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
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• Investigator: Person who will volunteer to do the research
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• Administrator: Person who will do the paperwork
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• 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
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• Coordinator: Person who will ensure that resources are allocated/used properly
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• Activator: Get involved/actively participate in the practical execution
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• 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
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• 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