Final Project – Individual Part

Conflict Situation: Different interpretations of accountability and responsibility of tasks and team outcomes

Introduction

Our team is having four people instead of three people.  Outsiders may think having more people will lead our team to complete tasks more easily.  However, having more people sometimes means more possibilities of having conflicts.  Different people surely will have different mindset due to different background.  With different work background, our group members are having different interpretations of accountability and responsibility of tasks and team outcomes.  We have different expectation of the team outcome and also having different views on responsibilities. 

Situation

Due to different character and different work background, our group members put different priority on work, study and personal life.  This is the main reason for our different expectation and accountability of the group work.  For members who are putting more focus on studying, they will expect putting more effort on the group assignments and want more perfect results.  For members whose priority is work and personal life, they will expect to put reasonable effort on the group assignments.  Due to these different views and expectations, conflict is resulted when we allocate our work and when we review each others’ work.  Some members may be dissatisfied with other team members’ work done due to the “reasonable” level of effort put. 

Our Solution

In resolving the conflict situation, we tended to build up trust among the group and through communication, we enhanced the collaboration within the team. 

1.     Collaborate

As we are in a group, no matter our expectation towards studying the course is high or low, we still have a common interest of completing the assignments at a good grade.  We are not going to bear the risk of failing the course.  We knew that we must align our common concern.  With a common concern of getting a good grade, we got a consensus.  We concern for our goal of achieving a good grade as well as concern for relationship between team members.  Besides learning explicit knowledge, building social network and friendship is also valuable.  Thus, we would like to take care of each member’s feelings.

2. Communicate              

To achieve a win-win outcome for our group, we strive to communicate with each other and tried our best to collaborate.  We honestly told each member our own expectation.  Also, we tried to understand each member’s strengths and weaknesses.  This is essential in allocating different tasks to members.  As we understood each member’s expectation and needs, we can also think in other members’ point of view when making decision.  To avoid team members having hard feeling on taking a particular accountability of a task, we clearly expressed our opinion on each others’ strength.  For example, both Fred and Amy are strong in presentation skills while Cherry and I are more comfortable in writing and searching for information.  With this clear consensus in our mind through our communication, we are more willing to take up the allocated tasks.  And we were clear that we are responsible and accountable for the team outcomes together.  No one member is going to bear the responsibility or accountability alone.  We cooperate to meet our common interest of achieving a good grade. 

                                                                                             

3.     Negotiate

We also concern some members who have higher expectation and some just strive for a reasonable result.  Thus, those who are tend to be perfectionist can take up the task of wrapping up so that they can ensure the quality of the final products.  Those who just strive for a reasonable result also promised to put good effort to ensure the quality of work done is really reasonable.  This is an integrative solution that all members’ concerns are considered.  We could also utilize each member’s strength when allocating different tasks.  All these are the result of our honest communication and negotiation.  We were able to collaborate throughout the communication process.  

4.     Trust

      Though we have consensus on goal and commitment, we have to build up trust among team members.  In order to let other members confident in one’s work, each of us tried our best to build up positive track record.  Each time when we handed in our assigned part, each of us did our best.  We did not miss any internal deadline that we set.  Also, each member usually delivers the tasks within or even exceeds expectations.  By building up trust on each of us, we successfully resolved the conflicts of different expectations on accountability and responsibilities on team tasks and outcomes.  Since we trusted each others, we could focus on what we were assigned and no need to bother others’ parts.  That is also why each of us could deliver or even over-deliver our assigned part. 

Conclusion

      Everyone is born with different character and brought up in different background.  Due to individual differences, expectations and interpretations are different even on consensus goals.  In order to collaborate under the differences, communication and negotiation are essential to bring team members together.  By trusting each other, proper communication can even make use of the differences among members to make the team more productive and effective.  I am glad to work with Amy, Cherry and Fred in this course and I believe that our team can fully collaborate even in the future. 

References:

Danny Ertel, (May-Jun 1999). TURNING Negotiation INTO A CORPORATE CAPABILITY. Harvard Business Review. 

Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Hughes, (Mar 2005). ACCEPT-AND ACTIVELY MANAGE CONFLICT. Harvard Business Review.

Lynda Gratton and Tamara J. Erickson, (Nov 2007). 8 Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. Harvard Business Review. 

Robert F. Hurley, (Sep 2006). The Decision to Trust. Harvard Business Review.