Team Norms and Conflict

norms: general guidelines or rules of behavior that most group or team members follow; typically are unwritten
why are norms followed?
- to help the group survive
- to clarify role expectations
- to help individuals avoid embarrassing situations
- to emphasize group importance and identity

conflict: process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party
- simply disagreement, a perfectly normal thing
functional conflict: benefits the main purposes of the organization and serves its interests
dysfunctional conflict: hinders the organizations performance or threatens its interests

personality conflicts: interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike, disagreement, or differing styles
- personality clashes, competition for scarce resources, time pressure, communication failures
envy-based conflict: based on resentment of others because they possess something desirable (money, power, position, title, authority, influence)
intergroup conflicts: “us vs them”
- can occur due to:
- inconsistent goals or reward systems
- ambiguous jurisdictions/unclear boundaries
- status differences
cross-cultural conflicts: frequent opportunities for clashes between cultures in the global economy
- ex: couples might start arguing that their way of childrearing is the right way
- ex: corporate teams may stop communicating with their colleagues from other cultures, viewing them as untrustworthy or obstructive

programmed conflict: designed to elicit different opinions without inciting people’s personal feelings
devil’s advocacy: assigning someone to play the role of critic to voice possible objections to a proposal and thereby generate critical thinking and reality testing
dialect method: two people or groups play opposing roles in a debate in order to better understand a proposal