03 September 2021 Friday
PREVENTION OF CONFLICT IN TEAMS
Conflicts in teams can be beneficial as well as a reason for their disintegration. While a positive conflict allows for more effective solutions by creating discussions shaped on the basis of respect, negative conflicts appear when differences cannot be overcome and reduce productivity and hinder innovation. Differences of opinion are not the only reason for these conflicts; personality structures, dynamics within the sector, age, race or gender, which may result from incompatibilities that prevent team members from working effectively. The traditional method of dealing with it is based on dealing with problems as they arise. However, it cannot be said that this is a very successful method. Because this approach causes the continuation of the problem and then it becomes difficult to do what needs to be done to build trust.
Jean Louis Barsoux and Ginka Toegel, who have trained thousands of executives at London Business School, Duke University and IMD, and coached the executives of companies in the Fortune 500, state that proactive approaches can be more effective in managing conflicts. For this, they emphasize the importance of revealing the differences that the teams had long before they started working together. Although teams seem to have similar characteristics, they express that exploring different aspects of them will prevent negative conflicts. Their methodologies in this regard focus on five basic areas. These areas focuses on how employees look, how they think, how they behave, how they talk and how they feel. In this regard, it is recommended that the team managers hold interviews covering 20-30 minutes, in which they will allow the employees to present their expectations and preferences for each area. In addition, it is important for managers to identify areas where incompatibility is likely to occur within the team and to make suggestions on how the expectations of the employees, which seem different compared to each other.
