| When you are building teams, it is inevitable that team | | | | be right about something. Human beings have a |
| conflict is going to occur. Team conflict can be good | | | | fundamental need to be right and sometimes that need |
| and it can be destructive. As part of your executive | | | | to be right can cause the real issues to be blurred. |
| leadership training, you want to learn how to know the | | | | Therefore, you as the leader will need to bring the |
| difference between good and destructive team | | | | conflicting factions together to talk through what is the |
| conflict and how to resolve conflict that is destructive. | | | | "real" issue. You will also want to keep the overall |
| Team conflict is good when there is a diversity of | | | | team goals as the main focus of the conversation. |
| thoughts and ideas. This usually leads to better | | | | Conflicting parties can usually agree that they have the |
| solutions and outcomes. However, there is team | | | | same goal in mind just different ways to go about |
| conflict that is destructive to the productivity and | | | | reaching the goal. |
| effectiveness of the team. This destructive team | | | | Understanding behavioral styles can help prevent |
| conflict occurs when the conflict is interfering with the | | | | destructive feedback. Everyone has a natural |
| team reaching its goals. Left unaddressed, destructive | | | | behavioral style or a way they like to go about doing |
| conflict could escalate to the point where it has a | | | | things. Behavior styles will conflict with different |
| major negative impact on the team. So the question | | | | behavioral styles. Therefore, if your team recognizes |
| becomes, what is the best course of action you can | | | | and understands the different behavioral styles of the |
| take when destructive team conflict occurs? | | | | team members it can go a long way in preventing |
| It is natural to adopt the philosophy of relying on the | | | | conflict from being destructive. Of course the first step |
| conflicting parties to work the problem out among | | | | is to understand one's own behavioral style. |
| themselves. After all, we're all adults, right? The | | | | Understanding your own behavioral style helps you to |
| problem with that approach is that while it sounds good | | | | appreciate another's behavioral style. Then it is much |
| in theory, in practice it simply doesn't work out that | | | | easier to see where potential conflict could occur. |
| easily. The fact that the conflict has escalated to the | | | | There is an old saying "a house divided against itself |
| point of impeding team progress shows that the | | | | cannot stand." This saying is very true when it comes |
| parties lack the capacity to work it out without | | | | to teams working together to achieve goals. |
| intervention or training and development on how to | | | | Therefore, it is imperative that when team conflict |
| resolve the conflict. | | | | occurs, there are steps taken to address the |
| The first step to resolve destructive team conflict is to | | | | conflicting issues and resolve them. Allowing conflicts |
| get to the root cause of the conflict. In most cases | | | | to go unresolved is literally like a cancer that can |
| conflict has to do with the conflicting sides wanting to | | | | destroy a team and eventually an organization. |