Team Management and Conflict

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Team Management and Conflict
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Teams Defined

• A group of two or more people
• Interact regularly and coordinate their work to
  accomplish
• a common objective

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Three Points Characterize a Team

• First, at least two people must be involved.
• Second, the members must interact regularly and
  coordinate their work.
• Third, members of a team must share a common
  objective.

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Characteristics of Effective Teams

• Team members are committed.
• All team members feel free to express themselves
  and participate in discussions and decisions.
• Members trust each other.
• When needs for leadership arise, any member feels
  free to volunteer.
• Decisions are made by consensus.
• As problems occur, the team focuses on causes,
  not symptoms.
• Team members are flexible in terms of work
  processes and problem solving.
• Team members change and grow.

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Two Types of Teams

• Vertical Team sometimes called a command team
  or a functional team.
• Composed of a manager and his or her
  subordinates.
• May include as many as three or four levels of
  management.
• Horizontal Team made up of members drawn from
  different departments in an organization.
• In most cases such a team is created to address a
  specific task or objective.
• May disband after the objective is achieved.
• Three common kinds of horizontal teams
• Task forces
• Cross-functional teams
• Committees

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Potential Uses For Teams
Product Development Teams
Project Teams
? Teams
Team Options
? Teams
Quality Teams
? Teams
Process Teams
Work Teams
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Virtual TeamsDefining Characteristics

• Members are distributed across multiple
  locations.
• Membership can be extremely diverse in skills and
  culture.
• Team members can join or depart the team in
  midstream.

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Teams with Moderate Independence
Project
Cross-functional
Product development
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Independent Work Teams
Self-directed
Self-managed
Executive teams
Work teams
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Steps in the Process of Team Building

• Step 1 Assessing feasibility.
• Step 2 Identifying priorities.
• Step 3 Defining mission and objectives.
• Step 4 Uncovering and eliminating barriers to
  team building.
• Step 5 Starting with small teams.
• Step 6 Planning for training needs.
• Step 7 Planning to empower.
• Step 8 Planning for feedback and development
  time.

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Prince (1989), Parker (1990)Reported that the
Typical Team Includes Roles For
Task specialists
Social specialists
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Roles for Task Specialists Include

• The contributor, a data-driven person who
  supplies needed information and pushes for high
  team performance standards.
• The challenger, a team player who constantly
  questions the goals, methods, and even the ethics
  of the team.
• The initiator, the person who proposes new
  solutions, new methods, and new systems for team
  problems.

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Roles for the Social Specialists Include

• The collaborator, the big picture person who
  urges the team to stay with its vision and to
  achieve it.
• The communicator, the person who listens well,
  facilitates well, and humanizes the work of the
  team.
• The cheerleader, the person on the team who
  encourages and praises individual and team
  efforts.
• The compromiser, the team member who will shift
  opinions to maintain harmony.

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Team Leaders Require a Special Set of Skills
Oriented toward teamwork and cooperation
Create a noncompetitive atmosphere
Renew trust
Share leadership
Encourage members to assume as much
responsibility as they can handle
Think reasonably
Keep their teams focused
Positively reinforce
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Stages of Team Development
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Forming Stage
Members become aquatinted
Members test behaviors
Marked by a high degree of uncertainty
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Storming Stage

• Disagreement and conflict occur.
• Personalities emerge.
• Members assert their opinions.
• Disagreements may arise.
• Coalitions or subgroups may emerge.
• The team is not yet unified.

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Norming Stage
Disagreements and conflicts resolved
Team comes together
Teams achieves unity consensus about who holds
the power
Now focused
It has oneness
A sense of team cohesion
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Performing Stage
Begins to function and moves toward accomplishing
its objectives.
Team members interact well with each other.
Deal with problems.
Coordinate work.
Confront each other if necessary.
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Determinants and Results of Team Cohesiveness
High Morale
Small Size Frequent Interaction Clear
Objectives Success
High Cohesiveness
Objective Achievement
Degree of Cohesiveness
Team Factors
Results
Low Morale
Large Size Infrequent Interaction Unclear
Objectives Failure
Low Cohesiveness
Failure to Achieve Objectives
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Effects of Cohesiveness and Performance Norms on
Productivity
High
B Moderate Productivity
A High Productivity
Team Performance Norms
C Low-to-Moderate Productivity
D Low Productivity
Low
Team Cohesiveness
High
Low
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Costs of Teams
Power-realignment
Training expenses
Lost productivity
Free-riding
Loss of productive workers
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Philosophical Approaches to Conflict
Beliefs
Reactions
TRADITIONAL VIEW

• Conflict is unnecessary.
• Conflict is to be feared.
• Conflict is harmful.
• Conflict is a personal failure.

• Immediately stop conflict.
• Remove all evidence of conflict,
  including people.

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Philosophical Approaches to Conflict
Beliefs
Reactions
BEHAVIORAL VIEW

• Immediately move to resolve or eliminate
  conflict.

• Conflict occurs frequently in organizations.
• Conflict is to be expected.
• Conflict can be positive but, more likely, it
  is harmful.

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Philosophical Approaches to Conflict
Beliefs
Reactions
INTERACTIONIST VIEW

• Conflict is inevitable in organizations.
• Conflict is necessary for organizational
  health.
• Conflict is neither inherently good nor bad.

• Manage conflict to maximize the positive.
• Manage conflict to minimize the negative.

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Sources of Conflict
Differences in objectives
Values and perceptions
Disagreements about role requirements
Work activities
Individual approaches
Breakdowns in communication
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Analyze a Conflict Situation,Three Key Questions
Who is in conflict?
What is the source of conflict?
What is the level of conflict?
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Conflict Situation Strategy

• Avoidance
• Smoothing
• Compromise
• Collaboration
• Confrontation
• Appeals to subordinate objectives
• Decisions by a third party

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Circumstances in Which Managers Stimulate
Conflict

• When team members exhibit and accept minimal
  performance.

• When people appear to be afraid to do anything
  other than the norm.

• When team members passively accept events or
  behavior that should motivate action.