Summary
This is a quick reference guide to help you promote healthy conflict on your team.
Why Conflict Matters
Because people are PEOPLE. They’re individuals with unique perspectives so they are inevitably going to disagree. Scary as it might seem, you WANT that!
Conflict/disagreement can surface ideas that you hadn’t considered before, it can push your original thoughts into something far better, it can stop you from doing something stupid.
What is more, people who feel safe and comfortable sharing a different opinion and disagreeing with an idea on their team are far more likely to be engaged at work and stay with their company.
The Next Generation is Ready for Different Opinions
For the next generation of workers, open-mindedness and innovation are more important than sticking to what’s safe. An EY study found that “more than two-thirds (70 percent) believe it is more important to be seen as having a curious and open mindset than a specific skill or expertise”.
To keep GenZ employees engaged, it’s important to bring together diverse perspectives:
When working in a team, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) feel it is most important to work with people with diverse education and skill levels; an additional 20 percent think that having people of different cultures (ethnicity/origins) is the most important element to a team.
Learning how to disagree and challenge in healthy ways is the future of thriving teams.
3 Things You Can Do
Here are 3 things you can do to promote the good kind of conflict:
- Align people around what success looks like.
A common source of conflict stems from when opinions feel like judgements. This happens when team members have lost track of what success looks like. If we are all clear on what success looks like (aka expectations aka milestones and metrics), we can surface ideas that help us get there. It’s easier for team members to see that a point-of-view isn’t personal but instead shared in the spirit of succeeding as a team. You can steer people with simple cues – start a brainstorm reminding people of what success looks like or ask someone who’s shared a strong opinion, “Love it! Can you share more on how that helps us achieve our goal?”. If you constantly align people around an objective, ideas are more likely to stay objective even when they are controversial. - Encourage and support interpersonal feedback.
Any time a team member talks about another team member – positively or negatively – encourage them to tell that person directly! Make it clear that you expect team members to share with one another and reject your role as the middle-person. Follow up too – ask if they shared the recognition or feedback with a team member. These small actions will promote open lines of communication between your team so that when conflict arises, they have already built communication muscle. - Embrace challenge.
If you openly invite challenger perspectives in team meetings and solicit feedback in 1:1s, you are signaling that it is safe to share ideas that could cause conflict. You are also able to role model receiving thoughts and opinions that may differ from yours. This will help your team and others practice healthy conflict in the pursuit of a shared outcome. We also recommend giving this kind of conflict an internal name. Our co-founder coined using “fire” – “I haven’t noticed any heat in our team meetings lately.” “Does anyone want to throw flame on that approach?” “Oh, that was fiery, thank you!” – to promote healthy conflict. You can check out Brene Brown’s “Rumble” concept for inspiration too.
Get Started Today!
- Looking back on the last month, was there an opportunity for you to promote healthy conflict amongst your team? What would you have done/said in hindsight?
- Considering the advice we’ve shared, is there anything you want to focus on next time you spot an opportunity to promote healthy conflict on your team?
