Teams are a powerful force in organizations. They are assembled to tackle complex and strategic issues within a company. Often the membership is a select group of people from different departments, each with special skills or talents to solve a particular problem.
In order for a team to be successful, it's essential that members know the basics of conflict resolution, delegation, and consensus building (Convey, 1994). Also each member must relay on whatever they have learned on their own to move the team through these struggles. .
Team conflict can arise from difference between team members in terms of power, values and attitudes. It tends to arise when resources are scarce, the team situation is ambiguous, members have different goals and the tasks assigned leave some connection (Abrahamson, 2002).
Yet, conflict differences or disagreements are a natural result of people working together. Also, without conflict, teams can become complacent and not perform at optimum levels.
Conflicts arise from the clash of perceptions, goals, or values in an arena where people care about the outcome (Alessandra, 1993). If the management of that conflict is not effective, it can totally disrupt the entire group process.
We can reduce conflict by resolving the problems that are causing it. For example if two team members are in conflict over resources they both need, we can obtain more resources or create rules to use to allocate or share resources.
It is important that managers deal with dispute quickly and openly, and try to have group focused forums for open and honest discussion of team conflict. In other case, it should be better to conduct more private meetings with the parties directly involved in the conflict, which may be more constructive and may avoid any humiliation parties may feel in a more open and public setting.
Another way to categorize conflict is by focusing on its origin.
