Team Conflict: Don't Avoid It; Embrace It

Team Conflict: Don't Avoid It; Embrace It

Team conflict. It is a term that does not carry a positive tone. When mentioned, it often brings to mind anxiety or tension. On the other hand, conflict is a very useful tool in any team environment. It needs merely to be viewed in a different light – a light through which most people do not view such a thing as conflict. This is because conflict can cause stress and tension among team members. Conflict can cause a person to lash out in anger or pretend it does not exist. Yet conflict is necessary in a team setting. It helps people learn as individuals and it can help the team grow and evolve into an effective problem-solving unit.

Wherever there are two or more people together, conflict exists (Dawson, 2007). It is unavoidable. Conflict, with all its possibilities for growth and learning, still must be resolved. It takes skill - a skill that needs to be developed. Nollenberger (2006) defines conflict resolution skills as "the ability to harness differences for a greater good" (p.29). If it is handled inadequately, complications can arise (Dawson, 2007), causing resentment and negative feelings and essentially making mountains out of molehills. In any situation, people have a choice of how to react to it. A person can choose whether to cry, laugh, be angry, or experience any other emotion. In conflict situations that are not viewed as positive, people tend to feel vulnerable. In such a condition people can "become oblivious to any middle ground and resist working toward a mutually beneficial solution" (Dawson, 2007, Getting Through It, 1), and nothing gets accomplished. When faced with any new situation, if viewed in a positive light, it can become a learning experience. Also, when two or more people learn together, they grow closer. In a team environment, the team grows together. Oster says, "If you want the kind of workplace where creative thinking is fostered, teams are effective and better decisions are made because the incorporate different perspectives, prepare for it to lead to conflict" (Wilson, 2005, 3). Conflict is a challenge that needs to be worked through.

As these challenges are worked through, learning takes place in the individual. When the individual allows learning to take place, the mind is reframed. Beliefs are altered. "People use their beliefs to define a problem and develop a range of alternative solutions to a conflict episode" (Gitlow and McNary, 2006, p.22). When a person reframes the mind, he is able to assimilate new thoughts. Thoughts evoke actions. Actions are where it counts. Things get done. Goals are accomplished. Deadlines are met. Individual assumptions are changed; new viewpoints are sought out and discovered. In order to alter these mind-sets, it "requires a different approach to conflict management, including re-patterning of entrenched habits, a positive outlook,