Team Conflict Case Study
1. Why is this case about team conflict? What conflicts do you see developing?
In this case, conflict arose from the breakdown in communication between American team members and French team members. It started with Frank Lanigan’s initial disappointment when he tried to present a communication plan during a meeting in which Didier was distant and afterwards requested that Frank should not present anything at a meeting without his prior knowledge. Communication issues escalated to a point where the US team members felt that any mention about Perspective was not allowed and their input to Vigilance restricted.
From the case overview it seems that Didier and Lance made unilateral decisions which doesn’t allow the team to function as a team should. …show more content…
The rest of the weekly meetings were scheduled through teleconferences but it often got cancelled by Didier without considering team members’ concerns about the project that needed to be discussed. It caused for a lot of gaps following missed communication. Moreover, team members got frustrated because they couldn’t fill in the gaps with quick talks in the office because of the physical distance.
3. What do you think about the decision to appoint sub-team sponsors? What problem can it solve? Which problems might it not solve?
According to Feigenbaum (n.d.), mediation may be required when tension is caused by neither party’s fault in inter-group conflict. Mediation may help to the degree that it can open communication channels between the US team members and French team members to be able to come to conclusions on certain disputes. However, the overall lack-of-communication problem should rather be addressed in my opinion. Members in a team should be able to openly communicate and attend to issues that causes delays in projects, when it arises. Didier’s autocratic way caused for the team to act rather like a group or maybe two teams (US vs FR) instead of one. In this case the lack of communication is the cause of a major conflict and yet Lance limits even the mediation procedure stating that it should rather be the exception than the
In this case, conflict arose from the breakdown in communication between American team members and French team members. It started with Frank Lanigan’s initial disappointment when he tried to present a communication plan during a meeting in which Didier was distant and afterwards requested that Frank should not present anything at a meeting without his prior knowledge. Communication issues escalated to a point where the US team members felt that any mention about Perspective was not allowed and their input to Vigilance restricted.
From the case overview it seems that Didier and Lance made unilateral decisions which doesn’t allow the team to function as a team should. …show more content…
The rest of the weekly meetings were scheduled through teleconferences but it often got cancelled by Didier without considering team members’ concerns about the project that needed to be discussed. It caused for a lot of gaps following missed communication. Moreover, team members got frustrated because they couldn’t fill in the gaps with quick talks in the office because of the physical distance.
3. What do you think about the decision to appoint sub-team sponsors? What problem can it solve? Which problems might it not solve?
According to Feigenbaum (n.d.), mediation may be required when tension is caused by neither party’s fault in inter-group conflict. Mediation may help to the degree that it can open communication channels between the US team members and French team members to be able to come to conclusions on certain disputes. However, the overall lack-of-communication problem should rather be addressed in my opinion. Members in a team should be able to openly communicate and attend to issues that causes delays in projects, when it arises. Didier’s autocratic way caused for the team to act rather like a group or maybe two teams (US vs FR) instead of one. In this case the lack of communication is the cause of a major conflict and yet Lance limits even the mediation procedure stating that it should rather be the exception than the