Conflict Resolution in a Dysfunctional Team Environment

Dispute Resolution Journal, Aug-Oct 2005 by Fazzi, Cindy

Conflict Resolution in a Dysfunctional Team Environment Management Skills: A Jossey-Bass Reader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley imprint (www.josseybass.com), 2004. Softcover. 622 pages. $25.

So, you've heard about dysfunctional marriages and families. They're the subjects of popular television series (think "Desperate Housewives" and "The Sopranos"). But dysfunctional business organizations? Yes, they exist, although they are not as dramatic.

This book, a part of the Jossey-Bass business and management series, is not about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) per se, but two chapters offer useful insights into organizational conflict resolution.

Five Dysfunctions

A chapter written by Patrick Lencioni, president of Table Group, a management consulting firm, says that "[o]rganizations fail to achieve teamwork because they unknowingly fall prey to five natural but dangerous pitfalls," he writes. These pitfalls are absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

Absence of trust, Lencioni says, stems from people's unwillingness to be vulnerable within the group. Members of the team who are not generally open with one another about their mistakes and weaknesses make it impossible to build a foundation for trust.

A lack of trust leads to fear of conflict, says Lencioni, which is considered taboo in many workplaces. It is no wonder that many managers spend a lot of time and effort trying to avoid heated debates that are essential to growth and teamwork.

"Contrary to the notion that teams waste time and energy arguing, those that avoid conflict actually doom themselves to revisiting issues again and again without resolution," Lencioni explains. However, he does distinguish productive ideological conflict from destructive fighting and interpersonal politics. The former is limited to concepts and ideas, while the latter refers to mean-spirited personal attacks.

In Lencioni's view, an absence of healthy conflict creates the atmosphere for the third dysfunction: lack of commitment. He points out that team members who do not voice their opinions rarely buy in and commit to decisions. When they lack commitment, they tend to avoid accountability, the fourth dysfunction. And when they are not held accountable for their actions, he explains, they are more likely to turn their attention to their own needs instead of the team's goals.

Lencioni shows how all five dysfunctions relate to each other, creating a vortex that sucks productivity and creativity right out of organizational teams. Throughout the discussion he offers practical tips, including group exercises. Importantly, he also points out what a manager's role ought to be in different situations.

Dispute Resolution Styles

In another chapter, Marick F. Masters and Robert R. Albright discuss the different ways of dealing with conflict. How a person handles conflict depends partly on his or her natural style, but learned behavior also comes into play. In other words, people learn over time what works best for them.

In the context of managing people, the authors say it pays to be aware of specific goals in dealing with a conflict, as well as core competencies needed to handle conflict successfully. The authors identify these five strategic approaches to conflict: accommodation, avoidance, collaboration, competition and compromise.

Which strategy should you use? "We advocate collaborating," write Masters and Albright, the former a professor and executive director of the Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation at the University of Pittsburgh, and the latter the head of the Department of Management at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. "Collaboration fits nicely with the goals of effective conflict resolution," they say. "It emphasizes getting to the real problem, exploring options, meeting interests, and building relationships. In other words, collaboration is outcome and relationship focused."

This book is for all practitioners of ADR, as well as readers interested in organizational and corporate dispute resolution. It is easy to read and packed with thoughtful advice about a wide range of topics.

All reviews in this section have been written by book review editor Cindy Fazzi.