How to Preempt Team Conflict.

Summary:Professional associations are integral to the field of medicine; every physician becomes affiliated with at least 1 association throughout his/her entire career. Obtaining membership in such groups advances career development, engages in mentorship, and contributes in legislation and advocacy. Numerous studies have reported the benefits of teamwork in health care, but few have thoroughly investigated the characteristics that lead to organizational success. This article aims to provide a conceptual model for successful high-performing organizations and discuss their fundamental qualities, including structure, trust, productive conflict, accountability, collective success, and leadership. Additionally, we shared evidence-based techniques to establish and maintain these ideals.

Mastering the use of teams in healthcare organizations can maximize outcomes and optimize the use of resources. Most work in healthcare organizations is done by teams, whether it's the clinical team taking care of patients on a unit, the leadership team accountable for operations of the organization, or a team formed to solve a specific problem, improve quality, or plan an event. Effective teams make organizations successful; ineffective teams can create more problems than they solve. This article describes how to successfully use the power of teams within the healthcare setting, create and develop teams, be a team leader or member, create conditions for team effectiveness and high performance, and provide team training.

The ability to work in teams is one of the most highly valued professional skills. Preparing students to operate effectively in workplace teams, therefore, is naturally a priority for business and management faculty. Managing course-based teams, however, can be a challenging and complicated process for many instructors. This article offers instructors practical solutions to those challenges. After a brief review of relevant literature on workplace and course-based teams, the authors provide the results of a survey of 207 current undergraduate business students conducted in the fall of 2015 in which the authors sought to determine: (1) the factors that influence students’ best and worst team experiences, and (2) undergraduate students’ overall impressions of teamwork. Based on these results, the authors developed two successful—though very different—strategies for managing the classroom group process, which were implemented in business communication courses in the spring of 2016.

In some radiology departments, the lack of alignment between administrators and radiologists can pose significant challenges. This article describes how differences in background and priorities between administrators and radiologists can contribute to conflict and presents strategies on how to manage the conflict in a way that can leverage positive change. Strategies to build relations between radiologists and radiology administrators are described.