| Withdrawal
(Avoiding) | a) A team member raises the topic and before many options are explored the
physician announces that the team must meet before 9 a.m. if she will be expected to
attend. Members of the team do not respond in the meeting.
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| Consensus (Accommodating)
| b) The team continues to have meetings before 9 a.m. with inconsistent
attendance of members—usually two of five are missing. The member who most regularly
attends (the pharmacist) asks the group to discuss this problem again; however,
no one else supports making a change so nothing changes.
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| Coercion (Forcing)
| c) Team members’ focus on the issue of attendance and one member proposes a change in meeting
time from 7:30 a.m. to noon. The physician says she can never come at noon,
and social worker says she cannot commit to regular attendance at 7:30 a.m. The
team decides to alternate meetings at 7:30 and at noon.
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| Collaboration
(Integrative problem solving) | d) In a thirty-minute session, the leader gets members to express their
preferred date of the week and time, identifies similarities and differences, suggests
various possibilities until, weary of discussion, the group agrees to comply
with a new date and time convenient to most of the people. Two team members are
disgruntled but keep this to themselves.
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| Negotiation
(Compromising) | e) The discussion is heated: one member gives example of poor patient care plan
because pharmacist was not present; another member airs her disappointment that
social worker did not tell the team she was going on vacation; the nurse
states that it is not worth pursuing this model of care unless everyone commits to
better attendance; other areas of conflict and proposed solutions are aired.
The mood is spirited but not mean spirited. After fifteen minutes of examining
options, someone suggest that whoever has an "unexcused absence" will have to
take extra on-call duty for the team for one week. Amid some laughter and
further comment, this is accepted and the team gets down to its discussion of
patients with renewed commitment of all members to attend meetings and prepare
colleagues for unavoidable absences.
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