Chapter 1: Teamwork and Conflict Management: 

Chapter 1: Teamwork and Conflict Management: 

Introduction: 

  • Most tasks are too complex/time-consuming for a single person to be able to handle on his own
  • Teamwork is essential in order for teamwork tasks to be done optimally
  • Team are also effective in other ways – Sport, running a business (management functions), Staging a production, making a movie –


Problems in teamwork: 

Introduction: 

  • Teams do not always run smoothly
  • Different personalities, different ideas, different goals, different ways of doing things all working towards a common goal – often a recipe for disaster
  • Despite the formal goal of the team, people often have their own agendas

Daffy Definitions: 

  • Conference: Confusion of one man multiplied by the number present
  • Conference room: Room where everybody talks, nobody listens, everybody disagrees later
  • Compromise: Art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest slice
  • Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually, sit and decide that nothing can be done together
  • Experience: Name men give to their mistakes
  • Boss: Someone who is early when you are late, late when you’re early


Problems experienced in teams: 

Always important to put aside personal issues – prepared to compromise (not always easy)

Various factors which cause problems: 

  • Lack of a common aim – lack of focus
  • Different ideas
  • Working at different speeds – may hold up the entire group
  • Group does not have the correct skills for all tasks
  • No specific leader – multiple people may try to take charge
  • Conflict between team members – distract the team
  • Personal egos – conflict the team goal

Establishing effective teams: 

Essential that potential team members are trained to work together effectively

  • Learning how to analyse/ classify types of teams (understand how they work – team format is best for that situation)
  • Learning about different team roles
  • Understanding team processes (various stages a team goes through)
  • Understanding team dynamics
  • How to manage conflict in teams


Types of teams: 

Informal teams: 

  • Groups of people who gravitate towards each other – common interests, shared goal
  • Members are usually fiercely loyal to the team, will follow their own code of conduct


Advantages of belonging to an informal team: 

  • Sense of identity
  • Friendship/support
  • Opportunity to discuss/ participate in an interest/hobby with like-minded people
  • Part of an informal communication network (grapevine)


Formal teams: 

  • Created by management towards achieving a goal
  • Democratic management – choice of which team they belong to –
  • Organisational goals are achieved by dividing them into sub-goals

 

Formal teams are created to achieve outcomes such as: 

  • Producing specific aspects of work
  • Developing new ideas
  • Managing a process
  • Resolving conflict/problem solving
  • Improving working conditions/ motivation of employees


Advantages of belonging to a formal team:

  • Increased motivation
  • Productivity
  • Decreased costs/wastage 
  • Improve decision making
  • Less duplication of effort
  • Greater flexibility/ ability to adapt to change


Team roles: 

Most teams are complex – many of the problems that arise in teams could be avoided if roles are more clearly defined/correctly allocated

Aspects that need to be considered when allocating roles: 

The aim of the team: 

  • Intend to achieve?
  • If it’s a complex goal – need to be broken down into sub-goals


The side of the team:

  • Members in a small team – double up on roles
  • Members in a large team – several members playing similar roles


The expected life span of the team: 

  • Some teams operated only for a limited period


The strengths/weaknesses of each member: 

  • Too many similar strengths could lead to conflict
  • Too many weaknesses, not compensated for may lead to serious problems


The available resources: 

  • Resources, financing/equipment, compensate for some of the problems mentioned


Accountability: 

  • Accountability for each task in the group
  • Even if the whole group is involved, one person needs to take responsibility to co-ordinate it

Team roles: 

  • Initiator: Person who gets everything going
  • Often reads instructions out loud
  • Organise the voting for a leader
  • Contribute new ideas

  • Investigator: Person who will volunteer to do the research

  • Administrator: Person who will do the paperwork

  • Motivator: Person is a caring ‘people’s person’
  • Gets everyone excited about the project
  • Makes sure everyone is happy
  • They will notice when someone withdraws
  • When feelings are hurt, they try rectify things

  • Coordinator: Person who will ensure that resources are allocated/used properly

  • Activator: Get involved/actively participate in the practical execution

  • Leader: Far more than any individual role
  • Primary focus is decision-making/crisis management
  • Where the situation is volatile or problematic, essential to be able to step back/keep an eye on the bigger picture


Team process: 

  • Forming: Members allocated/come together to start forming a team
  • Storming: Most volatile stage.
  • Members are finding their roles
  • Ideas, discussion, disagreement, are all rampant – part of the creative process
  • Members past experiences should be noted as a potential future resource
  • Norming: ‘Calm after the storm’
  • Work towards a common goal
  • Team roles are either assigned by a leader or assumed
  • Agreement reached – all members are happy to proceed
  • Team briefing will occur – leader will allocate roles
  • Performing: Actual work is done
  • Members complete their allocated tasks/ break into sub-teams
  • Barriers/problems are addressed
  • This stage is potentially the longest lasting process

  • Adjourning: Disbanding of the group groups
  • Task is completed – or realisation is reached that it will not be successful
  • If unsuccessful mourning may occur – members formed close bonds
  • If successful mourning will be followed by a period of celebration/ achievement-reflection
  • Team will transform/start a new project (sometimes with different members, new goals)


Team dynamics: 

  • Refers to how well a team works together
  • Constant push and pull effect – actions and reactions
  • Each person must adjust to what is happening in the rest of the team


Problems arise mainly through: 

  • Lack of communication
  • Lack of strong leadership/management
  • Personality differences/underlying tensions
  • Not having correct skills/ resources to complete tasks
  • Lack of direction/clear goals
  • Inadequate role allocation/organisation
  • Lack of commitment from team members – do not work to their pull potential/at all
  • Prejudice, beliefs, values, diversity affecting the interaction of team members


Team attitude/spirit: 

  • Attitude is a fundamental building block in creating successful team dynamics
  • Often all the training and practicing in the world will not make as much of a difference as a change in attitude


Team briefing: 

  • Essential part of team dynamics
  • Leaders role is to analyse the available information, time, budgets ad summaries them effectively for the team


 

 

Team briefings, adhere to some specific criteria: 

  • Led by the team leader – reinforce their role
  • Give direction/focus to the team
  • Be short/to the point
  • Clear in communicating aims, roles responsibilities
  • Specify time lines/expected outcomes
  • Avoid general, non-specific discussions
  • Allow for questions – asked and answered –
  • Be motivational, inspire members
  • Assist individuals/groups to cope with change/innovation
  • Quantify the type/extend of support structures


All members should feel motivated/eager to do their part, with total buy in to the vision


Team synergy: 

  • Important in order for the rest of the team to work at achieving the same goals
  • Team members should support each other – not jeopardise the work of others
  • Synergy: The process of optimal cooperation where the team together achieves more than the individuals could on their own
  • Synergy is achieved through consensus (compromise is almost always needed)

Team synergy is best summarised as: Synchronised Energy


Team dynamics in practice: 

  • Any one team member who is not working properly becomes ‘the weakest link’
  • The weakest link poses a problem for the team as a whole
  • Team often has to compensate for the weakest link – additional strain on them; this affects inter-relationships, attitudes, general performance


Problem of a weak link in the team can arise in two ways: 

Team constituted without necessary skills: 

  • Always important to do a SWOT analysis/evaluate team in detail before starting

 

A team member does not pull their weight: 

  • Serious problem – often leads to crisis management – important to stick to deadlines

Group consensus: 

  • Is a decision making too
  • Requires members of a team to reach mutual consent – not necessarily agree on an issue
  • Vote in favour of the motion – agree to disagree
  • Consensus refers to both the final decision/ the process of arriving at the decision
  • Important to reach consensus – consequences of implementing the decision will affect the entire group, all members must take ownership of the decision
  • Compromise is an important part of reaching consensus
  • If consensus cannot be reached – dissenting team member may withdraw/force the team to change the proposal (process will start again)


Belbin Role Theory: 

According to the Belbin theory – there are nine different roles that people may assume in a group

Action orientated roles: 

  • Shaper: Enjoys challenges/ thrives on overcoming obstacles  (Sipho)
  • Implementer: Conservative/reliable. Turning ideas into practical actions (Ivan)
  • Completer: Conscientious/ looks of errors (Candy)

People orientated roles: 

  • Coordinator: Mature person – clarifies roles/delegates well (Carl)
  • Team worker: Diplomatic/listens/reduce friction (Thabo)
  • Resource investigator: Enthusiastic about exploring opportunities/ developing contacts (Ruan)

Cerebal Roles: 

  • Monitor: Evaluates (Mary)
  • Specialist: Contributes specific skills – dwells on technicalities (Susan)
  • Acting as a plant: Loves to solve difficult problems (Peter)


Jungian Theory: 

  • Jungian Theory of Carl Jung
  • Forms the basis of MTR-I and Margerison-McCann profiles
  • Jung founded the concept of analytical Psychology


 

MTR-I Approach: 

  • MTR-I: Management Team Roles Indicator
  • Is an approach looks at hat is needed to close the gap between desire/ actual team performance
  • Used for decision making/ team collaboration
  • Looks at the way the team as a whole functions/ roles individuals in that team play
  • Acknowledges that people will play different roles in different scenarios
  • Roles can change over a period of time


Margerison-McCann Profiles: 

  • Acknowledges that a team works at different levels at different times – takes into consideration the work preference of individuals
  • Advantages of the system is the ability to work with diversity/balance team roles
  • Provides guidelines for managing conflict


Project management: 

  • Projects differ from normal work in that they are definable tasks
  • Resourced with specific team members
  • Smaller projects can be short term, larger projects an take years


Project manager: 

They are responsible to all the stakeholders in the process

  • Sponsor: Person who commissioned the project – often CEO in the business
  • Suppliers: Providing resources –form of products/services
  • Clients: Beneficiaries of the project – In an economically driven project the client would ultimately pay, in a CSI initiative funding would come from suppliers
  • Team leaders: People who are in charge of sub-sections of the project. Teams under them to accomplish specific tasks
  • Other stakeholders: Depends on the type of project. Society as a whole may benefit/ government through increased taxes due to better sales


Roles of the project manager: 

  • In charge of planning, organising, leading, controlling the project process


Project life cycle: 

  • May be necessary to back track to the previous step to resolve a problem
  • A project goes through the same steps as the forming of the team process
  • Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning


Project Charter: 

A formal document that describes your project in its entirety

  • All participants work towards a common goal
  • Often the document that will be used when applying for funding from banks/donors

During the initiation stage a Project Charter is drawn up which includes:

Purpose statement: 

  • Why are we doing this?
  • Triple bottom line reporting (Profit, people plant)


The scope statement: 

  • What is included in this project?
  • Pre-signed contracts/agreements will form the basis of this
  • Project creep: Uncontrolled changes and growth after the project has begun


Project outcomes: 

  • Ultimate goal needs to be quantified/ precisely defined
  • Supported by the SMARTER goals

Environmental scanning: 

  • Micro and market environments
  • Use of SWOT analysis
  • Macro-environment will have the use of a PESTLE analysis/the extended P2E2STLE


Budgets: 

  • All resources cost money
  • Donors will want accountability for the efficient use of their funds


Chain of command: 

  • Form of an organogram
  • Will include vital guidelines to what information needs to be communicated to whom/by when/ in what format


Precautions, Assumptions and Risks: 

  • Important to document/ address each of these aspects
  • Along with ‘Plan B’/ any risk management strategies


Conflict management: 

  • Defined as a strategy of disharmony/ clash between different people, situations, ideas, elements
  • Functional: Positive, non-aggressive, stimulating creativity, better performance
  • Dysfunctional: Aggressive, negative, hampering productivity
  • Inner conflict is where someone has trouble making decisions


Causes of conflict in business: 

Working together, under stress there is potential for conflict


Potential causes of conflict: 

  • Limited resources – time, equipment, money
  • Unrealistic expectations (management)
  • Emotional reactions
  • Personality differences
  • Lack of proper communications/ instructions

Not limited to the micro environment

Problems with suppliers, customers, competitors, government officials, any other person/ business


The management of Conflict: 

  • Most important aspect of managing conflict is addressing issues before they get blown out of proportion
  • Solving small problems is a lot easier to handle – unlike waiting until it has started affecting other aspects of their jobs
  • Most basic step is educating employees around negotiation, conciliation, mediation, arbitration


Conflict Resolution Steps:

Negotiation:

  • Two parties sit down – try come to a compromise by themselves

Conciliation:

  • If negotiation is not successful; a third person gets involved
  • Only to facilitate the discussion

Mediation: 

  • If negotiation/conciliation are not successful; the third person gets more involved    
  • Third person gives advice – ultimate decision is still up to the original parties involved

Arbitration: 

  • If negotiation/conciliation/mediation are not successful; the decision is taken out of the hands of the original parties
  • Third person has to make a judgement call


CCMA: The council for conciliation, mediation and arbitration

 

Conflict management and Team Dynamics: 

  • Direct link between the quality of team management – the need for conflict management: Good team dynamics will result in open communication/ fewer misunderstandings
  • Prevent conflict from building into crisis situations
  • Poor team dynamics increase the chances of conflict – leads to the need for crisis management


 



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