Perhaps they wield power over you without any logic whatsoever.

Possibly they have never produced a good idea in their entire life.

Regardless, most all of us have had to deal with “coworker conflict.”  A study reported in a recent article in Harvard Business Review found that 94% of those surveyed had worked with a “toxic” person in the past five years.  Yikes!

So what should we do when we encounter coworker conflict?

Here are some suggestions from that HBR article.  None of these are magic, but they are a good place to start.

1.  Remember that your perspective is just one among many.  And maybe this is actually the time that someone else’s perspective will be more helpful to the team.  Keep open to that possibility.

2.  Be aware of your biases.  There are a wide variety of reasons that you may have an unconscious bias for a person or their viewpoints.  This is true of each of us.  Remember this and be suspicious of your own certainty that your perspective is pure and rational.

3.  Don’t make it “Me Against Them.”  They probably are not out to get you and this is probably not personal.  Don’t escalate it to that point.  Do your best to think of your coworker as a colleague.

4.  Know your goal.  Focus on the most important goal of the matter you are discussing.  Think long term about what is in the best interest of the organization.

5.  Avoid venting and gossip.  If you have one or two trusted colleagues at work, then it is fine – even good – to vent with them and get it out.  But – do not do this with many people and absolutely do not spread gossip about others.

6.  Experiment to find what works.  Treat your ideas and those of your colleagues (even the person who always has stupid ideas) as hypotheses that can be tested.  Encourage experimentation to test ideas.

7.  Be – and stay – curious.  Keep an open mind about how the relationship with your colleague might change over time.  Stay curious for changes in your relationship.

Let’s add an 8^th idea: Keep Calm; as much as you can.  If you practice Mindfulness, call upon those principles.  None of us wants to do anything we will regret later.  Keep Calm and Be at Peace.

*Ideas for this blog taken from: Gallo, A.  “How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker,” Harvard Business Review, September – October, 2022.

An interesting article about this, “Your Team Members Need to Disagree More, Here is How To Help Them,” recently appeared in FAST COMPANY in which they were reporting on a new book by Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton, The Best Teams Win (Note: I have not read this yet).  In the article, they talk about how Mark Beck, CEO of JELD-WEN, a global window and door manufacturer, helps his teams have healthy debates.  He uses six questions that he will throw out to his team to encourage a positive team discussion:

1. That’s a good thought. Could you walk us through the process you went through to reach that conclusion?

2.  What rules should we be breaking here?

3. What’s our biggest risk in this, and what’s our fallback position?’

 4.  What if we did nothing at all–what would happen then?

 5.  Are we missing or forgetting anything?

 6.  Aside from earning us a profit, how would this decision change lives and make the world a better place?

Often I coach leaders that they need to role model constructive conflict with their teams – which includes making sure people are respectful with one another.  I think that these questions are excellent for doing that.  I would add one more, which is to specifically call on people who have not voiced a viewpoint: “Billy Bob and Sally Mae – we need your thoughts on this issue.  What do you think?”  Some of the quietest people have the greatest insights.

Use some of these questions the next time you have a team meeting to encourage a more robust discussion of the topic and see how it works.  And remember, you can ask these questions whether you are the “formal” leader of the meeting or not.  Leadership is about taking responsibility for making a difference, not about position.

*Absence of Trust

*Fear of Conflict

*Lack of Commitment

*Avoidance of Accountability

*Inattention to Results

Fear of Conflict cannot be overcome without trust – so check out the prior blog here if you missed that.

Once you have a team that trusts one another, then leaders need to role model what constructive conflict looks like.  All too often, people are conflict avoidant.  Conflict does not have to be nasty and, in fact, constructive conflict makes a team stronger.

When a team member makes a suggestion, many people will hesitate to say something even if they think it is a bad idea.  But high performing teams know that they will only make the optimal choices if they get many ideas on the table and evaluate all of them.  So, as a leader who wants to role model constructive conflict you can say things like:

“Thanks for your idea, Rob.  What do the rest of you think?  Let’s brainstorm at least five different possibilities before we make any decisions.”

Another simple technique is to break your team into two or three sub-groups and have them brainstorm ideas to bring back to the full team.  I often do this in strategic planning sessions to encourage divergent thinking.  You can also take care to carefully assign people to subgroups who may have differing opinions.

If you are going to role model constructive conflict it is vital that you react appropriately when someone suggests an alternative to your latest brilliant idea.  If you can do that and encourage others to do the same, then you are on your way to becoming a high performing team that makes an exceptional Mission Impact.

Usually groups come up with lots of good ideas, but almost never do they list the importance of “constructive conflict.”  Yet, the research on teamwork tells us this is a very important ingredient for a high performing team.  Why?

Imagine this.  A team is having a meeting and “Billy Bob” has an idea.  “Sally Mae” thinks it is a bad idea, but not so bad that she wants to “rock the boat.”  She doesn’t say anything, the idea does not work, and it wastes a lot of time and money.  This happens every day in organizations and bad ideas get implemented because someone won’t speak up.

Or maybe it goes down like this . . . . . Billy Bob’s next idea is SO bad that Sally Mae can’t stand it.  “Billy Bob, that is an idiotic idea.  Are you trying to destroy this organization!?!?”  And that’s what we call negative conflict – and you have seen the results of that.

What is needed is a “norm” of valuing constructive conflict and developing a team competency to disagree without being disagreeable; to collaborate and create better ideas together.  The lack of constructive conflict leads to mediocre or even disastrous decisions.  It can lead to “Groupthink” which has been blamed for causing such tragedies as the Challenger explosion.

I’m oversimplifying (it’s a blog), but here’s the advice:  don’t be overly polite, but don’t be a jerk, and don’t get upset if someone respectfully critiques your idea.

How do you develop the competency of “constructive conflict” within your organization?

Of course you could hire a great consultant to come in and do a workshop for you.  But if you want to try something on your own, I suggest buying the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni for everyone.  Lencioni’s formula for a high performing team, which is backed up by the research, is:

*They trust one another

*They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas

*They commit to decisions and plans of action

*They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.

*They focus on the achievement of collective results

Bring your team together and ask these questions:  Based on what the book says about teamwork:

*What are we doing well?

*What’s not working?

*How can we make what’s not working, work?

This will give you the beginning of a dialogue that you will have to reinforce over time to develop the competency of constructive conflict and the other four competencies.  Over time you can develop your group into an even higher performing team.

Try it for your next off site or summer staff retreat and practice disagreeing . . . without being disagreeable.  It will help your team make even more of a mission impact.