In addition, “developing self-awareness is also important in helping individuals to develop understanding of the differences in others, how individuals differ in their values priorities and values maturity, cognitive style, orientation towards change and interpersonal orientation.” (Carlopio et al., 2001) While self-awareness helps individuals to understand their own characters as well as the others’ as well as avoid stereotyping others, individuals will possibly step back and willing to think over others’ opinions when disagreement occurs, thus, interpersonal conflict can be avoided. Apart from team members themselves, manager can act as a facilitator by using appropriate communication skills to help team develop and maintain its effectiveness (McFadzean, 2002). For example, team members may have different opinion on the product quality and conflict or disagreement occur, a manager can intervene by holding a meeting and talk to the participants, focusing on their attitudes, values, beliefs and perceptions regarding their behaviour, emotion, self-awareness and relationships with other team members, or, these can be written in a report as a feedback to the team. (Schwarz, 1994) Besides, conflicts or disagreements can be happened between team members and managers, thus, managers also need to be aware of their own values, perceptions, behaviour and attitudes towards change to help solve the problem. Once a manager becomes conscious of his/her own value system, perception, cognitive style and locus of control, they will understand their strengths and weaknesses, hence stereotyping and bias can be avoided. For example, managers will be attentive to the emotion and the way they talk to the participant over a problem, this allows the individual to hear negative feedback without a defensive posture and more willing to accept other opinions. Self-awareness facilitates team members and managers to deal with or avoid conflict and disagreement during team building process, with a thorough understanding of your own inner state as well as others’, individuals are more eager to listen to and accept a different opinion.
Listening skill is a fundamental component of interpersonal communication, which is a critical skill that team members and managers should be aware of in order to manage and avoid conflicts or disagreements. Brandt et al. (2001) states that “To reduce conflict, listen actively and pay close attention to content, feelings, and congruence between the speaker’s verbal and non-verbal communication.”(p.32) Basically, the process of listening involves hearing, understanding, interpreting, evaluating, remembering and responding; Calopio et al. (2001) states that “individuals receiving information with their ears and eyes, giving meaning to that information, and deciding what you think and feel about that information.”(p.240) There are three main areas of listening skill and it include attending, following, and reflecting. Attending is a skill of creating a climate of attention and respect as well as showing to the speaker that you are with them; it can be done by non-verbal behaviour for example posture of involvement, appropriate body motion and eye contact. (Hargie et al, 1994) Attending behaviours attempt to tell the speakers that the listeners are there for them that they really want to listen and to understand what is being said. Similar to attending skill, following skill involve non-verbal behaviour, according to Bolton (2002), there are four following skills for effective listening: door opener, minimal encourages, infrequent questions and attentive silence. Door opener is a non-coercive invitation to talk; minimal encourages are brief indicators to the other person that you are listening and these can be an extremely short encouraging words such as ‘really?’, ‘I see’ or ‘go on’, the aim is to encourage the speaker to keep speaking; infrequent questions means that listeners have to question effectively by asking open question and asked infrequently, this helps the listener better understand the speaker without directing the whole conversation; the aim of attentive silence is to give the speaker space to think about the issues at hand and what they might want to say. For example, when there is disagreement between team members, manager as a listener can talk to the participants face-to-face and has to be aware of their non-verbal behaviour. They can make an open question to the participants, give minimal encourages such as nodding their head to encourage the participants to speak more about their opinion over the problem and remain silence to give them greater space to think. In addition, managers have to be aware of their non-verbal behaviour, they better lean forward, arms and legs unfolded and make direct eye contact with the participants, eye contact can lead the other party feel that you are real and can be trust on (Miller, 1994), the aims of these non-verbal behaviour is to show that they are with them and willing to listen to their thoughts and feelings, (Nelson, 1995) in return, the participants is likely to feel confident to share their inner state to the manager and feel that the manager can be trusted. Hence, the participants will be more eager to accept the opinion of the manager over the conflict.
Lastly, for reflective listening, it refers to that the listener state what they have heard to the speaker in their own words to show their understanding and acceptance. (Bolton, 2002) There are four types of reflecting skills: paraphrasing, reflecting feeling, reflecting meaning and summative reflections. The purpose of these skills is to show and confirm their understanding of the meaning and feeling that the speakers have. Reflective listening is particularly useful in avoiding conflict based on misinformation or misunderstanding. For instance, when a team member is telling the other member his idea of an issue, the listener can use reflective skills by restate the speaker’s meaning and feeling, the listener aims to seek confirm with the speaker that his/her understanding are accurate. By doing this, misunderstanding can be avoided and thus, conflict can be reduced.
There are three main skills of listening, attentive, following and reflecting. By using these listening skill skilfully, managers can be able to manage conflict between team members and conflict based on misunderstanding can be avoided.
Assertion is one of the interpersonal communication skills that is indispensable in avoiding conflict and problem solving, especially quarrel between team members. In a team, it is inevitable that conflicts and clashes will occur between team members, some can be solved by the intervention of manager but still, some have to be solved and avoided by the team members themselves. Apart from self-awareness and listening skill, assertive communication is another skill that enables individuals to maintain self-respect, protect their rights and express themselves in a direct, honest and appropriate manner without abusing or dominating other people. (Brandt, 2001; Bolton, 2002) Fundamentally, there are three styles of responding: non-assertive responses, assertive responses and aggressive responses. Nonassertive responses refer to express oneself in such a shy and apologetic manner that one’s thoughts, feelings and rights can easily be ignored. Assertive response is the optimal responses compared to nonassertive and aggressive responses. It involves standing up for oneself as well as takes the other person in consideration. Individuals who apply this response have to be aware of their non-verbal response when expressing themselves verbally, typically there are three part of the assertive message, firstly state the current behaviour, followed by the feelings and the effects on life. Aggressive responses involve threatening or violating of the other person, persons with aggressive responses answers rudely before the other is finished speaking. (Hargie et al, 1994) By exercising assertive responses, clashes and argument can be avoided. For example, when team member A made a decision without consulting team member B, and that team member B felt that he is not respected and he lost his right of giving advise over a decision, he may uses assertive skill to express himself in a way that their relationship will not be damaged. Team member B may say “when you made a decision without concerning my point of view, I feel I’m not treated with respect, because I have the right to give my opinion on this decision in the team.” In addition, Team member B has to aware of his non-verbal response such as normal posture, gestures near the body, firm pleasant tone, and frequent eye contact to show that he is not aggressive and wants to share his feeling to team member A sincerely. By saying that, team member A will be keener to accept and explore B’s feeling and problems can be more easy to solve. Assertive skill helps to solve problem as well as improve the relationship between team members, consequently clashes and conflicts can be reduced.
Process management is a skill that helps to solve conflict or problem by identifying the focal issue, deciding which information is most immediately relevant, and choosing the most appropriate approach to reach a win-win solution for individuals and the organisation. (Pisarski, 2004) To solve a problem or conflict, we have to use listening skill to listening carefully of the other’s problem as well as using assertive skill to express our own opinion over a problem. If the other person is not willing to talk about their problem, again, use assertive skill that telling them the effect of not talking over an issue on us and our feeling. Listening skill in process management skill is very important, it is the skills to obtain, without defensiveness, the relevant information others have about our behaviour, the effects on them and their feelings. Besides, listening process has four steps, firstly, you listen for understanding the meaning and feelings of the speaker, then you acknowledge your understanding, thirdly, check and confirm your understanding and lastly, you ask for more understanding. In a realistic team for example, when there is conflict between team member and manager, the manager can use process management skill that he first identify the focal issue, deciding which information is most immediately relevant, and the manager in this case may choose to talk to the participants directly. The manager can first make an open question to encourage the participant to talk over his/her feeling and opinion, listen carefully and make appropriate non-verbal behaviour such as leaning forward and direct eye contact, do not be defensive to the participant, try to show that you are with them, and try to confirm the understanding of the participant’s feeling by using reflective listening. In return, the manager can use assertive skill when they talk over their opinion and feeling to the participant, again, express our feeling without blame or demand on the other party and make eye contact as well. After the manager listen to the participant and understanding what his/her opinion and feeling, as well as expressing their view and feeling to the participant, they can both work out a solution in a pleasant atmosphere. By using process management skill, manager tries to choose the most appropriate approach and using the suitable skills to reach a win-win solution for individuals and the organisation.
Building an effective team is a key point to achieve managerial and organisational effectiveness by the increase in productivity, quality, innovation and cost efficiency. However, conflict and disagreement between team members are the main obstacles in the four stages of team development. Team members and manager as a facilitator of team development have to make use of the four major communication skills skilfully aims at avoiding or solving conflict. First of all, self-awareness contributes to conflict avoidance by that team members can understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as the others’, they can avoid stereotyping others and thus, they are more willing to listen or accept different opinions and interpersonal conflict can be avoided. Listening skill includes attentive, following and reflecting. Managers can take advantage of these skills to help solve the conflict between team members by showing that they are eager to listen to the participants and also gaining the trust from them; in return, the participant may feel confident to share their inner state. Moreover, by using reflective skill, team members can avoid conflict based on misunderstanding. Assertion skill contributes to the avoidance of conflict and clashes as it enables team members and managers to maintain self-respect and expressing themselves in a direct and honest way without abusing the other party. Lastly, process management skill helps solve problem and conflict. Managers need to identify the focal issue, deciding which information is most immediately relevant and take the most suitable approach. All in all, by utilizing self-awareness, listening, assertion and process management skill, conflicts can be avoided and solved, hence, effective team can be attain as well as managerial and organisational effectiveness.
References:
Bennett, J.C. (1999) Achieving professional excellence for a new century. Information Management Journal, 33(2), 36-7.
Bolton, R. (2002) People skills: how to assert yourself, listen to others, and resolve conflicts. NSW, Simon & Schuster Australia.
Brandt, M.A., Holt, J. and Sullivan, M. (2001) How to make conflict work for you. Nursing Management. 32(11), 32-36.
Carlopio, J., Andrewartha, G., and Armstrong, H. (2001)Developing management skills: A comprehensive guide for leaders. NSW, Pearson Education Australia.
Crosby, J. (1998) Team work is essential to public policy success. Information outlook, 12(2), 16.
Hargie, O., Saunders, C., and Dickson, D. (1994) Social skills in interpersonal communication. London, Routledge.
Leonard, N.H., Beauvais, L.L. and Scholl, R.W. (1995) A self-concept based model of work motivation. Academy of Management Journal. 322-327.
McFadzean, E. (2002) Developing and supporting creative problem-solving teams: Part 1-a conceptual model. Management Decision. 40(5/6), 463-476.
Miller, S.A. (1994) Controlling how others see you in good business. The CPA Journal. 64(10), 75-76.
Nelson, M. (1995) Interpersonal team leadership skills. Hospital Material Management Quarterly. 16(4), 53-64.
Pisarski, A. (2004) Module 5: Process management and problem solving. The University of Queensland, Australia.
Schwarz, R.M. (1994) The skilled facilitator: Practical wisdom for developing effective groups. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass.
