Why Groups Experience Conflict Within The Organization

In today’s world teamwork is being utilized by companies across the globe. Employers are seeing the value of teamwork and what can be accomplished when people put the strengths together. These teams consist of people from different cultures with different personalities. Conflict is inevitable when it comes to group dynamics. Conflict resolution is necessary to keep the group functioning efficiently. This paper will analyze group dynamics and focus on conflict resolution by way of communication.

Conflict results from real or perceived opposition to one’s values, actions, desires or general interests. Conflicts may occur internally or externally between individuals or groups; conflict within a team environment can cause frustration, and occasionally anger. However, conflict resolution can also often generate positive results for the team. Conflict management skills remain in demand; conflict may be managed successfully by reaching an agreement that satisfies the needs of both the individual(s) and the team as a whole

People work in groups or teams everyday whether in their career, education, political organization, church, or any other social setting. Conflict while working in teams or groups is inevitable. When taking people of different backgrounds, personalities, moral, and ethical beliefs and putting them together in a group, conflict will arise. The key to achieving your team goals is to construct and conquer your goals with keeping the greater good of the team in mind. Conflict as it arises should be combated and abated through swift and thorough resolution techniques. When dealt with properly conflict resolution can give rise to a cohesive and productive team.

Conflict Levels – Effective teams maintain a perfect level of negative and positive conflicts. At times disagreement is encouraged to lessen the likelihood of groupthink.

Brockmann, Erich. (1996, May). Removing the paradox of conflict from group decisions. Academy of Management Executive. v10n2, p. 61-62.

Conflict is part of our human disposition; consequently, it is customary within organizations. “Left unanalyzed and unchecked, it can be a destructive force that consumes time, money and human resources. Learning the various ways that people resolve conflict and expanding their conflict resolution styles can lead to better results” (Sadri, 2012). Within organizations employees have personal beliefs, styles and attitudes, and backgrounds that at times can cause disagreements, inconsistencies and ultimately, conflict. It is the intent of this paper to examine the archetype of conflict as an

“Team conflict may occur among members hailing from different fields of professions, such as in a cross-functional project team, or between line workers (who work directly with the product or service) and staff teams (who provide behind-the-scenes support). It may also occur as a result of perceived inequities in group member status or productivity, personality differences, or other work-related problems.” (Organizational Communication, 2010, pg 223).

A leader has a role that can impact others to be more operative in functioning to attain a common goal and maintain effective working relationships amongst group members (Johnson & Johnson 2012). This makes leaders in groups considerably important in shaping individuals (Johnson & Johnson 2012). However, conflict arises in groups and becomes difficult to manage when a leader and the followers lack the skills to manage conflict as a team (Johnson & Johnson 2012). Leadership and conflict resolution skills must exists between leaders and followers in order to manage conflict (Johnson & Johnson 2012). Also, it is possible for followers to teach leaders how to lead and resolve problems since followers can play an active role in building relationships amongst group members (Howell & Shamir cited in Johnson & Johnson 2012). Since followers and leaders both have significant roles in accomplishing the group goals, they both have a role to manage conflict effectively as a group (Johnson & Johnson 2012). This essay will discuss how leaders have an important role in managing conflict and likewise with followers having important roles in managing conflict. Conflicts, the various types of conflicts that happen in groups and the reasons behind the conflicts will be mentioned followed by approaches that can be taken to help manage struggles within groups. The methods can be used by leaders and followers in order to manage

Conflict between team members will happen in the workplace because the fact that there will have an environment where decisions are made and personality clashes will occur. This doesn’t mean you have an unproductive workforce, it means you will have to be able to catch the problem early and know what to do with each individual case. People are going to disagree because they have different view points, different backgrounds and a different thought process, maybe even a different agenda for that project. People disagree for a number of reasons (De Bono, 1985). College graduates will be put into positions of uncertainty due to the lack of work history. This will in turn cause conflict, not knowing

My interviewee was confronted with a Group-to-group conflict: The term "group" suggests oneness or sameness. In this type of conflict, each group (rather than the individual) has taken an opposition position that leads to discord or disharmony. A group 's identity and goals are usually in conflict with those of the other group (Module 2: Module 2 - Conflict Resolution; Control Approaches, 2015).

Conflict management is the detriment of many teams or groups in accomplishing its goals. This is because most people do not understand the different conflict styles and how to apply the rules and principles associated with the style you may be dealing with. In this paper I will analyze three of the five management styles discussed in the textbook Communication in Small Groups. Avoidance and competition are two styles that I believe have the greatest effect on hindering a group or team from accomplishing its goals. Collaboration, however, is a style that I believe is most effective in

Many authors have highlighted the inevitability of conflicts on the other hand it is said that disputes can be prevented or at least can be minimized through proper management. Conflicts are ubiquitous where ever a large number of people are involved i.e. where the human relationships proliferate (Kumaraswamy, 1997). People are the principle resource for any commercial project today. Different project managers, engineers, surveyors belonging to different organizations and having different needs, goals and each of them looking to maximize their benefits are brought together to form a team. Because of these differences in the individuals the conflicts and disputes become inevitable in a project. Conflicts are generally perceived as a negative term but it has both positive and negative sides. Positive conflicts can be helpful to generate new ideas, make innovations, helps people to ‘Be real’ and creative. But this conflict has to be maintained so that it does not get out of control and bring about dysfunctional consequences. There are large numbers of potential sources that makes conflict inevitable in a project. Some of them are explained below: - (scribd)

The dynamics of a team relies heavily on the interaction of team members during times of conflict not just during times of agreement. Often groups seek to achieve a cohesive relationship in an effort to unite the team towards its goals. Group members can make the mistake of subverting conflict in an attempt to maintain this team unity. Conflict serves a valuable role in effective group interactions that must be understood by participants of a team. An examination into the characteristics of conflict and cohesion and the relationship between the two dynamics can provide perspective to

It is hard and impossible to eliminate conflicts when processing a team project. In the discussion problem 2, it tells us to solve a problem of developing experts from different places to into a real and complete team. People from different backgrounds and diverse places always have different values, perceptions, expectations, needs and resources. Also, different people must have various personalities. Therefore, a good manager should know and tolerant everything happened in the project and keep seeking probable methods to deal with every detailed conflicts.

Conflict is an occurrence in virtually any organization, regardless of how large or small it may be. It is exceedingly difficult to get people to agree with one another about everything all the time, especially when they are competing for the same resources (Tsang, 2012, p. 84). This difficult is naturally exacerbated when there are stratifications between people, which frequently occurs in organizations. Organizations may have different categories of employers such as those in sale, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. The three main views of conflict which also play a significant part in the resolving of conflict are the traditional, the human relations, and interactionist views. There are points of similarities and differences between all of these views.