Team Conflict Strategies Inventory

Every team has their preferred practice for handling conflict. Some will avoid it at all costs, while other groups find that conflict gives them energy and motivation.

Don't let unresolved issues drain the productivity from your teams. The Team Conflict Strategies Inventory (TCSI) provides the ideal opportunity for teams to work through issues so they can discover how to deal with conflict more productively in the workplace.

How It Works

The purpose of the Team Conflict Strategies Inventory is to help teams understand their team conflict style and to learn how to make their disagreements and conflicts more productive. The workshop presents teams with five typical conflict scenarios and is administered in two phases.

Team members are first asked to predict how their team would handle each situation by ranking strategy alternatives. Then, the team as a whole comes together to try to reach consensus on the items. This approach allows individual team members to share their perceptions and come to conclusions about common strategies employed by the team.

Uses & Applications 

The purpose of the TCSI is to develop productive norms within their workgroups for managing disagreements and to develop some procedures for dealing with more severe conflicts. The TCSI may provide an ideal opportunity to work through any old, unresolved issues that may be draining energy from a team’s efforts.

Use Team Conflict Strategies Inventory to end:

• Disagreements or complaints about the performance of individuals
• Differences in basic beliefs
• Fighting over scarce resources
• Power differences
• Personal clashes
• Role confusion
• Incompatible solutions
• Pitting individual goals against team goals
• Differing personal styles of individual members
• Feelings about disparity in rewards
• Reoccurring violations

Learning Outcomes

After completing the TCSI, participants will:

• Identify their preferred strategy for handling conflict
• Gain an understanding of five different conflict strategies
• Learn the appropriate use of each strategy
• Develop procedures for managing disagreements

Product Details

• Product Type: Assessment and workshop. The TCSI Facilitator Guide is designed to give teams insight into how their behaviors determine the outcome of a conflict.
• Target Audience: The TCSI is appropriate for teams who have been in existence long enough to have experienced conflict.
• Measures: The purpose of the TCSI is to help team members understand how their team’s preferred strategy of dealing with conflict affects the team's success.
• Dimensions: Team building, conflict resolution, and communication skills.
• Time Required: 1 hour.

What to Order

Facilitator Guide: Order One Guide Per Trainer

This detailed, step-by-step guide for planning and delivering a powerful learning experience gives you everything you need to facilitate a full-day workshop. It includes background information, assessment instructions, scripts, discussion questions, activities, and samples of the assessment.

Paper Assessment 5-Pack: Order One Pack for Up to Five Participants
The print version is ideal for facilitators who prefer to oversee scoring and administration of the assessment if you don't know who the participants will be before the class begins, or if your learners do not have easy access to computers. It includes pressure-sensitive forms for scoring to aid manual tabulation. 

About the Authors

Rollin Glaser, Ed. D. is an accomplished trainer, consultant, and expert in the field of adult learning, and also the co-founder and former CEO of HRDQ. He holds several degrees, including a BS from Northwestern University and an M.Ed. from Northeastern University, as well as an MA and Ed.D. from Columbia University. In addition to many assessments, training games, programs, and articles, Rollin is the author of Personnel Management for Retailers and the co-author of The Management of Training and Managing by Design.

Eileen M. Russo, Ph.D. is former vice president of research and development for HRDQ. She has a Ph.D. in social psychology with a minor in organizational behavior and an MS in social psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Russo has a BA in psychology from Fairfield University.