Pitfalls/Conflict
Having a well designed team can enhance productivity and can be key to the overall organizational effectiveness. This being said even well designed teams can fall prey to the pitfalls and conflict that are present any time you bring people together and our Target Logistics Team is not immune from these problems. We will look at some of these potential problems and suggest solutions that can be employed to reduce their negative impact. Problems that are particular to the Logistics Team are Social Loafing and Free Riding, Groupthink, and Conflict.
Social Loafing
People in groups often do not work as hard as they do when alone, this is known as social loafing. This can have a negative effect on productivity where the team performance may increase with the size of the team, but the rate of increase in performance is negatively accelerated. Because of the size of our team we are likely to experience the Social Loafing Effect (Figure 1), which is that the greater number of people who work on a group task, the smaller the contribution any one member of the group will make.

Within our Logistics Team social loafing is often experienced on the assembly line during the daily unload. It always starts out with everyone contributing relatively evenly, but usually another 2 or 3 guys are splintered on the schedule to come in half an hour after everyone else. Once they join the assembly line the pace often still stays the same. (with more people, it should have been a given that it would have increased) Each Person on the line is talking more, and producing less.

Free Riding
Another effect of the size of the team is Free Riding. Free riders benefit from the work of others while contributing little or nothing themselves. The larger the team, the less likely it is that any given person will work hard. Team members are sensitive to how important their efforts are perceived to be and when they think their contributions are not going to have an impact on the outcome, they are less likely to put forth a lot of effort on the team’s behalf.

The three main reasons why people free ride on teams are: diffusion of responsibility, a reduced sense of self-efficacy, and the “sucker aversion.” When everyone’s efforts are pooled into the team task and the outcome is a result of everyone’s contribution, it becomes difficult to distinguish one person’s contribution from another. This diffusion of responsibility causes one to lose individual responsibility to the team’s outcome. The next reason is that when a member of the team feels that their contribution is not valuable or worthwhile they will believe that their actions will not justify their effort. This creates a reduced sense of self-efficacy which is the extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to complete tasks and reach goals. The last reason is the sucker aversion which occurs when team members want to avoid being taken advantage of and will limit their efforts while waiting to see what others will do. There are several strategies that can reduce the impact of social loafing and free riding and enhance successful team performance. Increasing the identifiability of each member contribution, increasing the involvement of individual members in the task, and rewarding the performance of team members can lead to a reduction in social loafing and free riding. In addition to these strategies managers should also strive to increase the personal responsibility of team members by empowering them to make decisions that affect the team, establish a team charter that spells out the team objectives, norms, and practices, and provide feedback and performance reviews so that team members know how well they are doing. Combining these strategies with an effective leadership presence that provides focus, coaching, and motivation will significantly reduce the opportunity for team members to drift toward social loafing and free riding.
Groupthink
Another pitfall to a larger group is the development of Groupthink. Groupthink occurs when the team members put consensus above all other opinions. Groupthink involves the deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment as a result of group pressures towards conformity of opinion. Managers must be aware of the symptoms of groupthink: overestimation of the group, closed-mindedness, and pressures toward uniformity. The decision making issues that result from a groupthink situation are an incomplete review of and failure to properly examine alternatives and objectives, selection bias, and a poorly executed information search.

There are some specific steps that leaders can take to prevent groupthink. The fact that our team is large makes it more likely to fall prey to groupthink. Therefore it is important that managers are aware that team member will grow more hesitant and intimidated as the team size grows. Managers should ensure that they are explicit and direct about preferences on tasks and procedures, structure discussions about procedures and tasks which will reduce the member’s fears about making decisions, appoint a devil’s advocate, be aware of time pressures for the decision, and provide guidelines that emphasize continued discussion of solutions, protection of individuals from criticism, keeping the discussion problem centered, and listing all of the solutions before a decision is made. Being aware of the symptoms and conditions that allow groupthink to emerge, and understanding how to avoid groupthink during the team design process, will allow managers to facilitate the most effective and appropriate team outcomes.
Conflict
Conflict does occur on the Target Logistics team. There is a great deal of diversity on the team, and when the hours become minimal the team breaks into factions that are concerned they are being treated unfairly, and that favoritism of a certain group is taking place. Near the end of the peak season as the team grows tired from prolonged increased workload there is often relationship conflict between team members over trivial issues. Conflict also arises between the stronger team members and the weaker team members during the 4th quarter or peak season. The conflict is usually related to workload. Conflict is most prevalent over issues of territory. In other words, when new people are trained to do a job that is already another team member’s role there is often conflict.
There are three distinct types of conflict: relationship, task, and process conflict. The chart at figure 2 shows the types of conflict, their definition, and examples of items used to assess and/or measure that type of conflict. Type of Conflict | Definition | Example of items used to Assess/Measure this Type of Conflict | Relationship Conflict(emotional conflict, A-type conflict, or affective conflict) | Involves disagreements based on personal and social issues that are not related to work | * How often do people get angry while working in your team? | Task Conflict(also known as cognitive conflict or C-type conflict) | Involves disagreements about the work that is being done in a group | * To what extent are differences of opinion in your team? * How much conflict is there about the work you do in your team? * How often do people in your team disagree about opinions regarding the work to be done? * How frequently are there conflicts about ideas in your team? | Process Conflict | Centers on task strategy and delegation of duties and resources | * How often do members of your team disagree about who should do what? * How frequently do members of your team disagree about the way to complete a team task? * How much disagreement about the delegation of tasks exists within your team? |
Relationship conflict can be the most disruptive and exhausting of the three types. It is rooted in anger, personal friction, personality clashes, ego, and tension. Task conflict is related to the argument about the merits of ideas, plans, and projects. Process conflict usually involves disagreements among team members as to how to achieve a goal. Due to the diverse nature of our Target Logistics Team, the increased workload during the peak season and constant transition of team members, conflict is an ever present issue for managers and team leaders to control.

In order to lessen the occurrence and impact of conflict within the team, managers should understand the principles of conflict intervention and how to apply those principles to enhance teams with respect to conflict. There are four kinds of interventions that team leaders and managers can use to improve the quality of the conflict resolution processes. Team (re)Design is a deliberate change in the structure in which teams accomplish their work (e.g., environment, tasks). Task Process Coaching helps team perform better by focusing on changes in effort (motivation), strategy, and talent and not conflict per se. Conflict Process Coaching is a direct intervention in a team to improve the quality of conflict the team is having and may include team-building exercises, structured debate, or appointing a devil’s advocate. Changing the Individual is more in line with behavioral training where a team member undergoes individual-level training in order to improve personal skills such as; tolerance, become more thoughtful and capable when disagreeing with others.
Addressing the challenges when people are brought together on as a group with a specific task at hand can be difficult without an understanding of the dynamics of an effective team. As with the Target Logistics Team, from the start, a team has to be built with a strong and effective design that provides focus on a common goal and a shared vision. The team leaders and managers then must be aware of the pitfalls and be ready to address them with effective coaching and timely intervention. Leaders that understand how an effective team functions and can apply the principles which promote the team performance can enhance productivity and improve the overall organizational effectiveness.