Although conflicts over how to do a task are better for a team than refusing to air differences, relationship conflicts hurt team members and performance. Both common sense and science say the personal differences that cause problems in society—gender and race, for instance—can cause similar "relationship" conflicts in work teams. But it is not inevitable.
For example, in this study two researchers followed the progress of 45 teams of undergraduate and graduate students in seven sections of a course on Total Quality Management. Each team worked over a semester on real-world quality improvement projects for local business, governmental and nonprofit organizations. Team grades were based mostly on sponsor input, a final written report and an oral presentation.
Racial and ethnic diversity were linked to relationship conflicts only in some teams. To the researchers' surprise, two personality traits—extroversion and anxiety over deadlines—also had no effect. When personal conflict did occur, it only made members think their teams performed worse and did not affect actual performance (final grades). Unlike diversity issues, two personal characteristics played a part in conflicts in most of the teams: how much members liked to work with others, and how often members contributed to teamwork.
The study article listed methods that helped manage diversity:
Unlike most business teams, the student teams received extensive training on teamwork skills and were required to put together team charters, "in which they developed a mission statement, a series of ground rules for how they would work together as a team, a list of team member skills, and project goals" as well as project plans. [Editor's note: This may have contributed to the fact that diversity in gender, ethnicity, extroversion, and anxiety over time pressures had only weak correlations to the amount of relationship conflict. Workplace studies generally find a stronger connection, but few work teams take the time to put those elements of true teams in place.]
Source: Mohammed, S., and L. Angell (04), "Surface- and Deep-Level Diversity in Workgroups: Examining the Moderating Effects of Team Orientation and Team Process on Relationship Conflict," Journal of Organizational Behavior 25:1015.
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© 2009 by Jim Morgan. All rights reserved.