Managing groups and teams

Managing groups and teams often comes with the task of conflict resolution and management. Conflicts in this case can be explained as strong disagreement between people or among groups caused by varying opinions and backgrounds of the various individuals. Conflicts that are poorly managed, cause friction between employees which lead to low productivity in various institutions. Below are some of the ways of managing conflict in groups and teams.

The worst experience I have ever had with conflict was during undergraduate in a class group discussion which was composed of ten group members. Our big group had a lot of coordination and motivation problems which resulted in major disagreements among the group members (Chapman, 2016). This led to degraded performances in the overall performance of our class output

The thing that was so sad about it was, other than the fact that there was low productivity and underperformance of the group, there were broken social relationships among the group members. The selected group leaders, were over confident in themselves which lead to group think which meant that they did not fully utilize the group`s wealth of investigative resources (Chapman, 2016). Other group members had no choice but to accommodate the experts as they did all they could, to avoid conflict and maintain unanimity other than addressing their real issues to them (Mottola &Utkus, 2009). This lead to insufficient information in the group`s output which alternatively lead to disastrous decision-making and low productivity.

These are some of the major causes of the conflict. There was overconfidence in some of the group members, differing opinions and views among members and less satisfied members who felt ignored, thereby, compromising on their opinions (Deutsch, Coleman, & Marcus, 2011). This generally led to close mindedness within the group as there was no full utilization of expertise of every group member thereby drawing outputs form a narrow range

Managing groups and teams.

of experiences and opinions (Segal &Smith, n.d).  This generally paralysed the functioning of the group as well as the expected output of the group.

In conclusion, conflict can be seen as a normal part of any group and an opportunity for growth. However, if not well handled it can lead to unhealthy outcomes, which often trigger strong emotion causing irreparable rifts and resentments among individuals.

References

Chapman, A. (2016). Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model. Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Team-Development. Retrieved from http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm

Deutsch, M., Coleman, P. & Marcus, E. (2011). The handbook of conflict resolution. Theory and practice. New Jersey, NJ: Wiley Publishers. 32-42.

Mottola, G. & Utkus, S. (2009). Group decision-making: Implications for Investment Committees. Vanguard Investment Counselling and Research.Retrieved from http://agb.org/sites/agb.org/files/u16/Vanguard%206.pdf

Segal, J. & Smith, M. (n.d.). Conflict resolution skills: Building The Skills That Can Turn Conflicts into Opportunities. Helpguide.org. Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/conflict-resolution-skills.htm