Case Study #3

Kai Reeves

INTS 3350-D01

Professor Snyder-Rivas

April 21, 2023

Question 1:

The characteristics of excellence lacking in the task force during team meetings are the

results-driven structure, unified commitments, and a collaborative climate. The members of the

team were able to see and somewhat understand what the goal of the university’s future and what

the President of the University is looking for, but they are struggling to figuring out what the

meaning of this task is to the team and what approach they should take to be productive in their

team, but since they cannot come to an agreement and share their knowledge with one another, it

causing them to not receive possible results to help bring more structure to the team as well as

the university. Due to this factor, this is what is reflecting negatively on the becoming up with

unified commitments about sharing their research and ideas because they are not seeing results,

which also goes hand in hand with having a collaborative and open teamwork environment with

one another because the team does not agree on anything and figure out what research and ideas

would work best for the task force and meaning of the university. Since the team cannot agree on

anything from their outside research as well as feeling like they are abandoning their other job

tasks by coming to the committee and feel that it is a waste because they are not being effective

in their work, which is causing them not to be unified in their roles and their commitment to the

team which is resulting in them not being collaborative and communicative with one another in a

group setting. The textbook discusses deconstructive conflict and how conflict or disagreements

in a small group can become this type of conflict, which the textbook describes as, “when some

members are less vested in the process than others or when the group has developed a history of

conflict patterns regardless of the substance of the issue” (Harris & Sherblom, 2018, pg. 204).

This shows that when there are premeditating factors like these that come from groupwork that
can cause deconstructive conflict to happen which is what seems to be exemplified in this case

study.

Question 2:

The characteristics of excellence that are evident in this task force are clear, elevating

goal and competent team members. The members of the team understand what the goal and

purpose of the team being formed is for, but lacked the understanding of how this charge relates

to the meaning of the team. They were excited and hopeful to work in this team and gathered to

meet with each other for weekly meetings and devote 2 hours because they understood the

importance of this goal to the university and the reason for being selected. This allowed the task

force to feel confident and resourceful to the efforts of the charge goal, which helps them to want

to improve the purpose of the goal and be productive in the work they are putting which they

proved by gathering outside, external resources and materials that they could bring to the weekly

meetings to discuss and try to collaborate on ideas, but as seen that did fail fairly quickly due to

the disagreements and lack of unity to settle on an idea with each other in a group setting. All of

the members of the team are competent and informed on what their task are and what knowledge

they can bring to the group dynamic, which each member was willing to do, but due to the

environment of the team and not a strong enough structure and more known presence of

leadership, the team failed at this, but still were able to keep their competence or else they

wouldn’t have been selected to be a participant in the group in the first place.

Question 3:

Based off the dynamic of the group and how things turned for the worst as the weekly

meetings continued go on and the sharing of ideas and knowledge did go as well as Kim was
probably hoping, I would say that more could have been done to help bring the strong

communication and collaboration back to the group, but I fail to see what Kim try to do and

intervene when this dilemma occurred. Kim seems to have the knowledge and competence to

lead this team successfully and interact with the members, which she probably was able to do in

some ways, but did not do as much as she could have to help prevent from the task force from

experiencing bigger conflicts like disagreeing on everything, people skipping meeting and

members as well as Kim becoming frustrated. Kim should have pushed harder to reach out to the

President about the problems the committee was having, because that would have provided with

the additional support and external resources they needed to help the group to be successful, but

unfortunately Kim deciding to wait so long and not bother the President as well as the President

not reaching out the committee caused it to disperse. Kim is a decent leader and tried to help fix

the group, but there was more that she could have done and helped by reaching out to the

President’s secretary and others to find better methods to help strengthen the dynamic and

groupwork.

Question 4:

The actions I would take internally would be asking the President for more guidance and

resources as well as additional support to help keep the committee structured and stabilized

throughout the entire process of this report. I would make sure to be more active in the

committee by providing leadership and guidance to help maintain productivity and give the

members of team a safe place and comfort to be able to share their ideas freely and help them to

collaborate in a more effective and beneficial way that will allow for them to achieve most, if not

all, of the characteristics of excellence that they failed to do. The best way to help lead this task

force properly would be to find a useful and effective way to manage the team and be alert of the
negative patterns that are going on and help maintain the conflict management. The best pattern

of conflict management that may be beneficial to alter the negative patterns and change them

into a positive pattern would be compromise, which according to the textbook would be a great

strategy within either “a constructive, collaborative orientation or a deconstructive, competitive

one,” which is prevalent in this task force because they are in group that needs to collaborate,

discuss, and be willing to listen to one another’s ideas (Harris & Sherblom, 2018, pg. 210-211).

By utilizing this conflict management style, this will help maintain a stable balance and make

sure that there are not any major conflicts coming up and cause the group to disperse the way it

did.
 Reference

Harris, T. E., & Sherblom, J. C. (2018). Small Group and Team Communication (5th ed.).

Waveland Press, Inc.