Our team is whole again. >> Yes. >> We're all present. We have just been talking about culture, but there's an aspect of this that I really want us to focus on and we've talked about it some, but we want to focus now on conflict. How do these teams and groups work with conflict? Well, in fact, many organizations avoid it. And they start by even setting up the project team to avoid certain voices or certain people that have different views. We tend to get the like-minded people together. In fact, we need to get the people with different views in the space and bring them into the team. And so, the differences can be expressed. It's also important for us to take conflict and reframe it as perhaps creative tension. There is tensions, there are different views, but it is creative. We avoid it, first of all, by not inviting certain people to the team. And then, oftentimes even when we haven't, we're polite. Is more about being polite and not raising differences. As you said, there are some issues that are covert or undiscussable. We're not going to go there. But in fact, if we can get those issues out and use them on the table, then it can lead to insights and exchange. And that's ultimately where transformation comes from. If we're going to move forward, we need to get those differences expressed. So this is one most important things, I think the teams have to deal with conflict, create of tension, not in exchange of point views. >> Absolutely, in fact, as I've listen to you one of the things that came to me and you mention polite, we all want to be very, very nice. We're all nice, all the time. And we're taught to be nice, ever since we were this high we're taught be nice. Don't say the thing that makes you the bad guy. And I think even in the professional world we seem to carry it. But you're right, conflict cannot be avoided by the mere function of having to work together. I mean if I was a Robinson Crusoe and I was working on an island, yes, I suppose I could avoid the conflict with a husk. But since I'm working with you, I have goals, and my goals are interdependent on yours, as are yours to mine. And collectively when we work together, a bit of friction is bound to happen, that's just the nature of interdependency. But we forget that we have to, sort of, open it up, make it explicit. There are ways, you don't have to be bad to state the conflict. You can be absolutely polite, you can be effective, and if anything, it makes your work flow efficient. >> It gives us a larger field of vision when I start seeing things through your eyes as well as my own. >> Yes. >> And I think this is one of the things that we have to work for it. >> I come with my advises, isn't it when I'm looking it. >> Yes, absolutely. And yet conflict is more often seen as something that shouldn't be touched with the barge, just got this huge negative connotation to it. >> Right. >> It's seen as something to be avoided, something that's not good, that's going to open a can of worms, but there are studies, research that are proved time in again that some amount of conflict is not just okay but necessary for teams to progress. For them to get clarity on what they're doing to move them towards their goals, to foster creativity in teams, to get diverse voices and opinions to the table and to better achieve what we get to achieve. So having said that, let's also take a quick minute to talk about different types of conflicts that may arise in organizations. >> So there are many ways of categorizing organizational conflict. One such categorization may be based on the types of conflict. We have task conflict, where there are disagreements among group members about the ask to be performed. Relationship conflict, or interpersonal conflict, which is often characterized by negative feelings, anger, frustration, distrust, and process conflict, where there are disagreements about logistics of the task, who does what, how are resources allocated. Conflicts in organizations can also be classified based on levels, individuals, groups, etc., as intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflict. Intrapersonal conflict can be described as conflict within an individual. So for example, it may be due to a mismatch between a role a person expects to perform and the role that the organization expects him or her to perform. Interpersonal conflict is conflict between two or more individuals. Intragroup conflict occurs among members of a group or a subgroup, and Intergroup conflict involves two or more groups or departments within an organization. >> I'd like to draw out attention to interteam conflict actually, since we've talked in our first module quite a bit about system. Oftentimes I think teams are not aware that some of the conflict that goes on in the team is about issues between that team and other teams in the organization. And sometimes it gets seen as interpersonal conflict within that team, when it really has more systemic origins. So I'd like us to think about that a little. For example, sometimes teams are pitted against each other in organizations. And they see that they're in competition with the other teams in the organization, rather than seeing ways, is that they can work together and that can oftentimes reduce learning for the whole organization, although one of the teams might be seen as very effective. But for the larger organization it might not be effective. >> Absolutely, and I think some forms of teams faces in an exaggerated way than others, because for example, virtual teams, they are the norm nowadays. We have more and more remote teams working together across, project teams across functions, virtual teams across geographies. And these sometimes exacerbate, because most of these heavily rely on technology and very less face to face communication, they face some of these conflicts more intensely than the rest of the teams. >> You know you remind me of this conversation, yes, I did that with the consulting work and in the room with stereotypes. HR is this and IT is this and operations is this and sales is this. And it was a huge task to bring them together in a conversation which was about increasing their systemic efficiency. That's why they were there and I was missing all of here that, because that's what we've been talking about. >> Well, at least they were surface those differences. >> Right. >> Because the other task- >> Yeah, that's right. >> The example I should give is in organization or a team that comes together to say, we have to consolidate and cut back. >> Yes. >> And the group, instead of doing that, s[pent all their time saying, no, we're all valuable people. We should find some other solution. And instead of accepting the purpose of consolidation, reduction of work force, they spent all their time talking about how that should be the last choice and they don't deal with the task they've been assigned to do. So this is an issue of avoiding conflict. So getting the issues out is important but then, yes, you have to deal with them. >> And what you're saying reminds me of this scenario that you watched earlier in this module. Where there was a lot of conflict between the different departments in the hospital, and stereotyping as you mentioned. And it was only when they step back and did the after action review, that they've began to get pass some of the inter-team conflict. And probably, we could argue that the conflict was helpful in terms of surfacing differences, but if you get stuck in the conflict then you go nowhere. >> This pattern of stuckness, when we did our first module, and perhaps you've already done it, and if not it might be a good idea >> When we do get stuck, one of the biggest reason is this conflict that is deep in it that we haven't set it up. Now, we could be immerse in a context and I could be in an organization. But I'm not allowed to talk about it. And I don't like to be the one to talk about conflict. Because everyone else, for everyone, it's such a move. We don't do that. And so, where the culture the conflict merges in, we don't realize that sometimes we behave because of the taste that norms in and around us, because we haven't said it out loud, and our frames are reinforced. So to move into a discovery frame, where I'm reframing the situation, we recreating new metaphors to make it easy becomes very difficult. >> Absolutely. So to summarize, we've spoken about BART- >> Right. >> Boundaries, authorities, rules, and tasks. And we are now talking about two other very important diagnostic lens, to identify what's impacting our learning environment, the lens of culture and how teams, groups, and individuals deal with conflict in an organization.
