The Role of Conflict on Team Development and Productivity
Conflicts in an organization arise from disagreements in which the parties concerned perceive threats in their interests, needs or concerns. The differences in perceptions, interests, information and preferences are unavoidable. Conflicts are common in teams working together closely for some time. If not well managed, there can be performance deficits, hostility or even dissolution of the team (Parker, 2008).
There are various types of conflicts that exist in organizations. The roles played by the conflicts may be negative or positive depending on the type of the conflict and how they are solved. Some conflicts are centered upon economic issues such as disputes in remuneration and pay, size of staff and office space among others (Amason, 1996). Some people may be feeling more entitled to some resources than others. Such conflicts are raised by egocentric variations of an individual’s contribution in a task (Jehn & Chatman, 2000). Teams with such conflict (task conflict) achieve a lot on condition that there is low relationship conflict. When there is a complex task to be accomplished by the team, the task conflict become less disruptive (Roseman, Wiest & Swartz, 1994). Some studies showed that organizations with task conflicts experience a high level of commitment among team members. There is also increased individual performance and cohesiveness in the group, increased individual performance and member’s satisfaction. When these issues are raised through conflicts, the solutions for the issues are proposed. When there is a high relationship conflict, it does not promote member commitment, performance or member satisfaction (Thompson 2008). Perceptual conflict in an organization helps to build individual confidence in the workplace. Members of a team have different perceptions towards agreements or lack of agreements and the way team members face conflicts in the organization. Other conflicts raise the symbolic issues in an organization (Parker 2008). Symbolic issues in an organization include personal beliefs and principles (Amason, 1996). Process conflict in an organization occurs when there is a disagreement on who should do what in a given task. Disagreement on how to achieve a set objective in the organization is experienced when there is process conflict (Guetzkow & Gyr, 1954).
There are other conflicts in an organization that have negative outcomes. They yield negative roles in the organization. Relationship conflict reduces the effort put by team members in a given task. The reason is that the members focus on reducing threats and increasing their own power. This is in an attempt to create a strong cohesion instead of working on the task. These conflicts lead to anxiety that is created by interpersonal animosity. It distracts the team members from the task and inhibits their cognitive functioning. Relationship conflicts also interfere with the ability to process information in a team (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Team satisfaction cannot be achieved when there is relation conflict (Roseman, Wiest & Swartz, 1994). This conflict is emotional and interpersonal and is likely to be projected to other team members. Studies have shown that those groups with increased trust at the early stages are likely to experience relationship conflict in the future. When there is an early negative feedback to the team there are high chances of increase in the task and relational conflicts (Peterson & Behfar, 2003).
My experience in solving a business conflict
There is no organization that lacks conflicts. For my case, being a team leader, there was a process conflict. Task conflicts are common in many organizations (Wageman, 2001). The team members were disagreeing on the roles presented to them. Those who were at the finance department argued that they were not supposed to be involved in customer care services. Their argument was that they had many duties to do and that other team members from the other departments should deliver customer services. Since the department of customer care services was new, it had been decided that the members from the finance department should serve the newly established department. There were a lot of disagreements in the organization concerning this issue. Being a team leader, I viewed the situation as a process conflict that needed to be solved immediately.
There are five conflict management approaches that can be used to solve a conflict in the organization. One of them is competing whereby ones need is advocated more than the needs of others (Kramer & Brewer, 1984). It requires aggressive leaders. The second approach is known as accommodation. In this approach, an individual allows the needs of others team members to overwhelm their own. The third approach is known as avoiding. It is a perception of conflict that is negative. The views are unexpressed and the bond between leaders and team members is broken. The forth approach is compromising. In this approach, people give and gain in a tradeoff. Each individual remains shaped by his or her own perception. The fifth approach is collaborating. The individual goals and needs are pooled together to achieve a common goal (Parker 2008).
For my case, I decided to use the collaborating approach. I decided to apply win-win problem-solving technique. It is wise for one to cooperate with the team members so as to come up with a solution to the conflict (Lewicki et al., 1992). I asked the members to come up with their own suggestions towards this issue. In a meeting that I chaired, every team member gave his or her own views. Since I was the leader, I also gave my own opinions on how the problem can be dealt with. I indicated the sensitivity of the problem to both the team members and the management. We analyzed the strong points holding other factors constant. I encouraged everyone to be honest in his opinion so as to come up with a neutral solution. We discussed every point raised by every member in the meeting and came up with an agreement. The solution was that the different departments in the organization would participate equally in the newly established department. The management promised to employ new employees in the financial year that followed. When I analyzed how the conflict was managed, I saw that it was effective in that case. This approach seemed to have solved the problem completely. We all came into an agreement that the conflict was officially over. The operations in the organization came back to normal. When thinking back, what I could have differently was to use compromising approach. I could have engaged the team members in a give and gain tradeoffs (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). This could have been the other alternative where the team members were to be paid for the extra time they worked in the new department. This approach is however not satisfying to the members or other concerned parties (Thompson 2008).
