Building a Conflict-Resilient Team
Empowering Leaders to Foster a Positive Work Environment
As leaders, we are often called upon to handle conflicts among team members and ensure a harmonious work environment. Today, we want to explore the concept of conflict mitigation and management, and how we can recruit everyone in our teams to play an active role in resolving conflicts.
Conflict is a natural part of any workplace, and it's important to address it in a constructive manner. We often find ourselves in a reactive mode, resolving conflicts as they arise without considering the bigger picture. However, by adopting a long-term perspective, we can create a better work environment overall.
Picture a spectrum of interventions, ranging from individual coaching to full-blown arbitration, with mediation somewhere in between. Ideally, as managers, we should aim to sit at the coaching end of this spectrum. We want to minimize unhealthy conflicts among colleagues and equip them with the tools to de-escalate and handle conflicts themselves.
In the meantime, we also want to encourage healthy dialogue - the kind of interaction that creates and sifts new ideas. As William Isaacs once noted…
Dialogue... is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people.
One of the challenges we face is that our roles often push us to operate transactionally. We find ourselves moving from one crisis to another, resolving conflicts as they arise without addressing underlying issues. This short-term, reactive pattern leaves no room for creating lasting improvements in our work environment.
To counteract this, we need to shift our focus from the short-term to the long-term. Every time we address a conflict, we should consider it an opportunity to identify and tackle larger, potentially systemic challenges. While this assumption won't always hold true, experience shows that it often reveals valuable insights.
Just as engineering teams tackle technical problems by differentiating between issues (symptoms) and problems (causes), we need a similar approach in conflict resolution. As such, our definition of "done" must include coaching support for those involved. This support should help them develop a better understanding of the dynamics at play and equip them with the skills to de-escalate conflicts in the future. So, the key question is this…
How do we safely recruit everyone into conflict mitigation?
In a team that’s great at handling conflict, these are the principles both that you should aim to embody and that you need to coach others to enact…
Slow down: Take the time necessary to listen, understand, and address conflicts thoughtfully.
Show care and empathy above all: Create a safe space where everyone feels heard and respected.
Contrast reality with perception: Separate facts from assumptions and judgments to gain a clearer understanding of the conflict. The ladder of inference is a great tool for examining thoughts in this regard.
Find points of agreement: Identify areas of common ground between conflicting parties and build upon them.
Help people say 'yes' to each other early: Foster a cooperative mindset by highlighting positive aspects and mutual appreciation.
Avoid blame: Look beyond personal blame and focus on identifying underlying failures within systems, processes, and assumptions.
State needs clearly and personally: Encourage open and vulnerable communication about individual needs, framed in a personal context.
By implementing these principles, we create a rising tide within our teams - a culture of learning and growth that enables individuals to solve their own conflicts and become more self-sufficient. By adopting a "retro-coach-and-learn" approach, even for smaller incidents, we foster a habitual focus on learning and growth.
One additional point that’s worth mentioning is that as so many of us are working remotely, we’re also working predominantly asynchronously. In this environment, the majority of our conversations are written. Having any kind of disagreement in writing (over Slack etc) can feel super formal. The individual voicing their disagreement may feel like they need to have a fully fleshed out perspective before saying anything. This can lead to people burying their feelings. As a manager, to counteract this effect, it’s worthwhile to reinforce the idea that disagreeing is normal, healthy and often valuable. The best way to do this is by disagreeing early, often and in real-time (though of course, not arbitrarily).
As leaders, we have the power and the responsibility to shape our team's dynamics and create a positive work environment where conflicts are managed effectively. By defaulting to a coaching mindset and emphasizing the principles above, we can build teams that embrace conflict resolution and achieve greater things.
Does your team need more support and tooling in this area? Consider our Conflict Workshop.
Timely - thank you!