Conflict Management

Conflict Management

The team movement has swept the corporate and business worlds. You cannot pick up a newspaper, periodical or textbook without seeing a mention of teams. Teams provide the key to move organizations into the twenty-first century. Most individuals define a team as a group of individuals working together for a common purpose, who must rely on each other to achieve mutually defined results.

Creating a Innovative Team

Teams in the workplace don't just happen; there is a building process that provides a team with an understanding of the underlying processes of teamwork, such as goal and role clarity and problem solving skills. Teams take time to come together and there is a natural development process every team progresses through. Generally a team has been formed for a reason--to complete a specific project or meet a specific goal. When this is the case, there are a set of identifiable stages in creative and innovative team development.

Teams are typically made up of a diverse group of individuals; each member possessing different capabilities and skills. This element is what makes the use of teams so advantageous; however, diversity can also create conflict. Therefore, it is important for teams to understand the dynamics of conflict and to regulate its natural flow.

Developing Skills for Team Members and Leaders

Teams go through stages of development. The most commonly used framework for a team's stages of development was developed in the mid-1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman. Each stage of team development has its own recognizable feelings and behaviors; understanding why things are happening in certain ways on your team can be an important part of the self-evaluation process. These stages are: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing which provide a useful framework for team work.

Forming is the stage of development concerned with the initial entry of members to a group. In this stage the members of the group begin to identify with each other. Storming is the group development concerned with sorting out member expectations. In this stage emotions and tension among group members characterize this stage and conflict may develop over leadership and authority. Norming is the stage of group development in which the group begins to come together as a unit and strives to maintain balance. Performing is the stage of group development when the group performs in a mature, organized fashion. Adjourning is the stage of group development in which the group is prepared to disband when its task is accomplished.

All teams must be prepared to go through the difficult and stressful times as well as reaping the benefits