Week 5 – Assignment: Evaluate Best Practices for Managing Conflict in a Diverse Global Team

Review the following scenario:

As a supervisor, you often contribute to your team’s internal blog. The blog was created over a year ago and is often used instead of meetings or email discussions. The blog has primarily been a way to connect with team members, especially those working remotely, to share important organization-wide and department news so no one would feel uninformed. From the time of its creation, the team’s blog has never had any hard and set rules about posts other than a text limit for responses.

For the past couple of months, you have seen a more negative change in the blog posts that indicate there is conflict among your diverse team members. First, there was a series of negative posts when there was a difference of opinion regarding a global project. People at the U.S. home office accused remote team members of not speaking English well enough to understand the team’s major task. Other blog posts suggested that the company should not hire people who are not fluent in English, stating it is too difficult communicating and working with them. It was clear from the tones of the posts that team members on both sides of the conflict were frustrated, impatient, and even irritated. The non-native English speakers were also starting to show less motivation to contribute to the team’s work.

In another situation, when the promotion of a younger staff member was announced on the blog, there were posts from more seasoned employees in opposition stating this newly promoted staff member came to work at inconsistent times, which they considered willful tardiness. Younger employees immediately wrote posts stating and supporting the statement that you really “can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”

Not only are you aware of these negative posts, so is your boss. So, you know you must respond.

Review this week’s academic resources and research regarding the best practices for resolving conflict on diverse teams. Then, compose two separate blog posts regarding the negative posts. The first post must address the negative blog posts from each situation. The second post should include new changes, rules, and/or recommendations regarding the use of the internal team blog. Be sure to include tips for your employees to help embrace change and remain motivated, or increase motivation if it has been affected.

Length of blog posts: 1-2 pages for each blog post, not including title and reference pages. Support your blog posts with at least three scholarly sources.

Your blog posts should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your submission should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards where appropriate. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

Upload your document and click the Submit to Dropbox button.