Conflict and Mediation
4. Agree on criteria or standards for measuring the effectiveness of the
solution. Insist that the standards be applied."
When you're faced with the need to resolve conflict, keep these points in mind as you decide how to approach a problem. These points are based on the premise that you need to step away from and person- alities and to focus instead on how to listen care- fully and alternatives with an open mind. Overall, project managers especially need to pay enough attention to their team to be able to recog- nize serious conflict and step in when necessary. If you yourself in such a situation, keep in mind that reaching a compromise is the most desirable outcome: Steps to .. . Effective Conflict Manage- ment can lead to effective and efficient decision making.
Tip: No matter what style of
management makes you most comfortable, it's important to note that good managers know when to let the team members manage their own difficulties and when to step in and act decisively. It's sometimes best to make a few people unhappy for the good of the entire project. When these situations arise, con- sider your options carefully, decide on the best course of action, and act firmly. Re- member that the team looks to you for leadership.
When Negotiation Doesn't Work the disagree- ment can't be resolved, decisive steps are needed to correct the situation before it undermines the team. The first step for the manager is to make the decision between the conflicting sides and inform the entire team of the reasoning behind that decision. Then he or she should take the feuding parties aside and firmly insist that the disruptive
Conflict and Mediation 153
FFECTIVE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Prepare for conflict. In all aspects of the communication process, encourage participants to share their points of view and their reasoning. When team members understand the perspectives of others, they are less likely to become angry or unyielding in their positions.
2. Defuse emotions. When conflict does arise and the participants become emotional, allow them to cool off before attempting to resolve the issue. Asking people to think or behave rationally in the heat of argument usually intensifies the problem.
3. Focus on questions that ask why, how, and what. Ask what are the fundamental difficulties, why are they problematic, and how have they come to be so. Try to get to the bottom of the prob- lem, the basic issues. Focus on these issues rather than on the people involved; depersonalize the conflict.
4. Search jointly for solutions. Ask all participants to brainstorm ways to find a solution to the dis- agreement. Everyone involved should play a role in solving the problem.
5. Evaluate solutions in terms of both quality and acceptability. Agree with the parties what the criteria for final solutions should be. Avoid such techniques as voting, tossing coins, drawing straws, or any other form of arbitrary decisions. Instead, focus on evaluative criteria that will benefit the final outcome of the project.
behavior not be repeated. Usually such a reprimand is enough. But if the behavior continues, the next step is to make the whole team aware of how such feuding affects the credibility of the project team and stalls their progress on the project. A last resort is to write a formal letter to senior management, detailing the
with the team member(s). Finally, the offending people may need to be separated from the project so the work can continue.
for International Communication
Collaborating with team members from the same culture is challenging enough, but cross-cultural collaboration expands the challenge significantly. Too often, individuals in cross-cultural collaborative efforts are unable to get beyond their own cultural values to see the differences in attitudes, expectations, and work methods. Understanding how to collaborate in groups and how to motivate and reward team members depends heavily on learning the differences in cultures. For example, the low-context cultures in North and Europe place the
from Robert W. flasberry Laura Lindsay. Effective Managerial CA: pp.
1 5 4 Chapter 6 / Collaborating on Writing Projects
greatest emphasis on the needs of the individual, while high-context cultures, es- pecially those in the developing world, prize the collective experience more than the individual (sec Chapter 3, pp. 68-71). It's also important to realize that some high-context cultures do not encourage speaking up or offering overt opinions. Doing so shows disrespect for the hierarchy of the group and overly emphasizes the individual. These differences affect the way groups establish criteria for suc- cess, standards of achievement, the decision-making process, and styles of think- ing and communicating.*
Workers in Europe and North America prefer linear thinking where the prag- matic answer is found swiftly and verified. On the other hand, many other cultures prefer an emotive approach where the needs of the community take precedence over the quickly pragmatic approach, and it's more important to involve entire groups of people in finding community solutions than in finding the rational answer.
Figure 6.5 provides some insight into how cultural differences may affect behavior in group collaboration. For more on collaborating across cultures, see Chapter 7.
"
Quick Review
Working in collaboration with others on a writing project in the classroom or the workplace requires your team to coordinate the document development process in clear and systematic ways.
• Understand your role as either an individual contributor or a project manager. • Understand the four phases of document planning, writing, producing, evaluating. Each phase has specific tasks associated with it for team members and for the project manager.
• Understand that collaboration requires attention to the differing roles of each team member. Each role should be defined clearly and the various team mem- bers should adhere carefully to those job descriptions.
• Develop a tracking system so you can follow the progress of all the team
members on the document.
• Establish effective communication networks, both horizontally and vertically, among the team members. Keeping the of communication open is crucial for avoiding conflict and misunderstanding,
• Know how to manage conflict and keep the project and team members on track.
information comes primarily from Deborah S. Bosley, "Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?" Technical (Winter 1993). pp 51-62.
Quick Review 155 Figure 6.5
Behavior, Rationale, and Implications of International Students in Group Work Behavior
May not respond with a definite "no" May be reluctant to admit a lack of under- standing to for clarification of information
May avoid criticizing others
May avoid initiating new tasks or
performing creatively May avoid asking for promotions or deserved benefits
feel discomfort with compliments May avoid complaining about product or service
Rationale
To prevent both parties from losing face To do so might place speaker in position of revealing ignorance
TD avoid embarrassing self or others
To avoid making mistake and appearing foolish To protect supervisor from possibly refusing
to protect self from humiliation To avoid the imbalance between parties such compliments create To prevent other party from feeling a sense of failure
Implication
take on more work than others in group May pretend to understand
May not respond critically to other members of group
on evaluation forms; may avoid confrontation May accept assigned tasks
may not volunteer May not emphasize own part in group on evaluation form
May seek verbal approval from teacher or other group members May not indicate problems with group members on evaluation form
Source: "Cross-Cultural Whose Culture Anyway?" by Dr. Deborah Bosley Communication 2
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Understand that cross-cultural collaboration requires learning and respecting other values and approaches to problem solving. The most common differ- ences in approaches to collaborating between North America and Europe and other cultures are the primacy of the individual in the former group and the primacy of the collective experience in the latter.
Chapter 6 / Collaborating on Writing Projects
Exercises
1. Develop a project team for a large document you are working on. Begin with a group meeting of all the team members to decide on individual roles and responsibilities. Write down a careful rationale for each member's assign- ment to a particular role and describe the specific responsibilities assigned to that person.
Keep a project notebook ("project central") for a collaborative writing project involving more than two people. When the team is finished with the project, the notebook should contain all of the schedules, memos, reports, e-mail, and other necessary to the job.
5. Hold a postmortem meeting on the project. Have each team member review the project notebook and be prepared to discuss ways to improve the collab- orative process for the next team project. Be specific about where your group got bogged down in the collaborative process and where they worked to- gether efficiently. Explain the reasons for both.
Community Action Projects
Design a project notebook template for an organization in your neighborhood working on a large-group project. The project may be focused on writing, or it may not. The organizing, planning, and tracking skills apply in any case. Once you have identified the project, your first step is to meet with the project leader to learn the goals, participants, and time schedule involved. It would be helpful, too, to meet with the whole team before you draft the template, so you can get everyone's input. the first draft is ready, circulate it to the team again so you can incorporate their feedback on the final version. As the project moves for- ward, offer to work with them to keep the notebook up-to-date. This "project central" focal point can be extremely useful for keeping the project on track and well organized.
Limiting your team communication to groupware such as WebEx or Wiki, plan and complete a team project.
•
Chapter 7
Communicating
Cultures
Before the Internet, e-mail, jet travel, and even television, most people only read about other cultures. them was rare. Today the world has become so interconnected that nearly everyone has visited or lived in another country. On the streets of most major cities you can hear multiple languages spoken, and college campuses across the United States attract students from all over the world. Ethnic restaurants abound in even small towns, offering dishes from Vietnam, Greece, Russia, India, and many other faraway places.
This interconnectedness has greatly affected the way we do business. When you work in a company today, you likely will have to collaborate with people from other cultures, either virtually or in person. Products and services created in one country are targeted for markets in many other lands, and the expert teams who create them may include collaborators from multiple nations and cultures. Understand- ing how to work together is vital to success in this business environment, and com- municating well across cultures is key.
While understanding other cultures is part of all aspects of technical com- is throughout this 7 focuses especially on the multicultural nature of today's work world and offers suggestions for success- fully communicating across cultural differences.