Lesson 4: Resolution of Team Divergence

Types of Conflict (continued)

Process. The process used to assign tasks and delegate resources may also be a source for disagreement and conflict. How teams decide who will assume different roles and how individuals accept the roles they are assigned becomes important as team resources are used to support one type of process over another. While it is the least studied of all conflicts, early research indicates that this type of conflict may be the most harmful to the team as it focuses attention on irrelevant or trivial topics. It uses time, resources and energy that could be better used on other team projects.

On a GV team this affects everything from when a meeting is scheduled and how it is run to proceeding with tasks and assignments. For example, if one half of the team is always required to meet early in the morning while the other part of the team has more convenient meeting times, conflict will ensue about the inequity of who is always inconvenienced. As communication is limited using virtual communication tools, there needs to be a protocol as to who is speaking, how another team member can interrupt for a clarification or question, and how speakers will switch. A GV team may have the secondary conversations with local members (as commonly occurs with a co-located team), but they cannot have secondary conversations with international members unless they are using a secondary system (i.e. Skype for talking or texting). Depending on the microphone system these secondary conversations may influence the quality of the broadcast to the international team members.