Why Conflict at Work is a Good Thing

 

When Gabriel visited headquarters from his Milwaukee office, everything seemed great. Members of the team welcomed him warmly, invited him to lunch, and had his workstation set up. Gabriel would be there for a week to transition the team to a new software platform to track their hours, request vacation days, check benefits, find employee discounts, and access health coach advice.

By the time Gabriel finished onboarding the whole team, the “great” office seemed anything but.

He noticed the unusual team dynamics right away, after choosing Jackie, the executive assistant, to go first.

She was nervous from the start, asking if he was sure she should be the first one. Her anxiety made it hard for her to concentrate and the meeting took much longer than expected. Soon he learned why, when he had the operations manager, Evan, on deck. Evan made two comments about the fact that the executive assistant was first, instead of him. Gabriel was confused—did he do something wrong?

When it was Shayda’s turn the next day, she barely spoke. Instead she sat silently with her arms crossed with an air of annoyance. What Gabriel didn’t know was that Shayda had wanted to be trained on the first day so she could leave early for volunteer orientation at the women’s shelter. No one informed him of this, so he went ahead with his training in a room so tense that the air could be cut with a knife.

On Friday, Gabriel joined the team weekly meeting, to be available in case there were any questions about the platform. The meeting took two hours, and only a few people talked, not acknowledging anyone else’s comments. In fact, Evan was constantly asserting his authority, saying things like, “I’m the one who makes the decisions here,” and “Don’t waste my time with ideas I already told you won’t work.”

There was no energy in the room, the topics covered were shallow and boring, and amazingly—after two hours—absolutely nothing was accomplished. No problems were solved and no decisions made. Gabriel walked out wondering what was the point of that meeting and what is wrong with this team?

What is Wrong With This Team?

Gabriel felt mired in conflict. Yet the conflict was completely unspoken. During his time there, he never heard a single confrontation out in the open. Yet it was obvious conflict was buried under the surface. If they aren’t willing to bring their perspectives or ideas to the table (unless they already know everyone agrees), how will this conflict ever be resolved? It was undermining all of their progress, and killing morale. He was excited to get back to his office, where sometimes the discussions were difficult, yet their relationships were a lot easier and certainly more productive.

Conflict is a tricky thing. When you boil it down, conflict is just when one person’s wishes and desires are different from another person’s.  It’s the emotions that conflict evokes that can make situations seem explosive and make people uncomfortable, since conflict is often associated with “being in trouble”. The idea of conflict can bring up feelings of defensiveness, anxiety, anger, guilt, fear and more. For that reason, it is often avoided at all costs.

The reality is, productive ideological conflict is a good thing, and avoiding it in attempt to preserve a false impression of harmony can backfire. Just look at Gabriel’s experience…

So let’s talk about the importance of conflict, what teams that welcome and avoid conflict look like, and how we can start embracing conflict in our own teams starting today.

Great Teams Welcome Conflict

CPP Global’s Human Capital Report on workplace conflict shows the positive outcomes reported by those who experienced workplace conflict.

·         41% of respondents report better understanding of others

·         33% experienced improved working relationships

·         29% found a better solution to a problem or challenge

·         21% saw higher performance in the team

·         18% felt increased motivation

 

Teams That Welcome Conflict, and Teams Who Do Not: What Do They Look Like?

 

That study is clear—conflict is good for teams. But what does it look like? Here is a snapshot of what teams who don’t welcome conflict look like, compared to teams that do.

Teams That Don’t Welcome Conflict

·         Create a culture where back-channel politics and personal attacks thrive

·         Have boring meetings

·         Ignore topics that are important for success, but are controversial

·         Waste time and energy with posturing

Teams That Welcome Conflict

·         Take and use the ideas of all team members

·         Have energetic, interesting meetings

·         Quickly solve real problems

·         Minimize politics

·         Do not fear putting critical topics on the table for discussion

What Happened When the NBA Avoided Conflict

Looking at sports teams is a great place to learn about teamwork. Yet in this scenario, the NBA isn’t showing us how to be an awesome team—it’s showing us just what avoiding conflict can do.

It was not a secret among the inner circles of the basketball world that Donald Sterling, L.A. Clippers owner at the time, had potential to create PR catastrophes. One example would be his prior multi-million dollar lawsuit with the Department of Justice for driving minorities out of his apartment buildings. Yet even the NBA commissioner pushed Sterling’s problematic issues under the carpet. Why? In order to avoid conflict.

This blew up in their face in April of 2014, when a recording of Sterling making racist statements about players was made public causing NBA unrest, threatened boycott, and a PR disaster.

Sound familiar?

Does avoiding conflict sound familiar to you? Maybe you notice your team is not making progress, or you feel that politics trump all initiatives at work. Or maybe it’s you who is avoiding conflict, harboring resentment for your team, and not reaching your potential. Here are some tips for welcoming conflict at work.

Three Tips for Welcoming Conflict at Work

1. Remember Everyone’s Opinions Matter

·         Everyone on the team should be able to express their opinions without the fear of retribution

2. Move Away From Finger Pointing

·         Work toward perceiving, understanding and respecting where others are coming from

3. Appreciate that Workplace Conflict is Inevitable

·         Disagreements at work are a given; avoiding them won’t make them go away

·         Don’t hit the roof when you realize the team isn’t working well together; accept it

·         Remove yourself from the situation and analyze how this conflict might benefit the team

 

So let’s go back to Gabriel’s experience where back channel politics plagued the office. The executive assistant was a distracted, nervous wreck knowing that she was seen as “below” the operations manager, yet had been taken to the onboarding session first. And she was right; Evan was fuming because he wasn’t able to assert his superiority by being chosen first. This anxiety-inducing dynamic will continue to exist unless one of them is willing to address the conflict, or one of them leaves the organization.

Shayda also chose not to cause a conflict by asserting that she needed to leave for volunteer orientation at the women’s shelter. Instead, she was tense, miserable and resentful. If she didn’t fear conflict, she would have made her request known, and probably had the opportunity to go to orientation.

The meeting Gabriel joined was also an example of a team that avoids conflict. Nothing got accomplished because no one was comfortable speaking up to share their ideas. And Evan was so busy asserting his authority that he wouldn’t take advantage of the skills and creativity of his teammates. This constant assertion of dominance, coupled with the stagnating results of those avoiding any type of conflict, led to a pointless meeting that nearly put Gabriel to sleep.

Imagine how lively the meeting would be if people were willing to cause potential conflicts in order to solve problems, share ideas, and get things done? Their progress was and will continue to be stunted unless they stop avoiding a perfectly normal byproduct of teamwork—conflict.

How do you feel about conflict at work? Do you face it head on or avoid it? If you avoid it, what makes you the most uncomfortable about conflict?

 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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Why Accountability is a Must For Teamwork and How To Create It

 

“Courtney really gets on my nerves,” Mario said to his coworker Amira. The two were sitting in the commissary, trays of food in front of them, ready to eat lunch.

“She has to be ‘miss perfect’ and flaunt finishing her projects,” Mario continued. “Yet getting her work done before everyone else doesn’t satisfy her—she continually asks other people if they’ve finished their projects yet. It’s like she wants to toss us under the bus every chance she gets.”

“She’s obviously maneuvering for a promotion. Hopefully, she’ll get it soon and we can work in peace,” Amira replied. The two began to eat their lunch, Mario wearing an expression of agitation, and Amira simply looking disinterested.

“Ravi on the other hand does absolutely nothing,” said Mario with a sigh.

“I can’t believe Tanya hasn’t said anything to him, even after he missed the RFP deadline. What kind of manager is she? I wish she’d crack down on him,” responded Amira now wearing Mario’s look of agitation on her face.

“Have you finished updating the client files?” Mario asked Amira.

“Not yet,” she replied. “Have you finished the research you were working on?”

“Not yet,” Mario said, bored at the thought of the research. “It will get done eventually.”

“Yeah, we finish when we finish,” Amira said as she stood up with her tray, headed to the trash bin, and prepared herself to get back to work.

Back in the office, Tanya, the team manager, is frustrated. Only one person on her team, Courtney, actually meets deadlines. And now the department head is coming down on her, accusing her of not managing her team properly. How can she get her team to get their work done?

Let’s start by identifying the major problem that is affecting the productivity of this team: lack of accountability.

This Team Has a Problem: Lack of Accountability

The business dictionary defines accountability as “the obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and disclose the results in a transparent manner.” It’s simple: to be accountable to a team, a person needs to be clear about what they plan to do, execute on that thing, and let the team know when it’s done.

But when it comes to teams, accountability must go both ways. For a team to function well, an individual is not only obligated to be accountable, they need to hold their coworkers accountable too. That means consistently asking for updates on clearly defined goals, and openly sharing their own updates. Yet holding others accountable is difficult because it can cause interpersonal discomfort. Patrick Lencioni writes, “Once we achieve clarity and buy-in, it is then that we have to hold each other accountable for what we sign up to do, for high standards of performance and behavior. And as simple as that sounds, most executives hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer’s behavior.”

In the team above, Courtney is the only one holding herself and others accountable. And she is definitely facing interpersonal discomfort.

The Facts About Accountability in Business

Although being accountable is vital to teamwork, organizations across industries struggle with accountability. Take a look at these statistics:

·         93% of employees don’t really understand what their organization is trying to accomplish in order to align with their own work.

·         85% of leaders aren’t defining what their people should be working on — and an equal number of employees crave clarity.

·         84% of the workforce describes itself as “trying but failing” or “avoiding” accountability, even when employees know what to fix.

·         80% of people see accountability as punishing

These are not small numbers! It looks like many organizations could use a lesson in accountability. Let’s take a look at what teams that hold each other as accountable look like, versus teams that do not.

Accountable Teams and Unaccountable Teams: What do they look like?

Teams That Are Not Accountable

·         Create resentment among team members who have different standards of performance

·         Encourage mediocrity

·         Miss deadlines

·         Put disproportionate pressure on leaders to discipline

Teams That Are Accountable

·         Make sure poor performers feel pressure to improve

·         Identify problems quickly by questioning one another

·         Establish respect among team members who are held to same high standards

·         Avoid excessive bureaucracy around management and corrective actions

For a real-world example of the problems that come from unaccountable teams, let’s visit the coffeehouse giant, Starbucks.

What Starbucks Can Teach Us About Accountability

During the economic slowdown of 2008, Starbucks took a hit—600 stores closed and profit fell 28%. Leadership during that time blamed the economy and increased price of dairy for the slump. That was until Howard D. Shultz came back as CEO after leaving eight years prior. He held leadership accountable rather than blaming things that can’t be controlled, like the economy and dairy prices. He said, “Starbucks’s heavy spending to accommodate its expansion has created a bureaucracy that masked its problems.”

His solution? To create a strategy that developed brand trust. The initiative, called “My Starbucks Idea,” created a way for customers to share ideas directly with the company and with each other. After 1.3 million users on social media shared 93 million ideas, the program was a success and Starbucks pulled out of its slump. Had Shultz not held the company accountable, it’s unlikely the leadership team would have solved the problem.

So what can you do if you find yourself on a team that is not accountable and Howard Shultz isn’t around? Try these three tips:

Tips For Creating Accountability

1. Set Team Goals and Team Rewards

·         People are less likely to watch someone fail if the entire team is at stake

·         The enemy of accountability is ambiguity

2. Ask Questions, Stress Inquiry

·         Agree on goals and then conduct inquiry-oriented dialogue. Questions help people deconstruct the details and try alternatives without being defensive

3. Break goals into specific elements

·         Analyze the details that accumulate to produce either success or failure

·         This makes it easier to identify specific steps for improvement

·         It gives people pride in the elements that went well

·         Helping the team see strengths and weaknesses holds others accountable to improvement

Going back to Mario, Amira, Ravi, Tanya, and Courtney’s team, we can see clear signs of a lack of accountability. Mario and Amira resent Courtney for having a different standard of performance. They even encourage each other’s mediocrity with statements like, “we finish when we finish.” The two blame their manager, Tanya, for Ravi’s missed deadline, expecting her to discipline rather than holding their team accountable. And from what Tanya says, the team misses deadlines all the time.

What if they were more accountable? Mario, Amira, and Ravi would feel pressure from the team to improve. They’d identify what stood in their way by asking questions and resolving problems quickly. They’d even strip some of the bureaucracy away, by not relying on management’s use discipline to get things done. All of this would help establish respect among the team, which would now be holding each other to higher standards. And what do higher standards mean? Better performance.

Have you ever worked on a team that lacked accountability? What was it like? I’d love to hear about it.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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How To Influence Others Without Authority

 

Have you ever tried asking for support from someone who is not interested in helping you? Or maybe you have an idea that you’re sure will take your team to the next level, but you can’t get anyone on board? These are common frustrations in the workplace… maybe even at home!

When you don’t have authority over others, it can be difficult to get them to help you or take your ideas seriously. But you’re not out of the weeds even if you do have authority! According to Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford, authors of “Influence Without Authority,” having authority can actually present problems. Why? Because it doesn’t always mean people will follow and support you. Instead, authority can create fear, and can potentially motivate people for the wrong reasons.

The common denominator here is the impact that authority has on influence. Learning to influence without authority is vital for both those who don’t have any, and those that do. So how do you do it? That’s is where the Cohen-Bradford Influence Model comes in.

The Influence Model: Six Steps

The Influence Model, also known as the Cohen-Bradford Influence Model, was created by Allan R. Cohen and David L. Bradford. It consists of six steps. Let’s take a look at each step, and then go through an example in detail.

Here are the 6 steps to the Cohen-Bradford Influence Model:

1.       Assume That Everyone Can Help You

Keep in mind that every single person around you has something unique to bring to the table and could be a great ally. Give everybody a fair chance to prove their value including the most challenging person in the room. Always take the first step to trust the people around you.

2.       Prioritize Objectives

You have to stay focused and remember the very reason why you want to influence these people. What is the benefit of having these people on your side? What is your ultimate goal?

Stay on track and do not confuse your work goal with your personal feelings or motives. Strong emotions such as wanting to “be right” can easily take over and distract you away from what is important, so remain focused on your work goal.

3.       Understand the Other Person’s Situation

Understanding where the other person is coming from is the key in identifying what drives them. Listening to what they have to say will not only make you understand where they are coming from but most importantly, where they would like to go from there.

4.       Identify What Matters, to You and to Them

If you take your time hearing the other person, you will understand exactly what is truly important to them; knowing what he or she values most is likely to be the determining factor in this model.

5.       Analyze the Relationship

Ask yourself: What kind of relationship do you share with this person at this time? Are you comfortable enough to ask what you need from him or her?

If you’re still at the early stage of your relationship, you may need to start by establishing trust and then start building up your relationship from there before you make the “exchange”, which is the final step.

Develop your communication skills by paying attention and using active listening techniques during conversations. Use your emotional intelligence and consider what each person is feeling.

6.       Make the “Exchange”

It’s time to put the model to work. Establish what you have to offer that is valuable to your ally and then make “the exchange”.

Remember to keep building your relationship with mutual respect for each other. Stay engaged by continuously trusting, understanding, and empathizing with the other person. Make sure to show how thankful you are and always look for more ways on how you can help them.

Check out this video for even more insight into the Influence Model

 

Now let’s take a look at an example.

Here is an example…

An Example of Influencing Without Authority 

Jay has been assigned as lead for a cross functional team to develop a new organizational strategic plan. Each team member works in a different area of the company and comes to the team with their own expertise. They’ve been selected to collaborate and come up with a new strategic plan in a short amount of time.

Since this special task is outside of everyone’s primary duties, Jay finds it hard to schedule a time that would fit everyone. Mike, in particular, is currently working extra hours and therefore delaying the team’s progress. So, Jay applies the Influence Model:

1.       Assume That Everyone Can Help You

Jay recognizes that everybody has something valuable to offer; the first task for Jay is to hear what everyone has to say. Mike is not able to attend the meetings due to his heavy workload because he’s short-staffed.

2.       Prioritize Objectives

Jay’s objective is to create the best possible strategic plan while utilizing input from all of his teammates. Mike has the expertise Jay needs to make sure that their new strategic plan meets all requirements. 

 

3.       Understand the Other Person’s Situation

Jay can empathize with Mike. He knows that Mike’s been working extra hours because they are short staffed and that Mike values whatever little time that is left for him to catch up with his family.

Jay knows the mental and physical stress of how Mike’s work schedule is impacting him. As a result, even though Mike understands that importance of this special project that he was assigned to be a part of, he is not happy giving up more of his personal time to work.

4.       Identify What Matters; to You and to Them

Jay knows that Mike is passionate about his field of work, is a great asset to the company, and has much to contribute to the strategic direction of the company. Jay has heard Mike is in the process of hiring a new person to share the workload with him, which would allow him to go back to his normal schedule and free up time to support the strategic plan development project. If only he could find time to go through the applications that he has on hand, to expedite the hiring process.

5.       Analyze the Relationship

Jay and Mike don’t see each other often since they work in different buildings but they know each other enough to know they are both from the west coast and share a love for college sports.

6.       Make the “Exchange”

Jay decides that it’s time to make his exchange. Jay will offer Mike his assistance in interviewing candidates to help expedite the hiring process. In return, Jay will ask for half a day of Mike’s time to catch up on what he’s missed so far in the strategic plan development, then participate regularly in the team meetings.

Mike was surprised to hear Jay’s offer, but he accepts without any hesitations. Jay showed his appreciation by showing up early and took his time by going through each and every applicant seriously. Mike in return showed up early the next day to help Jay; the two came up with Mike’s strategic plan input faster than they both expected. Jay then showed his gratitude by buying Mike a craft beer from the west coast.

The next time you want to influence others, give these six steps a try. You may find that influencing isn’t as hard as you think! I have a bonus tip for you as well: Be sure to use your EQ. Here’s what I mean.

What challenges have you run into when attempting to influence others? I’d love to troubleshoot with you.

 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

 

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