Managing Conflict – Make Lemonade Out of Lemons

You know the guy. He’s the one you always have to work with, but he’s as stubborn as he is arrogant, and he just can’t let anything go. He fills up your inbox, stalls every meeting and makes projects a total pain.

And believe it or not, he just might be a great asset to your team.

Conflict, squabbling, disagreement and strife. Common sense says to avoid it, but sociologists disagree: intragroup conflict can serve as a kind of boot camp for a project, forcing the team to consider its weaknesses and find the spots where its strategy doesn’t hold water. It can keep personal biases in check, strengthen existing ideas and open brand new lines of thought.

This is nothing new! The Catholic Church employed a Devil’s advocate for almost five hundred years, and modern developers, law firms, news networks and even the CIA routinely bring in special “red teams” to do what your difficult co-worker might already be providing for free.

So then why can’t your bickering team get anything done? Unfortunately, not all squabbles are created equal. Things start to get dodgy when task conflict gets mixed up in relationship conflict, when “Frank doesn’t see the flaw because he underestimates transportation cost,” becomes “Frank doesn’t see the flaw because he’s arrogant, stubborn and argumentative.”

Slipping from productive conflict to destructive conflict is easier than you might think. As many as 40% of fights among corporate executives can be blamed on hurt feelings and petty grudges, according to UC Berkley sociologist Calvin Morrill. High profile figures such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and, more recently, the United States Congress have fallen into this trap.

The trouble is that relationship conflict bypasses logic and goes straight for the pride, anger, fear and humiliation of our animal brains. It catches like gasoline and escalates like a wildfire, and just one touchy team member is enough to turn a discussion into an emotional demolition derby. After all, when someone finds us frustrating, we get frustrated. When someone finds us offensive, we get offended.

Fortunately, just one person is often enough to calm everything down. Listen for rising voices and make a special effort to keep your own at Sinatra levels. Be ready to apologize, even if they’re in the wrong, and discuss their ideas, even totally awful ones. This takes courage, leadership and a deft touch, as claiming the high ground feels good, but it’s worthless if you don’t get anything done.

Perhaps the worst part of bad conflict is that it can negatively bias your assessment of certain team members’ ideas, even the good ones. Useful conflict is about learning from other perspectives, not selling everyone else on yours. Be careful not to zone out and plan your next talking point while someone is speaking. Pay close attention, even when someone’s reasoning really is completely wrong. Discern their strongest points and use them to sharpen your own. By nature, people will be open to your input when they know you’re listening to theirs.

So think of that difficult co-worker like a treadmill: he’s not always fun to work with, but with ongoing effort to work productively with him, you will get stronger. Still, if it becomes personal, squabbling can weaken teams, harm projects, and, every so often, shut down a federal government! Here are some tips to keep in mind for managing conflict:

1. A little conflict is good, so don’t be afraid to play Devil’s advocate if everyone seems a little too enthusiastic. Groupthink can cause overconfidence and let critical flaws slip through.
2. If someone takes a minority stance, make sure they know they’re being heard. Nothing triggers irrational hostility like feeling outnumbered.
3. When you need to be the bigger person, do it subtly. Avoid saying things like “calm down” or “be rational.” Being ignored is frustrating, being condescended to is maddening!
4. Avoid taking sides to foster productive discussion. People have a tendency to divide themselves into “in groups” and “out groups,” but us-versus-them thinking is a fast track to toxic, and personal, conflict.