Conflict Management - Systemic way to manage conflicts within Teams

[QE]

Hi all

I am researching a systemic way to manage conflicts within the teams. Can you please point me towards some material that can help me learn the conflict management skills and also help me a tool to measure the conflict management interactions.

Also please place this thread in the right forum if this is not the right place for this discussion.

Thank you.
QE.

 

[Steve Prevette]

Re: Conflict Management

I'd suggest "Five Dysfunctions of a Team"

 

[Andrej]

Conflicts are a serious threat to a process of any kind, let alone project management in a team. The best method is this:
Quickly resolve conflict. If the conflict can not be resolved immediately, transfer conflict solving to the higher management level (team leader in this case). In an extreme case of conflict, guidance must be thought from the director who has ultimate authority.

Regards, Andrej

 

[Wes Bucey]

Hi all

I am researching a systemic way to manage conflicts within the teams. Can you please point me towards some material that can help me learn the conflict management skills and also help me a tool to measure the conflict management interactions.

Also please place this thread in the right forum if this is not the right place for this discussion.

Thank you.
QE.

What triggered your desire to do this research? Is dissension and conflict endemic in your own organization to the point you think you need a "system?"

Do you intend to write a book? present seminars? open a consulting business?

Frankly, my business experience is nearly half a century and most of the unresolved conflicts I've observed within an organization can usually be tracked to a root cause of a practice, policy, or employee hire by top management. Well-run organizations may have personality conflicts within teams (regardless whether those teams are low level staff or high level department heads), but they usually resolve themselves if the antagonists really are working toward a common goal of success for the organization. Sometimes, an individual just has a "hurray for me, the heck with everybody else" attitude. Usually the most efficient resolution for such a person is termination.

I've found that the most conflict-free organizations truly practice Deming's theory of a System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) so that everyone knows how his functions interact with other functions to contribute to the joint success of the organization. It helps when top management also operates under a theory of non-exploitation so that "A workman worthy of hire is worthy of pay commensurate with the value to the organization."

 

[somashekar]

Hi all

I am researching a systemic way to manage conflicts within the teams. Can you please point me towards some material that can help me learn the conflict management skills and also help me a tool to measure the conflict management interactions.

Also please place this thread in the right forum if this is not the right place for this discussion.

Thank you.
QE.

Look HERE for 132 search results for word 'Conflict'
I hope you will get what you want

 

[QE]

Hi Wes,

Thanks for your reply. The conflict endemic is specific to my organization. I do not write to intend a book, or a seminar or do consulting.

Few days back I was asked to approve a GRR, that has 60% variability in an ASAP situation. The entire team approved but I did not. When I explained my concern the authors agreed to all I had to say and finally asked for a conditional approval. I finally approved the report after burning my bridges with several individual . I learned that being right is not the only skill set one needs in this type of environment.

What triggered your desire to do this research? Is dissension and conflict endemic in your own organization to the point you think you need a "system?"

Do you intend to write a book? present seminars? open a consulting business?

Frankly, my business experience is nearly half a century and most of the unresolved conflicts I've observed within an organization can usually be tracked to a root cause of a practice, policy, or employee hire by top management. Well-run organizations may have personality conflicts within teams (regardless whether those teams are low level staff or high level department heads), but they usually resolve themselves if the antagonists really are working toward a common goal of success for the organization. Sometimes, an individual just has a "hurray for me, the heck with everybody else" attitude. Usually the most efficient resolution for such a person is termination.

I've found that the most conflict-free organizations truly practice Deming's theory of a System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) so that everyone knows how his functions interact with other functions to contribute to the joint success of the organization. It helps when top management also operates under a theory of non-exploitation so that "A workman worthy of hire is worthy of pay commensurate with the value to the organization."

 

[Wes Bucey]

Hi Wes,

Thanks for your reply. The conflict endemic is specific to my organization. I do not write to intend a book, or a seminar or do consulting.

Few days back I was asked to approve a GRR, that has 60% variability in an ASAP situation. The entire team approved but I did not. When I explained my concern the authors agreed to all I had to say and finally asked for a conditional approval. I finally approved the report after burning my bridges with several individual . I learned that being right is not the only skill set one needs in this type of environment.

One time only, I'm going to give a high level aerial view of a tiny portion of weekend-long intensive management seminar I present about once a year under various titles. The entire theme (as you may have guessed) is "Business success with Profound Knowledge."

This tiny portion is about conflicts - recognizing causes, reducing opportunities, ameliorating personal and corporate damage.

While seminar attendees get the ground-level, up close and personal touch with the opportunity to ask unlimited questions and role play with me and each other, your free version won't be quite so detailed.

Conflict Causes: almost all conflicts arise because one or both conflicting parties don't employ FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis) with sufficient knowledge of the logical consequences of a course of action. Simply, it means they enter the discussion with insufficient research and thus insufficient knowledge to make logical and efficient decisions. In plain terms, the guy shooting from the hip is often firing blanks.

Conflicts escalate: because one or more parties lose control of their emotions, and bring personalities into the discussion. Some folks are practiced bullies, pushing their victims into a flight or fight response. One technique to maintain self control when someone is trying to push your buttons is what I call "eye in the sky." Picture yourself as a spy camera looking down at the participants, removed from the fray. That way you can view the proceedings of them [and yourself] dispassionately. MY spy eye sees me when my temperature starts to rise and I think to myself, "Old Wes is getting a little hot under the collar; time to call a 'bio break' and get away from the action to cool down." During that cool down, of course, I examine my strategy versus the others and revise or amend my tactics based on that appraisal away from the pressure of raised voices and bloated egos.

Henry Ford had the perfect truism for folks going into meetings to negotiate for their point of view: "If you think you can do a thing or if you think you can't do a thing, you're right." The corollary Ford never mentions, of course, is that you need to plan HOW you are going to do that thing or the truism won't work.