When you have multiple teams or people all working together with competing ideas, personalities and priorities, it is inevitable that there will be some tension or conflict that comes up from time to time. How leaders handle these situations can make or break the success of the team. While some of this tension can be avoided through implementing effective processes and planning, some of it needs to be masterfully managed by leaders in order to achieve the best solutions and keep a sense of collaboration, engagement and motivation.
Turning tension into breakthrough moments
If you are a leader who naturally tries to diffuse conflict as it arises, think about whether this strategy is actually the best one for your team and your goals.
In many cases, the most effective approach is to leverage the tension to lead to breakthrough moments that push the team forward. This of course needs some advanced leadership skills. After all, if it’s not resolved, conflict can lead to division, disengagement, and decreased performance. Here is a guide to navigating team conflict and transforming tension into opportunities for growth and collaboration.
Create a safe environment for open dialogue
The first step in navigating conflict is establishing a culture of psychological safety within the team. People need to feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, concerns, and disagreements without fear of retribution or judgment. This requires setting the tone as a leader by demonstrating openness and vulnerability.
In meetings, encourage open communication by reminding everyone that differing opinions are not only welcome but essential for team growth. When tensions arise, leaders should be quick to intervene with a mindset of inclusion, reminding the team that the goal is not to “win” but to explore all ideas and work towards a common solution.
Facilitate constructive conversations
When conflict arises, it’s essential that leaders step in to facilitate the conversation. This doesn’t mean taking control of the situation but guiding the discussion in a way that ensures it remains productive. A well-structured conversation can help team members move past their immediate emotional reactions and towards a more thoughtful, collaborative approach.
Ask clarifying questions. These can help uncover the root causes of the conflict and offer insight into underlying assumptions or concerns. Questions like, “What’s the concern behind this viewpoint?” or “What would success look like for you?” can help everyone involved understand the broader context of the conflict and find common ground.
Acknowledge and validate all ideas
One of the most crucial steps in navigating conflict is ensuring that all ideas and opinions are acknowledged and validated. In any disagreement, it’s easy for people to become entrenched in their positions. As a leader, your job is to create a space where each person feels heard and understood. This doesn’t mean that every viewpoint needs to be adopted, but that each person’s perspective is recognised as valid.
Leaders can use paraphrasing and reflective listening to demonstrate understanding. For example, you might say, “I hear you feel that the timeline is unrealistic and that this has caused frustration. Can you tell me more about that?” This shows that you are not only listening but actively trying to understand the underlying emotions and logic behind the concern.
Validation doesn’t always lead to agreement, but it does pave the way for deeper understanding which is essential in finding mutually acceptable solutions. It helps break down walls and build trust, enabling the team to collaborate more effectively moving forward.
Turn conflict into a breakthrough moments
Achieving breakthrough moments are some of the best outcomes for conflict. Once everyone has shared their opinions and ideas, a facilitative leader can leverage any conflict by asking breakthrough questions.
As the name implies, a breakthrough question is a strategic inquiry that, when answered, can lead to a genuine breakthrough for an organisation.
To grasp what a breakthrough question truly is, it’s helpful to first understand what it is not. A breakthrough question isn’t something like, “How do we do that?” or “How do we build that?” These types of questions typically have implied answers. A breakthrough question, on the other hand, is one that we don’t already have the answer to. There’s no obvious solution, and it requires deep thought and exploration. These questions ignite curiosity, excitement, and reflection, and they are intrinsically tied to the organisation’s core purpose. When asked, breakthrough questions create a noticeable shift in the room’s energy; they are the big, impactful questions that everyone gravitates toward because, if solved, they could create significant change.
Breakthrough questions are often emergent, meaning they surface naturally during strategic discussions. Part of the leader’s role in facilitating these conversations is to recognize when such a question arises, pause the flow of conversation, and allow the group to reflect on it. This moment of reflection is essential for agreeing on a direction forward. These questions are deeply aligned with the organization’s overarching purpose; they represent challenges that haven’t been solved yet, but which, once resolved, can unite the team and provide a clear common goal. When these questions arise in a strategy session, they have the power to unite the group and reduce internal conflict or tension.
Here are a few examples of breakthrough questions. It’s clear that solving these would lead to a genuine organisational breakthrough:
- How do we become the dominant voice in our industry within the country?
- How do we reach a point where funding is no longer a concern?
- How can we simplify and streamline our processes to eliminate friction for our customers?
- How will technology and data analytics provide the greatest value over the next decade?
- How can we ensure our industry works for the benefit of everyone within it?
- How do we position ourselves as the go-to business for government in this specific key area?
Breakthrough questions serve as powerful catalysts, steering strategic conversations toward significant turning points. Once the team has sufficiently explored and engaged with the question, they can begin to move forward with clarity and a shared understanding of the next steps.
It’s important to note that breakthrough questions can’t always be solved immediately. Once the group has reached a point where they are satisfied with their current understanding of the question, the conversation can shift toward refining the strategy and crafting a unified narrative for moving forward.
Have you had success navigating effective breakthrough moments in your team?