The business workplace of the new millennium is filled with
a wide variety of employees bringing together a myriad of personalities and communication
styles. It is not uncommon to see multinational companies bring additional
elements of differing cultures into the equation. The creation of such a dynamic
workforce will often result in interpersonal conflict stemming from a lack of
communication and misunderstanding between employees.
Conflict
Companies expect a high level of performance despite a high
level of interpersonal conflict and a lack of communication between employees. den
Otter and Emmitt state (den Otter & Emmitt, 2007) “Developing a common
understanding of effective communication in the team and using the most
appropriate means for the purpose is a fundamental aspect of team performance.”
(pg 408) To be effective a team must be able to communicate with each other and
understand the actions of coworkers to work in harmony toward a specified
objective.
Conflict arises during the Strong stage of team
development. At this stage, the team is defining the group norms and the group
leader. While a manager may serve as the leader of the group in title, the
group may question their ability to effectively lead the team. In addition to
the leader, the team is also prone to challenge the norms set by corporate
structure. Without a strong leader having the ability to effectively communicate
goals, objectives and norms to the team, conflict may quickly arise.
If the leader has the ability to establish himself as the
team leader, other team members may struggle for position within the team. The
resolve for this struggle is to provide the team with the tools necessary to
communicate effectively with one another. This will also bring understanding
between team members. This is significant in understanding of motives as the
team is in the storming or developing stage. The leader may attempt to impose
communication and understanding, however, den Otter and Emmitt state (den Otter
& Emmitt, 2007) “Balancing team communication is a team effort and it would
appear that a bottom-up approach to the management of team communication is
required to improve effectiveness.” (pg 408) The greater concern for the team
leader now turns to effectively creating a bottom-up approach of communication
within his team.
Resolve
It is up to the team leader to bring
resolve to the conflict within his team and bring his employees to peak
performance. By using team building exercises to increase communication and a
better understand of interpersonal communication between members the team leader
can effectively improve the teams performance. This type of activity would
bring interaction between team members as den Otter and Emmitt state, this is
key when they say, (den Otter & Emmitt, 2007) “Interaction is needed for
common understanding of communication processes and can also function to
stimulate the team's social development.” (pg 408) Interaction on this level
can be seen at different times and in different setting as den Otter and Emmitt
show by saying, (den Otter & Emmitt, 2007) “To reach these goals,
face-to-face communication using dialogues, meetings and workshops are
necessary.” (pg 408) As the team members use non-threatening team building
activities, they are forced to communicate with each other to complete the
activity. As the team members communicate more with their coworker, they learn
to communicate more effectively to accomplish the task or to beat teams of
other coworkers at completing the task. While this process is occurring, they begin
to have a better understanding of their social environment resulting in a
better understanding of their coworkers. Finally, den Otter and Emmitt support
this resolve by saying, (den Otter & Emmitt, 2007) “With the increased
promotion of collaborative working, partnering and integrated teams that rely
on effective and efficient communication, there would appear to be an urgent
need to better understand the interactions within design and construction
teams.” (pg 408)
Dialectic Method
The reason ambiguous team building
challenges work has in large part to do with the dialectic method involved in
the solution of the challenge and presentation. In her research of groups
solving ambiguous case studies, Harrison-Walker found that, (Harrison-Walker, 2000)
“Although logically one might expect the two teams to come up with very similar
approaches and decisions, that is rarely the case.” (pg 241) When two teams
work diligently toward a solutions they are intrigued that another solution
exists. The result is a dialectic discussion. Harrison-Walker goes on to state,
(Harrison-Walker, 2000) “for any given case, students are exposed to at least
two unique perspectives, reinforcing the contention that there is not one
"right" answer, but rather different solutions depending on the
priority given to various qualitative and quantitative factors.” (pg 241) The
exposure to two different solutions creates dialog between team members
resulting in open communication. The open communication brings a better
understand of the other team members. Thus, the end result is achieved, better
communication and understanding between team members as a result of added
element of the dialectic method.
References:
den Otter, A., & Emmitt, S. (2007). Exploring
effectiveness of team communication. Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management, 14(5), 408-419.
Harrison-Walker, L. (2000). A comprehensive pedagogy for
dialectic team-based marketing management case analysis. Journal of
Education for Business, 75(4), 241-245.
