Chapter 18 Leading Teams 645

important, when opponents have Concept Connection

equal power and both sides want Just who’s running the Large
to split the difference, or when Hadron Collider (LHC) project,
people need to arrive at tempo- an international, $6-billion particle
rary or expedient solutions under accelerator designed to simulate
the universe’s birth by producing
time pressure. high-energy proton collisions?
●● The accommodating style (your The answer: everyone. Built at
way) reflects a high degree of co- the European Organization of
Nuclear Research (known for
operativeness, which works best short as CERN), near Geneva,
when people realize that they are LHC involves 10,000 scientists
wrong, when an issue is more im- and engineers working in
portant to others than to oneself, hundreds of institutions. Because
participants recognize that they
when building social credits for need everyone’s cooperation
use in later discussions, and when to succeed, they’ve adopted
maintaining harmony is espe- a collaborative style of
AP Images/Keystone, Laurent Gillieron

cially important. handling conflicts. Each

research group is a democratic
●● The collaborating style (our way) collective; those collectives
reflects a high degree of both as- appoint members to negotiate
sertiveness and cooperativeness. with other groups. “The top guy,”
notes CERN’s “top guy,” Director-
The collaborating style enables General Rolf-Dieter Heuer, “can
both parties to win, although it only convince the other guys to
may require substantial bargain- do what he wants them to do.”
ing and negotiation. The collabo-
rating style is important when
both sets of concerns are too important to be compromised, when insights from dif-
ferent people need to be merged into an overall solution, and when the commitment of
both sides is needed for a consensus.
●● The avoiding style (no way) reflects neither assertiveness nor cooperativeness. It is ap-
propriate when an issue is trivial, when there is no chance of winning, when a delay to
gather more information is needed, or when a disruption would be costly.
An example of the collaborating style could be seen during the 2008 Summer Olym-
pics in Beijing. When building the Beijing National Aquatics Center (typically called the
“Water Cube”), two architectural firms—one Chinese and the other Australian—devel-
oped designs that were totally different. Although this created some tension, instead of
fighting for their own ideas, the two sides came up with a totally new concept that excited
everyone. The resulting award-winning building is spectacular.84 Each of the five styles is 5
appropriate in certain cases, and effective team members and leaders vary their styles to fit

Leading
the specific situation.

Negotiation
One distinctive type of conflict management is negotiation, whereby people engage in
give-and-take discussions and consider various alternatives to reach a joint decision that
is acceptable to both parties. Negotiation is used when a conflict is formalized, such as
between a union and management.

Types of Negotiation
Conflicting parties may embark on negotiation from different perspectives and with differ-
ent intentions, reflecting either an integrative approach or a distributive approach.

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
646 Part 5 Leading

Integrative negotiation is based on a win-win assumption, in that all parties want to

come up with a creative solution that can benefit both sides. Rather than viewing the con-
flict as a win-lose situation, people look at the issues from multiple angles, consider trade-
offs, and try to “expand the pie” rather than divide it. With integrative negotiation, conflicts
are managed through cooperation and compromise, which fosters trust and positive long-
term relationships. Distributive negotiation, on the other hand, assumes that the size of
the “pie” is fixed, and each party attempts to get as much of it as they can. One side wants
to win, which means the other side must lose. With this win-lose approach, distributive
negotiation is competitive and adversarial, rather than collaborative, and does not typically
lead to positive long-term relationships.85
Most experts emphasize the value of integrative negotiation for today’s collaborative
business environment. That is, the key to effectiveness is to see negotiation not as a zero-
sum game, but as a process for reaching a creative solution that benefits everyone.86

Rules for Reaching a Win-Win Solution

Achieving a win-win solution through integrative negotiation is based on four key strategies:87
●● Separate the people from the problem. For successful integrative negotiation, people
stay focused on the problem and the source of conflict, rather than attacking or at-
tempting to discredit each other.
●● Focus on underlying interests, not current demands. Demands are what each person
wants from the negotiation, whereas underlying interests represent the “why” behind
the demands. Consider two sisters arguing over the last orange in the fruit bowl. Each
insists that she should get the orange and refuses to give up (demands). If one sister
had asked the other why she wanted the orange, the sisters would have discovered that
one wanted to eat it, and the other wanted the peel to use for a project (interests). By
focusing on interests, the sisters would have been able to arrive at a solution that gave
each what she wanted.88 Demands create yes-or-no obstacles to effective negotiation,
whereas interests present problems that can be solved creatively.
●● Listen and ask questions. A good strategy for most negotiations is to listen and ask ques-
tions. You can learn more about your opponent’s position, their constraints, and their needs
by being quiet or asking questions. Smart negotiators want to learn the other side’s con-
straints so that they can help overcome them. Don’t dismiss the opposing party’s limitation
as unreasonable or think “That’s your problem.” You can take it on as your own problem and
try to come up with a solution for your opponent so that you can get closer to an agreement.
●● Insist that results be based on objective standards. Each party in a negotiation has its
own interests and naturally would like to maximize its outcomes. Successful negotia-
tion requires focusing on objective criteria and maintaining standards of fairness rather
than using subjective judgments about the best solution.

Remember This
• Conflict refers to antagonistic interaction in which • Task conflict is conflict that results from disagreements
one party attempts to block the intentions or goals of about the goals to be achieved or the content of the tasks
another. to be performed.
• Some conflict, particularly task conflict, can be beneficial • Relationship conflict results from interpersonal incom-
to teams. patibility that creates tension and personal animosity
among people.

Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.