Toegel and Barsoux postulate that team conflict is an issue that can destroy projects and teams, and that good conflict can be constructive, foster respectful debate and bring about muturally preferred decisions. To paraphrase Toegel and Barsoux “destructive conflict stems from a perceived incompatibility in the way various team members operate due to any number of factors,…” Drawing from their 25 years of research on team dynamics, the authors offer a proactive methodology to preempt destructive conflict that involves leading facilitated conversations encouraging team members to express their preferences and expectations, identify likely pain points, and create suggestions for how people with differing expectations can work together.
I found this article to be timely and impactful for me in my workplace at a point in a project where I was feeling great frustration and poised to boil over; over a what turned out to be a perceived incompatibility. The situation that I perceived as urgent, overdue and negatively impacting the quality of our work was not being addressed by my project partner, and I was nearly enraged they were not acknowledging the signs. I instantly perceived them as incompetent, acting lazy, and responsible for the delay. Having read this article in that same week, coincidentally, I came to realize I was making fast, negative judgements about my project peer, and was prepared to cast my frustration based on this thin slice of behavior. This is framed by the authors as Act: Misjudging Behavior. Their recommendation is to determine early how important are punctuality and time limit, whether there should be consequences for being late or missing deadlines. Traditionally, I would have waited for this problem to blow up before addressing it. Instead, I took some time to work through what I wanted to communicate in a word document in several iterations. This helped me to focus on the message and take attention off of the delivery method which would have been perceived as brash and unprofessional.
LO3: Address complex challenges by collaboratively leading teams across disciplines, distances and sectors.
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