By, Adam Bennett
Creating harmonious relationships is a common thread in our text and lesson that reinforce the proper ways that teamwork is developed. In both our Lesson 9 and Northouse (2013), it’s explained that managing conflict and unifying commitments are key functions and outcomes of leadership. Common sense would lead us all to agree that a good outcome of a team a is when there is harmony within a team. This is however not necessarily the best way to find innovation and team dynamics in a team sensitive environment. In two separate posts on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network, J. Richard Hackman and Alex Pentland challenge the notion of conflict, and communication as it pertains to collaboration. Northouse (2013) points out that criticisms of the Model for Team leadership is not acute enough to offer solutions to specific event based decisions. Furthermore, the criticisms point out that the Leadership Model is hard to replicate in share leadership teams. It can then be inferred that these criticisms also point out another flaw, that conflict can be good for team building pending situational and communication skills.
Hackman (2011), a Harvard professor, explained that research show that: “Conflict, when well managed and focused on a team’s objectives, can generate more creative solutions than one sees in conflict-free groups. So long as it is about the work itself, disagreements can be good for a team.” This was furthered by my own experience of being in a workgroup at work whereby members who questioned a leaders plans were constantly replaced. I was the sixth person to be replaced after four months of work on a project for the company I work for. Because I quested the leaders plan to use a certain strategy, I quickly found my invitation to the meetings cancelled. When I asked about this, I was told that the” team needs do’ers and not question’ers” (That is actual). The workgroup eventually dissolved for obvious reasons as this is a very extreme version of what not having conflict in a group can do.
In another study, Alex Pentland, a Harvard researcher, found that “it’s as true for humans as for bees: How we communicate turns out to be the most important predictor of team success, and as important as all other factors combined, including intelligence, personality, skill, and content of discussions. The old adage that it’s not what you say, but how you say it, turns out to be mathematically correct.” (Pentland, 2011). Pentland’s data can be interpreted to read that if we are able to communicate in a way that is conducive to productivity and not resentment, then conflict can be a great tool for both opening a discussion and creating new things. So although the Model for Leadership explains that conflict between people is degenerative to team functionality, leaders should know that they have a lot of say on how their team perceives conflict and how it is approached (Northosue, 2013).
Although Tuckman’s Model of Group Development explains that there is a stage of conflict to which he calls it “storming,” he doesn’t offer any practical answers how to get through that stage. Yet, if we take Pentland’s and Hackman’s research into account, we know that there needs to be a health form of conflict in our teams to keep them going (competition could be argued as conflict but we will save that for another blog post). Also, we know that it’s how we communicated with our team members that is the differentiator between constructive and destructive conflict. Knowing that it’s how you say it, and that conflict is OK, will help leaders make between decisions, and plan better for their execution.
References,
Hackman, Richard. (2011). Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork (Harvard Business Review). Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/06/six-common-misperceptions-abou/
Northouse, P. (2013). Introduction. In Leadership Theory and Practice (Sixth ed.). Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). PSYCH 485 Lesson 09: Team Leadership. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/09_lesson/printlesson.html
Pentland, Alex. (2012). The Hard Science of Teamwork (Harvard Business Review). Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/03/the-new-science-of-building-gr/