Primary Causes of Conflict

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Primary Causes of Conflict In Teams
Personal Structural Communicative
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• Why is conflict integral to the
• functioning of a team?
• avoids groupthink
• provides opportunity for member input
• results in better decision-making
• promotes creativity
• leads to greater acceptance of decisions
• provides opportunity for member input
• can increase team cohesiveness

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Conflict An Important Dimension In Successful
Management Teams
Cognitive (C) conflict vs. Affective (A)
conflict
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Effective teams engage in C conflict and have
norms that encourage open discussion of issues.
In teams with C conflict, members are
assertive but practice empathy and understanding
of team members positions and feelings
emotional intelligence
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• C conflict is found in Creator teams
• A conflict is found in Destroyer teams

C conflict occurs in Creator teams because they
view the differences their diverse members bring
as cognitive resources to be capitalized upon
A conflict occurs in Destroyer teams because
they view the differences their diverse members
as threats they need to personally fight against
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• Teams using the mapping, bridging, and
  integrating steps are more likely to have C
  conflict because upfront they
• acknowledge differences
• understand differences
• accept differences
• find ways to use differences as benefits

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• Teams that are well designed, have achieved
  emotional intelligence and are able to operate
  with C conflict are able to argue but get along

Tactic
Strategy
Base discussion on facts
Focus on issues, not members Develop
multiple alternatives
Rally around goals Frame
decisions as collaborations Inject humor into the
process aimed at achieving
best solution
Maintain balance of power Establish sense of
equity and fairness in the process Resolve
issues w/o forcing consensus
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We all use different strategies for handling
conflict in different situations with different
people. However, it is also true that
some people tend to have a natural orientation
for relying on, or avoiding, some conflict
strategies.
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Conflict strategies or techniques tend to fall
into 5 main types All have a time and place
for use in teams All have implications when used
in teams It is important to understand when the
situation warrants individual team members use
of a given conflict strategy
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Avoiding unassertive/uncooperative Accommodatin
g unassertive/cooperative Competing
assertive/uncooperative Compromising
intermed. assertive/cooperative Collaborating
assertive/cooperative
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Each conflict strategy has advantages
disadvantages when used in a team, as well as
short-term and long-term implications
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• How do team members know which
• strategy to use?
• Issue importance
• Maintenance of the relationships
• Time constraints
• Personalities of the team members
• Norms of the team