.jpg)
The Reload with Sean Hansen
The Reload with Sean Hansen
Mastering Team Conflict: Transforming Tension into Productivity - 216
Have you ever wondered why conflict within teams sometimes spirals out of control, while other times it propels the group to new heights of productivity? Join us on this episode of "The Reload" as we unpack the intricate dynamics of team conflict and reveal how to harness it for positive outcomes. You'll discover why highly intelligent team members often struggle with criticism and how posturing can derail crucial conversations. We stress the need for emotional awareness and provide actionable strategies to recognize and address toxic behaviors that can erode team cohesion.
As a leader navigating uncertainty and high-stakes discussions, how can you ensure your team thrives? We explore the impacts of various leadership styles on team culture, including the dangers of favoritism and the power of curiosity-driven questioning. Learn practical techniques for neutralizing destructive communication and fostering continuous improvement by challenging biases. Gain insights on reframing discussions, managing emotional topics, and leveraging Marshall Rosenberg's "Nonviolent Communication" to enhance team dialogue. Equip yourself with effective tools to cultivate a healthier, more productive team environment.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. All right, I'm going to have to make this a quick one today. Hopefully that is not offensive to you, but there have been a couple instances, I guess, over the years, where I've noticed that clients of mine have struggled with identifying the difference between constructive and destructive conflict on their teams. Now, whether that client is a CEO or a vice president or president or managing director, it doesn't really matter. But ultimately, this conversation entails how we begin to take a look at generation of idea or ideas, but doing is an understanding of the pitfalls that the team or the organization is prone to falling into, but not from the perspective of something that's punitive or retributive. And the reason I wanted to time this episode, I guess, when it's coming out is because last week's episode we talked a lot about conflict styles, and so I believe that these two conversations do go hand in hand, where is it that you understand how people engage in conflict, what is their natural predilection? But then also, as a group, or even if it's just a one-on-one conversation, how do you begin to recognize when you've wandered off into ineffective, unhealthy, destructive territory? So, to begin with, maybe let's take a look at what is conflict in the first place, and does it have to be unhealthy or destructive? Well, I think, based on you know a couple intro thoughts that I just gave, you're probably going to make the assumption correctly so that I don't believe that conflict has to be unhealthy or that it has to be destructive, unhealthy or that it has to be destructive. Ultimately, conflict is the tension between opposing ideas. But even with that, there's something that I think is worth taking a quick look at, and that is are the ideas actually opposing All too frequently, especially in team meetings, because one of the pitfalls of a team meeting is that it is a group setting and there's this interesting dynamic that comes forward in group settings, where we begin to posture and try to save face and we try to maintain status in front of the group, and oftentimes that status maintenance can really derail the efficacy of the conversation and you're very frequently not getting the same degree of status maintenance or posturing that you would get in a group setting in a one-on-one context.
Speaker 1:So, as a team leader, it's something to just bear in mind. I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other. I think it's different tools for different purposes, but something to keep in mind is okay. Yeah, like if you do notice that there is a fair amount of posturing happening in your team meetings, why is that and how might you better address that, culturally, you know? And what, as the team leader, do you have to foster in the team to ensure that they're not gaining or not gaining but they're not investing too many quote unquote calories into this posturing? And where do I stack in the status hierarchy? So that's like a little bit of a side note, but hopefully that's something that's worth paying attention to. So that's like a little bit of a side note, but hopefully that's something that's worth paying attention to.
Speaker 1:Now, looking at that tension of ideas, if they really are ideas that are in competition with one another, why is it so often that it becomes unhealthy? Well, what I've noticed over the years and I've noticed this in all sorts of different industries, I've noticed this at different levels. But all the clients that I work with are incredibly intelligent people and there's this foundational element that they really really, really smart people, really intelligent people. They unconsciously believe that their worth is their ideas. So when you begin to challenge a smart person's idea, it's not that you are just challenging the idea by itself, internal to their emotions, internal to their belief structure, you are actually challenging them, their worth. And it's interesting because you know these really smart people. They have, and I've mentioned this in other episodes generally their IQ is through the roof, but their self-awareness is often very limited, and part of that, I think, is because they tend to look at the world through intellectual terms only. You know, they're sort of neck up kind of people and as a result, they're not very tuned into their emotions, they have very low emotional literacy and thereby very low emotional awareness. And then, you know, generally they have a bit more intuition, or at least they're connected to their intuition a little bit more. But again, I think so much of this IQ is sort of clouding out or pushing out their ability to have more of that emotional awareness, and so challenging their idea is very often challenging them directly as opposed to being able to really see and feel comfortable with right. It's not just an intellectual endeavor, this is also emotional.
Speaker 1:How can I receive criticism? And I'm not going to like flower that up with, like, oh, it's constructive criticism. No, it's criticism, it's critical. Somebody is looking at what you put forward and poking holes in it, like that is what it is and it's okay. That is actually okay and in fact we should welcome it because it shows that people are actually switched on, paying attention and care enough to give us that criticism, because generally, if people don't care, then they're going to let you fall on your face and they're not going to go through the effort of saying well, you know, I think that this argument is weak or it doesn't seem like you've thought this through here, here and here, et cetera, et cetera. Now, clearly you have to distinguish that from somebody who is super toxic, does not know how to communicate effectively or in a healthy way with another human being and is just looking to rain on your parade. If that is who you're surrounded with, then I would suggest that maybe you get a new set of colleagues.
Speaker 1:But anyway, this notion that having our ideas criticized is not a bad thing is something that I believe is worth internalizing, and it's also very challenging, and I say so from my own perspective as well. It's hard because I also have some of that same tendency to look at my ideas as truly an extension of me and my self-worth, as opposed to recognizing okay, this is a thing that my brain, my intuition, my whatever, has somehow created that I think might be applicable for the circumstances that we're looking at. What do you all think? Nope, you all think that it sucks, or that it lacks development, or that it's not really fit for purpose, or whatever the criticism might be. Oh, okay, how do I divorce that or separate that from my personal sense of worth? It's hard, okay, it's hard, but if you want to have constructive, healthy conversations where you really truly can put ideas, concepts, into the arena and have them notionally combat one another, then the people who are submitting those ideas have to have some measure of separation of the idea from their self-worth.
Speaker 1:Now, why is it that this topic is something that so often comes up in my coaching? Well, from what I've been able to discern in team settings, it can be a very subtle shift into destructive or ineffective conflict. I don't know any team that sets out from the beginning to have a destructive conversation. I don't know any team that's like you know what. Today we're going to have a team meeting and we're going to just set out to start screaming at each other and to have these really vitriolic and toxic conversations. If you know a team that does that, I hope you're not on it.
Speaker 1:But in my experience, people come to the meeting wanting, at a foundational level, to have a productive meeting and to have good quote unquote good conversation about how to move an idea forward or a project or an initiative or the strategic direction of the company, whatever. So then the question becomes why so often does it like slip sideways? And part of it is the whole self-worth thing that I just talked about. But another part of this is that, for all of their good intentions, most executives do not adequately or appropriately prime their awareness before the meeting starts. They're usually trying to multitask, which is not a thing. Task switching is a thing, but just because multitasking is in common parlance, let's just use that for right now, even though it's not exactly an appropriate concept. Let's just use that for right now, even though it's not exactly an appropriate concept.
Speaker 1:But they are attempting let's put it that way to multitask all the way up to the beginning of the meeting, and so there's very often a collection of executives that have come into the meeting room who are already pretty ramped up from whatever other stressors they have, whether that's kids, spouse, parents, all that other junk, quote, unquote that happens in their personal life that they're expected to somehow magically just create some sort of boundary between that and when they walk in the door at the office and then add on top of that any other work stressors that may have hit their mobile device, their Apple Watch, their who knows, right before they walked in the meeting. And in some cases I've observed they receive that stuff in the meeting. So they're sitting there with their peers who collectively determine the strategic future of the company, and you can see the subtle glances at their Apple Watch or their phone or whatever while they're trying to have a productive conversation about the future of the company. It's like, how does that work, company? It's like, how does that work when you're receiving these inputs of stress? Does that not add to the tension that somebody's feeling? It seems to. I mean I could be wrong, right? I want to try to practice what I preach here and recognize yeah, okay, I'm, and I very likely am wrong in certain circumstances, but I have seen it often enough, observing team meetings, where somebody receives a notification and then you see this, this shift in the way that they respond to people, and it's oftentimes it's not blatant, it's not like oh, I just got a bad notification on my Apple watch, I'm going to start fighting everybody.
Speaker 1:Nobody says that, but the person becomes a bit more defensive. They become a bit more combative in conversation, they become a bit more recalcitrant. They begin to say things like well, I don't really understand where we're going here, and it's just these subtle cues and little ratchet steps of escalation. And as soon as one person starts to behave in a tenser or more defensive or more aggressive fashion, well, that creates ripples in the room. And then people respond to that and sometimes like, if you have, like, two fighters in the room based on, like last week's conflict style conversation, if you have two fighters in the room, well then you better start. You know, buckle up and get ready for fireworks, and you know, so on and so on with the other conflict styles works, and so on and so on with the other conflict styles.
Speaker 1:So I think it's useful to begin to recognize what are some of the things that we can do ahead of time so that we can prime our awareness to better see the potential for shift in the conversation, so that you don't get bogged down in destructive conflict, because the conflict of ideas or the competition of ideas perhaps in a healthier way, the competition of ideas can actually be really, really beneficial for any group, and in fact there's been no end of articles talking about the destructiveness of groupthink and ending up in your own echo chamber. And I've done previous episodes about how, when a team leader and especially if it's a CEO has a more aggressive and sort of attacking style of running a team, that they often do end up in echo chambers because people don't want to contribute anymore, they don't want to get their face bitten off, and so they just try to read whatever the team leader wants and then they try to say that whatever they think the team leader wants as much as possible and anything that might dissent they just don't voice. Now what are some things to pay attention to when it comes to things slipping sideways in a team meeting one is looking at well, maybe you're dealing with a certain person, maybe there's somebody or some buddies that you routinely interact with, and maybe you have them on your team, I don't know, but for whatever reason, that person is always difficult. You don't know a single objective instance where they have not been difficult, at least with you. So it can be useful to begin to ask, okay, like why might that be? And there's this expression in coaching that scared dogs bite, and I think it's a useful expression to keep in mind, because if you have somebody that's notionally biting, why, what are they scared of? And how might you provide more information or alter the way the interactions go such that those interactions are healthier and there's more discourse and less animosity and less um kind of blanking on other things that I would list here. But you get the idea, hopefully Additionally.
Speaker 1:Another sort of topic area when it comes to the way we can prime our awareness for things slipping sideways into destructive conflict is do you know in advance that you're going to be dealing with certain hot button issues? If you are, well, that's part of what you might prime with the conversation Before the team meeting starts. You might say okay, hey, we know that we're dealing with XYZ topic today and we know that it's a hot button issue. What can we do to make sure that we are keeping our cool a little bit better. What are some of these hot button issues?
Speaker 1:Well, in organizations, a lot of it is like when you are going to require more work hours of the people, or when there's going to be less pay for the people whether that's bonuses, pay raises what have you Anytime you're taking away responsibility or authority from somebody. And sort of dovetailed in there is who reports to whom, and this, I think, primarily deals with the CEO, because oftentimes who reports to the CEO really says a lot inside of an organization and what the organization cares about. But it can also be dotted line arrangements, because eventually if the resource quote unquote, it is a human, but if the resource is being stretched too thin across parallel dotted line reporting lines, well then that creates real frustration for the individual and they usually start to voice that frustration to their supervisors and then it sort of works its way upward, depending on how influential that role is, and so that can become an issue in and of itself. Speaking of resources or people, you know the adding or removing or reallocating of headcount, and that is can be a real contentious issue. On teams Generally, any issue dealing with uncertain futures, that's a pretty broad topic, but oftentimes things that relate to the strategic direction of the company can be fraught with in certain instances, unhealthy or destructive conflict.
Speaker 1:Why? Because it's an uncertain future and human beings are very often afraid of the future because we don't know what's going to happen and we associate our future well-being with our ability to predict an unknowable future. That's pretty tough, it's a high bar, and if you're the leader of a company or one of a group of leaders of a company or any organization, well, that's part of the gig is trying to understand okay, we don't know, but we're going to make our best guess. But that comes with a certain amount of uncertainty and again, that can be something that you prime ahead of time of the conversation is to say, okay, we know that we're going to be talking about something that we cannot with certainty answer. How do we steady ourselves, how do we root ourselves in the fact that we are trying to do our best to see the most likely applicable factors that are going to impact our analysis the most and simultaneously give ourselves some grace that we will not be able to see everything and that quite likely, we are going to make some mistakes here and we'll have to pivot in some way. Can we be okay with that? Can we give ourselves a little bit of grace going into the conversation so that it doesn't feel quite so high stakes, so that we don't get quite so ramped up and that hopefully we have a better conversation for it? And then, of course, the catch-all. You know any issues that are specific to your organization that you've noticed over time tend to result in unhealthy conflict, and what those are, I have no idea, but every organization seems to have their special batch of stuff that whenever they get into this topic, things always turn out sideways.
Speaker 1:Another category to look at is a culture that you've created if you're the team leader and especially if you're the CEO. So, for instance, as the team leader, have you created, intentionally or otherwise, a culture where you interrogate people instead of coming from a place of curiosity? And you might be wondering well, okay, what's the difference there? Well, yes, in both cases you might be asking questions, but when somebody is coming from a place of interrogation, there's a certain biting quality. Maybe it's the tone of voice that's sharp and pointed, maybe it's this kind of staccato rhythm of question after question after question, and it's mirrored with a facial expression that people have learned to associate with you being unhappy in front of their peers, whether that is having certain projects projects, excuse me taken away from them and reassigned to another executive in front of everyone, which is, you know, basically another form of dressing somebody down.
Speaker 1:You know, how is it that you have gone from this kind of and what about this, and what about this and what about this, and how can you move that into a place of actual curiosity? Hey, what's going on with this? Can you tell me more about this? I'm not quite clear. Can you help me better understand? And so much of it is tone of voice and the carriage of your physical self, like how are you presenting yourself? Is your face open or is it all tight and scrunched up? And these little details tend to matter, especially when you're the CEO and everybody's staring at you, trying to read what you favor and what you disfavor.
Speaker 1:Instance here, when it comes to culture that you might have created, is have you shown favoritism such that your team members try to win an argument amongst themselves in order to impress you, to win your favor, instead of fully fleshing out the merits of one position versus another, the merits of one position versus another. And where is it that the culture inside the team is that you know, a certain executive champions an idea or a position and again it goes back to what I was saying earlier about their self-worth is connected to their idea. When I was in law school, we had to argue both sides of an issue, so you would draft a brief as to why side A should win and then, as soon as you got done, convincing yourself that side A really should win, the professors would then have you write another brief saying why side B should win, and it's amazing how that process really helps. You begin to see. Oh huh, you know, these positions have pros and cons.
Speaker 1:Now, there may be circumstances where there is one that is truly superior, but oftentimes it's not, and the goodness or badness of an idea is largely based on whether you originated it and therefore have a sense of investment in it, or whether it's the idea you came to first. Oftentimes, that tends to derail conversations in teams is well, this is what we proposed first and we all. There's like a bit of an endowment effect. A endowment effect, excuse me, so that's another piece is, you know, sometimes like team leaders will have members of their team argue for the opposing position, and I'm not saying that your team members are going to enjoy that. They usually don't, especially if it's something that's never been done before on the team, but it can help. It can help people recognize like, oh, hmm, yeah, maybe there is merit to this other idea that I've been shooting down because it's not my idea.
Speaker 1:Now, speaking of language, does the team entrench on language such as good and bad? The team entrench on language such as good and bad versus again exploring the pros and cons of one position versus another? Are they able to take more of a scientific approach, if you will, instead of bringing in some of these pejorative values in some of these pejorative values oh no, we don't do that because that's bad or that's not us, that's not what we stand for Instead of trying to look at really truly what are the pros and cons and coming at it from a more neutral and analytical perspective? Another ticket item here is does your team have a habit of challenging its perceptions and looking for what biases might be going unchallenged, whether that's individually, collectively, organizationally, and how might you create a culture over time of people challenging their own perceptions? Part of that is to ask the question hey, what are we not seeing here? If all heads are nodding in agreement, is it really truly because that's a great idea, or is it because we haven't thought deeply enough about it? Now, I recognize that in very busy organizations which all of them are everyone likes to think they're the busiest, but you're all busy, I get it. Now I recognize that in very busy organizations which all of them are, everyone likes to think they're the busiest, but you're all busy, I get it. There can sometimes be a tendency for analysis, paralysis, and so I think it is healthy most of the time to have some sort of cap.
Speaker 1:On how long are we going to look at this? You know this notion that done is better than perfect. Well, certain instances, perfect is perfect, and that's the standard that has to be maintained, because if it's not perfect, it can I don't know send people to jail or sink the company or whatever. But I would argue that, from what at least my clients have told me in retrospect, a lot of the decisions that they thought had to be absolutely perfect turned out to be yeah, that could have fit in the done was better than perfect category. But in either case, whether it's simply at an individual level or whether it is something that is demonstrated in some sort of collective. How do you begin to ask yourself is there something that we're not seeing because we're just so happy with this idea? Is there any bias that we feel like we're not addressing?
Speaker 1:One other way to begin to be aware that the meeting is slipping sideways into the realm of destructiveness is language indicators. Where do you start to notice that there are more blaming words, whether we're starting to use the word fault or I blame, blah, blah, blah instead of language that focuses on taking responsibility and I've done an episode just purely on responsibility versus fault in the past, so I'm not going to rehash that here, but as just a very quick reference, blame is very retrospective, but by the time you are talking about the thing that is blameworthy, it is past. But by the time you are talking about the thing that is blameworthy, it is past, and looking backwards doesn't necessarily help you in trying to understand how to do it better in the future. The language of responsibility invites people to recognize how are we going to do this better tomorrow and what is my part in that? How do I facilitate or add to doing it better tomorrow?
Speaker 1:Another language indicator is ad hominem attacks instead of focusing on the issue. And here sort of related is patterning language, the issue of you always and you never. So we have initially an individual instance of some perceived transgression of some sort, and then where is it that the person that is assigning blame starts to pattern the other person, and then where does it shift into? Well, you never do this, or you always do this. And then from there it can very easily shift into those ad hominem attacks You're a bad person, you're a slacker, you're lazy, you're not a good team member. And then it sort of goes into capstone territory of assigning motive Not only are you a bad person, you're a jerk, you're a bad team member, you're lazy, you're a strap hanger, you're whatever but that you mean to be that way. You're trying to hold us back, you're trying to be destructive. Is that really true? There are, very well maybe, instances where it is true, but are those instances rare? I would hope that they are, but if you begin to notice that that language is creeping into the conversation, yeah, chances are that you've already slipped sideways.
Speaker 1:So what are some options? Well, I think, as I've talked about already, preface the hot button issues with framing. Also, don't be afraid to take breaks in the conversation, especially if you notice that things are starting to get a little heated and that you again might have to preface the next installment of the meeting, and whether that's like a few days later or a few minutes from now. Okay, hey, clearly we have some passion around this concept or this topic and I recognize that we're trying to get to the bottom of what the merits are. How can we make sure that we stay focused on the merits? How can we have a more analytical approach to the pros and cons? How do we have less individual sense of ownership in terms of it's our own sense of worth that's being debated here and not simply the idea?
Speaker 1:As we go into the next segment of this meeting, and when people take the break, I would say don't have them hop immediately on their email, because so often their email is a source of stress and it's just going to ramp them up further. Now, obviously, people are going to do what they're going to do, but I'm just trying to suggest some better practices. Also, recognize that it may take several conversations to get through difficult topics and in fact, it most likely will take several conversations. We'll take several conversations, because if you're talking about something that's uncomfortable for a person, there's a lot of emotional barriers or guardrails that you're going to have to navigate and that person is also going to have to navigate because they're emotionally uncomfortable with a certain topic and they are going to have to come to grips with that discomfort, in some cases maybe processing it, so they can truly let it go. So it's not an issue anymore. In other cases, recognizing, okay, I'm going to continue to be uncomfortable about this, but I am, for the greater good, willing to pull back my resistance and I'm going to press the I believe button and I'm going to go along with this or whatever. I don't know, but it's quite likely going to take several conversations.
Speaker 1:Another option here is do your best to try to understand where the other person is coming from and hopefully the other party is also doing the same thing for you. And if you want a book recommendation, it's the same book that I. And if you want a book recommendation, it's the same book that I always seem to recommend when it comes to communication and that is Nonviolent Communication by, I believe, marshall Rosenberg, and that book really helps people understand sort of the mechanics of how do I speak in conversation with somebody in a way that helps me recognize what they are actually trying to say, as opposed to me slathering them with my own judgments about their motives and their intentions, but really staying curious, truly curious, and not simply waiting for your turn to talk or your turn to assign them their perspective. One tactical thing that you can do is have someone, perhaps an executive assistant, watching for blame, slash, fault language and ad hominem attacks to help the group realize when the conversation has slipped, and then maybe that's a good time to take a break and then to come back in with a reframe and say, hey, okay, you know, we let ourselves go. How are we going to get back on track?
Speaker 1:And then every individual should be able to learn their own bodily and emotional signs and symptoms. For when their wise, rational adult has left the conversation and what is driving the bus is the adaptive child that can barely see over the steering wheel and is somehow trying to navigate the bus. That is not the individual that you want driving. You want the wise, rational adult driving. So how do you get that back? More importantly, how do you know when the wise, rational adult is at risk of being kicked out of the driver's seat by the adaptive child and looking at your own bodily responses, do you start to get tight in your jaw, do you start to furrow your brow, do you start to notice your shoulders coming up, do you notice you're clenching your fists, or maybe you have your ankles crossed, but in a really tight way, or you notice your voice starting to deepen or to rise.
Speaker 1:Perhaps that was almost embarrassing, but yeah, I mean our vocal cords go through different shifts when we are perceiving stress, through different shifts when we are perceiving stress and just like if you watch animals when they're getting ready to square off and get into a fight, they don't sound the same and they don't look the same. They posture, their fur starts to stand on end, they get big. And I'm not saying that humans are going to do exactly the same thing, but we actually physically do have a lot of the same instinctive or reactive responses when we are starting to get into that fight or flight mode and over time you can recognize even more subtle signs and indicators that you're headed on that path. Argue that that is actually more fruitful and productive because once your hair is already standing, your fur quote, unquote is already on end standing on end. It's generally too late because you're already triggered and it's the precursor signs and symptoms that help you recognize.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm getting on a slippery slope here. And even if you're not the team leader in a meeting, you know, can you ask to say hey, is it cool if we take a break? Because oftentimes, if you're starting to recognize that you're on a slippery slope of agitation, it's quite possible that other people are as well. And giving everybody a chance to kind of take a step out of the room, maybe actually get some fresh air, you know, step out of the building and just okay, what's going on in there? And maybe you notice that you're starting to think in your mind some ad hominem attacks oh, that's Sally. That's Sally.
Speaker 1:She's always trying to undermine me. Why is she always doing this? And if you notice always slipping into your language, you are, you are on the slippery slope and challenge that. Does she always do that? Is that really true? Does anybody always or never do the same thing? I don't know any humans that are that consistent. And what if I'm wrong in my interpretation? What if she's not actually trying to undermine me? What if her criticisms of my ideas are actually her showing investment in trying to make the idea better so that we as a team can succeed. Wouldn't that be a novel idea, just for example? Anyway, I gotta go. So hopefully you enjoyed this and hopefully it amplified some of the concepts that we talked about last week. If you are enjoying the show, I would love it if you would do the internet-y things like subscribe, follow, share, definitely share, or don't totally up to you, but it'd be awesome if you shared. Until next time, take care of each other.
