What Areas Can Create Conflict In Team Work ? - EmployeeConnect
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What Areas Can Create Conflict In Team Work ?

Nowadays, more and more businesses and corporate sectors are promoting cross-functional work to achieve long term goals. It allows the working team to create and deliver innovative products or ideas to the customers without delay. Undoubtedly, teamwork promises excellent success for businesses, but it also leads to conflict in the workplace.

Conflict is a natural thing that’s very common in people who work together and have their differences. These differences can be in anything from beliefs to working style and personality. According to CPP Global Report, 85 per cent of workers face some level of conflict, and out of them, 29 per cent constantly remain engaged in conflicts.

However, conflicts, if not resolved on time, can cause different negative impact like misunderstanding, low productivity, efficiency, etc. Let’s have a detailed look at what conflict resolution in the workplace is, its types, and why resolving it is crucial.

What is team conflict?

Typically, team conflict occurs when there are differences in the team over the strategies, goals, and requirements of a specific project. It’s also known as the breakdown of interpersonal relationships among employees.

The team conflict can be between anyone; sometimes, you’ll find the sales manager and market manager in a conflict that, if not resolved, can lead to low productivity of the overall team. That’s why the individuals need to take adequate steps toward conflict resolution or get help from a third party so the overall team doesn’t get affected.

The Importance of Managing Conflicts in the Workplace

Now that you know what is a team conflict in the workplace and how it leaves adverse effects on your overall team, it’s time to understand the importance of managing these conflicts. Here are what benefits you get from the proper management of team conflicts:

Build Strong Relationships

When you take your time out to resolve a particular conflict in your workplace through empathy rather than dismissing or ignoring it, you need emotional intelligence to take a step towards building strong workplace relationships. It’s because ignored or mishandled conflicts result in explosive behaviours and severe conflicts arise in the teams.

Quick Goal Achievement

Unresolved conflicts lead to ongoing projects and a decline in the team’s work output. So, when you utilise your professional negotiating and compromising abilities to settle a conflict, the team’s dedication towards their goals increases, and you can quickly introduce your products to the customers with effective communication.

Provide New and Innovative Ideas

Many conflicts happen due to differences in opinions and ideas among the team. The steps toward sorting out these conflicts improve not only the team performance, working abilities, and also open ways to new ideas. You are active listening to different perspectives and approaching for the same project that helps you come up with the best version of a product or idea.

What areas can create conflict in team work?

Before you go on to execute your conflict resolution skills, it’s essential to have a better understanding of what areas can create conflict in team work. Here are some examples of conflict in the workplace:

Task Conflicts

Task conflicts refer to disagreements in the team over the input and outcomes of a particular task. For instance, a neuroscientist, a microbiologist, and a simple scientist all come together to find a cure for a disease. They will discuss every possible method and tool to help them come up with the best cure and its outcomes. They may have different perspectives and ideas for the cure, resulting in team conflict.

Process Conflict

This is one of the most common conflicts in the workplace, and it usually arises when team members disagree over the distribution of administrative tasks and how the mission will be accomplished. Let’s go back to the disease example quoted above; the scientist’s team now disagrees over who will track the complete progress and who can make the final decision. This administrative resentment among the group is known as process conflict. However, this issue can quickly be resolved by providing the team members with a proper leadership development program.

Relationship Conflict

Another type of team conflict or conflict in the workplace is relationship conflict. A relationship conflict is typically an interpersonal conflict that starts when a team member tries to make the other member feel stupid, disrespectful or belittled. In the same example as the scientist’s team, a relationship team conflict happens when the microbiologist starts targeting other team members’ ideas with derogatory remarks, such as calling their ideas irrelevant or stupid. This leads to severe resentment and frustration among the team.

How to handle conflict in the workplace?

Certain techniques help you how to resolve a day-to-day conflict in workplace as a manager. You can also develop some conflict management strategies and learn how to handle a disagreement on your team with these tips. So, let’s dig further!

1. Find Out the Reason for the Conflict

Before you go on with the process of dealing with a team conflict or conflict in the workplace, it’s important to find out the core reason behind the issue. For this purpose, you should first know all the signs of a toxic workplace and gather as much information as possible from both sides and take a deeper look into things with neutrality.

2. Go to a Safe Place to Talk

After knowing the issue, find a safe place where you can meet with both parties and discuss things in detail. Make sure the place you choose is not the workplace of both parties and is a neutral venue. So, everyone gets a chance to discuss everything without fearing workplace consequences.

3. Listen Actively and Let Everyone Speak

Once you’ve got both parties in a safe place, the next step toward dealing with conflict is to let them vent. They should air their opinions about the situation and express their point of views without favouring and disrespecting each other. Moreover, both parties should take equal time to speak, and you should listen to them actively to make a clear decision later.

4. Take Time to Investigate

After listening to both sides and their common ground, it’s upon you to make the final call. However, before doing this, you should take your time to investigate the matter more. If you have questions, ask the respective party and get answers. All this helps you in getting a better understanding of the concerned situation.

5. Dig Further to Find the Best Solution

As soon as you are done with the investigation of the team conflict, it’s time to approaches to conflict. For this purpose, ask the team members to share their knowledge and how they want to resolving conflict. Brainstorm and listen to different options until you are out of ideas.

6. Agree on the Best Solution

Of course, the main objective of a team is to ensure the business can achieve its goals timely. So, the best way to do this is to find a suitable solution and convince the team members to agree on it to eliminate the team conflict. Once done, the team leader can distribute the tasks accordingly without getting into heated arguments.

Conclusion

A team conflict is a usual thing incorporates that promotes cross-functional group work. However, it’s important to understand the types of team conflicts that you can face in the workplace before finding a solution. Once you’ve identified the core issue, it’s time to get rid of a team conflict in workplace through proper conflict resolution skills. This promises more productivity and a happy working environment.

 

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Byron Conway
byron@employeeconnect.com

Content Coordinator at EmployeeConnect