Team Dynamics

Team Conflict

Success as a team is harder to accomplish than success individually because of conflicts among members of the team, but well worth the effort because diversity creates new ideas, different opinions, and almost any project can benefit from multiple specialists. Conflicts arise in all teams and these conflicts derive from differences in the teammates. These differences can range from race, education, specialties, and backgrounds. All of which are necessary for the team to be more useful than an individual attempt at the same project or goal.

Teams have become inescapable in the business and academic world recently, but have been a part of everyday life for centuries. ÐŽ§It is estimated that between 70 and 82 percent of U.S. companies use the team concept, making teamwork skills one of the most commonly required skills in the work environment.ЎЁ (De Janasz, 2002). Teams have proven themselves more effective in solving problems and managing organizations.

Most businesses or educators start cross-functional teams in hopes of boosting productivity and quality. ÐŽ§A cross-functional team is a group of individuals from various departments or organizational stations of the company or institution who are assembled to achieve goals not ordinarily achieved by single employees.ЎЁ (www.ism.ws/tools/content.cfm).

Functional diversity provides the working team with new perspectives and ideas that no one person could derive alone. With these diversities also come conflicts. The conflicts come from each individual in the team having his or her own background and specialty that in turn affects their idea on the direction the project should go. These conflicts are the reason for setting up a team and if not accounted for could make for the demise of the team.

Unplanned or undermanaged conflict consist of such things as leadership struggles, and poor communication. If a team fails; most likely one of these conflicts is to blame.

Teams will work in constant chaos if one or more individuals are not established as leaders. Leaders or managers must keep the team on track and involved in the entire process. At CombÐŽ¦s Properties, a real estate development company located in south eastern New Mexico, numerous problems arise from the what many call ÐŽ§too many chiefs and not enough indians.ЎЁ Titles are given, but no sense of power or authority is enforced. New hires soon develop an understanding of the fact that their so called superior truly has no authority to fire, hire, or effect raises so they in turn begin to govern their own actions. This lack of authority breeds an attitude among project managers leading them think if they have no power then they should not bother worrying about other employees. This broken system results in poor quality, poor morale, and an overall lack of concern for the success of the company.

Poor communication conflicts effect every level of the team and results in lack luster results. In a book titled ÐŽ§Cross-Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers,ЎЁ G. Parker lists factors that lead to poor communication and they include:

„h Lack of appreciation of the contributions of other functions. Ex: in telecommunications projects, some engineers do not value the input provided by human factors psychologists.

„h Plain old Fashion turf battles Ex: playing out competitive games on the field provided by the cross-functional team

„h Some functions simply talking a different language Ex: Line department users often do not understand the terminology and technology employed by computer programmers

„h Members of different functions no sharing similar work orientations Ex: researchers tend to take a long-term view and have and informal work climate; operations people are more short term and formal; salespeople are usually informal and have a short-term focusÐŽK..

„h Some members simply having more interest in the teamÐŽ¦s purpose and more to gain from a successful outcome

„h Some members mistakenly seeing harmony as the goal of cross-functional teamwork.

Conflicts among teams good and bad can and should be planned for before the team is ever assembled. Bruce Tuckman developed a 4-stage model of group development in 1965. He labeled themÐŽK

1. Forming: The group comes together and gets to know initially one another and for as a group

2.