Conflict Resolution

Quick reference

• 00:00 Hello I'm Ray Sheen, turn a life as a team conflict often arises.
• 00:07 The team leader would be prepared to resolved this conflict in a positive way
• 00:12 to strengthen the team.
• 00:14 You may feel you're in a perfect team and everyone gets along great.
• 00:19 But conflict can still arise.
• 00:21 Sometimes a conflict is what technical conflict.
• 00:24 That means that it is conflict that is due to the nature of the work of the team.
• 00:28 Different team members have a different opinion of the work, or how to do it.
• 00:32 A typical cause of technical conflict is misunderstanding of the plans and
• 00:36 procedures for the work that the team is doing.
• 00:38 This could be due to miscommunication or just a different definition of terms or
• 00:43 experiences.
• 00:44 Another type of conflict is the difference of opinion about the technical
• 00:47 requirements for the work that is being done.
• 00:49 Many team members will read into requirements an expected performance
• 00:54 level.
• 00:54 Even when requirements are clear, different team members may prefer
• 00:57 different approaches for fulfilling those requirements.
• 01:00 This could be based upon their own previous training or experiences.
• 01:03 Another technical cause is, different standards for quality of acceptance.
• 01:09 What is considered perfectly acceptable by one person, is considered sloppy or
• 01:13 unprofessional by another.
• 01:15 While all of these reasons can relate to the work, and
• 01:18 the team members understanding of that work.
• 01:20 There are also personal causes of conflict that are related more to the personality
• 01:25 or personal values of each individual.
• 01:27 One of these is unmet needs of team members.
• 01:30 Some people expect a friendly greeting or help on certain activities,
• 01:34 a team member failing to respond in that matter starts to create conflict.
• 01:38 Different value systems, be they religious based or
• 01:41 cultural based can create conflict when one team member feels that another team
• 01:45 member is disrespecting something that is important to them.
• 01:49 Perceptions of teamwork can also change conflict.
• 01:52 Teams can form clicks, or subgroups, that begin to isolate others.
• 01:57 Sometimes this is based upon the type of work that is done essentially creating
• 02:01 a cast system.
• 02:02 I wanna mention assumptions and expectations.
• 02:05 This is essentially what is behind all of their technical issues but
• 02:09 I included here with personal causes because people also make assumptions
• 02:14 about others based upon things like how they dress, how they speak,
• 02:18 what education they received or ethnic and race identity.
• 02:22 This can be either positive or negative assumptions and
• 02:25 they lead to expectations that may or may not be fulfilled.
• 02:28 The final personal cause that I want to mention is the willingness to deal with
• 02:33 conflict.
• 02:33 Conflict avoiders can escalate conflict by not resolving it early.
• 02:38 Conflict seekers will find conflict when none exists until they've caused it.
• 02:44 When conflict occurs, the way it is handled can either strengthen the team or
• 02:48 weaken it.
• 02:49 So let's start with a conflict as mentioned on the previous slide, and
• 02:52 see what happens if it is approached in a negative fashion.
• 02:55 The conflict causes a loss in productivity.
• 02:58 The people in conflict are generally less efficient because they're fighting
• 03:02 the conflict instead of working and
• 03:04 it often takes a crisis to get them back on track.
• 03:07 With the loss of productivity, we see an escalation in communication problems.
• 03:12 People refuse to talk to each other unless they absolutely must.
• 03:15 Even then, the communication is laced with hidden agendas to further the interests of
• 03:19 each side of the conflict.
• 03:20 And of course from there, the relationship starts to shatter.
• 03:24 Team members feel they need to defend themselves from the real or
• 03:27 perceived attacks from other team members, and paranoid behavior sets in.
• 03:31 All of this leads to even more conflict.
• 03:33 Everyone starts watching out for themselves instead of the team and
• 03:37 many times we see the onset of physical or psychological illness.
• 03:41 The negative spiral keeps going down and down.
• 03:44 But the different approach is to recognized and resolved the conflict.
• 03:48 Bring the issue to light and find the win-win solution.
• 03:51 This will energized the team to be more efficient and
• 03:54 often leads to better creative solution to problems.
• 03:57 Productivity increases as team members gain confidence that can work together to
• 04:01 resolve conflict, communication barriers come down, and
• 04:05 you get open two way communication.
• 04:07 Relationships are strength than there's trust and teamwork grow.
• 04:09 Instead of downward spiral,
• 04:11 positive conflict resolution improves the team in many ways.
• 04:16 So, how do you actually deal with the team conflict?
• 04:19 Well my favorite tool is GRPI.
• 04:21 GRPI stands for goals, roles, processes and interpersonal relationships.
• 04:26 If you think about the team building process,
• 04:29 these are the steps you go through.
• 04:31 Set the team goals, determine the roles reach team member, ensure everyone
• 04:36 those how to do what expected processes procedures of project test and
• 04:40 then this is developing the inner personal relationships are created.
• 04:44 When conflict arises, the relationship problems is what we see but
• 04:48 often that is not the true problem, sometimes people just not like each other.
• 04:53 I had a team where two of the team members were divorced from each other and
• 04:56 it was not a friendly divorce.
• 04:58 In that case, I reassigned one to another team.
• 05:01 There was just too much relationship baggage.
• 05:03 But that is not usually the case.
• 05:06 I worked my way back up GRPI to find the problem.
• 05:09 Is there confusion or
• 05:10 difference of opinion on the processes that are causing the conflict?
• 05:14 Let's clarify what should be done and determine the best way to do it.
• 05:18 Is there conflict on the roles?
• 05:20 Again, we need to clarify the roles and expectations,
• 05:23 then rebuild the processes and procedures if necessary.
• 05:26 What if there's conflict about the goals?
• 05:29 We'll gather the team back together and if necessary,
• 05:32 get the stakeholders involved to clarify the team goals and expectations.
• 05:36 I've used these technique countless times.
• 05:38 Find the right problem, fix it, and
• 05:40 then rebuild the rest of the team with the GRPI.
• 05:44 Conflict happens.
• 05:47 Resolve it positively and your team is stronger for it.

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