Humans tend to dislike conflict. True, some people don’t shy away from ‘having words’ with each other, but we don’t meet many who actually enjoy it. Conflict in teams usually happens when trying to progress a project or deliver a strategy and people disagree on how things should be done. It makes life difficult and progress slow. Most of us really don’t want to work in a team that can’t see each other’s viewpoints and argues all the time. And most of us don’t want to be the one who disagrees, even if that is truly what we need to do to make progress happen.
It’s an interesting dynamic. Conventionally, we keep quiet when we have a valuable point to make that we know may cause a disagreement resulting in conflict. This is because the status quo is far more comfortable than being the one who causes problems. The very idea of creating an argument stops us from speaking out. It doesn’t, however, stop us from thinking that our ideas are right. So, instead of offering up our thoughts to the whole team in our team meetings, we may take tactics that include approaching our team mates as individuals, outside of our meetings to try to enrol them in our ideas in a quiet way. We may secretly hope that somehow this will reach a critical mass and our idea will be taken on board without conflict. Quietly attempting to get strength in numbers by divide and conquer is a primitive tactic. A survival technique, if you will.
It’s not helpful.
The thing is, if we want to achieve breakthrough results. Results that exceed our usual stretch targets and are not predictable and based on the past, we mustbe able to disagree. Openly and confidently.
Instead of guerrilla tactics, we recommend a conscious practice that helps us share our differing opinions in any situation, have useful conversations and achieve progress.
So how do we do it? How do we master the art of productive disagreement?
Firstly, we must be prepared to shift how we think about what disagreements mean. We often see them as negative experiences. We can take disagreements personally and interpret them as an attack on us. We can feel vulnerable and unsupported. This interpretation can result in our feeling defensive and speaking in a defensive or aggressive way when trying to get our point across. People in our team see us doing this and react in the same way. Conflict ensues. If we can accept that the opposing point of view has nothing to do with us on a personal level our reaction to what we hear changes. We start to be able to recognise disagreement as the sharing of possibilities or even concerns. The likelihood of conflict reduces.
Secondly, once we have shifted our relationship to disagreement and we see it as a more positive experience, we need to get good, really good, at listening! Once we listen, not for being attacked, but with a genuine curiosity, we can hear the proposals of others and ask questions to find out what the source of any disagreement is. For example, it may be that someone is very committed to a particular way of doing things and would disagree with any different idea because of a series of concerns. Often once these are addressed, the disagreement disappears.
Finally, we can opt for a different outcome. We can choose to hear the ideas of others and go for alignment rather than agreement. This simply means that everyone that has an idea has the ability to publicly propose it. This prevents us from having very positional talks based on who has ‘the right’ answer or idea as it creates space for all ideas to be heard. The result is that the team are in an informed place and have chosen to align behind (not agree with, but not oppose) a course of action on the grounds that it will be beneficial to progress and achievement. To do this effectively, ideally you will seek alignment in structured conversations managed by a facilitator, so personal opinion is not the main driver for questions or responses, it also removes the possibility of those involved feeling under personal attack. Conflict averted!