Should You Strive for Conflict Within Your Team?
One of my favorite subjects to discuss is team dynamics. Learning how successful teams grow, work together, and foster longevity within a company is always intriguing. It is also invaluable when working with my clients as a business consultant. I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with David Hoyt, Principal Consultant of The Table Group about this very subject. (Listen Here)
David and I discussed the principles outlined in one of my favorite books, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni:
The 5 Foundations/Virtues of Great Teams
Vulnerable Trust
Healthy Conflict
Shared Commitment
Peer-to-Peer Accountability
Focus on Collective Results
Each of these behaviors builds upon each other, with trust being the essential value throughout all of them. Without first building trust, teams will be driven by politics, have little to no dedication to the overall team’s goals, and thus making it very difficult to reach desired results.
1. Vulnerable Trust
When talking about trust as it comes to teams, it is not your typical kind of trust, it’s specifically vulnerability-based trust. This means that as a team works together they have developed a trust that acknowledges other team members’ strengths and admitting their own weaknesses, requiring team members to show their vulnerabilities as they work together. As they show their vulnerabilities, others are given the opportunity to step up with their strengths, thus leaning on each other to work together cohesively and encourage others while collaborating.
As a leader, how can you build trust and foster an environment where vulnerability-based trust is expected?
You must 1) go first and 2) be as vulnerable as you would like your team to be.
As a leader, you should be the first person to admit you aren’t very good at something, whether that’s communication, follow-through, etc. So be the first to stand up and let your team know that you aren’t good at something, but also be as vulnerable as you would like your team to be. This is uncomfortable to do, but it’s likely that your team members have already noticed you aren’t very good at this one thing, but they will now know that you are aware.
2. Healthy Conflict
“When we have the foundation of trust, healthy conflict is simply the pursuit of what’s best in great ideas. When we have the absence of trust and conflict, that’s when we get politics,” David says.
Healthy Conflict may sound counterintuitive, but conflict is a crucial component of a team that is working effectively toward a unified mission, goal, or important decision. You can think of this as “debate” rather than “conflict”. A strong team will present ideas from opposing viewpoints if they feel comfortable enough (or trust others) to do so. This helps the team to see all sides and perspectives to have enough information to make the very best decision for the team. The biggest pitfall of teams is artificial harmony. Everyone just going along to get along and not striving for greatness.
As a Leader, when you are sensing that someone is holding back, or you may have an intuition that someone has something more to say, encourage them to speak up. Lean into your team and continue to remind them that we are all trying to find the best information so we need to hear everything. This means leaders will need to sit back and observe the team discussion, ask questions rather than assert your opinions, and weigh in from time to time. Healthy conflict is a sign that the members of a team trust each other, and can build on that conflict to achieve the next foundation of great teams.
3. Shared Commitment
Having a shared commitment to the team’s collaborative decisions is the ability for team members to disagree yet commit to the final decision. After there’s been debate and discussion, the entire team - no matter what the opinion is - commits 100% to the decision as if it were their own. Even if there was a lot of debate before the decision.
As a leader, it’s crucial that you stay committed to the final group decision, too. When it’s time to make the decision, make it clear that all sides have been heard in healthy debate, and this is what the entire team has committed to moving forward, trusting that the entire team is now moving forward to work toward the specified team goal and not their own agendas.
4. Peer-to-Peer Accountability
When everyone on the team regardless of position, not just the leader, holds each other accountable this is called peer-to-peer accountability. This type of accountability is a direct outgrowth of trust as team members turn to each other for honest feedback and support.
Overall, when leaders hold people accountable, they establish some structure and stability within the team, however, you can help your team have peer-to-peer accountability by encouraging team members who have some issues with each other to speak to each other rather than run to you with every single problem. Encourage them to have that difficult conversation to identify their issues, take responsibility for their part, and make a plan to move forward. Also, if a team member is approaching you with a “kind truth” for you to consider about your own behavior, be appreciative of their honesty.
5. Focus on Collective Results
Although there may be many individuals, teams, departments, groups, and other factions that make up a team, everyone from top to bottom, left to right, department to department, must be unified and focused on the overall team/company’s collective results.
As a leader, it’s important to trust the overall organization’s results are worth the sacrifice of your individual or your department’s results. Ensure your team that there is a larger picture and a bigger story you are all working on together doing our part.
Think of trust as a baseline that runs through each of the 5 behaviors, without trust, each behavior will lead to dysfunctional behaviors of your team. Do you feel like your team is functioning well? Are there some values like trust that you feel could be improved? I am happy to offer a free team-building consultation for your organization.
