64H - How to Navigate Your Team Dynamics Through Affinity Bias, Culture Building and Positive Conflict Resolution

Tuesday, March 21

3:15–4:15 p.m.

We don’t need the smartest people in our organizations in order to make the smartest decisions and to consistently solve organizational challenges, but what we need to develop are intelligent teams. Intelligent teams come up with ideas and solutions that are far better than individual ideas. Intelligent teams draw on diverse sets of knowledge and experiences of the team members and are able to share this knowledge as well as allow this knowledge to influence the outcomes. This process requires that team leaders are highly aware of the processes that drive team dynamics, including affinity bias, psychological safety, strong sense of belonging as well as the ability to welcome and resolve conflicts in positive ways.

In this session, presenters will discuss the strategies that team leaders can use to create cohesive, diverse teams that are highly safe and highly functioning. These strategies revolve around valuing everyone’s positive contribution to the team, instilling a strong sense of common purpose, as well as important skills of navigating inevitable conflicts and mistakes. Navigating conflict is a threshold moment that determines the direction of culture of belonging and safety. It is therefore crucial that team values and norms are clear so that mistakes are accepted and growth and learning are encouraged and valued, while cultivating both compassion and accountability. Common sources of conflict revolve around status and recognition, expectation of personal gain for contribution to the team success, differences around personal values and communication patterns, as well as personal biases and individual psychological needs.

Learning Objectives

• Identify how high-functioning teams build trust and belonging, as well as understand the concepts of trust affinity and bias.
• Describe how high-functioning diverse teams can overcome common conflict situations to remain united in a common mission.