The Effect of Conflict on Team Building Carol Eggert May 15, 2006

Why study conflict in the workplace?  When You Say Yes But Mean No by Leslie Perlow  Witnessed co-workers silencing themselves  Wondered about the impact on team building for Land O’Lakes customer service

Research Question Is conflict beneficial to team building in Land O’Lakes customer service?

How did I find the answer?  Paper survey returned via interoffice mail  Distributed to 5 managers and 25 customer service representatives  100% return rate  Survey had 16 questions 13 Likert-like scale questions 3 closed ended ordered questions

Operational definitions  Voicing: expressing verbally  Conflict: discrepancies, incompatible wishes, or irreconcilable desires  Team building: the process of enabling a group of people to meet a common goal

PositionComfortableUncomfortable Customer service85%15% Management100%0% How comfortable are you voicing conflict with team members?

Position ComfortableUncomfortable Customer69%31% service Management100%0% How comfortable are you voicing conflict with management?

Agree56% Not sure17% Disagree27% Is conflict beneficial to team building?

Does conflict lead to creative solutions? Agree90% Disagree10%

Can conflict aid in learning? Agree86% Not sure 3% Disagree10%

Is employee retention beneficial for team building? Agree84% Not sure13% Disagree 3%

Are similar values important to team building? Agree70% Not sure23% Disagree 7%

Does Land O’Lakes value teams? Agree77% Not sure 7% Disagree16%

Is conflict beneficial to team building in Land O’Lakes customer service? Yes, but there is an opportunity to improve communication between customer service and management.

Questions?