Enhancing Teamwork and Conflict Resolution in Group Settings

1. CHAPTER 9 Teamwork and Conflict in Group Settings

2. The prosocial / antisocial dimension Prosocial Behavior Antisocial Behavior Helping Cooperation /Teamwork Competition Conflict Violence Often perceived as Often perceived as non-zero sum games zero-sum games “win-win” “win-lose”

3. Prosocial behavior: helping others and the organization • Intervention: to blow the whistle or not? • Antisocial versus prosocial whistle blowing • Reasons for not intervening: fear of retaliation and ostracism, diffusion of responsibility, the costs of intervening, accepting others’ inaction as defining a “social reality” • Increasing intervention: leadership, atmosphere supporting intervention, procedures that protect those who intervene, emphasis on self-corrective teamwork and group decision making

4. Prosocial behavior: helping others and the organization • Helping behavior: do we care? • Factors influencing helping: empathy, informal norms, relationship issues that develop both inside and outside the work context • Mood and helpfulness: positive mood, empathic and prosocial orientation (trade-off between empathic concern and personal distress)

5. Organizational citizenship behavior: being a good citizen • Organizational citizenship behaviors: altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship*, courtesy*, civic virtue • Factors that motivate organizational citizenship behavior • Job satisfaction: perception of continuing fair treatment • Cohesiveness and courtesy • Individual differences: personality, values, and personal norms *Defined a bit differently than in other contexts.

6. Organizational citizenship behavior: being a good citizen • Spontaneous behaviors (organizational spontaneity) • Helping one’s coworkers • Protecting the organization’s interests • Making constructive suggestions • Developing oneself as an asset to the organization • Spreading goodwill and boosting morale • Facilitators: job satisfaction, internalization of the organization’s goals and values, positive mood, membership in cohesive work groups

7. Teamwork in functional and cross-functional teams • Team productivity • Functional and cross-functional teams • Quality circles • Self-managing teams: semi-autonomous, control their own work assignments, responsible for a particular task or product, present opportunities to learn multiple job skills • Optimizing self-managing teams: motivation, person-task matching, experimentation, task variety, development of interpersonal skills and self-management skills

8. Teamwork in functional and cross-functional teams • Innovation in work teams • Moderate levels of diversity in knowledge and experience • Support at all levels for innovation • Constructive and insightful conflict resolution (criticize ideas, not people) • Innovative thinking styles • Leaders who encourage innovation • High levels of reflexivity • Some degree of experience and maturity as a team

9. Teamwork in functional and cross-functional teams • Team effectiveness • Participative management • Group cohesiveness • Group structure and training • Feedback and rewards • Goals and performance norms • Complementarity of skills and experience

10. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Interdependence: information dependence, need for agreement, outcome interdependence • Informational conflict: differences of opinion • Conflict avoidance: self-deception and self-censorship, majority rule, unanimity rule, compromise • Conflict reduction: normative influence, informational influence, compromise, rejecting the “deviate” • Conflict creation: seeking diverse perspectives, “devil’s advocate,” minority influence, cognitive versus personal/emotional conflict

11. Informational conflict can be associated with three different reactions Avoidance Differences of opinion Informational conflict Reduction Creation

13. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Interdependence: information dependence, outcome interdependence • Informational conflict: differences of opinion • Conflict avoidance: self-deception and self-censorship, majority rule, unanimity rule, compromise • Conflict reduction: normative influence, informational influence, compromise, rejecting the “deviate” • Conflict creation: seeking diverse perspectives, “devil’s advocate,” minority influence, cognitive versus personal/emotional conflict

14. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Personal conflict: opposing interests • The problem of limited resources: the zero-sum game • Reward structures: conflict built into the system • Interpersonal conflict: grudges, faulty attributions, faulty communication, inappropriate criticism

15. Personal conflict can be associated with three different reactions Avoidance Opposing interests Personal conflict Reduction Creation

16. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Managing personal conflicts • Conflict avoidance: type of group (token, mutual admiration, chosen, inner-circle), doing nothing, pre-emptive policies • Conflict resolution: bargaining (avoiding threats, making meaningful concessions), third-party intervention (mediation and arbitration), establishment of superordinate goals • Conflict creation: to address inequities and unfairness, to clear the air and normalize relationships

17. Conflict avoidance and type of group Intra-group Attraction Low High Low Outside Respect High

18. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Managing personal conflicts • Conflict avoidance: type of group (token, mutual admiration, chosen, inner-circle), doing nothing, pre-emptive policies • Conflict resolution: bargaining (avoiding threats, making meaningful concessions), third-party intervention (mediation and arbitration), establishment of superordinate goals • Conflict creation: to address inequities and unfairness, to clear the air and normalize relationships

19. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Major effects of conflict • Negative effects: negative feelings, impaired communication, impaired coordination, shift to autocratic leadership, negative stereotyping, in-group versus out-group mentality • Positive effects: bringing problems out into the open, consideration of new ideas and approaches, careful consideration of information, improved relationships, closer monitoring of performance • These positive effects are achieved only when conflict is carefully managed or controlled

20. Conflict: its causes, management, and effects • Culture and conflict management • Harmony: strive for consensus, unanimity • Confrontational: argue and debate until you resolve it • Regulative: set up rules and procedures to resolve it

21. Conflict management styles: variations across cultures