Team Dynamics and Conflict Resolution

Team Dynamics and Conflict Resolution

in Work Teams

Teams are groups of people who work together to achieve a common goal (Learning Team Handbook, p 310). Workplace teams are increasing as businesses find the yield of team productivity and creativity exceeds individual productivity/creativity. To promulgate productive teams, businesses have had to identify common threads for successful teams. Businesses have identified the dynamics and needs of successful teams.

Seven tasks must be included in consideration of team dynamics and structure. The first of which is defining the goal, mission or function of a specific team. The team must know what it is being asked to accomplish. The second area of consideration is assessing what skills, abilities, knowledge or potential to acquire such would be needed amongst selected team members. Identification of potential team members should include an assessment of the skills, knowledge and abilities or the potential to acquire such so that ultimately the team has the building blocks with which to succeed in its mission, goal or function. This assessment must include an understanding of realistic potential contributions by potential team members with the included assessment of whether or not the acquisition of skills and knowledge can be made available through research and analysis.

Upon completion of these assessments, the work place team is then formed, acquiring team members based upon the needs of the project, mission or goal of the team. The team then proceeds to learn about each other. In learning about one another, individual learning styles must be identified to gain an understanding of how to maximize team performance by capitalizing on team members' strengths via learning styles. Assessment of learning styles will also identify potential downfalls within the team environment and can therefore, be addressed in the early stages of team activity.

In addition to learning styles, diversity amongst team members must be recognized and integrated into the process of achieving the team mission, goal or function.

All members of the team must clearly understand the goals and objectives of the team. All members must be on the same page and understand the benefits of timely project completion and the repercussions of failure. Team members must communicate concerns and issues among each other. Valid or apparently valid issues and concerns must be addressed at the on set. Failure to address issues and concerns will cause issue escalation and project degradation. Communications must include identification of areas of weakness, lack of information and deficiencies. Deadlines must be discussed with realistic target completion times and dates of tasks to allow for consolidation and integration into the master mission or project.

The mission, goal or project to be accomplished by the team must then be broken down into primary task assignments distributed among team members with realistic deadlines set for completion of task assignments. The individual task assignments must be managed to enable adequate time to consolidation and compilation for a preliminary version of the completed project.

Acquisition and structuring of teams based on these areas of opportunity enable the team to maximize performance by all team members through capitalizing on the skills, knowledge and abilities of all team members to include the time management skills of members. Additionally, early team activities include the identification of coaches and mentors available to assist various team members.

As the team continues its development through out the storming stage and norming stage, many opportunities arise to address, manage and resolve conflict. To address conflict, the team must understand the components of conflict. The first and most easily identifiable source