Dysfunction 2: Fear of Conflict, page 202.
- All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict in order to grow.
- It is important to distinguish productive ideological conflict from destructive fighting and interpersonal politics.
- Ideological conflict is limited to concepts and ideas and avoids personality–focused, mean-spirited attacks.
- Teams that engage in productive conflict know that the only purpose is to produce the best possible solution in the shortest period of time.
- Teams that avoid ideological conflict often do so to avoid hurting team members’ feelings. They then end up encouraging dangerous tension.
- Team members that do not openly debate and disagree about important ideas often turn to back-channel personal attacks, which are far nastier and more harmful than any heated argument over issues.
- Many people avoid conflict in the name of efficiency. However, healthy conflict is actually a time saver.
- When we avoid conflict we often have to revisit issues again and again without resolution.
Teams That Fear Conflict
- Have boring meetings.
- Create environments where back–channel politics and personal attacks thrive.
- Ignore controversial topics that are critical to team success.
- Fail to tap into all the opinions and perspectives of team members.
- Waste time and energy with posturing and interpersonal risk management.
Teams That Engage In Conflict
- Have lively, interesting meetings.
- Extract and exploit the ideas of all team members.
- Solve real problems quickly.
- Minimize politics.
- Put critical topics on the table for discussion.
Suggestions for Overcoming Dysfunction 2
- The first step for a team to begin developing the ability and willingness to engage in healthy conflict is acknowledging that conflict is productive.
- Tools to achieve this include:
- Mining:
- Extract buried disagreements.
- Call out sensitive issues.
- Real-Time permission:
- Team members need to coach one another on not retreating from healthy debate.
- Interrupt those engaging in healthy debate to remind them that what they’re doing is necessary.
- Personality style and behavior preference tools:
- Allows team members to better understand one another.
- Include descriptions of how different types deal with conflict.
- Can be useful for helping people anticipate their approach or resistance to conflict.
The Role of the Leader
- One of the most difficult challenges that a leader faces in promoting healthy conflict is the desire to protect members from harm.
- Premature interruption of disagreements prevents team members from developing the conflict management and coping skills necessary for dealing with conflict themselves.
- A leader’s ability to personally model appropriate conflict behavior is essential.
Connection to Dysfunction 3
- By engaging and productive conflict in tapping into team members’ perspectives and opinions, a team can confidently commit and buy into a decision knowing that they have benefited from everyone’s ideas.
