Conflict == Creative Tension !
When someone says conflict what comes to your mind? Is it a positive feel or negative feel?
What if you re-frame the word conflict to creative tension?
There are different views, but if it is creative, the outcome is going to be much better than avoiding different views or opinions.
If you are a leader and not comfortable with conflict, you are going to miss the creative tension which can lead to much better outcome. If you don't encourage creative tension, you will miss lot of insights which can help you to consider many more factors or dimensions which matters.
In this era of teamwork, if the leaders are not mindful about the need of encouraging creative tension, many effort could lead to less optimal results.
Think of your last incident where you were, not encouraging this creating tension! Can you imagine what it costed you, a relationship? a low quality product? waste of time or re-work? engagement of your employee?
Good reads:
- https://hbr.org/2010/06/get-your-team-to-stop-fighting.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2019/05/21/avoiding-team-conflict-can-be-a-grave-mistake-four-strategies-for-healthy-team-conflict/#f09edb15a3d6
- https://inside.6q.io/how-great-leaders-manage-team-conflict/