Differentiating Between Healthy and Unhealthy Conflict

Conflict in the workplace is inevitable. So, why does conflict derail some organizations while others succeed?

It’s because not all conflict in the workplace is the same. There are two types of conflict?—?interpersonal conflict that is unproductive and divides people, and conflict around ideas, which is healthy and builds strong teams and organizations. This is how you’ll know the difference.

1. Unproductive Conflict that Divides?People

The kinds of behaviours you’ll see in a workplace with unproductive conflict include:

• Reluctance to share ideas, information and resources with each other
• Little discussion in meetings
• Policing of each other, wielding rules, policies and procedures to halt work
• Ignoring challenging topics, often keeping discussions behind closed doors
• Expressing attitudes such as not wanting to hurt feelings, worrying about consequences for sharing candidly or feeling there’s no point in discussing things because nothing will change anyway

Note that most of these behaviours avoid conflict, which is framed as negative. Instead there is an artificial sense of harmony on the surface belied by all the unproductive and nasty behaviours. Destructive conflict hurts teams.

2. Productive Conflict that Uses Opposing Ideas and Debate to Find the Best Possible Direction and Solutions

The kinds of behaviours you’ll see in a workplace with productive conflict include:

• Sharing ideas, expertise, information and resources, outside one’s own “area” of the organization
• Building on each other’s ideas and enthusiastic participation in brainstorming
• Bending rules, thinking innovatively and helping fellow team members
• Feeling safe to disagree, share dissenting opinions and challenge ideas with a focus on finding the best solutions for the organization
• Seeking input from each team member regarding their needs and perspectives when there are decisions to be made or solutions to be found

Note that these behaviours don’t avoid conflict, but rather use productive ways to debate, discuss and arrive at decisions.

Common Sources of Conflict in the Workplace

There are predictable sources of tension among team members. These are differences that can contribute to conflict:

• Personality styles: How we deal with conflict is related to our personality style (there are various tools that help us understand our own personality style and others; at Padraig, we use the Everything DiSC Assessments with our clients). Personality style affects how we approach situations, what we tell ourselves about what’s happening, how we prioritize tasks and how we interact with others.
• Communication styles: How folks communicate can vary greatly, from the words and language they use to whether they use humour or pride themselves on speaking with candor to how they pause or interrupt. It’s easy to fall into making assumptions.
• Diverse cultural backgrounds and clashing norms: Misunderstandings arise when we don’t understand varied cultural perspectives, which is why developing cultural intelligence is important.
• Ego: When we think we’re special or more important than others on the team, or when we expect a certain level of respect or deference without offering the same.

The Foundation for Productive Conflict

In successful organizations, productive conflict in the workplace is the norm. What’s the main difference between workplaces with productive and unproductive conflict? Trust.

When leaders want to build productive conflict, they have to have a solid foundation of trust for each other.

For folks to feel comfortable sharing opinions and challenging ideas, they need to know that even team members with differences will listen to their perspectives and work toward outcomes together. They need to know you will assume positive intent?—?that is, you’ll assume they are challenging you and your ideas to help make the ideas better, not to make you look bad.

We’ve talked before about ways leaders can build team trust. Some things that help include:

• Leaders modelling the productive conflict behaviours themselves and sharing vulnerability. It’s important for leaders to be able to admit when they fall short and move past mistakes with confidence. Good leaders are also able to handle criticism well and feedback from their team members.
• Coaching team members to listen with the intent to understand, not to respond. This helps to recognize positive intentions and helps everyone to understand different perspectives and consider concerns that are raised.
• Spending time together, getting to know each other at work and beyond work roles. Why? It’s hard to trust someone you don’t know. Shared interests and understanding of each other’s experiences and interests builds connections and camaraderie.
• Work on something as a team because this builds trust as folks share and learn from each other.

Understanding How we Feel About and React to?Conflict

Before we can move toward productive conflict, we need to assess how we’re currently handling it. Consider the differences between unproductive and productive responses to conflict.

Often, we react to conflict without thinking about it. When emotions run high, it’s human nature to respond with automatic thoughts and reactions. However, it’s possible to learn how to handle conflict differently.

Mastering the Four Key Steps to Productive Conflict

When you find yourself in conflict, take a moment to pause and reflect. Emotions?—?the automatic thoughts and reactions that surface in times of conflict?—?can affect our judgement.

Here are four steps to productive conflict:

1. Understand your reaction to the conflict. To change it, you have to be aware of what’s going on. What automatic thoughts are there? What emotions do you feel?
2. Step back from your emotions. Acknowledge what you’re feeling. How could these emotions be affecting your perspective? Recognizing what you feel is a way to stop emotions from taking over.
3. Reframe negative automatic thoughts. Is there another way to view the situation? Is it possible you’re overreacting or exaggerating? Is the thought actually true?
4. Choose a productive response. You can’t control what other people do but you can control how you respond. Choosing a productive response is not a guarantee things will be resolved. However, a destructive response will most likely escalate conflict.

It is your choice. While choosing a productive response doesn’t guarantee resolution, a destructive response will almost certainly escalate the conflict.

Download our worksheet for the four steps to productive conflict here.

Leaders can help teams handle conflict in the workplace in healthy, productive ways. It’s very helpful for team members to learn ways to approach conflict, including the language they will use and conflict resolution techniques. Some teams will agree on rules of engagement for conflict.

There are ways leaders can approach conflict management that help teams find success. Strong teams are able to face conflict together, discuss opposing views and work through challenging topics of discussion. The benefits are high levels of employee engagement, innovation and creativity that lead to decisions that work.

If you found this helpful, you may want to look over our live leadership learning program?—?Productive Conflict?—?which can be facilitated for you and your staff by one of our leadership coaches.

Coach’s Questions

What kinds of conflict in the workplace have you experienced? Are you currently experiencing unproductive conflict in the workplace? What could you do differently to help move from unproductive to productive conflict?

To set up a short complimentary call with me, click here.

This article was originally published on the Padraig Blog