Assignment3-Team work conflicts

General background: Several backgrounds were discussed before we decided the final one, such as start-up collaboration issues, family education and harmony issues, campus development issues, and also the study issues. We found even we had many emotions to express in each issue, not each one was suitable for all of us. We needed to discuss and select the most practical and applicable topic. Therefore we came back to the education fields that we were acquainted with and narrowed down to the daily study issues.

We set the background in our recent final postgraduate group study time. Since all of our team members are all full-time postgraduate students from three different

provinces in mainland China: Fujian, Sichuan, and Guangdong, we met, knew, and became familiar to each other in this course. However, it doesn't mean that there are no conflicts or arguments in our study time (not limited in this course). We encountered many issues with our group members on time management, personalities, life habits, and virtual communications, etc. Actually it’s not a new issue for any of us, but we have different experience and conflicts resolution methods after we learn from Frank’s High Performance Collaboration courses. On one way, we can record the moments we spent together; on the other hand, it’s a beneficial way to review all conflicts managements and communications management knowledge.

In our final project, distinct conflicts will be expanded based on our general background and personal preferences individually, and corresponding resolution/management methods will be applied.

Overall logic

In many cases, it is not hard to find personalities will influence the relationship and cooperation between us. Various education and growth environment contributes to personality variety, which varies the behaviors and ways students deal with problems. For instance, in terms of work delivery time, Jenny, who is aggressive, would like to take the responsibility for integration, but she is too strict with the time, and Kio, who is flexible, always stayed up too late and got up after 11am. Jenny is angry with the situation that she cannot contact with Kio before the agreed work delivery time, but Kio considers delay is normal since the time is just for consolidation but not the deadline. For further understanding what personality varieties, we take the virtual communication as an example. Karol is a sensitive girl, Jenny is always distracted, and Kio is always thoughtless concentrated. Sometimes, Kio rarely thought too much before any words, but Karol would feel hurtful without any expression and emotion in virtual meeting. Actually, the meaning of one sentence can be explained differently. And Jenny might talk about something unrelated to group work with Karol, which irritated Kio.

Personality difference seems to be independent with time conflicts and virtual communication conflicts. However, Time and virtual communication conflicts are practice differences, which combined individual difference with context.

For our individual work, we give the structures of tasks. This is just an outline of our personal tasks, you can find the detail in our specific blogs.

1) Karol: Personality conflicts

a) Too casual for everything, everybody in the group discussion and did not take assignments requirements seriously.  b) Different cultures have various impacts on the communication among team members. c) Some individuals afraid to conflict with others and seldom express personal opinions
http://karolzzz.blogspot.hk/
 

2) Jenny: Time conflicts

a) the teammate might not deliver the work on time. b) Never attend the discussions (own time management).
http://jenny-53970454.blogspot.hk/

3) Kio: Virtual teamwork communications

a) misunderstanding from words. b) often stray away from the point. c) lack of management  or organization

Assignment 2

The complaint letter was inspired from a romantic story of our team members, who usually had conflicts (not just a sweet oral fight) with his/her intimate friend (maybe the girlfriend or boyfriend we don't know for its privacy). Conflicts were documented in the complaint letter, since it’s not a very formal communication, and we set the background relatively informal. But we will express in a very objective and formal way following your instructions. However, feelings of the complainer to his/her friend will also be attached. We are Love Triangle Team, trying to narrow down the gap between the closed girlfriend/boyfriend with communication tool and knowledge taught in the class. In this particular letter, we set the angle from the female and complained trifling domestic things.

Dear Mr. CHANG:

Last time I corresponded with you was three years before, it has been a long time. Only two or three hours I can see you in our flat and you always come back home in mid-night, drunk twice a week. Very few messages I sent will be replied and every time I received only two or three single words when I called you in recent four days. Let alone the sexual life. Therefore I had to react to your behavior and attitudes in an attempt to discover the reasons behind and to repair or end our relationship. We became friends five years before and lived together after we had the first sexual activity. Sweet life went quickly since you started your new career in the Big 4, 2014. Everything changed from that time. You drunk a lot yesterday night and did not tell me when you would back. I was waiting for you even though I was tired. However, you went home without saying any words to me going to bed directly. In the morning, I have prepared breakfast for you but you ignored in a hurry.

I have to write the letter to let you know my dissatisfaction on your recent behaviors and attitudes towards our relationship. I have tried to arrange a formal face-to-face talk with you but disappointedly you refused to do so with an excuse that you were busy. To be honest, I cannot stand your changeable temper. Did you remember almost every time you came home drunk at mid-night, you lost your temper if I did not wait until you back or get bath water heater ready in advance. I am not your slave or domestic helper, and it is not my responsibility to take care of you. But I held on because when you opened your eyes next day, you felt sorry about last night and promised you won’t let it happen again. What was worse, you did not help to do the housework. AGAIN, I am not your servant or domestic helper. You throw your shirts, socks, shoes, slippers, even underwear everywhere in the room. I was frustrated doing the housework and you never showed appreciation. It seems that you think it’s my job, a matter of course. I think it is ok that I do the housework when you said you were tired in the company, and you need break on the weekends, but you have never been relaxed, and you were playing games!

After numerous quarrels, I think we should not be addicted to this situation. So far I had a feeling about you, however if you take no responds or ignore all of my complaints, frankly it will be better to end our relationship as soon as possible. We cannot understand each other under this phenomenon, which can result broke-up but not marriage. Therefore, I hope that you can spare your time to me and have an opportunity to tell each other the inner thoughts. If you really love me, show me your sincerity and be a man. I hate crying at night.

Yours

Kathrine

housework

What does girlfriend think?

Firstly, I think communication is essential in a relationship, and feedback is important in the communication. Trust and reliability are built in this process, but he does not think so. He was always busy and did his own things, additionally, I think I am just a clown when we are chatting. At the beginning, although he was busy, he always cared for me about the daily life and if he had no time to do housework, he would ask me whether I can help him. However, daily greeting and responses has gone away with enthusiasm. I am so sad.

What does boyfriend think?

In the beginning of this relationship, she was so sweet to respect my work and would like to take care other things. Nevertheless, her temper was changeable recently. She might sent many messages to me every day, and if I did not reply on time, she would call me immediately and asked me what I was doing. Sometimes, I was just busy working and had no time to do housework. When she did the housework, she would chatter all the time, which drove me crazy. I am so sad.

Analysis- The Ladder of Inference

Her Diary:

He was extremely strange last night. We have planned to have dinner in a restaurant. Because I went to shopping with my best friend before that, I was late for this date. He might be unhappy about this, so he neglected me all the way, which made me more than embarrassed. Afterwards, I was compromised and said that we should make a concession to communicate with each other. Although he agreed, he still kept silence with disengaged and slouching state. “Could you tell me what happened?” “Nothing” “Are you angry with me about the late?” “No, it is not own your business and leave me alone.” On the way home, I said I love him but he never responded. I was totally confused and cannot understand the reason why he did not say “I love you too” anymore.

When we go home, I felt I would lose his favor because he did not want to have relationship with me anymore, and refused to talk with me. He sat in the sofa without any words, and just stared television. He was stupefied and disengaged, so I have to go to the bed. After ten minutes, he went to the bed with thinking something. He did not have any thoughts on me, which was very hurtful. I decided to have a formal conversation with him, but to my surprise, he got to sleep! I have no choice but crying dumbly and was falling asleep with tears.  Now, I am pretty sure that he must have another woman and want to break up with me, which is a blow for me. Oh my god, I do not know what the meaning of life is.

His Diary:

Holy shit, Argentina did lose unexpectedly.

All mentioned above is exactly what we may encounter in our daily life. Some things there is no right or wrong, however they just lead to the contradiction in interpersonal communication. We start a psychological process of a phenomenon, this called Mental Model.

Firstly, we saw the reality and facts from the behaviors of others and this rely on our sense organs, like the scenario we mentioned above that when you get along with your boyfriend.

Secondly, we extracted information from reality or facts. And these rely on our attention, lead us to select some messages from many distracting information for further processing. We noticed that your boyfriend did not respond you in above scenario.

Thirdly, we interpreted these messages with our means. Like the above scenario, we noticed that boyfriend did not respond, so we think that he did not love you any more, these all depend on our imagination or top-down processing.

Fourthly, according to our interpretation, we made some assumption such as he ignored me just because he love another girl.

Fifthly, we drew a conclusion, he fell in love with someone else.

Sixthly, we formed some beliefs about some things, I don't need to be enthusiastic to people who does not love me.

Finally, we take actions based on our beliefs and cry.

This process rose step by step, we call this is the Ladder of Inference.

What we saw and thought at the beginning is totally different from what we saw and thought in the end on the top of ladder, as like as an apple to an oyster. And in this process, we may make a mistake in any stage because we did not notice other useful information then finally lead to misunderstand and conflict with someone. On the other hand, direct ideation always easier than reverse way of thinking, so it make us feel more difficult to find and identify the ladder in the process.

Avoiding the Ladder of Inference

Actually you don’t need to spend a lot of energy and time to figure out the faces and thoughts of others. Don't let these meaningless faces or acts or expressions from others to affect your mood and feeling. You may climb up the ladder of inference unconsciously if you care too much about others’ behaviors and never be too fast to jump into conclusion, this not only influence your mood, but also leads to unnecessary conflicts in your relationship.

How to improve

Introspection

Introspection is the core methods of improving the mental model. Through self-examination, we are able to find prejudices, assumptions, logic and rules which are hidden deep in our inner world. Make these images emerge, confront them and improve them. In addition, self-reflection also allows us to open our mind to accept different opinions.

Learning

By acquiring new information, we can broaden our horizons, broadens "observation and thinking framework". Try to learn more new ways of thinking through the logics to master more rules, then you can update your "thinking path" by drawing on new ideas. You will form a new habit soon and revise your "value-oriented." Besides, you should expand your interpersonal communication, make friends with different people and try to learn from their views, especially accept and appreciate of differences. In short, through learning, people can get timely mental models, make their action more effective and suitable.

Change to the new environment

The formation of mental models has the "path dependence" that is due to each person's upbringing and experiences are different, so mental models may be not the same. As Nobel laureate Edelman said, though we live in the same world, but because of different experiences and purposes, our implications for the understanding of a particular event are different. Also there is a Chinese story, “Mencius’s mother moved thrice " reveals the external environment influence profoundly on mental models. In this regard, change to new environment such as live in a variety of environments, work or travel, experience various natural and cultural landscape, culture, customs, lifestyle, access to new knowledge may help to improve your individual mental models.

Reference:
1. Mark D. Cannon and Robert Witherspoon, Actionable feedback: Unlocking the power of learning and performance improvement ACAD MANAGE PERSPECT May 1, 2005 19:2 120-134;
2. J. A. Irving and D. I. Williams, Critical thinking and reflective practice in counsellin, pp107-114



 

Group Short Assignment 1: Innovating a New Kitchenware in Teams

As people pay more attention to their health, they would like to cook some special food by themselves. The modern life is busier and busier, and people have no time to cook, especially about the breakfast. We want to develop a new product to fry dumpling conveniently. 

Scenario 1:

There are 3 members in our product development team. Kio is the supervisor, and team members must get the approval from him when they have any idea. Karol and Jenny have no right to keep on doing what they want because Kio will instruct the rest of the team on what is the next direction. At the beginning, everything looks normal, but after some time, there is no progress. No matter what ideas Viva and Jenny gave, Kio must point out some negative aspects, so they are angry about all the thoughts overruled. Additionally, laughing is not allowed, and no team member is allowed to talk without the permission to speak from the supervisor. Lack of relaxing atmosphere, all of the members felt passive and helpless.  

In this case, the supervisor has the absolute authority over the tam. The general atmosphere is strictly tense and anxious. Supervisor leads the script writing process and team members are responsible for sharing their ideas in limited conditions. It says the supervisor is more like an emperor and his partners are actually his officials under feudal rules. The top-down communication damages the final effects on both innovation and creation. Because on top of the man in high position, everybody is afraid of speaking out their feelings, and thoughts, especially when certain ideas are rejected. 

However, this method is indeed high efficient. The team accomplished the task and as the presenter, the supervisor presented in an extremely smooth and fluency way, wining a satisfying impression for the whole team.

Finally, the team just thought some improvements of current fry-dumpling machine like adding the cover to avoid splash and automatic temperature control.

Scenario 2:

We have 1 minute pitch to sell to the stakeholders. In the team work, we are free to talk and communicate, and each of us generated contribution to final work. In the group discussion, we have the autonomy to share our new ideas as well as making our own decision on how to present the new product.   The more often we exchanged ideas and information by working together, the more knowledge we would have, which could help the team to maintain a good balance between creativity and work outcome.

As a result of collaborative group, everyone felt loyal to the work and eager to cooperate faithfully with each other. The best evidence is that Kio mentions it is difficult to make the dumplings and control the temperature when you are cooking, and Karol is looking to innovate through combining these steps together.  In the meantime, Jenny takes note of all the possible present methods in 60 seconds. In every discussion, we were encouraged to give new thoughts and comment on others opinions. Someone was responsible to record when we were brainstorming and then we could consider all of the ideas. After that, we discussed and selected the best proposal. It is a good way to create trusting and respectful culture, which contributes to group creativity. Totally different from the exercise 1, we are happy to work together and self-motivated to innovate. 

Finally, we gave the innovative product as following. 

 

NOT HELPFUL !!!!

     
Distinct from Case 1, Case 2 is much more free in team working and ideas sharing. Every one of team has the equal level when working, never being afraid of speaking out individual statements. On one hand, everyone contributes to the project, and each has right to decide, comment, judge, evaluate. On the other hand, the equal communication is, to some extend, time-consuming. If no one pushes forward, the final decision is hardly to come out. Sometimes, people get lost in the equal communication. We feel tired but cannot be aware of the problem behind that.

In terms of creation and marketability, surely case 2 will win. In the situation 1, the long legacy of some principles in the kitchenware company may inhibit a group mate to present his/her pitch. For example, my group has supervisor and it must be supervisor to presents the pitch, no matter who come up with the pitch. And this may highly diminish enthusiasm of Jenny and Karol who raised the idea.According to the exercise 1, Kio will instruct the rest of the team on what is the next direction to proceed with the script writing process, which is NOT helpful in product pitch. Collaboration is about giving ideas and sharing insights together (Tapscott et al., 2009), but not the dictatorship. As a result of collaboration deficiency, it will inhibit the group from arriving effective product pitch.  Because it’s only the supervisor can present the pitch and get a compliment from boss if it’s a good pitch, and yet it is totally not supervisor’s idea. And the people who truly provide the idea may not get anything from boss, including promotion opportunity and the opportunity of taking charge of this project. Actually, Kio may not get the real meaning of the pitch because he needs to listen to Jenny and Karol's presentations first and then present to their boss, which can result in misunderstanding of the presentation and inhibits from arriving at a successful product pitch.

What’s more, “no laughing is allowed “may also stifle passion and result in estrangement of a group. It’s not helpful in communicating and developing product pitch if everyone put on a serious look in the office. According to the Allison Beard’s investigation and the research conducted by The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Laughter can bring many benefits in the working place. Laughter not only can ease working pressure and relieve boredom but also increase workers’ enthusiasm, happiness and participation. Laughter can also facilitate group mates’ innovation capability, teamwork spirit and working efficiency (Beard, 2014). 

Besides, the rule “no talking without permission” is very autocratic that is not helpful in communicating and exchanging ideas freely among group members. No talking without permission will lead to the deficiency of communication and debate. Lack of debate will become a difficult problem in a group, because it may result in another obstacle happened--- lack of Involvement (Lencioni, 2002). If group mates can’t pass their opinions ardently and openly, they cannot really involved in the teamwork and get a unified opinion to make decisions. So this rule also inhibits to form a successful pitch. 

 

HELPFUL!!!

 
In spite of the uncomfortable environment, rules in exercise 1 still have positive effect on group working. Kio decided everything and give the last presentation, so Jenny and Karol must report the new proposal after overruled. The direction controlling of Kio can keep them from wasting time in the wrong routine. Moreover, absolute power could refrain dilemma from various options. Actually, compared with situation 2, we did spend much more time discussing and making decision.



In the situation 2, this is an equal company that follows Pixar’s Operating Principles. From the principles, we can found that this team work focuses more on individual. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone, it means the company trust people can work out the difficulties and with each other without having to check for permission and people can share and discuss their opinions ardently and openly. With transparency and collaboration increasing, levels of trust and engagement throughout the organization could be strengthened (Tapscott et al., 2009). Only by allowing the freedom of thought collisions, it can spark intelligence shines. This behavior facilitate the generation of more new ideas.

  Ed catmull (2008) once said, if you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they’ll screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they’ll make it work. In the situation 2, Karol, Jenny and Kio are encouraged to cooperate with each other more closely to form a creative team. When the team presents the pitch collectively, they can give supplementary mutually to make the pitch become more abundant and valuable. And superiors and subordinates have meeting together can arouse thinking collisions and facilitate to arrive at a successful product pitch. And the rule “It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas” ensures that there’s always fresh ideas and thoughts are offered to increase company’s competitiveness and enhance trust among all group mates.

Pixar’s Operating Principles

1. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone.

2. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas.

3. We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community.

For establishing the trust and creativity in the teamwork, it is widely agreed upon in the literature that the flow of communication within teams influences the success of innovative projects (Griffin and Hauser, 1992). Research by Katz (1982), involving 50 R&D teams, demonstrates a strong positive impact of within-team communication on project success. More recent studies confirm this fundamental finding. Hauptman and Hirji (1996), in their investigation on 50 cross-functional project teams, show that frequent two way communication within teams exerts a positive influence on team performance. In addition, a large-scale empirical study in Germany on the success factors of project management finds communication and information flow to be a direct prerequisite of project success (Gemuenden, 1990). In fact, working in this environment, we have more communications with each other. We continued to provide our opinions, new ideas and comments. And we understood the meaning of each thoughts other members gave. We also trusted the team members could give recommendation.


 

FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

In Case 1, the tense environment contributes little to the creation producing. If everyone is worrying about the sequel of their ideas, who will truly express their ideas? The supervisor, I think, is not necessary in this case. Focus should be placed in the creative ideas, no judgments, no comments after this pitch. Freedom should be assigned to each team member, and forget everything when discussing. The only thing supervisor should do is to count down the timer and correct the direction when straying from the point. Honestly, equal communication does not play well in every respect. In the given topic, freedom of sharing is the top priority. But maybe in some other situations, efficiency and productivity are the top concerned. 

 

In case 2, it is recognizable that the atmosphere is much more comfortable and relaxing. Nevertheless, it does not stand that we do not need to readjust our mind-set and behavioral habits. According to Kramer (2009), most of people mistakenly have confidence in that trustworthiness is obvious. Therefore, it is obligatory for members to signal trustworthiness more clearly. By the same token, we should retaliate strongly when our trust is abused. Sending weak signals about our willingness to engage in trust or punish abuse of it makes us more vulnerable to exploitation.

The perception of project success depends, in part, on the perspective of the evaluator. Thus, it is important to include multiple views (e.g., of the company, the customer, the team) when rating team performance. It must also be acknowledged that setting clear and precise performance objectives at the outset of a project is particularly difficult in the case of innovations because the subject matter is often highly complex and uncertain (Hauschildt, 1997).

For the purpose of the present study, team performance is described in terms of the variables effectiveness and efficiency. Effectiveness refers to the degree to which the team meets expectations regarding the quality of the outcome. In the case of innovative projects, an effective performance regularly entails adherence to predefined qualitative properties of the product, service, or process to be developed, e.g., functionality, robustness, reliability, performance, etc. The team’s efficiency is assessed in terms of adherence to schedules, e.g., starting the manufacturing and/or marketing on the target date, and budgets, e.g., staying within target costs with both the project and the finished product. Thus, effectiveness reflects a comparison of actual versus intended outcomes, whereas efficiency ratings are based on a comparison of actual versus intended inputs.

 

References:

1. Beard, A. (2014). Does your team can hear laughter? Business Administration, 6, 59–60.

2. Catmull, Ed. (2008). How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity. Harvard Business Review.

3. Hoegl, M., &  Gemuenden, H. G. (2001). Teamwork Quality and the Success of Innovative Projects: A Theoretical Concept and Empirical Evidence. Organization Science, 12(4), 441-442

4. Kramer, M. R. (2009). Spotlight on trust: Rethinking trust. Harvard Business Review.

5. Lencioni, P. (2002). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. US: Jossey–Bass.

6. Tapscott, D., Erickson, T., Gratton, L., Cross, R., & Capek, F. (2009). Building the Collaborative    

7. Enterprise:Ten Questions to Ask about Business Opportunities through Collaboration

Griffin, A., J. R. Hauser. (1992). Patterns of communication among marketing, engineering and manufacturing: A comparison between two new product development teams. Management Sci. 38(3) 360–373

8. Hauptman, O., Hirji, K. K. (1996). The influence of process concurrency on project outcomes in product development: An empirical study of cross-functional teams.IEEE Trans. Engrg. Management 43(3)

153–164

9. Katz, R. (1982). The effects of group longevity on project communication and performance. Administration Science Quart. 22 81–104.

10. Gemuenden, H. G. (1990). Erfolgsfaktoren des Projektmanagements— eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme der empirischen Untersuchungen. Projekt Management 90(2) 4–15.

11. Hauschildt, J. (1997). Innovations management, 2nd ed. Franz Vahlen, Muenchen