Your organization is struggling with staying competitive in the industry. Recently, the competition has severely impacted the company's profits. The board of directors created a committee consisting of representatives from each department to develop proposals for addressing the problems.

You are the leader of this committee. The meetings started with polite sharing of ideas, but tensions soon became apparent. The four groups had very different ideas about the degree of seriousness of the problem and appropriate solutions. Polite criticism of ideas shifted into cynical asides and finally into heated attacks. As people became more emotional, negative comments became more personal. You are aware that some of the participants have fought over other school issues in the past.

• What conflict management approach would you take? Why?
• How can you (the leader of the committee) reduce the negative emotions in this situation?
• If this was a virtual team, what would change about your approach?