Actively Managing Conflict

Actively Managing Conflict

Read the article below and complete a 1-2 page article review. The article review should include the following:

  • Summary of the article.
    • What are the key points of the article?
    • How does managing conflict help with collaboration?
  • Do you agree with the techniques presented in the article? Why or Why not?

Support Info:

Leadership that prepares a plan, constantly observes for sign of conflict, and realizes that it will happen will be able to avoid major conflicts within a team. Team members also play a major part in avoiding and/or resolving major conflict. Team members need to understand that conflicts can happen at any time and be trained to recognize signs of early conflict so the situation can be dealt with immediate.

When dealing with conflict there are several things to keep in mind:

  • Active listening
  • Clarify and question effectively
  • Effective feedback
  • Think and analyze in a methodical and systematic way
  • Set clear, reasonable, achievable goals
  • Identify risks and assumptions
  • Focus on facts and issues, not personalities or personal attitudes or behavior
  • Cross training opportunities
  • Use of “rules of engagement’
  • Mentoring
  • Focus on the content of their interactions, rather than the delivery style (i.e., tone);
  • Explicitly discuss reasons behind work assignment decisions
  • Assign work to members who have the task expertise rather than by other means, such as volunteerism or convenience

Researches Wageman & Donnenfeld suggest four kinds of conflict intervention:

  1. Team (re)Design: change may occur by changing out team members, creating new goals and/or adjusting the team’s activities.
  2. Task process coaching: coaching that could include a variety of exercises or learning objectives. Communication skills, team skills such as strategy and/or increasing motivation.
  3. Conflict process coaching: leadership creates activities to increase team building abilities, trust and create team conflict
  4. Changing the individual: team members are trained to be tolerant, respectful and decision makers by negotiation skills and behavioral training.

There are many methods to help teams with conflict that can be implemented. Teams and leadership that perform at the highest level understand that conflict will happen in teams and understand the best ways to resolve conflict is to be proactive.

References:

Thompson, L. L. (2011). Making the Team: A Guide for Managers, Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall

Kelman, H. C. (2010). Interactive problem solving: Changing political culture in the pursuit of conflict resolution. Peace And Conflict: Journal Of Peace Psychology, 16(4), 389-413. doi:10.1080/10781919.2010.518124