Final Project - Managing Individual Differences

Our group discussed individual differences which caused various conflicts. We considered there are many individual differences like personality difference, cultural difference, and professional/educational background difference. If we could not find the differences and solve the possible conflict in time, the conflict will become disaster.

So in order to cooperate to achieve team goal together, each team member will make effort to discover the conflict and conflict cause, and conflict solution, and reflect on the effect of the conflict.

Individual Difference

Terry will discuss personality difference, Mary will focus on cultural difference, and Damon will concentrate on professional/educational background difference. Each person will detail the conflict solution, and its effect too in individual blog.

Terry exampled that all team members (A, B & C)  have different personality origin, which cause different attitudes to the assignment. When B is busy at work and cannot catch up with his assignment part, A backs-up B's work in time, A&C collaborated and help B to complete the assignment.

Mary thought team members not only have visible cultural conflict like language difference, behaviour difference, they also have invisible differences like power distance; individualism/collectivism; long-term/short-term goal. Due to same team goal, members used problem-solving and persuasion conflict solution to fix the conflicts.

Like Damon said, each individual has different educational and working background, which cause each team member has different thinking method towards the same assignment. Finally, team members are persuaded by Damon's suggestion, and finish the assignment smoothly.

Solution and Effect

(Richard Martin)

Though there are kinds of individual differences causing conflicts, all of members considered the same team goal to finish assignment together and study successfully, we all took integrative or collaborative resolution attitudes to the conflicts.

Coercive attitudes, is "winner takes all", focus on personal's interest and goal, the winner is egotistic.

Competitive attitude, is "win or loss", when A person win something which is lost by B. While B gain something else which is lost  by A too.

Integrated attitude, is all of members try to "win win", like Terry said, B person is busy at work, he need to finish the job firstly, but to A and C, assignment are urgent too. A backs-up the assignment in time, and other members are agreed with the plan. All of the members achieved their goals. It's profitable and satisfactory to all team members.

Collaborative attitude, our team members not only consider for the assignment accomplishment, we also developed the study ability for future. Like Mary talked the cultural difference, members studied each other's language too, they take long-term goal into account.

With integrated and collaborative attitude, it helps members to communicate effectively and efficiently, increased mutual understanding and trust, developed the friendship in each other. Our team not only finish the assignment successfully, but also set up good friends relationship for future cooperation.

So all in all, we suggest to consider more others' interest, take integrated or collaborative attitude in conflicts, it will help all the parties to win or even achieve unexpected success.

Persuasion

Most of our team conflict is resolved by persuasion. There are three ways to persuade proposed by Aristotle, ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos refers to the image or characteristics of the messenger, logos refers to logical arguments and pathos refers to the emotions of the audience.

In our team, we mainly use the “logos” (i.e. logical arguments) to persuade others to resolve conflicts. It is because we do not have much authority over each other. In particular, we collaborate our experience to persuade others to follow our idea in assignments and projects.   

Conclusion

To conclude, diverse team with individual differences cause conflicts in difference aspects. If the conflicts are resolved properly, in our case by communication and persuasion, each team member could contribute their strength to the team, therefore, team performance is positively affected. As a result, our team becomes a high performing team throughout the semester.  

Links to Individual Blogs
Conflict Resolution for Personality Differences
Conflict Resolution for Cultural Differences
Conflict Resolution for Professional / Educational Background Differences

References:
Richard Martin, Beyond traditional conflict management, retrieved from: http://exploitingchange.com/2013/10/01/beyond-traditional-conflict-management/
Edlund, J., & Pomona, C. (n.d.). Ethos, Logos, Pathos. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/jgarret/3waypers.htm