Conflict in the team: what types and stages of conflict are there? We will tell you about the negative and positive consequences of conflict.
Conflict In The Team: The Main Types And Stages
Conflict is a particular type of social interaction between participants who have mutually exclusive or incompatible values.
There are several main types of conflicts in the team:
- Disagreement between the individual and the person (interpersonal),
- between a person and a group,
- group confrontation (intergroup).
The main psychological causes of conflicts arising in joint activities are due to the conflictogenic environment of joint interaction, different goals, acting psychological contradictions, psychological manipulation and pressure allowed by the participants, conscious distortion of information, clash of interests, etc.
The process of conflict development consists of four stages:
- the stage of the emergence of a conflict situation;
- the stage of the emergence of a reason for the collision;
- the stage of crisis in the relationship; the stage of the end of the conflict.
Each of the phases of the conflict can be accompanied by both positive and negative aspects arising from the situation. Conflict can be both a damaging factor and a catalyst for positive developments.
Conflict in the team: the negative consequences
The consequences of any conflict can be both negative and positive. There are several major dysfunctional (negative) consequences:
- unwillingness to maintain constructive communication in the team, to cooperate on production issues, to maintain normal interpersonal relations;
- one or both parties to the conflict stop cooperating partially or completely, which inhibits the solution of collective tasks;
- distrustful relationships of employees competing with each other;
- “pulling the blanket over oneself”; each side of the conflict prioritizes its point of view instead of a joint solution to current production problems;
- stress, tension, a poor moral environment in the team, and staff turnover.
All of the above can lead to depression and, as a consequence, cognitive impairment. A depressed employee continues to go to work and try to perform his duties, but his work does not bear any fruit, he is more likely to make critical errors in his work, which forms an inferiority complex in the person.
Conflict in the team: Positive consequences
There are positive consequences of conflict, which have positive results for the organization and its participants. Often conflicts make workforce members more aware of the organization’s goals and objectives and help them find untapped resources and reserves. Let us consider several main functional consequences of the conflict:
- The emergence of incentive and interest to address work points, thereby saving the organization’s resources, both financial and production;
- uniting of employees for the thoughtful, joint solutions of issues, i.e. development of so-called collective thought;
- understanding and awareness by the parties of the unprofitability of deepening and aggravation of the conflict;
- the formation of a healthy moral environment in the team.
But we should not forget that the real ratio of dysfunctional and functional consequences of the conflict directly depends on many different factors: the motives, causes, generating a conflict situation, and the ability of the head of the enterprise to manage conflict in a company.