Team Conflict Management Plan

Conflict Management Plan Assignment Instructions

You are part of a group of newly hired team superintendents with Riordan Manufacturing. Your group was hired to lead new teams and begin production of the newly designed CardiCare Valve heart valves. This will be at the organization’s Pontiac, MI, location that is currently manufacturing custom plastic parts. Many of the production employees are current employees from other divisions, and the company expects to hire some new employees.

Resources: Riordan Manufacturing Virtual Organization, and University of Phoenix Material: Team Strategy Plan

 Review the Riordan Manufacturing intranet site and the Human Resource section under Demographics, Employees, Employee Files, and Reports.

 Complete the Team Strategy Plan to create the teams. Address the following in your plan:

  • Identify various strategies available to build teams.
  • What challenges or barriers may happen?
    • How will the best strategy be determined?
  • What measures will you use to determine if the team is operating successfully

Part II: Conflict Management Plan

While developing the teams, the management group finds that there is currently some internal conflict among two of the employees chosen for this project. Clyde Cousins has spoken to his current manager twice regarding his feelings that Dan Tully is intentionally creating problems on the production line, which is causing Clyde to miss his quality checks. Dan insists that he has no idea what Clyde is referring to and does not understand why Clyde is trying to cause problem. Dan now goes to his own superintendent because he feels Clyde is spreading rumors that he is looking for other work. Clyde advises his own manager that he is not sure why Dan thinks this because he has never said anything like that.

Before the new teams are formed, the management group knows they must resolve this issue so that the new production teams can operate smoothly. Both Dan and Clyde are good employees with positive performance reviews, and they were chosen for the new project because of this reason.

 Resources: Riordan Manufacturing Virtual Organization, and University of Phoenix Material: Conflict Management Plan

Complete the Conflict Management Plan for the conflict between David and James. In this plan, include the following:

  • The various conflict management strategies
  • The strengths and weaknesses of each
  • Considerations for selecting a strategy
  • Alternate strategies
  • Possible challenges

Team Conflict Management Plan – Sample Paper

Various Conflict Management Strategies

There are various strategies, or approaches, employed in managing given conflicts. The accommodation approach involves offering to each of the parties to a conflict what it desires. The avoidance approach is aimed at postponing conflict for an indefinite time, with the hope that it goes away devoid of confrontations. The collaborative approach involves the integration of ideas propounded by diverse persons to come up with innovative settlements satisfactory to all parties.

The compromise approach entails reaching out to conflicting parties to resign from various components of their claims or positions to give way to the establishment of agreeable or satisfactory settlements. The competition approach seeks settlements in which some parties win at the expense of others. It is commonly used by conflicting parties that are rather assertive. Lastly, the team building approach seeks settlements in which all the parties to a given conflict win through innovative solutions (Krile, 2006).

Strengths and Weaknesses of Chosen Conflict Management Strategies

            Each of the approaches employed in managing given conflicts has particular strengths along with downsides. The competition strategy results into settlements rather rapidly and increases the resulting outputs. However, it is ineffective in lasting engagements and injures interpersonal relations significantly. The avoidance approach results into positive settlements rather rapidly and allows for discussions between conflicting parties. However, it does not by itself provide solutions and is ineffective in lasting engagements.

The compromise approach offers solutions where the others fail and helps for the development of empathy among conflicting parties (University of Nebraska, 2012). However, it compromises each of the parties’ goals and shares, may give openings to forced settlements, and is ineffective in lasting engagements. The collaborative approach supports co-creation, as well as innovativeness, and supports the development of lasting relations. However, the approach is challenging to formulate. As noted earlier, the team building approach seeks settlements in which all the parties to a given conflict win through innovative solutions. Even then, it presents challenges in creating teams owing to variations in individual goals, opinions as well as values (Krile, 2006).

Considerations for Selecting a Strategy

When selecting the approach to employ in managing given conflicts, organizations should consider the party relationships and issues informing the conflicts. The organizations should consider whether the relationships between conflicting parties are low or high and the value the parties attach to the relationships (University of Nebraska, 2012). The organizations should consider whether the issues between the conflicting parties are low or high and the value the parties attach to the issues.

Ideally, when a conflict entails a high-level party relationship and a high-level issue, the compromise approach is used. Ideally, when a conflict entails a high-level party relationship and a low -level issue, the accommodation approach is used. Ideally, when a conflict entails a low-level party relationship and a low-level issue, the avoidance approach is used. Ideally, when a conflict entails a low-level party relationship and a high-level issue, the competition approach is used (Krile, 2006). In the presented scenario, the conflict entails a low-level party relationship and a low-level issue. Thus, the avoidance approach should be used.

Alternate Strategy

            As noted earlier, in the scenario, the conflict entails a low-level party relationship between employees in the same cadres and a low-level issue. Therefore, the avoidance approach should be used. In the alternate, the next best approach is the accommodation approach. The accommodation approach should be employed in resolving the conflict following the failure of the avoidance approach.

Possible Challenges

            As earlier noted, the usage of the avoidance approach may not by itself resolve the conflict conclusively. It may be ineffective in lasting engagements between the quarrelling employees. As well, the avoidance approach may not by itself resolve the conflict conclusively. It may be ineffective in lasting engagements between the employees who party to the conflict (Krile, 2006).

Conclusion

Team building is a significant element of the organizational theory along with practice. Over time, conceptual clarity and consensus about the constituents of team building have developed. Its components include the setting of appropriate goals, the management of societal relations, the clarification of member roles, and conflict resolution. In the Riordan Manufacturing case, the most favorable intervention is role clarification. In the presented scenario, the conflict entails a low-level party relationship and a low-level issue. Consequently, the avoidance approach should be used.

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