Conflict Management
It is important that when developing teams that you understand that conflict will occur. There all types of teams with different goals and agenda, but the one thing that they all have in common is accomplishing their goal. You can look at sports franchises, corporations, households and they all have goal whether stated or implied. When looking at team building there are five stages that helps with the development of the team. There’s the forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning stage. There are many parallels to sports and business as it relates to conflict management and team development.
In taking a look at a newly established professional football team, you will see the stages as they go through an NFL season. In the beginning they have a leader; which is the coach, and the team is looking to him for direction. In the beginning the team will be unsure of what their role and responsibilities will be and they will depend heavily on the coach to guide them. With the coach being the leader, he must be prepared to answer lots of questions about the team’s purpose and objectives. This phase is called the forming because it relates to beginning the process of becoming a team.
In the storming phase everyone has an opinion about what should be done. Team members vie for position as they attempt to establish themselves in relation to other team members and the leader, who might receive challenges from team members (Tuckman, 1965). There could develop some us against them mentalities. This is a time when the leader needs to have to team focused understanding a common goal and purpose.
In the norming stage teammates are beginning to come together and start to follow the coach as a unit versus different groups with different i ...