PRESENTING PROBLEM
A hospital reorganization merged two departments – analysts and strategic planners – into a new department under a single manager. Because the two departments had worked closely before the merger, the manager was surprised when they became paralyzed by conflict. She asked for help understanding the problems and finding ways to resolve the issues and improve productivity.
ANALYSIS & INTERVENTION
After collecting a history of the problem, we administered the Myers-Briggs Type indicator. We found that the new merged department was almost evenly split between people with an introverted, detail-oriented style (analysts) and those with an extroverted, big-picture orientation (strategists). We conducted an interactive workshop for the staff which enabled them to recognize the basis for their conflicts and develop new appreciation of one another’s strengths.
We also conducted 1:1 coaching sessions with the manager focusing on ways to both accommodate and leverage team member strengths. She modified some of her own meeting practices – providing information in advance and giving team members 24 hours to get back to her with reactions to any new information presented in a meeting before taking action.
The team members also used the language of Myers-Briggs to better communicate their own communication, information processing, and decision-making preferences. They worked together to develop communication agreements and a meeting code of conduct that allowed everyone to feel heard & respected.
RESULT
The team members had resolved their paralyzing conflict, removing a key barrier to effective collaboration, and exhibited increased capacity to sort out their own issues going forward. The manager reported that they had developed a shared team identity, no longer referring to their previous separate department identities. More importantly, they were getting things done!
