangents that, while important t the project, may not be
of concern to all sitting in on the meeting.
One of the team members in your office – Carol - is an old acquaintance who has
befriended you. She is ambitious, and you two are both well-suited to be considered
candidates for promotion to the position of contract tech supervisor once this national
project is up and running in a year or so. That is, assuming that your company and the
project group can pull it all together so that the national consulting support contract is
valid at it’s scheduled start date in a year.
During these seemingly endless video conferencing meetings
your friend Carol is often asked to use her unique expertise to
address certain technical issues. She then has a tendency to run
on about the various possibilities and pitfalls in almost
excruciating detail, and although your manager (in another
city) is patient it is obvious that Carol has lost most of the other
conference participants. It is apparent to you that in this kind
of situation the best way to handle things is to give a succinct
answer and arrange to work with the questioner in more detail
after the video conference.
Finally, during one of the video conferences, the discussion gets hated and generally
focuses on areas where Carol’s expertise can be very telling. Yet, every time she
begins to talk she is either ignored or cut off mid-sentence. After this happens a
few times, she abruptly leaves the meeting. When the other participants notice
that she has gone a few minutes later, you tell them she was ill and had to leave.
You don’t tell them that you noticed tears in her eyes.
Should you:
1)
Do nothing and watch from the sidelines.
2)
Talk to Carol to see that she’s okay.
3)
Talk to Carol, ask her what the problem was and if you could help.
4)
Talk to Carol, ask her what the problem was, and when she responds that they were
very disrespectful tactfully suggest that perhaps she needs to try a different videoconferencing modus operandi. Suggest that she save the detailed analyses and
discussions for off-line because the video conferencing type of meeting works best as a
touch-the-bases kind of thing.
WHY?
You can
help overcome team conflict by ….
…BUILDING A WINNING TEAM
Team Conflict Management
EVALUATION QUESTIONS
1. I found the presentation material
easy to understand.

2. This Advantage session increased
My knowledge of the subject presented.
3. I will be able to use some of the
Information from this session in the future.
USE:
– a. Strongly agree
– b. Agree
– c. Disagree
– d. Strongly
disagree
– e. Don’t know
4. The presenter was well prepared for this Advantage session.
5. This presentation should be repeated in future semesters.