Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution can be a complicated affair if handled improperly. Conflicts, if gone uncorrected, can adversely impact a perfectly capable team by recycling the team to an earlier state of productivity. The keys to conflict resolution are simple and effective but will take practice and challenge your leadership abilities. Utilizing proper conflict resolution strategies at the beginning of every team exercise, will provide your team with clear direction, and will enhance the likelihood of team success.

The following in-site on Conflict Resolution will be broken down into five categories. They will be discussed in the order of: Sources of Conflict, Types of Conflicts, Legitimate Power, Tuckman's Theory and Dealing with Conflict.

To identify the sources of conflict; we must be clear on what conflict is. "Conflict is any situation in which there are incompatible goals, cognitions, or emotions within or between individuals or groups that lead to opposition or antagonistic interaction." (University of Phoenix (2003) Conflict: Sources and Solutions, Page 2). In the above statement, you can see that the sources of conflict vary from professional to personal. What one person in the team desires, the other team members may not have the slightest concern. In regard to learning teams within the University of Phoenix online campus, I would tend to believe that cognition would be the major source of conflict. In the online learning environment, you are solely dependant on writing and reading; therefore, there are no facial expressions or vocal inflections that depict the actual meaning, which leaves you with perception to reach a conclusion. During my initial brainstorming activity, I thought goals or interests might be a problem, but after spending the last five weeks with my teammates, I feel we all have the same goal and interests in regard to education. My personal source of conflict is that I prefer to work alone. I have worked in a team environment for many years, but not in a formal education capacity.

While sources of conflict can very to a large degree, the types of conflict are fewer. I concentrated on two: good conflict and bad conflict. Since most people associate conflict with "bad," I want to start with bad conflict. Bad conflict is when the level of conflict reaches a point that there is no return to the relationship. Every effort should be made to keep the team from reaching this point. I can't really see reaching this point in the University of Phoenix online learning environment, but it could happen. In one of the readings that I chose for this paper, Robert Cialdini wrote about a term called Captainitis: "It's called captainitis, and it refers not to the tendency of a leader to assume all problem-solving responsibilities but rather to the tendency of team members to opt out of responsibilities that are properly theirs." (University of Phoenix (2007), How to get the Best Solutions from Your Team 1). This could be a precursor to a bad conflict and the possibilities of this happening are real. Every student needs to make a conscious effort to avoid this situation.

The good source of conflict provides for growth of the team. In our learning group, I had assigned the Power Point presentation to myself in order to alleviate the burden on someone else. Trina had more experience with it and requested to do the presentation. Had this been a conflict, it would have been classified as good conflict because the better qualified person assembled the presentation. Therefore, a good conflicting situation will lend to having the right person performing the right task for the group. In reality it will be a win-win situation. The team will be more productive and able to convey the correct message in their work. I strongly feel that this type of conflict will be 90% of the conflict that I will encounter in online learning teams.

The establishment of Legitimate Power is by far the best way to resolve conflict before it starts. Legitimate power is based on authority derived by an election of the team. (Team Processes: Developing Synergistic Team Relations, 2003). Once the leader has been established, any conflict that may arise can be dealt with immediately. This type of position can be, and was, rotated before each team project commenced. This crucial step will keep the team on track and will keep the team in a performing status for a longer period of time as described in Tuckman's Theory.

Tuckman's Theory is actually a five-stage process: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. (Group Dynamics, Chapter 12, 2003) Although, as a learning team in University of Phoenix we will perform all five stages, I found that the Forming and Storming stages are the ones that take the most time. The lag time between responses make these two stages the hardest to overcome. If a conflict comes about, it makes these two