The Importance of Team Cognition for Attaining High-Quality Team Performance - Term Paper Example

Effective teams do not disregard problems that emerge from their jobs and interactions. In identifying, analyzing, and solving problems, teams cannot avoid conflict, but practicing open and regular discussion that avoids groupthink can lead to higher team performance output.  Problem-solving presents conflicts because of differences in various areas, and so teams cannot and should not avoid and overlook them and instead, they should openly and regularly communicate to properly identify, analyze, and resolve these problems.

Conflicts have three kinds- relationship, task, and process. Relationship conflict pertains to the knowledge that there are interpersonal differences with affective dimensions that can lead to friction. It tends to be called a personal kind of conflict because it can arise from not “liking” a team member because he is annoying or frustrating. Task conflict refers to differences in understanding the task. Process conflict focuses on disagreements that occur because of differences in how tasks should be done.

Team members differ on the process of how and when they should finish tasks. Karen A. Jehn and Elizabeth A. Mannix assert that conflicts are dynamic and change throughout time. They conducted cross-sectional research where they wanted to learn differences in conflicts and their antecedents for high-performing and poor-performing teams. Their sampling included 51 groups with three members each. Respondents were MBA students who are also full-time employees. Their findings showed that conflict is a dynamic, not a static, process.

Moreover, for high-performing. Low-performing teams experienced a lower level of task conflict in the middle, but it escalated near the deadline. In addition, their relationship conflict increased at the end of the project, while highly-performing teams did not experience high relationship conflict level at all. The study indicates that teams should not avoid conflict. They should embrace it as part of their dynamics. The key is not letting task and process conflicts become relationship conflicts so that people can remain objective and patient with one another.

High-performing teams know how to communicate to resolve conflicts and to use them to make the right decisions.