Based on my experience, the success of a project really depends on what mentality or goals that are on each group member's mind. And I believe even though different level of knowledge may evoke some arguments but major conflict rises with different level of personal commitment and interest.
The consulting project I am currently working on has a great team. From my point of view, everybody on the team are on the same page in the sense of commitment, goals and effort. Everyone clearly like doing research, analyze and discuss as consultants. We share out ideas and resolve conflict opinions with respect. And each of us really want to have a great final deliverables to the client so a lot of individual effort were put in to make the entire project move forward. And therefore, the combine effort and a common goal really makes the team functions with high performance.
However, not every project is like the one I mentioned above. A project I involved with last year did not went so well. In my point of view, it was caused by different goals for each of the team member. Two of them are seniors who are busy looking for jobs and interviewing, so grades just does not matter that much to them anymore. Therefore, they putted in minimum effort which in turn adding up the workload of the rest of us. In the end, because of the excessive amount of work rest of us did led to a non-satisfactory result.
Recall what professor talked about during the class on Thursday, CEOs, just as all the other human beings, care about themselves first. I think it is applicable to anyone. From my past experience, personal interests are strongly positively correlated with the commitment and performance of s/he in a team environment. It could be earning good grade or putting good word on resume that pumped the person to put in effort. Therefore, group's interest comes second when it is not aligned with personal interests.
I agree with your opinion about how people are mainly concerned about their own interests and how the other group members are negatively affected by this idea. I have personally seen this many times and it goes to show that even though one might be part of a group their own interests will usually take precedent over an outsider's interest.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I agree with the idea of the CEO caring more about himself, because like you said personal interests are usually more important that outsiders interests, which obviously negatively affects the groups performance overall.
Its a shame that even though we don't realize it in the moment, our self-interests are more important usually than anyone else interests.
I would not describe a team situation where some members are apathetic as conflict. There will be frustration by team members who are more committed, no doubt. But there were probably no fights in this situation, were there? I think of conflict as happening when everyone cares, but people disagree on how things should be done. Then, rather than negotiate to a point where all can accept that, there is fighting where one side in the conflict is trying to get its view to prevail. Did you have anything like that in the second example? It doesn't sound like you did.
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