Interpersonal Conflicts

Read “The Case” and answer the following questions.

Questions:

1. In your opinion, do the interpersonal conflicts in this group make it impossible for team members to work together?
2. What are some ways that this group can decrease their interpersonal conflicts and increase the team’s cohesiveness?

The Case

Nine months ago, the executives running your design firm decided to start using teams. Before that, all of the work was done on an individual basis. Ron the marketing guy would run some consumer surveys to try to identify new fads. He would pass this information on to Susie in the art department, who would come up with some sketches of new products based on the surveys. She would then pass this on to production, where Maury would look at the sketches and see what kind of materials would have to be ordered so that Sharon could have a chance to work up some prototypes. Finally, about five months later, Marcus in sales would have some samples that he could take around to potential customers. But after switching to one team, where all these people could work together and share their ideas at each step of the process, that time was cut down to just six weeks.

The executives of your company were thrilled with these results, and no doubt, they patted themselves on the back for coming up with the brilliant idea of using teams. There is, though, just one thing that they didn’t take into consideration—the team members hate each other! Marcus thinks that Ron talks too much and dominates every single team meeting. Maury, who hates sports, thinks that Susie wastes all of her time following the University of Michigan football team. Susie, meanwhile, hates it that Sharon won’t stop telling stories about her kids. As for Marcus, nobody can quite figure him out, but almost everyone on the team thinks that he is racist.

With all of these negative emotions floating around, your project team has become stagnant. The meetings are uncomfortable, to say the least, and the interaction between the members has become toxic. It’s been virtually impossible to get people to share ideas, reflect on others’ ideas, or even just look each other in the eyes. Most meetings, it’s plainly obvious that the only reason people are in the meetings is because they have to be.

A few weeks ago, Ron and Maury went to senior managers and asked what they would need to do to not work in teams anymore. The managers, in turn, told them to tell everyone else that, in effect, they are stuck with what they got. The managers were unwilling to give up the gains in productivity and speed, so the team was just going to have to learn how to work together.