Teams consist of individuals with different work ethics, ideals, principles, and values. Despite being committed to the achievement of similar organizational goals, they differ on how to achieve these goals. These differences according to the article often grow into a rivalry which could sometimes escalate into conflict (Young, 2013). How an organization chooses to de-escalate the conflict becomes part of the organization’s corporate culture. Thus, corporate culture as Young’s article notes is directly related to an organization’s conflict management techniques and strategies (Young, 2013, p.8). I work in a PK-1 building as a social worker and the culture at my organization is wanting. My Caucasian colleagues are generally clueless when it comes to dealing with African American students in schools especially as it pertains to discipline and behavior. Therefore, the organization should use the concept of differentiation to identify its strengths and weaknesses and establish a new organizational culture that equips my Caucasian colleagues with skills to effectively deal with African American students.
Differentiation in social sciences refers to understanding a complex system and its multiple subsystems and how they interact to respond to changes in the internal or external environment. Therefore, using differentiation the organization could determine the shortcoming that Caucasian colleagues have when dealing with African American children and spearhead changes in how the organization approaches the issue. If the changes are effectively implemented, they become part of the organization’s policies and procedures and ultimately part of the corporate culture (Young, 2013). Such changes would also reduce tension among the various teams and lead to smooth functionality between and among the various teams.
In conclusion, this approach can be applied to other scenarios where differentiation helps identify the various strengths and weaknesses through the analysis of the whole system and its multiple subsystems. Such an analysis could yield positive results that an organization can adopt. The adoption of these recommendations leads to the creation of a positive organizational culture. Such an approach could be adopted for positive organizational cultural changes at my place of work.
Reference
Young W. D. (2013). Note on Conflict Management. Harvard Business Publications.