Conflict Resolution within Work Teams

A detailed Summary of Conflict Resolution within Work Teams

People in organizations must have the ability to work in a team environment, such as workplace, community, charity, church, and academic study groups. Small groups are formed to communicate, face-to-face, in order to fulfill a common purpose and achieve a group goal. Over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use decision-making groups in their daily operations. Whatever type of group one is involved in, members interact with each other to gain positive results. Team members must enhance their listening skills to learn, grow, and feel our thoughts expanding and get insights when interacting in group situations. Many individual ideas grow by brainstorming with others. Small groups of people who relate to one another in ways that make them interdependent to some significant degree. Although working together interdependently is effective, conflicts do arise.

Conflict is frequently characterized as a controversy between interrelated individuals who intervene with one another in reaching their objectives (McReady 191). When there is a breakdown in communication, conflicts will arise; however, there are effective ways to resolve them. Improved communication is the key to keeping work teams on course. Because of the rapid

change in corporate society of today, this remains true more than ever before.

To illustrate an example of this conflicting situation, let's examine a group member who is not contributing in San Rafael's downtown Fourth Street Farmer's Market committee meetings. She does not volunteer to participate in the group's oral brainstorming sessions. The rest continue to come up with ideas, based on their own experiences and knowledge, for further discussion. When they start talking about each topic in more depth, she constantly seems to be shy and does not speak up. Unknowingly, this affects the group's overall performance by not expressing her opinions. Meanwhile, the group started to question her attitude. This type of behavior is defined as the follower: one who goes along with the movement of the group, more or less passively accepting the ideas of others. This passive behavior can create tension within the group.

One conflict in work teams is not being able to adapt to changing situations. Change of time, as well as place for meeting places, are facts of life. When team members don't make themselves available, don't pay attention, and don't inform each other on time, these issues can cause problems. For instance, Mark, the marketing manager, was promoting a new product and set a meeting for Tuesday, January 15, at one o'clock. Ten executives were invited two weeks prior to this meeting. An urgent service came up and the marketing manager had a flight that afternoon. The day prior to the meeting, he sent e-mail to all ten executives, asking them to arrive at eleven o'clock a.m. instead of one o'clock p.m. Art, the graphic designer, was not aware of the time change until he arrived at the office. The receptionist informed him that the meeting had started already at eleven o'clock a.m. He burst into the room one hour late, interrupted the mee

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Farmer's Market, Green Smith, Smith Green, San Rafael's, conflicts arise, prior meeting, try understand, meeting productive, eleven o'clock, ten executives, marketing manager, provide input,

Approximate Word count = 1262
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous