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Mich ian H. Kle
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The use of work teams is becoming more and more prominent in

Decentralized methods of
decision making
organizations today. Corporate America is learning that empowered work
teams can and do offer a creative and competitive solution to problems such
as product quality, morale, productivity and most importantly the viability of
the organization. With a variety of corporate issues needing to be solved,
there are many types of teams used for each situation, such as cross-
functional, continuous improvement, quality improvement and ad hoc. In
some instances, team membership now includes customers and suppliers in
an effort to get closer to the customer’s needs and requirements.
With the introduction and use of teams, corporations are migrating to a
decentralized method of decision making. Team members are empowered to
come up with and implement the best possible solutions to problems. This
creates some question as to the actual effectiveness of teams. While there are
many types of dynamics occurring within teams that reduce a team’s
effectiveness to make decisions, conflict is one that can either enhance or
reduce the decision-making process. The following paragraphs will focus on
the dynamic of conflict and its role in creating a more effective work team.

Conflict – a negative connotation

Conflict is generally a disagreement regarding interests or ideas. Whether it is
within oneself, between two people, or within an organization, it has a
negative connotation. “Conflict has historically been viewed as undesirable,
something to be avoided”[1, p. 568]. Conflict can be viewed within an
organization as negative and not supporting the decisions of management.
“Managers often behave as though serious interpersonal confrontations are
the result of personality defects. They label people who are frequently
involved in conflicts as ‘troublemakers’ or ‘bad apples’”[2, p. 419]. While
conflict can be viewed as negative, it has important implications in increasing
the effectiveness of a team’s decision-making process.
Study findings In a study of decision making created by Boulding:
several groups of managers were formed to solve a complex problem. They
were told their performance would be judged by a panel of experts in terms of
the quantity and quality of the solutions generated. The groups were identical in
size and composition, with the exception that half of them included a
“confederate”. Before the experiment began, the researcher instructed this
person to play the role of “devil’s advocate”. This person was to challenge the
group’s conclusions, forcing the others to examine critically their assumptions
and the logic of their arguments. At the end of the problem-solving period, the
recommendations made by both groups were compared. The groups with the

42 TEAM PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, VOL. 2 NO. 3 1996 pp. 42-48 © MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS 1352-7592

Conformity at the
expense of results
Positive or negative
TEAM PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, VOL. 2 NO. 3 1996
devil’s advocates had performed significantly better on the tasks. They had
generated more alternatives and their proposals were judged as superior. After a
short break, the groups were reassembled and told that they would be
performing a similar task during the next session. However, before they began
discussing the next problem, they were given permission to eliminate one
member. In every group containing the confederate, he or she was asked to
leave. The fact that every high-performance group expelled their unique
competitive advantage because that member made others feel unconformable
demonstrates a widely shared reaction to conflict: “I know it has positive
outcomes for the performance of the organization as a whole, but I don’t like
how it makes me feel personally”[2, p. 419].
The findings of this study are critical to organizations in realizing the
importance of conflict and its effects on the decision-making process.
While this study was an experiment, the decision to eliminate a member of an
organization for being a “trouble maker” occurs in real organizations. In 1984
Ross Perot, an outspoken self-made billionaire, sold Electronic Data Systems
(EDS) to General Motors (GM) for $2.5 billion and immediately became
GM’s largest stockholder and member of the board. GM needed EDS’s
expertise to co-ordinate its massive information system. Roger Smith, GM’s
chairman, also hoped that Perot’s fiery spirit would reinvigorate GM’s
bureaucracy. Almost immediately, Perot became a severe critic of GM policy
and practice. He noted that it took longer for GM to produce a car than it took
the country to win the Second World War. He was especially critical of GMs
bureaucracy, claiming that it fostered conformity at the expense of getting
results. By December 1986, Roger Smith had apparently had enough of
Perot’s “reinvigoration”. Whether his criticisms were true, or functional, the
giant automaker paid nearly twice the market value of his stock ($750
million) to silence him and arrange his resignation from the board[2, p. 417].
Now that conflict can be seen as a dynamic that can enhance the quality of
decision making, its negative impact on team members is its own dilemma. In
some cases, conflict actually inhibits communication and stops the progress a
team may have made. While this may occur, conflict has a valuable effect on
the outcome of a team’s decision-making ability. But, how do you identify
conflict as either positive or negative?
Different types of conflict
While it is important to identify the goals of a work team, it is also important
to identify the right type of conflict. A positive outcome to a work team
conflict depends on the type of differences that led to the disagreement. These
differences dictate the type of conflict, C-type or A-type, that will ultimately
impact on the work team’s decision-making ability.
In C-type conflict, members “focus on substantive, issue-related differences
of opinion that tend to improve team effectiveness”[3, p. 22].
Members realize that it is important to stay focused on the issues relating to
the task at hand while continually evaluating and settling differences. Team
member acceptance is fostered by open and honest communication and
through the utilization of members’ skills and abilities. Hence, C-type
conflict allows members to contribute openly and honestly to the team’s
decision-making process while maintaining acceptance by team members and
creating greater commitment:
To illustrate just how essential C-type conflict can be to a team’s effectiveness,
consider the example of a $20 million import and wholesale distribution
company that was visited. So important was C-type conflict in the mind of this
43
 company’s president that he cited its absence as the primary reason for a poor
decision the management team had made. The president stated that, had the
decision been “seriously debated”, the team would have recognized the flawed
assumptions on which the decision was based. Because the team accepted those
assumptions without challenge, the company built a large state-of-the-art
warehousing facility, only to find that they were unable to attract enough new
business to make full use of the additional space[3, p. 24].
Establish a creative While the president recognized the need for C-type conflict, the decision-
environment making abilities of his work team revealed a very costly outcome of A-type
conflict.
While C-type conflict fosters creativity, open and honest communication and
the utilization of members’ skills and abilities, A-type conflict does just the
opposite. A-type conflict decreases the effectiveness of the group by allowing
personal feelings or someone’s own agenda to deter the members from the
team’s objective. Creativity is limited by the members’ reduced ability to
contribute input owing to the increasing hostility, anger and the elimination of
trust. Team members’ input may be shut down, which creates a loss of
commitment to the team’s decision-making process. A-type conflict also has
a future effect on team members. Team members may not choose to interact
at a later time because of the personalized nature of the conflict. A vice
president at a processing firm stated that when differences of opinion turned
into personalized disagreements, some members of the team would simply
“throw up their hands and walk away from the decision”[3, pp. 24-5]. Being
aware of the types of conflict is important to establish a creative environment
which will foster open communication and integration of team members’
input. Now that we are aware that two types of conflict exist, how can
conflict be managed to generate an effective decision-making process?

Managing conflict
Characteristics of an While conflict exists in team interaction, the key to an effective work team is
effective team to manage conflict. “The manager’s role is to choose appropriate conflict
management techniques and keep conflict at a reasonable level”[1, p. 569].
While there are many methods theororized and practised, this paper will
focus on the conflict management strategies used by Amason et al.[3]. It is
critical to remember the importance of fostering creativity, keeping
communication open and actively engaging members’ skills and abilities in
the decision-making process. These are the characteristics of an effective
team. Since these are important, the team leader must steer the team through
C-type conflict while avoiding A-type. According to the findings of Amason
et al., a team leader must use a strategy to “build an effective culture before,
during, and after the team interactions”[3, p. 29]. Amason et al. suggests the
following strategy to get the the best possible outcome from conflict.
Disseminate a full agenda early
An effective meeting does not just happen; it is planned. A team leader needs
to build a positive focus to the meeting and create a full understanding of the
team’s purpose in the process. Thus, an agenda is critical. An agenda provides
focus and can do much to reduce A-type conflict. For example, the leader can
order the agenda to discuss the less controversial items first. This may
encourage participation while desensitizing team members to the more
emotional issues to come later.
If meetings begin with a highly controversial issue in which team members
have a personal stake, C-type conflict may quickly erode into A-type conflict.
In other words, a team that gets off on the wrong foot may find it difficult get

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 back on track. Making less sensitive decisions first may also give the team
momentum for making more controversial decisions later. Once they have
achieved early successes, team members may begin to feel more like
members of an effective team.
Planning ahead It may be helpful to require that the agenda not only has an itemized list of
proposals, but also their rationales. This has the advantage of allowing
members to consider proposals ahead of time and get clarification if needed.
In addition, team members will have a sense that all issues are aboveboard
and that each team member is coming to the meeting with full knowledge of
the issues to be covered. This will save time in the meeting, in that proposals
will not have to be formulated, only modified through the team’s discussions.
Also, allowing the team members to consider the proposals before the
meeting gives them the time to formulate their own reactions carefully. This
will improve the quality of discussion and the resulting decision. Presenting
surprise proposals at meetings is not a good strategy to build trust.
State the philosophy for the team and back up that philosophy
Stating the philosophy behind team decision making will be helpful. A
discussion of the importance of C-type conflict to the process, combined with
the cautions about the dangers of A-type conflict, should be a part of the
discussion. The team should openly consider how the team leader should act
when A-type conflict begins to arise. The road map that evolves from this
discussion will help the group to understand the positive and negative aspects
of conflict and what ways might be used to ensure that the process stays on
track towards C-type conflict.
Back up discussion with The key, however, is not just to discuss openly how best to structure the
actions team’s environment, but to back up that discussion with concrete actions that
produce the desired environment. Discussion without action will not be
sufficient.
Providing the right environment for the meeting
Providing the appropriate environment can increase the team’s performance
and reduce A-type conflict. For example, seating location at the meeting
might be assigned in advance so that there are no appearances of coalitions.
Having team members seated in a neutral order that keeps members from the
same department separate may foster the development of networks and
friendships within the total team. The goal is to focus on the group as the
centre of relationships, not the various organizational departments that team
members represent.
Finally, even the shape of the meeting table can help to reduce the potential
for affective conflict. Round tables neutralize status or power. Rectangular
tables accent status or power, giving the person at the head of the table the
appearance of greater command.
While these sorts of details may seem petty to some, remember the kind of
environment that needs to be created. Members with negative dispositions are
likely to read the worst into every situation and thus may respond to the
perception of A-type conflict, event when none is present.
Have behavioural strategies to run the meeting in mind before the meeting
begins
While structuring the team meeting is important, the behaviour of the team
leader is central to keeping the meeting productive. What kinds of traits
should the team leader exhibit? There is a great deal of research indicating
that openness and co-operativeness are necessary for the effective use of

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 conflict. Increasing the level of openness to diverse and dissenting opinions
can stimulate C-type conflict where none previously existed. Similarly,
encouraging and rewarding co-operativeness can avert some of the personal
insecurity and distrust that prompt A-type conflict. In our own experience, we
found that teams whose interactions were open to and tolerant of criticism
and dissent experienced more positive C-type conflict. We also found that
more co-operative teams experienced less negative A-type conflict. For
example, the president of a $42 million wholesale distribution firm that we
interviewed stated that his primary responsibility was to “initiate a
co-operative decision-making system” where openness and co-operation are
encouraged.
Openness and co- Openness and co-operation do not just happen, however. The leader has to
operation have strategies to ensure a climate of openness and co-operation. This is
difficult because the leader is also concerned with proceeding with the stated
agenda. Sam Walton, founder of WalMart, would often appoint someone else
to lead the team through the agenda during the company’s Saturday morning
corporate general meetings. Walton would be free to focus on process aspects
of the meeting, observing elements such as: “Are people understanding what
the organization is trying to do? Do people agree with what is being said? Is
there commitment towards the goals? Is dissent being shared so that it can be
dealt with openly?” He would interject into the meeting, asking questions,
validating acceptance of what was being said, or challenging team members
to become the devil’s advocate. Obviously to fulfil this role the leader must
“read” the verbal and non-verbal cues from the team, which is hard to do
when the leader is also directing the agenda.
Keep a sense of where the discussions are going
Limit personalized To further encourage co-operativeness and openness, the team leader may
statements need, at least initially, to facilitate and monitor strictly team discussions in
order to limit personalized statements made during heated debate.
Personalized statements such as “your idea”, or “my department”, or “you
don’t know what you are talking about”, or “you don’t understand our
situation”, place emphasis on the individual rather than the idea. Such
individual emphasis may detract from such a collective group nature required
to make effective decisions. These types of statement would move conflict
towards A-type and away from C-type.
Personalized or individualized statements may also anger some individuals,
further reducing openness and co-operativeness. For example, the VP of
marketing may suggest to the VP of operations that he or she alter the
production schedule to meet a unique demand in the marketplace. If the VP
of manufacturing responds,“you don’t know what you are talking about
because you don’t understand our operation”, the VP of marketing will
probably respond as though personally attacked. Such an attack would likely
result in hostility and anger, which would likely prompt a personal counter-
attack, Once aroused, this ground swell of C-type conflict would undermine
the chances of reaching any sort of solution that would be satisfactory to both
parties.
Channel discussion from A-type conflict towards C-type conflict
The team leader needs not only to monitor team discussions, but also to
channel discussion from A-type conflict back towards C-type conflict. It is
not sufficient merely to monitor the process – the leader must act to keep the
group focused on the positive aspects of open discussions. It takes particular
skill for the leader to be sensitive to the particular dynamics of the meeting.
The leader must balance the goals of open and frank discussion of the issues

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Focus comments on
issues, not individuals
A sense of family
TEAM PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, VOL. 2 NO. 3 1996
while also trying to reduce the tendency towards A-type conflict. In essence,
the leader is trying to draw people out to get their opinions, but also trying to
get those opinions by means that will not personally attack others in the
process.
However, when the leader suppresses A-type conflict, he or she runs a risk:
might the rest of the group read into it that the leader really only wants to
hear one side of an argument? That possibly makes the leader’s job doubly
difficult and it takes a well-focused leader to encourage a full discussion of
the topic in a C-type manner while making it clear that A-type conflict will
not be tolerated.
The team leader may need to hold an open discussion. This may be necessary
to help team members understand how to focus their comments so they are
directed towards the issues and not towards the individuals. Initially, at least,
it will likely be hard for team members to see the difference. Research has
shown that most people cannot readily distinguish between the different types
of conflict. As children, we learned to think of ourselves as “bad” when we
were corrected for acting in a certain way, rather than to see the action as “not
appropriate”. Hence, the leader has quite an education job to do.
Support the team
A leader must continually exhibit behaviour that shows support for the team.
As discussed above, there is a need to focus the team so that it is functioning
as a team and not a collection of individuals. This team focus increases the
caring nature of each team member towards each other and builds support for
the team’s decision. Support for the team is important as it tends to replace
much of the “you versus me” mentality of individual group members with an
“us” mentality, which is essential for trust and confidence to develop. A
stronger sense of identity will strengthen the group’s ability to wrestle with
meaningful, positive conflict without the destructured nature of negative
conflict.
For example, part of Wal-Mart’s difficulty is bringing a sense of family into a
very large organization. Yet it its important to have people work for Wal-Mart
as an organization, not for themselves or their departments. WalMart, under
Sam Walton, wanted each associate to care about serving the customers and
looking towards improving the organization. At weekly meetings in
Bentonville, Arkansas, Walton would ask people for their comments on
issues being discussed. He honestly wanted to know what each person’s
feelings were on that issue. At times he would challenge the group to make
the situation better. Walton wanted to support the notion of the Wal-Mart
“family”. There was a higher purpose in an associate’s life at Wal-Mart than
just doing his or her job. Creating this greater purpose is behind much of the
employee empowerment issues in the total quality management approaches
advocated by such experts as Deming, Juran and Crosby. The individual
employee is the key to making the organization succeed through involvement
in decision making and in the organization unlocking the individual’s
creativity while building commitment to the organization.
Be proactive and reactive, not passive
To take many of the concepts above and roll them into one set of actions, the
team leader must actively support a positive culture for the team. The
development of this culture is done before, during, and after each team
interaction. The leader’s behaviour needs to focus on building the team and
the culture that will support active debate that is positive and constructive.
The leader needs to be supportive of group members to bring them into the
47
 decision process and to ensure that they believe that their views are being
heard and acted on.
Build a performance- After the meeting, the leader can do much to reinforce the team further and
centred culture build a performance-centred culture. Minutes that reflect the issues and
thinking of the meeting can be shared and the leader can thank each member
personally for their contributions. The leader can also reward the team as a
whole for their efforts rather than try to single out individuals for particular
praise and attention[3, pp. 30-3].

Conclusion
As more and more organizations implement the work team concept to
strategize and solve organizational issues, a greater understanding of conflict
is needed. Research has shown that managers understand the logic of conflict
but are uncomfortable with the emotional component which conflict brings
into the decision-making process. This helps to support the negative
connotation associated with conflict and eliminates its usefulness in team
decision making.
Once conflict is understood and managers are aware of the different types of
conflict, A-type and C-type, this will make conflict easier to digest and
manage. C-type conflict keeps members of the team focused on the
“substantive, issue-related differences of opinions that tend to improve team
effectiveness”[3, p. 22]. This focus on the substantive issue keeps conflict
from becoming personalized and attacking to team members. But this type of
conflict does not just happen, it must be managed.
A more competitive Team leaders bear the responsibility of making sure that the environment is
organization appropriate and ready for conflict by following an eight-step technique
presented by Areason et al. Following these techniques or others will give the
team leader a guide to ensure a better decision-making process and ultimately
a more competitive organization. While findings exist that support conflict in
enhancing the decision-making process, the techniques that are cited in this
paper will offer organizations the ability to harness and steer teams into a
better decision-making process.
References
1. Higgins, J.M., The Management Challenge, 2nd ed., Macmillan Publishing,
Basingstoke, 1991.
2. Whetten, D.A. and Cameron K.S., Developing Management Skills, 3rd ed.,
HarperCollins, London, 1995.
3. Amason, A.C., Thompson, K.R., Hochwater, W.A. and Harrison, A.W., “Conflict: an
important dimension in successful management teams”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol.
24 No. 1, pp. 20-34.

Michael A. Esquivel and Brian H. Kleiner

Michael A. Esquivel and Brian H. Kleiner are in the Department of Management,

California State University, Fullerton, CA, USA.

48 TEAM PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, VOL. 2 NO. 3 1996