Harnessing Conflict for Growth and Development

The assignment discusses the benefits that can be harnessed from team conflict and competition. The five benefits include revealing new ideas, encouraging communication, promoting flexibility, identifying solutions, and recognizing behavioral patterns. Team conflict requires proper management to avoid negative effects on individuals or teams' performance. Properly managed, it can deliver immense benefits to an organization's overall performance.

9/14/2017
Student Name
Benefits of Team Conflict Towards Team Development

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Contents
Feedback response form (not included in word count)...............................................................................1
Complete the form on the LMS...............................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Article summary..........................................................................................................................................3
Article 1 - Skewed Task Conflict in Teams: What Happens When A Few Members See More Conflict
than the Rest............................................................................................................................................3
Article 2 – Task Conflict, information processing, and Decision making: the damaging effects of
relationship conflict.................................................................................................................................4
Article 3 – Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness: The Effects of Task Interdependence
and Team Identification...........................................................................................................................4
In-depth Article Analysis.............................................................................................................................4
Article 1 - Skewed Task Conflict in Teams.............................................................................................4
Study 1................................................................................................................................................4
Study 2................................................................................................................................................5
Article 2 - Task Conflict, Information Processing, and Decision Making...............................................5
Study 1................................................................................................................................................5
Study 2................................................................................................................................................5
Article 3 - Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness................................................................5
Article Comparison – Similarities and Differences across the Articles.......................................................6
Article Finding and Discussion...................................................................................................................7
Team Conflict Reveals New Ideas...........................................................................................................7
Opportunity to Communicate..................................................................................................................7
Encourages Flexibility.............................................................................................................................7
Encourages Observing/ Analysing Surroundings....................................................................................8
Identifies Solutions..................................................................................................................................8
Identifies Behavioural Patterns................................................................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References:..................................................................................................................................................9
Appendix...................................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Organisation behaviour directly influences employee performance and there are many factors
which influence performance. These must be carefully analysed to determine the most important
towards enhancing team performance (French, 2011). To assist identify these factors three
articles will be reviewed which will help determine common trends interlinking each of them.
These can then be utilized to report findings and propose a suitable approach towards managing
human resource to promote employee performance. The main purpose of this report would be
analysing Conflict management and its influences to organizations behaviour. This will help
identify both the positive and negative aspects linked to team conflict of interest and how they
can be used to encourage performance (Doherty & Guyler, 2008). The report shall review three
articles related to this domain and report on each one's findings and later an independent analysis
of the findings shall be reported. Team conflict management has become an important stream in
business today and as more businesses expand, grow and diversity. If utilized correctly, team
conflict can help boost an organizations performance, development and growth.
Article summary
The report shall be analysing three articles and shall be reporting on each of the article's findings
to determine common trends which can be used to help develop a positive organizational
behaviour management plan.
Article 1 - Skewed Task Conflict in Teams: What Happens When A Few Members See
More Conflict than the Rest
This article is a publication of the journal of applied psychology 2016, vol 101, no 7, pp. 1045-
1055. It comprises of two studies which are aimed towards identifying the effects of Skewed task
Conflict and its effects on team performance (Sinha & Janadhanan, 2016). In this article the
theory on how skewed task conflicts affects team performance and how it is a configure property
towards group is closely analysed. Theories are also developed on how skewed perceptions of
task conflicts relate to team performance

Article 2 – Task Conflict, information processing, and Decision making: the damaging
effects of relationship conflict
This article has been published by the Elsevier journal 2013, vol 122, pp. 177-189. It also
comprises of two studies and focuses on the identification of how Disagreement stimulates
critical thinking and can improve group decision making processes (Wit et al., 2013). The main
theory related to this article is how task related disagreement stimulated critical thinking among
the affected stake holders of any organisation. This makes it important to stimulate disagreement
to certain degree so as to encourage critical thinking which has a direct effect on individual
performance.
Article 3 – Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness: The Effects of Task
Interdependence and Team Identification
The article has been published by the journal of organizational behaviour, 2009, vol 30, pp. 359-
378, the article focused on exploring the dynamics of conflict management within teams and
examines how task structure is related to conflict management styles and team performance
(Somech et al., 2009). This article focuses on explaining how social learning theory is instigated
team conflict and helps pinpoint important theories which may be considered to help boost
learning through conflict.
In-depth Article Analysis
Article 1 - Skewed Task Conflict in Teams
The articles comprise of findings from the comparison of two studies which analyse skewed task
conflict and team performance. The skewed task conflict explains the variances in team
performance and reports on how they can be used to promote positive team outcomes (Salas et
al., 2017). The articles also emphasize the importance of controlling team conflict so as to
contribute beneficially towards the team and organizations performance. Uncontrolled and
unmonitored team conflict can easily turn to the loss for the organization making it important for
the management to monitor team conflict to identify and encourage positive traits which can be
used to enhance performance.

Study 1
This study composed of 571 post graduates split into 120 teams who competed towards making
different business decisions. The study also required for each team to analyse and report on
negative aspects of other competitor team decisions which would help generate conflict among
the teams competing. The results helped determine the types of conflict and how they needed to
be controlled to harness a positive effect or organization performance.
Study 2
This study was a performance to determine the link between task conflict skewness and team
performance through financial management. It also involved the study of teams with regard to
financial corporation towards the team and department finance allocation. This would see team
enter into conflict regarding their superior viability which would see then argue for more
funding. The aim of the study was to determine how teams would review each other as part of a
single organization and therefore need to dedicate equal financial allocation towards each team
to benefit overall organization growth and expansion.
Article 2 - Task Conflict, Information Processing, and Decision Making
This article focuses on highlighting how disagreement helps stimulate critical thinking and
improved group decision making (Brush et al., 2010). It also investigates two meta-analyses
which show that task conflict can have both positive and negative effects on the decision-making
process and its effects on organizations performance.
Study 1
This study focuses on measuring the level of perceived relationship between team members
during task conflict. This study helps determine different levels of stress experienced by team
members and teams as a whole with regard to different forms of stress imposed on them while
working. The study reveals some forms of stress help encourage and boost performance while
others have a negative effect on the team’s performance.
Study 2
The second study was focused towards analysing the effects of rigidity on individual and team
performance. The study would reveal that increased group/ team member rigidity influenced
performance negatively and led to prior decision making despite the individual is capable of

making the right decision. This is due to external factors which influence and place pressure on
individuals to make a decision based on their external sources perception leading to poor
decision making.
Article 3 - Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness
This article explored the dynamics of conflict management and examines how task structures are
related to conflict management style and moderating factors toward the relationship. The study
comprises of 77 teams from high tech companies who help reveal that corporative styles of team
management help determine to encourage the team to identify and task interdependence (Salas et
al., 2008). These then reflect on organisation behaviour in a positive manner thus allowing the
organisation register higher levels of performance the study also help to identify a crucial
negative impact of conflict management towards Team efficiency but the study also reveals the
high energy from team corporative styles helped overcome the negative aspects to re align the
teams objectives towards high performance.
Article Comparison – Similarities and Differences across the Articles
Similarities Differences
 All articles are focused towards
identifying important factors linked
to team conflict
 Each article focuses on a different
aspect of organisation behaviour
namely Skewed Task Conflict,
Decision making process and team
conflict management
 Content and findings on all articles
has been found after conducting
extensive research on studies
involving a large number of
participants.
 Participants utilized for each of the
studies have come from a different back
ground.
 Art 1 – graduate Students
 Art 2 – 82 participants – (50
women; 32 Men)
 77 mix gender teams of working
professionals
 Article 1 and 2 have reported
findings from 2 studies each focusing
on different factors influencing
organisation behaviour and

performance
Article Finding and Discussion
Analysis of the three articles helps identify important points related to organizational behaviour
which helps encourage development and growth when the conflict is carefully monitored and
managed (Chiocchio et al., 2015). 5 benefits that can be harnessed from team conflict and
competition include:
Team Conflict Reveals New Ideas
Team conflict is generally instigated by competition among team members or different teams or
departments. When managed correctly the conflict or differences can be used to help reveal
important new ideas which can be used to benefit the organization. This is achieved by
encouraging teams to compete for each other on a uniform platform which helps each team
develop new ideas to gain the advantage of the competition. This also benefits the organization
as it helps reveal new ideas which can be adapted and used by other teams thus helping improve
the overall team’s performance.
Opportunity to Communicate
Positive team conflict and competitions also help encourage team communication whereby teams
will confront and debate each other regarding their ideas and approaches. It is important to
encourage a certain level of rivalry between the teams which helps with encouraging teams to
monitor other team’s performance and processes. This is important as it helps encourage inter-
monitoring which helps reduce the work pressure on higher managerial official freeing them to
focus on other aspects of the organization's development.

Encourages Flexibility
Team conflict and competitiveness have also been identified to encourage team member
flexibility with regard to their way of thinking and analysis. This is due to the conflicting teams
and colleague pointing out areas where the other may have fallen short thus allowing these areas
to be improved. It helps encouraging flexible thinking and adoption of new approaches which
helps improve performance and growth. Initially, this form of conflict causes stress between
teams and colleagues but over time team members learn to view this as feedback and an area to
improve their performance as a whole.
Encourages Observing/ Analysing Surroundings
Team Conflict also helps encouraging keep observations and screening of individuals and teams
surroundings. This is instigated by the fact that other teams and colleagues may be observing or
monitoring an individual or teams performance thus instigating the team to be always alert. This
helps self-management of employees and teams due to them always being on the alert that others
may be observing their actions and likely to highlight any area one may fall short. It also helps
encourage observation among all members who place more effort towards their work which
automatically helps encourage performance.
Identifies Solutions
Team conflict is also an important tool which can be used towards identifying solutions to
problems an individual or team may be facing. This is due to there being a large number of stake
holders involved which helps gather more minds towards the problem from which solutions are
easier identified. Besides brain storming team conflict instigators tend to have superior
knowledge in the area they have highlighted and escalated regarding. This results in them
pointing out the fault and proposing a solution which can be adopted to resolve the problem. This
information and knowledge can then be adopted by the affected individual to improve their
performance in future.

Identifies Behavioural Patterns
Team conflict also helps identify individual team member behaviour and reactions towards
negative comments made against them or their performance. This allows for team leads and
managers to register and individuals reaction towards the conflict or negative comment thus
allowing them to develop a suitable human resource management plan for the individual. This is
also important as it allows the team leads and managers to advise other team members and
management on suitable approaches to handle each individual to avoid instigating negative
behaviour or withdrawal of interest towards their duties.
Conclusion
Conflict between teams, departments and colleagues is a very important tool towards
encouraging performance and growth but requires proper management to avoid attracting
negativity towards the individuals or teams performance. Team conflict must, therefore, be
carefully choreographed and monitored closely and intervention took immediately to prevent the
conflict spiralling out of control. Team conflict, when managed correctly, will deliver immense
benefits to an organization and individuals performance thus making it a fundamental
requirement to be practiced and used in all businesses
Recommendations
Careful analysis of the three articles clearly demonstrates the important of controlled conflict
within an organisation. Team and task related conflicts allow stake holders to focus their
attention more towards their responsibility. This is due to every team member being placed
responsibility for monitoring their colleagues due to the entire organisation depending on each
other to function efficiently. Authorizing every organisation employee and stake holder to
remain vigil and report on discrepancies triggers every individual to taking more responsibility
of their duties. Conflict between teams, tasks and departments may have a negative effect at the
initial stages of implementation but they are sure to deliver long term benefits as the stake
holders realize it’s an organisation process every member must follow. This instigates each
member to gradually take responsibility and ensure they are performing their task effectively due
to there also being others observing the individuals performance.

References:
Brush, C.G., Kolvereid, L., Widding, L.O. & Sorheim, R., 2010. The Life Cycle of New Ventures: Emergence,
Newness and Growth. Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Chiocchio, F., Kelloway, E.K. & Hobbs, B., 2015. The Psychology and Management of Project Teams. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Doherty, N. & Guyler, M., 2008. The Essential Guide to Workplace Mediation & Conflict Resolution:
Rebuilding Working Relationships. Philedelia: Kogan Page Publishers.
French, R., 2011. Organizational Behaviour. 2nd ed. New Delhi: John Wiley & Sons.
Salas, E., Goodwin, G.F. & Burke, C.S., 2008. Team Effectiveness In Complex Organizations: Cross-
Disciplinary Perspectives and Approaches. New York: Routledge.
Salas, E., Rico, R. & Passmore, J., 2017. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Team
Working and Collaborative Processes. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Sinha, R. & Janadhanan, N.S., 2016. Skewed Task Conflict in Teams: What Happens When A Few
Members See More Conflict than the Rest. journal of applied psychology , vol 101,(no 7, pp.), pp.1045-
55.
Somech, A., desililya, H.S. & Lidogosker, H., 2009. Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness:
The Effects of Task Interdependence and Team Identification. journal of organizational behaviour, 30,
pp.359-78.
Wit, F., Jern, K. & Scheepers, D., 2013. Task Conflict, information processing, and Decision making: the
damaging effects of relationship conflict. Elsevier journal 2013, vol 122, pp. , 122, pp.177-89.

Appendix