Management Chapter 10 Homework Teaching Tools And Exercises Leaders Bookshelf Great

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Two basic types of conflict that occur in teams are task conflict and relationship conflict:

• Task conflict refers to disagreements among people about the goals to be achieved or the

B. Balancing Conflict and Cooperation

There is evidence that mild conflict can be beneficial to teams. A healthy level of conflict

helps to prevent groupthink, in which people are so committed to a cohesive team that they

are reluctant to express contrary opinions. When people in work teams go along simply for

Exhibit 10.6: Balance Conflict with Cooperation

Too little conflict can decrease team performance because the team doesn’t benefit from a mix

of opinions and ideas—even disagreements—that might lead to better solutions or prevent the

team from making mistakes. A moderate amount of conflict that is managed appropriately

typically results in the highest levels of team performance.

C. Causes of Conflict

Several factors can lead to conflict. One of the primary causes of conflict is competition over

resources, such as money, information, or supplies. In similar fashion, conflict often occurs

D. Styles to Handle Conflict

Exhibit 10.7: A Model of Styles to Handle Conflict

The two major dimensions are the extent to which an individual is assertive versus unassertive

and cooperative versus uncooperative in his or her approach to conflict. Five styles of

handling conflict are as follows:

• The dominating style (my way) reflects assertiveness to get one’s own way and should

be used when quick, decisive action is vital on important issues or unpopular actions,

such as during emergencies or urgent cost cutting.

• The avoiding style (no way) reflects neither assertiveness nor cooperativeness. It is

appropriate when an issue is trivial, when there is no chance of winning, when a delay

to gather more information is needed, or when a disruption would be costly.

New Leader Action Memo: Which conflict-handling style do you tend to use most frequently?

Answer the questions in Leader’s Self-Insight 10.3 to find out. Try to think of conflict situations

you’ve been involved in where each of the styles might be appropriate.

New Leader Action Memo: As a leader, you can adopt the best approach for handling a team

conflict. Choose among the dominating, avoiding, compromising, accommodating, or

collaborating styles based on the degree of assertiveness and cooperativeness needed to manage

the situation.

Each of the five styles is appropriate in certain cases, and effective team members and leaders

Discussion Question #9. What style of handling conflict do you typically use? Can you think of

instances where a different style might have been more productive?

Notes_________________________________________________________________________

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E. Negotiation

One distinctive type of conflict management is negotiation, whereby people engage in give-

and-take discussions and consider various alternatives to reach a joint decision that is

acceptable to both parties. Negotiation is typically used when a conflict is formalized, such as

between a union and management.

Ways to Negotiate

Integrative negotiation is based on a win–win assumption, in that all parties want to come

up with a creative solution that can benefit both sides. Rather than viewing the conflict as a

win–lose situation, people look at the issues from multiple angles, consider trade-offs, and

try to “expand the pie” rather than divide it. With integrative negotiation, conflicts are

Rules for Reaching a Win–Win Solution

Achieving a win–win solution through integrative negotiation is based on four key

strategies:

• Separate the People from the Problem. For successful integrative negotiation, people

stay focused on the problem and the source of conflict rather than attacking or

attempting to discredit each other.

• Focus on Underlying Interests, not Current Demands. Demands are what each

person wants from the negotiation, whereas underlying interests represent the “why”

behind the demands.

• Listen and Ask Questions. Leaders can learn more about their opponent’s position,

their constraints, and their needs by being quiet or asking questions. Smart

negotiators want to learn the other side’s constraints so they can help overcome them.

Discussion Question #10. If you were the leader of a team developing a new computer game,

how might you apply negotiation to resolve a conflict between two strong-willed members

related to which features to include in the game?

Notes_________________________________________________________________________

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is the difference between a “team” and a “group”? Describe your personal

experience with each.

Students’ answers will vary. A team is a unit of two or more people who interact and

coordinate their work to accomplish a shared goal or purpose for which they are committed

and hold themselves mutually accountable. A team is a group of people, but the two are not

2. Discuss the differences between a cross-departmental team and a self-directed team. Do

you believe self-directed teams could be effectively used in certain types of organizations?

Explain.

Students’ answers will vary. A cross-departmental term is made up of members from

different departments within the organization. These teams are often called

suggestions for coordinating the departments represented, develop new ideas and solutions

for existing organizational problems, and assist in developing new practices or policies.

Cross-departmental teams may gradually evolve into self-directed teams. Self-directed

teams are made up of employees who work with minimum supervision and rotate jobs to

produce an entire product or service, or at least one complete aspect or portion of a product

or service. Self-directed teams have access to information and resources needed to perform

3. Which of the five elements of high-performance teams do you think would be most difficult

for a leader to implement in a virtual team? Explain.

Students’ answers will vary. A virtual team is made up of geographically or

organizationally dispersed members who share a common purpose and are linked primarily

through advanced information and telecommunications technologies. Despite their

potential benefits, there is growing evidence that virtual teams are often less effective than

4. Describe the stages of team development. How would you facilitate a team’s development

through each stage?

Students’ answers may vary. Research suggests that teams develop over several stages.

These stages typically occur in sequence, although there can be overlap.

• Forming. The forming stage of development is a period of orientation and getting

acquainted. The leader’s challenge at this stage of development is to facilitate

communication and interaction among team members to help them get acquainted

and establish guidelines for how the team will work together. It is important at this

5. How might an individual’s dilemma about teamwork be intensified or reduced in a virtual

team? As a virtual team leader, what would you do to manage these dilemmas?

Students’ answers will vary. Leaders can be more effective when they understand three

primary reasons teams present a dilemma for people:

• We Have to Give Up Our Independence.

• We Have to Put Up with Free Riders.

• Teams Are Sometimes Dysfunctional.

6. The chapter suggests that very small teams (say, three to six members) perform better, and

most people prefer to work in small teams. However, many companies use teams of 100 or

more people to perform complex tasks, such as creating and developing a new product. Do

you think a unit of that size can truly function as a team? Discuss.

Students’ answers will vary. Although most researchers agree there is no optimal team

size, teams function best when they contain just enough members to perform the job, and

most experts recommend that teams should err on the side of having too few members

7. Discuss the relationship between team cohesiveness and performance. As a leader, can you

think of specific ways you would encourage norms of cohesiveness and collaboration?

Students’ answers may vary. Team cohesiveness is defined as the extent to which members

are attracted to the team and motivated to remain in it. Members choose to remain in a

team because they believe in the goals and objectives of the team. The outcome of team

8. Think about a team you have participated in to do a class project or a sports team on

which you participated. Can you identify members who played a task-specialist role and

those who played a socioemotional role? What behaviors were associated with each?

Students’ answers will vary. The task-specialist role is associated with behaviors that help

the team accomplish its goal. People who play a task-specialist role initiate ideas, give

opinions, seek information, summarize, and energize.

9. What style of handling conflict do you typically use? Can you think of instances where a

different style might have been more productive?

Students’ answers will vary. Following are five styles of handling conflict:

• The dominating style (my way) reflects assertiveness to get one’s own way and

should be used when quick, decisive action is vital on important issues or unpopular

actions, such as during emergencies or urgent cost cutting.

10. If you were the leader of a team developing a new computer game, how might you apply

negotiation to resolve a conflict between two strong-willed members related to which

features to include in the game?

Students’ answers will vary. One distinctive type of conflict management is negotiation,

whereby people engage in give-and-take discussions and consider various alternatives to

Teaching Tools and Exercises

1. Leader’s Bookshelf: Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout

Performance by Howard M. Guttman

Management consultant and author Howard Guttman believes high-performance

organizations begin with great teams. In his book, Great Business Teams, Guttman draws

3. Activity: Managing Teams

Students will interview three managers at different organizations. Ask them about their

experiences in managing teams. What behaviors have they found that work? What

behaviors have not been successful in creating an effective team? Students will share

5. Leadership at Work: Team Feedback

Think back to your most recent experience working in a team, either at work or school.

Write down your answers to the following questions about your role in the team.

• What did the team members appreciate about you?

• What did the team members learn from you?

In Class: “Team Feedback” is an excellent exercise to use for student feedback to one

another after a specific team class project or other activities done together during the

class. If there were no assigned team activities but students have gotten to know each

other in class, they can be divided into groups and provide the information with respect to

their participation in the class instead of in the student team. The instructor can ask the

student groups to sit in a circle facing one another. Then one person will volunteer to be

the focal person, and each of the other team members will tell that team member the

following:

• What I appreciate about you

Leadership Development: Cases for Analysis

I. Decision Time

Synopsis

Ben Dooley and Casey Stringer had agreed to stop for coffee in the atrium Starbucks before

heading up to the 35th floor for a board meeting.

“Watching Johnna and Robert in previous board meetings helps me to understand why the folks

in Congress can’t get anything done,” Casey mused. “Both sides have stated their positions and

nothing, nothing will budge them. I dread this meeting. I’d rather have a root canal.” “Well,

“… Or do we re–shore?” Casey added.

“Yes, Robert is going to have to face the fact that if we stay in China, we have to move from

Wenzhou,” Casey pointed out. “The worker shortage is bad and getting worse. The last estimates

for that region were one million workers short. As wages go up and other opportunities present

“And a factory move will delay manufacturing and make shipping even more difficult,” Ben

replied. “Add to that the Chinese insistence on full payment before shipping, and we’re looking

at some potentially serious delays.”

“Johnna, on the other hand, is going to argue that the situation in China is an indication that now

is the perfect time to re-shore—bring the jobs back to the good old U.S. of A.,” Casey said.

“She’s going to dig in her heels on this one and you and I know that at least two members of that

‘august’ board are going to back off and let her have her way with no careful analysis of the pros

“So both Johnna and Robert have a strong argument and some glaring weaknesses. Is there room

in here for a compromise? That’s what I would like to see. They would both get something,”

opined Ben.

“I don’t know. I’m eager to see what each one of them presents. It should be an interesting

conversation.”

“Or an afternoon in hell,” Ben said as the two headed for the elevator. “I wonder what you and I

might do to help Johnna and Robert resolve this conflict. What do you think we should do,

Casey?

Case questions and answers

1. What styles for handling conflict appear among the board members? Explain.

There seems to be a massive clash of opinions between Johnna and Robert with respect to

the factory in China, resulting in a task conflict. Task conflict refers to disagreements

among people about the goals to be achieved or the content of the tasks to be performed.

2. What options do Ben and Casey have for helping resolve the conflict between Johnna and

Robert? What conflict styles might they adopt for this meeting?

Students’ answers will vary. Ben and Casey can make use of the following options to

help resolve the conflict between Johnna and Robert:

• Dominating style

• Avoiding style

• Compromising style

3. What suggestions would you make to help board members arrive at a good team decision?

One distinctive type of conflict management is negotiation, whereby people engage in

give-and-take discussions and consider various alternatives to reach a joint decision that

is acceptable to both parties. Negotiation is typically used when a conflict is formalized,

such as between a union and management. Conflicting parties may embark on negotiation

from different perspectives and with different intentions, reflecting either an integrative

II. Devereaux-Dering Group

Synopsis

Dashing to catch a cab at the corner of Sixth and Vine, the account team was exhilarated. After a

quick exchange of high fives, three of the four jumped into the backseat of a cab to return to the

Manhattan offices of Devereaux-Dering, a global advertising agency with offices in New York,

Hong Kong, and Paris. The team couldn’t wait to tell their team leader, Kurt Lansing, that they

had won the BMW account that morning. The fourth team member, Brad Fitzgerald, stood apart

from the animated group, studying his BlackBerry and then hailing a cab for an afternoon flight

out of LaGuardia.

Case questions and answers

1. What factors do you think are affecting this team’s cohesiveness? Explain.

Students’ answers may vary. Several factors to influence team cohesiveness:

• Team Interaction. The greater the amount of contact between team members and the

more time they spend together, the more cohesive the team. Fitzgerald was not

interacting with the members of the team. He came up with a tag line for the BMW

account and did not share it with the team members prior to presenting it to the

client. This caused hard feelings and resentment.

2. If you were the team leader, what could you do to bring Fitzgerald into the team more and

foster better relationships among the team members?

Students’ answers will vary. As a team leader, he or she should focus on socioemotional

role─behaviors that maintain people’s emotional well-being, such as facilitating the

participation of others, smoothing over conflicts, showing concern for others, and

maintaining harmony. People who adopt a socioemotional role display the following

behaviors:

• Encourage—are warm and receptive to others’ ideas; praise and encourage others

to draw forth their contributions.

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Case Assessment Questions

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