What are some team building assessment tools that focus on conflict resolution?
Conflict resolution is a vital skill for any leader who wants to foster a collaborative and productive team. However, not all conflicts are the same, and different situations may require different approaches and strategies. That's why team building assessment tools can be helpful to identify the sources, styles, and solutions for various types of conflicts within a team. In this article, you will learn about some of the most popular and effective team building assessment tools that focus on conflict resolution, and how they can help you improve your leadership skills and your team's performance.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is one of the most widely used and researched tools for assessing conflict styles. It measures how you and your team members respond to conflict situations along two dimensions: assertiveness and cooperativeness. Based on these dimensions, the TKI identifies five conflict modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. The TKI helps you understand your own and others' preferred conflict modes, and how they can affect the outcomes and relationships in your team. It also helps you develop the flexibility and awareness to choose the most appropriate mode for each conflict situation, depending on the importance of the issue and the relationship.
The Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP) is another tool for assessing conflict behaviors, but it focuses more on the frequency and intensity of these behaviors, rather than the styles. The CDP measures how you and your team members react to conflict situations in terms of constructive and destructive behaviors. Constructive behaviors are those that help to resolve the conflict in a positive and respectful way, such as perspective taking, reaching out, and creating solutions. Destructive behaviors are those that escalate the conflict and damage the relationship, such as winning at all costs, displaying anger, and avoiding others. The CDP helps you identify your own and others' strengths and weaknesses in dealing with conflict, and how they can affect the team's climate and performance. It also helps you develop the skills and strategies to enhance your constructive behaviors and reduce your destructive ones.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool for assessing personality preferences, but it can also be useful for understanding conflict resolution. The MBTI measures how you and your team members prefer to perceive and judge information, make decisions, and interact with others, based on four dimensions: extraversion-introversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judging-perceiving. Based on these dimensions, the MBTI identifies 16 personality types, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. The MBTI helps you appreciate the diversity and potential of your team, and how different personality types may approach and resolve conflict differently. It also helps you communicate more effectively and empathetically with your team members, and adapt your style and strategy to suit their needs and preferences.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a tool for assessing the level of trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results within a team, based on the model developed by Patrick Lencioni in his bestselling book. It measures how you and your team members perceive and rate these five factors, and how they affect the team's cohesion and performance. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team helps you identify and address the root causes of conflict and dysfunction in your team, and how they can be overcome by building trust, engaging in healthy conflict, creating clarity, holding each other accountable, and focusing on collective results. It also helps you create a common language and framework for discussing and improving your team's dynamics and effectiveness.
The Team Emotional Intelligence Survey (TEIS) is a tool for assessing the emotional and social skills of a team, based on the concept of emotional intelligence developed by Daniel Goleman and others. It measures how you and your team members demonstrate and develop four dimensions of team emotional intelligence: awareness of own emotions, awareness of others' emotions, management of own emotions, and management of others' emotions. The TEIS helps you understand how your team's emotional intelligence affects its performance, creativity, and innovation, and how it can be enhanced by fostering a positive and supportive team climate. It also helps you develop the competencies and behaviors that enable you and your team to handle conflict constructively, empathize with others, regulate emotions, and collaborate effectively.
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Where there is a challenge, there is an improvement opportunity. When conflict at work becomes evitable, having assessment tools to help navigate to the cause of the conflict is important and having the attitude/mindset of resolving the conflict professionally(not personally) & constructively is vital.People may naturally react to a conflict by dis-engaging/avoiding, attacking/defending, or letting it in the air and focusing on the task rationally. Start with curiosity, having an open conversation with the team member on the side to clarify the intention. Engage with humanity & understanding that personal life challenge may play a part. Give the team the benefit of doubt if the trust had been built.Offer genuine support.Get mediator if need
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