Customer Reviews

Building Conflict Competent Teams (J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership))

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Book review for Amazon:
Since conflict in teams is inevitable, why not accept this dynamic and learn to use it to build stronger and more productive teams? "Building Conflict Competent Teams" is a terrific guide for helping teams use conflict in constructive ways to promote creativity, productivity and change. The authors step readers through ways that team's can proactively address conflict and offer techniques to promote healthy exchange before conflict occurs. Tools are also included for working through conflict in progress as well as, tips on how to learn from conflict after it has been resolved.

Building Conflict Competent Teams should be required reading for all supervisors, team leads, managers, project managers and executives. The book is easy to follow and very straight forward, thus making it acceptable for all levels of leadership, tenure or experience (it can also hit home with your personal life). Key take-away concepts from this book are 1) Like it or not, supervisors and leaders are ultimately responsible for managing the conflict within their teams. 2) Be honest and discuss with teams the fact that conflict will and should occur in teams. 3) Put a plan in place as to the agreed upon norms and behaviors for dealing with conflict in the team before conflict happens. 4) Realize that each individual embraces conflict differently (based on this, I would highly recommend using this book in conjunction with the 360 Conflict Dynamics Profile tool as an effective practice for teams). The tools and techniques described in this book are extremely practical, simple to follow and yet highly effective. Hats off to Runde and Flanagan for a great resource.

As a consultant to leaders and teams in conflict management, I have found nothing more useful to me, and effective for clients, than the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP). I found the authors' first book "Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader" related the CDP theory to leadership beautifully. It has been the resource I recommend most and leaders at all levels love it! "Building Conflict Competent Teams" may be an even richer resource with in-depth knowledge of conflict theory along with practical resources teams can use right away to see results!

With due respect to Ronald Reagan I feel compelled to say to Craig Runde and Tim Flanagan "there you go again!" Building Conflict Competent Teams takes the principles of effective leadership discussed in their previous highly successful book, Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader, quite literally to a new level - the team. In their new work they bring together concepts and research regarding the fundamental dynamics of both effective teamwork and conflict between and among people. The authors draw upon illustrative and engaging stories from their extensive experience and that of numerous others to provide a clear understanding of the inevitable role conflict plays, for better or worse, in teams. In addition to offering practical strategies that can help teams at all stages deal more effectively with conflict, they provide insights and recommendations for dealing with the "special circumstances" that are likely to play a significant role on teams in the 21st century - virtual and global teams. Building conflict competent teams is a must-read for anyone responsible for leading a team of any type and highly recommended for anyone who desires to perform as a successful team member. Any organization interested in reducing dispute resolution costs or lessening risks associated with mismanaged conflict should make it required reading.
Dennis M. Dennis, PhD
Redmond, Washington
7/17/08

After seeing the problems that can plague organizations which have a lack of trust between its employees, this book resonated strongly about the importance of creating a business environment based on mutual respect and team spirit.

Using this book as a guide, we were able to create the type of safe environment for our employees to bring up different ideas and discuss them without fear of reprisal from management. Our employees freely share information between one another, and our business has benefitted greatly from the environment that this book helped create.

This book provides an in-depth look into the creative ways in which a new business can create a safe working environment which your employees will not only enjoy to work in (increasing your retention rate) but also increase your productivity by not having internal battles being waged over unresolved conflicts. Differing opinions and viewpoints are essential to analyzing key decisions and alternative paths to take in business, but you need to have a good foundation of trust in order for these opinions to be safely expressed in a work environment.

Overall, this was an excellent read and I would recommend it to anyone looking to start their own business with a good work environment or for larger companies who are experiencing internal problems and want to fix them.

John G. Stenard, COO and Co-Founder, Sten-Tek Corp.

Having alreadly become a fan of Runde's & Flanagan's when I read Becoming a Conflict Competent Leader (2007), I was delighted when Building Conflict Competent Teams followed in 2008. I implement Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team model to introduce teams to the concept of the Fear of Conflict as one of the five dysfunctions of teams. Then I utilize the Conflict Dynamics Profile online assessment (described in detail in Runde's/Flanagan's first book), as well as the individual and team conflict assessment tools in Building Conflict Competent Teams, to help teams assess and understand Team Member Readiness to deal with conflict, Team Readiness, Team Foundations, Team Climate and Team Communications. The book is a wonderful guide for teams and team leaders who are struggling with how to deal with team conflict. The tools at the end of the book provide the additional resources to help teams mine for conflict and overcome the fear of conflict!

This book starts from the premise that conflict in organizations is bad. It says that through alignment and communications we can work through the conflict and arrive at superior performance. There's nothing wrong with alignment and communications -- in fact, they're both essential to healthy organizational life -- but I reject the premise. Conflict is often necessary and sometimes quite beneficial for organizations. Organizations that have no conflict both under-perform those that do and risk stagnation.