No Conflict on Your Team? That’s No Good!
Why You Want Team Conflict and Plenty of it.
As an organizational development consultant I receive plenty of calls from clients worried about conflict in their teams. Most team leaders take immediate action to avoid and mitigate arguments and disputes amongst team members that may arise over resources, decisions, personalities and politics. Let’s face it, for most team members (leaders included) conflict in the team is very uncomfortable and is avoided at all costs.
In contrast, from the perspective of good performance management and leadership coaching, I encourage teams to engage in conflict as much as possible!
What am I thinking? That executive leadership advice goes against common sense, doesn’t it?
While I agree that mean spirited personal attacks and fighting have no place in the workplace, and never should be tolerated, however conflict that is focused on issues and ideas can be very productive. It is an important to distinguish between the two.
Patrick Lencioni, in his best selling book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” says that , “…passionate debates are essential to any great team. Teams that engage in productive conflict know that the only purpose is to produce the best possible solution in the shortest period of time”. Lencioni goes on to express that in all great team relationships productive conflict is a necessary element that promotes growth (organization development!).
When team members trust each other they are able to engage in spirited and passionate constructive debate of ideas. This promotes the energetic dialogue over new ideas and offers a (safe) forum for creative problem solving and testing.
One practice I have for leadership development is when I am examining an organization for team effectiveness I observe if the meetings are routinely quiet, dull and boring. If that is the case it tells me that 1. There may be a lack of trust and, 2. There is an (obvious) absence of constructive conflict. It usually follows that teams that have boring meetings are not the teams that are innovative problem solvers and achievers of great results. Also, these are not the teams that are having lots of fun.
On the other hand, if I witness team meetings that are engaged in passionate debate over unfiltered ideas it’s a good indication that this group trusts each other enough to really take positions and get personally involved in the process and go after the results.
Do your team members voice their opinions even at the risk of causing disagreement? If not, perhaps your team needs to work on what needs to be done so that they can be trusting one another (or the leadership) more so they feel safe enough to really get engaged.
How do you promote productive conflict in your team?
First thing is to talk about it. Talk about the benefits of what it would be like to feel free to really express what each member authentically thinks about a concept or proposal before just going along and adopting something and avoiding making any waves.
Learning to get comfortable with the discomfort of conflict. Just becoming consciously aware of the inner anxiety that occurs while thinking of taking a different position. Questioning the corporate cultural norm goes a long way to engender this kind of behavioral change. And positive behavioral change is what we are talking about as the team becomes more effective.
You may consider reading Lencioni’s leadership development book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” where he explains productive conflict in detail as a positive behavior of high performance cohesive teams.
A very effective leadership training for teams is a hands on facilitated program that helps teams become more cohesive. This program helps team to experience trust, engage in productive conflict and other positive team behaviors. It’s called “The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team”, developed by Wiley Publishing and based on Lencioni’s research of teams. The program actually provides a custom made live forum for a team to train in these behaviors and develop the five beneficial skills and approaches in this regard.
I have been conducting this program with my client teams and I can report remarkable advances in teams effectiveness and achievements.
Written by:
Randall “Randy” Preiser, is CEO of Preiser Consultants… an Organization Development firm that provides executive coaching and develops performance management programs like The Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team.
Randall@PreiserConsultants.com
www.PreiserConsultants.com