Areas Of Conflict In Teams example essay topic

Team Dynamics and Conflict Resolution in Work Teams team is a group of individuals brought together in order to accomplish a task or resolve a problem that cannot be successfully or proficiently completed by an individual. This group may be temporary or long term. The length of time that the team will be together has a great effect on the ability of the individuals to work together. It may contain individuals of varying expertise in order to accomplish the assigned task or tasks in the most proficient and correct manner.

When trying to complete some tasks, teams may be more effective than an individual. They offer the ability for individuals to get to know their team members and develop working relationships. Teams allow organizations to develop a strong culture that incorporates the needs and expectations of all of its members. Teams often provide more efficient results because of the differences in individual's strengths and weaknesses.

An area that one individual is weak in; another individual may be strong in. Whenever a team embarks upon a process of self-assessment in order to measure its own effectiveness to improve performance, it engages in team building. To access itself, a team seeks feedback to find out its strengths and weaknesses as a team. To improve upon its current performance, a team needs to set goals on how to go from their actual state to their desired state. The term team building can often refer to the process of establishing specific groups to accomplish certain tasks in an organization. Team Dynamics are the unseen forces that operate in a team between different groups of people.

One can recognize team dynamics by looking for the forces that influence team behavior. These forces might include: o Personality styles by including or excluding people How we gather information, expressed as Creative or Practical. o How we make decisions, expressed as logical or belief based. o Team Roles o Organizational culture o Problem-solving methods One can manage team dynamics constructively by: o Identifying team dynamics - the natural forces at play. o Determine whether they are acting for good or ill. o Make interventions to make the effect of those dynamics more positive. o Organize teams in the workplace and identify roles and responsibilities of team members. o Identify team goals and work with different personality types. o Use effective planning to achieve team goals. o Communicate in a team and identify factors affecting team communication. o Resolve and manage team conflicts. Diversified work teams can be to ones advantage or diversity can lead arguments within the team. Without team dynamics in place conflict rises, and aggravation and anger start to grow. This is why learning to resolve conflict issues is so important.

One could define the term team dynamics as requiring individuals to motivate each other to achieve a common goal. Team Dynamics & Characteristics a. Different roles team members may play 1. ADVISOR- Encourages the search for more information, 2.

ASSES OR- Offer insightful analysis of options, 3. ORGANIZER- Provides structure. 4. MAINTAINER- Fights external battles. 5. CONTROLLERS- Examine detail and enforce rules.

6. PRODUCERS- Provides directions and follow through. 7. PROMOTER- Encourages ideas after they are initiated. 8 CREATOR- initiates creative ideas.

9. LINKER- Coordinates and integrates. b. Team Development Process 1. Pick team member or teams that have the same type of performance goals. 2. They should all have positive energy.

3. Accountability- Individual and mutual, meaning everyone is responsible. 4. Skills- Pick team members whose skills are complementary to yours. c.

Identifying Team Goals We are a type of virtual team, teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal, so after developing your teams, key roles should be established and their should be a certain goal set for the whole team to use. d. Establishing Decision Making Procedures 1. Share ideas 2. Offer suggestions 3. Generate complete information and knowledge 4. Higher quality decisions are made through team participation Conflict Resolution Most everyone thinks of conflicts as a clash, a battle, or tension in a group to protect or enforce our rights or values, when a conflict arises and consider it as a crisis.

How you respond to a conflict is based on your willingness to change. Conflicts often emerge when team members have different approaches to one or more subjects. Conflicts in teams could be an intense involvement of basic personality structures. Personalities come in all shapes and forms. Dealing with different personalities is a difficult task when dealing in the areas of conflict in teams. Every individual uses his or her mode of operation for example decision making the way we take in or write information, energy flow how well we function in the group slacker or a go getter.

We all use one or more modes of operation in the team. Areas of conflicts in a team Gender-based conflicts could arise because either a man or woman might feel threatened in a group if there is a lot of the opposite in sex in a team. Economics could also be a conflict in a group if one employee is getting paid less to do the same job as someone who is getting paid more. It may make the employee who is getting paid less not want to work with the higher paid employee. It could make them feel unworthy and less adequate to the group. Effective time-management may also be an area of conflict because some people in the group may be procrastinators while others might be efficient in managing time.

Knowledge could be another area of conflicts some of the team members could be more knowledgeable of certain subjects and may be considered as know-it-all's. Benefits of Conflicts Benefits can be obtained if we change the way we think and respond to conflicts. Individuals could admit that we are all weak in different areas and we could derive strength from others if we focus and allow everyone points of view and opinions to come into play in all aspects. Conflicts can help improve productivity in time management. Everyone will become effective in assignments and slackers will be pressured to do their work also. It will also provide organizational change in allowing the underlying problems of a group to surface that might not be suited for team structures.

It helps resolve problems to have a group participate better. In the realm of personal development it teaches what the best learning style is and what will work for the team. It also helps team to develop what strategies are best for the group in order to achieve maximum work benefits. Psychological maturity helps team members to adjust to other ideas and be able to compromise between each other in the group.

It also helps to resolve conflicts that might occur in the group later. Team moral develops when each individual can address the issues they might have and the team can work together to provide a positive effect in the group. Every team member should possess good work ethics and morals and be able to communicate their opinion to the group to release stress and or tensions that might arise as a result. Communication is the most important factor in resolving conflict in a group setting. Some ideas to keep in mind when communicating are to try to be honest and try to be productive. Also, avoid being negative and accusing people.

In other words, all members of the group involved should attempt to have an objective point of view-it requires participation of everyone concerned to have an open and fair manner. Some options to consider when resolving conflict are withdrawing, smoothing the situation, compromising with group members, forcing, and confronting. Withdrawing in this resolution process means some people might need to leave the group to work out the disagreement. Another option is smoothing the situation, and this takes place when the group focuses on the areas of agreement to minimize the disagreement.

Compromising is about everyone negotiating together to come to a solution. Forcing is the strongest option, and that is when the leader makes use of his or her power to resolve the problem. Confronting is not as strong an option as forcing, but it is when the group faces the conflict directly to resolve the problem by working with problem solving techniques. When using the problem solving technique, it is helpful to be constructive. The group can do this by being in control of their emotions, be direct, factual, and sincere, go to the source, be an active listener, and assume that each person means well. Conclusion Teams offer an excellent opportunity for performing many of the steps in the decision making process.

If the group is composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds or similar ideas, the alternatives generated should be more extensive and the analysis more critical. When the final solution is agreed on, there are more people in a group decision to support and implement it. Because teams can include members from diverse areas, the time spent searching for information can be reduced. When choosing teams, consideration should be given to assessing whether team members ideas increases in effectiveness are more than enough to offset the losses in efficiency or productivity.