The Road to Conflict Resolution
If you are a leader, you have undoubtedly experienced the frustration of dealing with two employees who are unable to get along with each other. Most often, the disagreements are petty in nature. Nevertheless, they consume your time and exhaust your emotions. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid common intervention mistakes that leave disputing employees disgruntled and their conflicts unresolved.
Conflict-resolution experts advise managers to adopt a facilitator's role when handling employee disputes. Leaders, they say, should serve as mediators and not like judges. Yet surprisingly, recent research reveals that managers largely ignore that advice. Instead, most leaders take charge and determine the outcome of employee disagreements.
Why? Our normal tendency is to view conflicts as problems we need to fix -- after all, that's part of our job. Leaders are supposed to be problem solvers and, as such, are expected to settle issues in ways that best meet the organization's interests. But managers, pressed for time and concerned about fairness, often rush to conclusions that leave everyone unsatisfied while permitting the underlying discord to fester.
Here's a simple technique I successfully used to get employees to reconcile their own disputes. The parent company of the bank where I worked was headquartered 200 miles away from our office. Whenever I had two employees at odds, I put them in a car together and sent them to the head office for a meeting. There's nothing like seven hours in a car to force employees to have a conversation. I figured that they would either kill one another or come back as friends -- or at least friendly. As you might expect, during the long day they eventually found common interests to discuss and forgot about their dispute.
Workplace conflict is inevitable. To address it effectively -- and reduce the frequency of new clashes -- leaders must learn how to intervene effectively and guide disputing workers to their own solutions. When you put employees on the road to fixing their own problems, they will usually find their way back.
Conflict-resolution experts advise managers to adopt a facilitator's role when handling employee disputes. Leaders, they say, should serve as mediators and not like judges. Yet surprisingly, recent research reveals that managers largely ignore that advice. Instead, most leaders take charge and determine the outcome of employee disagreements.
Why? Our normal tendency is to view conflicts as problems we need to fix -- after all, that's part of our job. Leaders are supposed to be problem solvers and, as such, are expected to settle issues in ways that best meet the organization's interests. But managers, pressed for time and concerned about fairness, often rush to conclusions that leave everyone unsatisfied while permitting the underlying discord to fester.
Here's a simple technique I successfully used to get employees to reconcile their own disputes. The parent company of the bank where I worked was headquartered 200 miles away from our office. Whenever I had two employees at odds, I put them in a car together and sent them to the head office for a meeting. There's nothing like seven hours in a car to force employees to have a conversation. I figured that they would either kill one another or come back as friends -- or at least friendly. As you might expect, during the long day they eventually found common interests to discuss and forgot about their dispute.
Workplace conflict is inevitable. To address it effectively -- and reduce the frequency of new clashes -- leaders must learn how to intervene effectively and guide disputing workers to their own solutions. When you put employees on the road to fixing their own problems, they will usually find their way back.
Labels: employees, group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usSolomon Asch
"The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black." Solomon Asch
In my book and in the leadership workshops that I teach, I stress the importance for leaders to proactively demonstrate willingness to accept challenges and take risks. Today's business world involves constant change, and to thrive leaders must be brave and innovative, try new approaches, and chance failure. But many leaders struggle to leave their comfort zones, afraid of the potential ridicule or retaliation that often results from questioning the status quo. So instead, they choose to conform rather than taking risks. But as social psychologist Solomon Asch proved, the tendency to conform is great.
In the early 1950s, Asch conducted an experiment to study the correlation between peer pressure and conformity. He showed groups of college students pairs of exhibits similar to the one above. Claiming to be studying visual perception, Asch asked participants to determine and state out loud which bar on the right was the same length as the bar on the left. He formed groups of eight to ten students, but only one student in each group was an actual test subject; the rest were actors instructed by Asch to intentionally respond incorrectly in twelve of the eighteen comparisons. What's more, Asch made certain that the test subjects answered after all but one of the phonies in their groups had already voiced their choices.
Asch's test subjects were indeed influenced by their group peers. Although the correct answers were obvious, a third of the real subjects followed the majority when they gave incorrect answers. Seventy-four percent of the subjects joined in giving a wrong answer at least once, and 28 percent joined the imposters in voicing incorrect answers more than half the time.
In follow-up interviews, some of the conforming subjects claimed to believe that their answers were correct. But most admitted to going along with the erroneous choices because they feared being mocked by their groups, or because they didn't want to appear different from everyone else. Others said they assumed their fellow group members were correct and that their own perceptions were somehow faulty. Said Asch, "This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct."
There is a name for leaders who conform to the crowd: they're called followers. Real leaders are risk takers, and more importantly, risk seekers -- nonconformists who think for themselves and are more likely to influence others than they are to be influenced. Which type are you?
Labels: group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usJust Like Riding a Bike
Are you stuck on a dysfunctional project team made up of loafers, finger-pointers, and know-it-alls, all with their own agendas? If so, you can blame Norman Triplett.
Triplett, an Indiana University sports psychologist, began studying teamwork in the late 1800s. A bicycling enthusiast, Triplett observed that cyclists performed better in competition than they did when practicing alone. Suspecting that it was the presence of other people that inspired racers to excel, he conducted experiments in which children carried out a simple motor task alone and in pairs. As Triplett predicted, the children's individual performance improved when they worked in pairs. According to Triplett's theory of social facilitation, just having other people around should increase your teammates' drive and motivation levels.
So, how's that working out for you? Unless your team rides bikes for a living, the results are probably inconsistent.
Here's why. In the 1960s, social psychologist Robert Zajonc delved deeper into the study of social facilitation. Zajonc confirmed that the mere presence of other people arouses better performance when tackling simple or routine tasks. However, for complex or unfamiliar tasks, he found that the presence of others becomes a distraction that hinders performance. Simply put, when we're comfortable with our ability to perform a task, having teammates inspires us to do well; but when we're unsure of ourselves, our innate evaluation apprehension causes us to focus on impressing the team, so our performance suffers.
Thanks to Triplett, organizations are quick to form teams, assigning tasks ranging from developing new products to planning the company picnic. But Zajonc reminds us that not every undertaking lends itself to a teamwork approach. Use teams wisely, or your team members could end up spinning their wheels.
Triplett, an Indiana University sports psychologist, began studying teamwork in the late 1800s. A bicycling enthusiast, Triplett observed that cyclists performed better in competition than they did when practicing alone. Suspecting that it was the presence of other people that inspired racers to excel, he conducted experiments in which children carried out a simple motor task alone and in pairs. As Triplett predicted, the children's individual performance improved when they worked in pairs. According to Triplett's theory of social facilitation, just having other people around should increase your teammates' drive and motivation levels.
So, how's that working out for you? Unless your team rides bikes for a living, the results are probably inconsistent.
Here's why. In the 1960s, social psychologist Robert Zajonc delved deeper into the study of social facilitation. Zajonc confirmed that the mere presence of other people arouses better performance when tackling simple or routine tasks. However, for complex or unfamiliar tasks, he found that the presence of others becomes a distraction that hinders performance. Simply put, when we're comfortable with our ability to perform a task, having teammates inspires us to do well; but when we're unsure of ourselves, our innate evaluation apprehension causes us to focus on impressing the team, so our performance suffers.Thanks to Triplett, organizations are quick to form teams, assigning tasks ranging from developing new products to planning the company picnic. But Zajonc reminds us that not every undertaking lends itself to a teamwork approach. Use teams wisely, or your team members could end up spinning their wheels.
Labels: group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usSteiner's Model
Actual Productivity = Potential Productivity - Loss Resulting from Group Process
-Steiner's Model
As I discussed in previous posts (here and here), group performance does not always match our two-heads-are-better-than-one perception. In fact, there are some tasks on which a single individual will clearly outperform the combined efforts of a group. And in many cases, a group will only perform as well as its strongest -- or weakest -- member. So, as a leader, should you assign work to an individual employee or a team of workers? Thanks to the research of Ivan Steiner, we can find the answer in the nature of the task itself.
Steiner explained that the relationship between individual and group performance depends on the type of task performed. By categorizing task types, he could predict how the presence of other workers helped or hindered individual performance. As leaders, we can use his findings to determine how to employ our human resources.
In additive tasks, all members perform the same task and group achievement is the sum of individual performances. A group will always accomplish more on additive tasks than one person will in the allotted time. Think about early settlers coming together to help build a neighbor's barn. But remember: Ringlemann proved that individuals tend to contribute less when part of a group than they would while working alone. So although they outperform individuals on additive tasks, teams rarely achieve their full potential. For best results, assign a team to tackle additive tasks where each person has a clearly identified component, such as in a relay race where every runner's individual time impacts the team's total.
Group performance in compensatory tasks is the result of averaging together the efforts of individual members. If you have to guess the number of beans in a jar, get a group of people together to offer their opinions. Average their guesses -- the overestimates of some will cancel out the underestimates of others -- and you'll have the best shot of solving the riddle. Of course, you don't speculate on bean counts, but this is the same judgment process used in 360-degree performance evaluations. Groups generally outperform individuals on analytical and reasoning tasks.
Disjunctive tasks are group tasks in which results depend on how well the most talented member performs. In disjunctive tasks, there is a single problem for the group to solve and the most competent group member usually identifies the solution. Groups do well on disjunctive tasks provided at least one group member has the necessary expertise to solve the problem, and as long as that expert is willing to suggest a solution that others might reject or ignore. Since a group rarely performs a disjunctive task better than its best member does, you should assign these tasks to strong individuals rather than to teams.
Conjunctive tasks, on the other hand, are group tasks in which results depend on the performance of the least talented member. In conjunctive tasks, all group members work toward a common goal and productivity is limited to the efforts of the least capable member. In the relay race example, one runner's failure to complete a leg disqualifies the entire team. Adding more members to the team only increases the likelihood of including someone who can destroy results. If you can divide the project into subtasks matched to the abilities of each group member, one disappointing individual performance will not devastate the entire team's overall results. Otherwise, individuals will typically outperform a group on conjunctive tasks.
When in doubt about assigning a task to a team or an individual, simply use Steiner's Model to calculate the best approach. When the distractions caused by a group's dynamics reduce the productive benefits of a team approach, assign the task to a qualified individual.
-Steiner's Model
As I discussed in previous posts (here and here), group performance does not always match our two-heads-are-better-than-one perception. In fact, there are some tasks on which a single individual will clearly outperform the combined efforts of a group. And in many cases, a group will only perform as well as its strongest -- or weakest -- member. So, as a leader, should you assign work to an individual employee or a team of workers? Thanks to the research of Ivan Steiner, we can find the answer in the nature of the task itself.
Steiner explained that the relationship between individual and group performance depends on the type of task performed. By categorizing task types, he could predict how the presence of other workers helped or hindered individual performance. As leaders, we can use his findings to determine how to employ our human resources.
In additive tasks, all members perform the same task and group achievement is the sum of individual performances. A group will always accomplish more on additive tasks than one person will in the allotted time. Think about early settlers coming together to help build a neighbor's barn. But remember: Ringlemann proved that individuals tend to contribute less when part of a group than they would while working alone. So although they outperform individuals on additive tasks, teams rarely achieve their full potential. For best results, assign a team to tackle additive tasks where each person has a clearly identified component, such as in a relay race where every runner's individual time impacts the team's total.
Group performance in compensatory tasks is the result of averaging together the efforts of individual members. If you have to guess the number of beans in a jar, get a group of people together to offer their opinions. Average their guesses -- the overestimates of some will cancel out the underestimates of others -- and you'll have the best shot of solving the riddle. Of course, you don't speculate on bean counts, but this is the same judgment process used in 360-degree performance evaluations. Groups generally outperform individuals on analytical and reasoning tasks.
Disjunctive tasks are group tasks in which results depend on how well the most talented member performs. In disjunctive tasks, there is a single problem for the group to solve and the most competent group member usually identifies the solution. Groups do well on disjunctive tasks provided at least one group member has the necessary expertise to solve the problem, and as long as that expert is willing to suggest a solution that others might reject or ignore. Since a group rarely performs a disjunctive task better than its best member does, you should assign these tasks to strong individuals rather than to teams.
Conjunctive tasks, on the other hand, are group tasks in which results depend on the performance of the least talented member. In conjunctive tasks, all group members work toward a common goal and productivity is limited to the efforts of the least capable member. In the relay race example, one runner's failure to complete a leg disqualifies the entire team. Adding more members to the team only increases the likelihood of including someone who can destroy results. If you can divide the project into subtasks matched to the abilities of each group member, one disappointing individual performance will not devastate the entire team's overall results. Otherwise, individuals will typically outperform a group on conjunctive tasks.
When in doubt about assigning a task to a team or an individual, simply use Steiner's Model to calculate the best approach. When the distractions caused by a group's dynamics reduce the productive benefits of a team approach, assign the task to a qualified individual.
Labels: employees, group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usCohesiveness and Groupthink
"Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups...it is the rule." Friedrich Nietzsche
According to the American Management Association, 60 percent of executives report that getting people to work together is the biggest hurdle they currently face. Indeed, establishing successful workgroups has long been a leadership objective. But instead of concentrating on how to get people to work together, perhaps we need to consider if employees should work in groups at all.
When people talk about teamwork, they often mention the positive-sounding term "group cohesion." Researcher Albert V. Carron explained the concept of cohesion as a sense of closeness and bonding among group members. Cohesion can lead to higher individual effort, more personal job satisfaction, less turnover, and greater adherence to group norms. However, cohesion can also have negative effects on group performance.
For example, research psychologist Irving Janis determined that highly cohesive groups are susceptible to groupthink, which he defined as the propensity for people to seek unanimous agreement even when overwhelming evidence points to a different conclusion. Groupthink causes collective rationalization -- the tendency to explain away, or ignore altogether, contrary ideas. It puts pressure on members to conform, thereby stifling and restricting individual identity. Groupthink stops members from suggesting ideas that might deviate from the collective opinion, causing a deceptive appearance of group consensus. And it gives the group a potentially disastrous sense of invulnerability. Janis blamed groupthink for several political fiascos, including the failure to anticipate the Pearl Harbor attack, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the unsuccessful hostage rescue in Iran.
Janis identified some preventions of groupthink. He suggested that leaders encourage each group member to freely air objections and doubts, invite outside experts to offer opinions, and refrain from expressing their own opinions when assigning tasks to groups. And he proposed that group members take turns playing the role of devil's advocate at meetings.
The lesson here is that getting people to work in groups is difficult. Because of the human dynamics involved, two or more heads are not always better than one. A future post will discuss how to decide which tasks are appropriate for groups.
Maybe there's a good reason that artists, scientists, and inventors prefer working alone. What do you think?
According to the American Management Association, 60 percent of executives report that getting people to work together is the biggest hurdle they currently face. Indeed, establishing successful workgroups has long been a leadership objective. But instead of concentrating on how to get people to work together, perhaps we need to consider if employees should work in groups at all.
When people talk about teamwork, they often mention the positive-sounding term "group cohesion." Researcher Albert V. Carron explained the concept of cohesion as a sense of closeness and bonding among group members. Cohesion can lead to higher individual effort, more personal job satisfaction, less turnover, and greater adherence to group norms. However, cohesion can also have negative effects on group performance.
For example, research psychologist Irving Janis determined that highly cohesive groups are susceptible to groupthink, which he defined as the propensity for people to seek unanimous agreement even when overwhelming evidence points to a different conclusion. Groupthink causes collective rationalization -- the tendency to explain away, or ignore altogether, contrary ideas. It puts pressure on members to conform, thereby stifling and restricting individual identity. Groupthink stops members from suggesting ideas that might deviate from the collective opinion, causing a deceptive appearance of group consensus. And it gives the group a potentially disastrous sense of invulnerability. Janis blamed groupthink for several political fiascos, including the failure to anticipate the Pearl Harbor attack, the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the unsuccessful hostage rescue in Iran.
Janis identified some preventions of groupthink. He suggested that leaders encourage each group member to freely air objections and doubts, invite outside experts to offer opinions, and refrain from expressing their own opinions when assigning tasks to groups. And he proposed that group members take turns playing the role of devil's advocate at meetings.
The lesson here is that getting people to work in groups is difficult. Because of the human dynamics involved, two or more heads are not always better than one. A future post will discuss how to decide which tasks are appropriate for groups.
Maybe there's a good reason that artists, scientists, and inventors prefer working alone. What do you think?
Labels: employees, group dynamics, leadership
Bookmark this post on del.icio.usThe Ringelmann Effect
When working on a team project, perhaps you've observed that while you're pulling your weight some others in the group are loafing. Researchers call that phenomenon the Ringelmann Effect.
In the late 19th Century, engineering professor Maximilian Ringelmann studied the relationship between individual and group effort. Ringelmann had people pull a rope individually while he measured their pull force with a strain gauge. Then he put his subjects in teams and had them pull the rope together. Ringelmann discovered that the group force was not as strong as the individual efforts added together. In other words, while the group pulled more than any one individual did, individual contribution actually declined. The more people Ringelmann added to a group, the greater the decline in personal effort. Three people pulled at only two and a half times the average individual effort, and eight people pulled at a force equal to the combined individual effort of only four people.
Ringelmann attributed his results to what he called "social loafing," the tendency for people to apply less effort when they're part of a group. Some loafers perceive that others in the group are slacking, so they feel justified in exerting less effort. Others assume their laziness will go unnoticed in a group. And some simply believe that their personal efforts have little effect on the team's overall results. It's changing that last perception that will give you the greatest success in improving the effectiveness of your team.
When you share your vision with others, you show them not only the outcomes you're seeking but also their roles in achieving those results. Once they understand the parts they play in fulfilling your team's vision, members will pull together and accomplish extraordinary work. So have a vision and convince others to share it.
What do you think? Post a Comment
In the late 19th Century, engineering professor Maximilian Ringelmann studied the relationship between individual and group effort. Ringelmann had people pull a rope individually while he measured their pull force with a strain gauge. Then he put his subjects in teams and had them pull the rope together. Ringelmann discovered that the group force was not as strong as the individual efforts added together. In other words, while the group pulled more than any one individual did, individual contribution actually declined. The more people Ringelmann added to a group, the greater the decline in personal effort. Three people pulled at only two and a half times the average individual effort, and eight people pulled at a force equal to the combined individual effort of only four people.
Ringelmann attributed his results to what he called "social loafing," the tendency for people to apply less effort when they're part of a group. Some loafers perceive that others in the group are slacking, so they feel justified in exerting less effort. Others assume their laziness will go unnoticed in a group. And some simply believe that their personal efforts have little effect on the team's overall results. It's changing that last perception that will give you the greatest success in improving the effectiveness of your team.
When you share your vision with others, you show them not only the outcomes you're seeking but also their roles in achieving those results. Once they understand the parts they play in fulfilling your team's vision, members will pull together and accomplish extraordinary work. So have a vision and convince others to share it.
Labels: group dynamics, leadership, vision
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Author George Brymer's comments about the leaders who get it, and those who never will.
