Last week we established that Vulnerability-Based Trust is foundational for a high-performing team, because it enables the second essential behavior, Conflict.

I have been working with Patrick Lencioni’s Five Behaviors for quite some time now. I’m sold on the idea, and Lencioni is certainly not the only one talking about the necessity of productive conflict.

I have validated their teachings against my own real-world experience many times over. Intellectually, I know Lencioni and all the others are right.

But I still hate it.

Without trust, productive conflict is impossible, but the fact that trust makes it possible doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Truth is, I’m very uncomfortable with conflict, even with people I trust implicitly. Perhaps you are, too.

Does It Have to Be This Way?

Maybe if we just focus on clear, rational communication and calm, objective evaluation of data we can avoid it? Maybe if our plan is solid enough, there’s a route that’s smooth sailing all the way?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. In any relationship, on any team, in any organization, you do not really have the option to choose between conflict and no conflict. That’s an illusion.

Conflict will always be present. Your only real choice is between good conflict and bad. (By the way, not choosing is the same as choosing bad conflict).

So here we are:

• Option 1: Do the work to have healthy, productive conflict in your organization, or
• Option 2: Suffer the consequences of unhealthy, destructive conflict.
• Option 3: There is no option 3.

What’s the Difference?

Productive conflict is about concepts and ideas. It’s about finding the best way forward, knowing—trusting—that the conflict is only about getting to the best possible solution in the time available.

Unhealthy, destructive conflict centers on interpersonal dynamics. It involves attacking personality, character, or competence. It’s mean-spirited, fueled by unexamined and unregulated emotions, and catalyzed by our unresolved baggage. It involves all sorts of negative assumptions about motives (which are almost always wrong).

The challenge is that, to an outside observer, these two types of conflict can look a lot alike. In either type of conflict, there can be passionate argument, emotion, frustration, and discomfort.

For this reason, plus a whole lot of societal conditioning, conflict feels scary, and it’s perfectly normal to avoid things that scare us.

Yet, ironically, teams that fear conflict end up getting exactly the consequences they sought to avoid.

• Fear of hurting others’ feelings ends up creating dangerous, festering tension.
• Avoiding heated and open debate leads to back-channel personal attacks and judgments that are far worse. (Lots of “meetings after the meetings” are a red flag that an organization is not handling conflict well.)
• Not “wasting time” on conflict means the real issues never get resolved, and the whole organization becomes far less efficient. “Can we take that offline?” is sometimes a legitimate call to stay on topic. But often it’s code for “that topic is scary and I’d rather avoid it.”
• Rather than making things safe for everyone to contribute, those most sensitive to destructive conflict disengage and their ideas are never heard.
• Crucial—but controversial—topics are avoided, but inaction leads to increasing risk and makes the topic even more sensitive.

What to Do Instead

Nobody wants those consequences, but like so many things in life, it’s all too easy to choose comfort in the present over pain in the future.

Fortunately, there are things you can do about it. They all fall in the “simple, not easy” category.

Accept Reality

First, come to grips with reality. The choice is not conflict or no conflict. The only choice is between productive and destructive conflict.

As long as some team members believe that conflict is unnecessary or should be avoided, productive conflict will not occur—but destructive conflict will, even if people pretend it isn’t.

Once a team has established a solid foundation of trust, and fully accepted that conflict is both healthy and essential, Lencioni advises several specific actions.

Mine for Conflict

Beyond just encouraging productive conflict, high-performing teams actively mine for it in every meeting. You can even assign that responsibility to a specific person. They have to be calm, observant, objective, and a little fearless. They have to be willing to say things like:

• It seems you two are not aligned on this.
• I’m afraid we’re stepping over something important here that we need to address.
• It looks like there’s something you’re not saying.

Give Real-Time Permission

Giving real-time permission means noticing when healthy conflict is occurring and explicitly giving people permission to continue.

Often this can lower the stress level for the whole room, keeping the conflict in the productive zone. Real-time permission sounds like this:

• It’s okay—it’s really important that we resolve this.
• There’s disagreement here but I can tell you’re both trying to find the best solution.
• I know this is frustrating but let’s keep working through it.

Understand Differing Styles

Different personalities respond to conflict differently. Knowing how you and your teammates respond to conflict can really help increase trust and the ability to engage in productive conflict.

(The long-time reader will notice that increasing self-awareness helps with pretty much everything).

In the DiSC® model, each style brings both productive and destructive tendencies to conflict.

• D styles are willing to engage, are direct, and open to spirited debate, but…
  • They can also be insensitive, impatient, create win-lose situations, refuse to bend, and overpower others (the “D” is for dominance, after all).
  • In conflict, Ds focus on logic and victory.
• i styles communicate empathy, encourage open dialogue, provide reassurance, and verbalize emotions, but…
  • They can also become overly emotional, talk over others, be impulsive, gloss over tension, and make personal attacks.
  • In conflict, i styles focus on expression and feelings.
• S styles show flexibility, look out for people's feelings, communicate tactfully, listen to others, and find compromises, but…
  • They can also withdraw, give in to please others, ignore problems, let issues simmer beneath the surface, and avoid tension.
  • In conflict, S styles focus on feelings and consensus.
• C styles find the root cause of the problem, sort out all the issues, give people space, and focus on the facts, but…
  • They can also get defensive, use passive-aggressive tactics, become overly critical, isolate themselves, and overanalyze the situation (for yours truly, check, check, check, check, and check).
  • In conflict, Cs focus on logic and justice (also, check, check).

Armed with this knowledge, the best thing you can do is simply notice “uh oh, I’m doing it again.”

The Role of the Leader

Leading a group through conflict is a little like driving a racecar through the turns. You want to push the car as fast as possible, right at the edge of spinning out, but still under control.

A little too heavy on the throttle and you’ll end up in the wall. Too cautious, and the competition is going to pass you by.

Likewise, a group pushed too hard into conflict will spin out in emotional overwhelm. More often, though, the leader puts their foot on the brake too soon to avoid the conflict, and the group never performs at their real potential.

As usual, the leader has to model the desired behavior (lead = go first!). If the leader shies away from productive conflict, the group won’t be able to go there either.

If leaders interrupt important disagreements too soon, either of their own discomfort or desire to protect their team from it, team members will never develop the ability to engage in healthy conflict on their own.

Conflict is messy, but leaders have to allow it, intervening only when it becomes destructive, or the team cannot grow.

The Absence of Conflict

The absence of conflict is not peace—not real peace, anyway.

Without conflict, what you really have is a silent collusion where people pretend everything is okay when it isn’t, and unconsciously conspire to let important problems slowly get worse because they feel too scary to solve.

The courageous—those willing to engage in essential, healthy conflict—will find that they have opened the door to Commitment, the third behavior of high-performing teams, and our topic for next week.

Until next time,
Greg

P.S.

The topic of conflict is important enough that we cover it not only in our Five Behaviors Workshop, but also in a dedicated Productive Conflict Workshop that explores how each unique DiSC style response in conflict.