Many people tell me about the great improvements they made; putting the right people on the bus. Everything runs smoothly now; no disagreements, no conflicts, and all agree to everything that is discussed or needs a decision. For me this is a clear sign that they are in trouble in their organization. There is nothing better for a business or personal relationship than healthy disagreement - yes, conflict! Sounds scary? It should not. If there is always agreement, it tells me one of two things. Either:
1) Your employees all act and think alike or
2) They don't care enough or are afraid to speak up
Both are failure-prone scenarios. If we all act and think alike, why should we waste time in meetings or define strategies in teams? We will think the same way we always thought, our actions will reflect past actions and the outcome will be predictably mediocre. Even though the world and our society around us are changing, we will respond with the same old, same old, medicine. On the other hand, opportunities are created by listening to, encouraging and requesting ideas from a diverse team of people. The more diverse the team is and the better the team members are in building on each others' ideas, the better the ideas and the better the outcomes in such a scenario, conflict is inevitable - and it is healthy. Yes, meetings like these can be messy and take longer because different opinions are presented, passions evoked, and outcomes cannot be predicted. Positive, constructive conflict in its best form!
Why go through this if there are easier ways out - avoidance, accommodation or quick compromise? The answer? All three fail in moving a relationship or business forward. They create lose - lose (avoidance, compromise) or lose - win (accommodation) results. What we really need to strive for is win-win; collaboration to find a new, better solution than anybody could have come up with on their own.
Sounds great? So why do we accept meetings where nobody speaks up, mediocre performance which is not addressed, or tension which everybody is aware of? We are all afraid of the consequences when conflict turns destructive. Blame is easily found and assigned, aggressions are revealed, prejudices dominate and relationships get destroyed while everybody loses. The answer in most cases can be found in how we prepare for and conduct the discussion. All parties need to:
- Attack the problem, not the person
- Accept and respect others' opinions
- Focus on the issue; not one's own position
- Communicate assertively, listen actively and objectively as much as we speak
- Ask objective questions and genuinely listen to the response without jumping to conclusions or making assumptions
- Focus and build on areas of common interest and agreement
- Stay in the present; let past challenges stay in the past and build on what went right
- Be interested in finding a better solution, one you may not have considered
- Keep in mind, one only finds a "school solution" in school, not in business
And the most important point in the end: If even one of the parties ends up with feelings of anger, fear or shame, conflict resolution has failed. It is OK to be passionate in business - about your products, your organization and your ideas. But one must be passionate - and persuasive; not polarized.
Let's get back now to the original statement that avoiding conflict is a lose - lose proposition. If we avoid compassionate discussions, for example, about issues such as employee performance and wait either until that person snaps in a seemingly inconsequential situation or is denied the opportunity to receive needed routine feedback to improve, we are not managing conflict effectively. We see this often in cases where a completely unexpecting team member gets confronted with a devastating "annual" performance report. That's a result of conflict avoidance - tough for both sides to collaborate and then to find new solutions.
When you leave a meeting where everybody was agreeing eagerly, sore topics had been avoided, no real discussion was taking place or you could feel the "elephant in the room" but nobody wanted to notice him, take a step back and examine your leadership skills, mix up the team and find members who care about the outcome and growth of the business enough to create healthy conflict. Then don't avoid it: put conflict to use for positive growth.
If you or your team need help with managing conflict through positive communication and specific steps to get to win-win solutions, give us a call. We have assessments and tools to help you get back on track.
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