Home > Diversity Services > Team Conflict Management
                                                    Strategies for the Workplace

Issue
We frequently hear conflict management and team conflict resolution concerns such as these:

• We need an effective team conflict resolution strategy for our diverse team to reduce conflict and increase productivity.
  
  
• How do individual diversity and conflict management relate to team work?
  
  
• We need conflict management strategies that will grow our business.

These points get at the “two-edged sword” nature of organization and team conflict. It may:

• Disrupt an entire organization's productivity, or
  
  
• Be the source and generator of phenomenal increases in productivity, innovation, creativity, agility, and safety (PICAS).

As the figure below shows, conflict in organizations is about ineffective communication and interpersonal relationships. This conflict creates tension, arguments, inability to collaborate, and inefficiency. The result is inability to develop a shared team vision, come to agreement, openly share ideas, work together, or produce the needed team results.

The link to diversity and inclusion becomes clear from the figure. Consider a group of people that may be very alike or that may have a wide range of differences between themselves in terms of the dimensions of diversity and culture.

Research in intercultural communication and organization effectiveness clearly show that the more-diverse group:

(a) needs interpersonal skills and cultural expertise to enable great communication so that

(b) they can leverage their inevitably-greater range of perspectives and insights to produce stronger business outcomes.

The focused needs assessment and development is a conflict resolution strategy that helps transform the conflict into a source of competitive advantage. This opens the door to phenomenal increases in PICAS, in pursuit of business growth.

It is your choice! Read on or call us now to start addressing your situation with our seasoned, practical, friendly experts.

Left unaddressed, conflict may spread throughout the work place. Individual, team, and organization effectiveness and productivity may suffer. The potential business impact varies widely and is always undesirable; possibilities include:

• Mild team conflict such as disagreement, inconsiderate or derogatory remarks, or difficult behavior between a few individuals, leaders, or team members may increase tension in the organization or team and slightly reduce productivity and effectiveness.
  
  
• Wider arguments or hostility driven by deeply-held beliefs may significantly reduce organization or team effectiveness and delay or disrupt all work and business results – be it manufacturing, a product or service introduction, a marketing effort, sales, customer service, or internal functions such as human resources, finance, or public relations.
  
  
• A senior leadership team may be dysfunctional and fail to provide needed leadership for the entire organization.

Typical approaches to conflict management in teams or organizations include diversity training, conflict management training, reorganizing, new accountability processes and objectives, and team building. Frequently these fail since they do not address the core issues.

You need an effective organization or team conflict resolution strategy for managing all aspects of conflict to restore relationships and increase PICAS, in pursuit of business results and growth.


Solution
Organization or team conflict is not inevitable. It can be resolved. The underlying differences in perspectives may be transformed into constructive conflict and competitive advantage. Effective conflict management strategies address peoples' different cultural backgrounds and help the organization or team build teamwork through a more-inclusive mode of operation.

This is conflict resolution through managing inclusion and developing intercultural expertise.

Conflict of any sort stems from people having different perspectives, opinions, expected behavioral norms, and communication and working styles. When people lack the skills and experience to manage conflict effectively, it may become destructive.

When teams and work groups have the right knowledge, skills, and experience, these same differences become the source of increased creativity and productivity, yielding sustainable competitive business advantage.

We adapt our conflict management and resolution strategies to each situation to help ensure the right outcome. A typical plan will involve some combination of these techniques:

• Interviewing the directly and indirectly involved people to identify the core issues.
  
  
• Individual coaching.
  
  
• Assessment of intercultural competence / expertise (i.e. how people think and feel about cultural difference).
  
  
• Team facilitation matched to the team's current intercultural expertise.
  
  
• Team or group development and learning matched to the team's current intercultural expertise.

Frequently we find that inability to communicate and work effectively with people of different cultural backgrounds is at the heart of an individual, team, or organizational conflict situation. These cultural differences may relate to any dimension of diversity.

In such situations, the most-effective solution is to develop either or both, as appropriate to the situation, of:

• How the involved people tend to think and feel about people from cultural backgrounds other than their own. This is the extent to which diversity and cultural difference tend to be avoided, thought of in polarizing terms, acknowledged and minimized, or fully valued and understood for its full effect and potential. We call this "core intercultural competence, a deep "culture-general" skill that relates to any and all dimensions of difference found in domestic and global workforces.
  
  
• The awareness of and skill in managing their individual culturally-based preferences and tendencies (CBTs) in patterns of thought and behavior. These CBTs affect how the involved people communicate and work with, and understand the needs of, each other given their different CBTs. This is a deep "culture-specific" skill that provides insight into the differences between individual / group tendencies and those of specific other cultures.

Where diversity and cultural difference are contributing factors, we use two world-class instruments: the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and the Culture in the Workplace Questionnaire™ (CWQ). IDI and CWQ help diagnose the situation so that the most effective solution can be implemented. They also provide a developmental framework from which the involved parties may develop, as needed, their core intercultural competence and their use of their culturally-based tendencies. For more about IDI and CWQ, see inclusion and intercultural expertise.

MDB Group is certified to offer these outstanding instruments as part of our comprehensive approach to managing organization and team conflict and increasing productivity.

See also: Team building and team development. Or just call us or send us a note to start discussing your situation!


Sample results
See representative results achieved by MDB Group's principals at conflict management strategies for the workforce and work place.


Related links
Workplace conflict affects many aspects of the workplace. Click the links below for further insight:

Next steps
Please call us to start developing the team conflict management strategies that will be most effective for your work place and help ensure that everyone is focused on achieving your key business goals.

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