Conflict After Conflict

One of the hardest things any team or organizations can do is learn to have healthy disagreements after a history of unhealthy ones.

I’ve watched, and tried to help, several leadership teams work through deep seated conflict and unhealthy interpersonal dynamics. It’s difficult, costly in several ways, and usually leaves some scars on those who remain.

Getting through a season of high tension is exhausting. Even the people who highly value frankness and disagreement usually find themselves worn out; and it’s understandable that no one wants to go back into that kind of conflict.

So it’s not surprising that the remarkable relief that comes after the storm clouds pass feels like something we really want to maintain.

The danger, of course, is that we revert to the cheerful niceness and conflict avoidance of a less developed team (See the Tuckman model). When we’re still healing our woods from past battles it’s very appealing to just be pleasant and agreeable.

But that limits our effectiveness.

Instead, we need to learn to practice healthy conflict, which doesn’t come easily.

It takes courage, risk, and some vulnerability to apply the principles well described in resources like Crucial Conversations, Fierce Conversations, Dare To Lead, or Radical Candor. (All of these are valuable approaches. Pick whichever one seems right to you, it’s the practice of the principles that matters.)

Whatever model or theory you use, the precondition is trust.

Every advancement towards healthier culture requires, and develops, growing trust. And that may take time; but it doesn’t happen by avoiding conflict.

I’m working now with several leadership teams who are still dealing with the lasting effects of some serious interpersonal conflict. They still have some sore spots and are cautious about the risks of surfacing some buried tensions or opening new areas of disagreement. They don’t want to get hurt again. And I get it.

Rushing into challenging matters when there isn’t enough trust in place isn’t wise. But neither is deciding to never deal with the hard stuff.

Instead, we work intentionally on building trust (in both character and competence) between people and actively practice healthy conflict behaviours so when we really need them, we have the skills and experience ready.

We can’t always choose when we’ll have tension or how it will surface, but we can commit to developing the patterns we need to handle it well.

Contact me if I can be helpful to you and/or your organization.

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