CHAPTER 29
Transform Your Team from Conflict to Brilliance
In an effort to improve our own marketing, we hear from well-meaning colleagues and friends who advise us to focus our work on a particular industry or size of company. We have resisted this advice, finding success in the work we do across all types and sizes of businesses.
This is no surprise to us, since businesses, large and small, that make up technology, consumer products, medical, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and other services are all made up of people working in teams. Teams can’t work without repeated conflict. How we choose to deal with that conflict—avoid it or use it—makes the difference between success and failure in that situation and, ultimately, in the company.
To this point, we’ll share two client examples where big bottom-line impacts and seemingly irreconcilable differences led to co-creative outcomes when these very different leadership teams chose to use the conflict.
We worked with a computer analytics company whose revenue was more than $200 million in the year we started with them. The company specialized in analyzing large data sets. For this story, we’ll refer to them as CAC (Computer Analytics Company). Our initial focus was to develop a stronger, aligned leadership team with a clear strategy.
The company was solid and doing well in its main business line of providing data analytical solutions, but in our work together, the leadership team realized they did not have a strong growth plan. With the analytics industry heating up, the company needed to stay ahead of the game and develop some commercial data analytic tools.
Six months into our two-year engagement, CAC added Bob, VP of Business Development. Bob’s focus was on developing new product lines, which he had done successfully at other companies. Bob jumped right into the team discussions, providing a unique point of view that the team seemed to need and value. He had been assigned the task of focusing on building the new business lines in commercial analytics, which would create a completely different type of business.
Fast forward another six months. In preparation for the annual two-day off-site, we discussed the agenda with Mike, the CEO. Mike was upset. In prepping for the off-site, he had reviewed the financials and discovered a $500,000 expense that didn’t make sense to him. He saw it as a sign that the team was slipping in terms of communication, alignment, and accountability. He wanted to address these issues.
While we appreciated the heads up, we suggested that Mike not make this the first agenda item since he probably wouldn’t get the best dialogue from his team. But when we kicked off the first meeting, Mike dove right in.
“Hey, what the heck is going on,” he burst out. “We have a $500,000 unexplained expense that I want to get to the bottom of!”
Bob spoke right up. “I can explain it,” he said. “You told me to get the new business line up and running. I went looking for in-house resources, but Maggie wasn’t able to provide any. So I did what I had to do and hired outside consultants. I’d say, six months—well, that is most of the $500,000.”
Before Mike could say anything, Maggie, the COO and the one responsible for the bulk of CAC’s revenue and engineers, jumped in. “Look, you’re not going to blame me for this, Bob,” she said. “You came to me with some half-baked plan. No way was I going to take my engineers away from real business to do something like that.”
Mike was peeved. “Come on, you guys! What the hell? Couldn’t you have worked this out?”
“Well, Mike, you were clear. You said, ‘Get it done.’ And I did, didn’t I?” Bob obviously didn’t see the problem.
“Look, Mike, he came to me once, and what he presented was not a plan!” Maggie was quite sure she had done the right thing to protect CAC.
You probably recognize this as a classic case of opting out of the tension of an oh, sh*t! moment.
Because we had been working with the team for some time, we arranged this off-site to be at a ranch in Montana where the team could work with horses. We could see that the $500,000 was only the surface issue—the deeper issue was team dynamics. We requested that the team hold off trying to resolve the issue. The problem had been building for six months. We wanted to offer the team some ME and WE time with the horses, so they could engage in the right business conversation instead of just solving a problem.
The team, trusting us and the process, agreed.
We brought the group to an arena filled with a series of obstacles. We brought three horses into the arena and let them run free. Then we asked for three volunteers to come into the arena. The goal was to successfully work as a team to move the horses through the obstacles. The catch: there could be no verbal communication.
Guess who volunteered first? Mike, Bob, and Maggie.
Bob moved in quickly and was clearly comfortable around horses. He walked toward the horses with authority, and they moved quickly toward the other end of the arena. Mike walked toward Bob and the horses. Maggie stepped into the arena and pressed herself against the gate, not taking one step toward the animals.
Bob continued driving, and the horses responded with speed. But it was clear that the horses felt pressured. As soon as the horses reached the far end, all three turned quickly and headed straight for Maggie!
Mike stepped back toward Maggie, making himself big, and the horses veered away. The horses wound up in a corner as far away as they could get from all three humans. We asked for a time out and debrief with Mike, Bob, and Maggie.
Bob spoke first, clearly frustrated. “I can’t believe it! Where were you guys? I was doing all the work with no support!”
Mike and Maggie were silent.
Susan asked Bob, “I get that you had a plan and some horse whispering skills, but I’m wondering: were you aware of your teammates?”
“It’s just that they weren’t any help to me!” he said.
Susan continued, “Okay, why don’t you find out about them now.”
Bob paused. Finally, he asked, “Mike, Maggie, what happened? Why weren’t you helping me?”
Maggie spoke first, her voice tight and angry. “Well, geez, I’m not a horse person. They’re big animals that move fast. I wasn’t about to follow you. Besides, I had no idea what you had in mind!”
Mike chimed in, “Look, Bob, I saw that you had something in mind, but I wasn’t sure what. Then I noticed Maggie wasn’t with us. I was definitely torn.” He looked reflective. “That’s how I often feel when you guys, well any of you…” (he looked back at the rest of the team outside the arena) “are off doing your thing but not working together.”
Another team member spoke up. “I have to say, what just happened in the arena is definitely what happens with you three in the office, and maybe also for more of us. But wow! It was so obvious to watch it play out!”
“Well, I do like to make things happen,” Bob said. “I guess my Superstar style overrules when it comes to me working with the team. If I hit any resistance with anyone, I just think, I’ll do it myself.”
“Look, I’m risk averse. This is just how I am,” Maggie responded. “I get that sometimes I just stop listening and tune out when I think my area is going to be threatened. I ignore the impact to the bigger-picture and focus on what I can control. I think that makes me a Separator, huh?”
We both nodded.
This dialogue was revealing the root of the real issues. As each individual owned up to their part, we felt the energy shift, and the discussion took on a completely different quality. Each person was more curious about their contribution to the situation than about focusing on what the other people had done wrong.
Mike spoke. “Well, I guess I have been enabling both of you,” he said. “I tried to manage you in one-on-one meetings and never really focused on teamwork. I’ve been the Accommodator!”
“Isn’t it funny how you have each been playing a role in defusing the tension, which undermined the potential for teamwork?” CrisMarie said. The three agreed.
Spending time on the ME and WE enables teams to more easily resolve business issues. Cooperation and creativity soars. Solutions emerge that weren’t in anyone’s mind prior to doing the ME and WE work.
We allowed other team members to spend time with the horses and receive critical feedback, then we moved back into the conference room. Sure enough, CAC made some creative shifts in their approach. They realized that overall business success depended on team alignment. It was important to keep the main business successful and to support these new lines of business that were just beginning. But, most importantly, they recognized how crucial team alignment is for success.
The first big move involved performance measures. The leadership team decided to forgo their functional business bonuses for bonuses based on overall CAC success. They called it “One Team, One Bonus!”
The second move was to treat these different businesses as unique entities that needed to incubate in order to grow. Each of the businesses was at a different stage, and each needed to be led and measured differently. The team decided to keep them in separate business units with unique business measures. The team didn’t want to create large gaps between the main business and these other business units, so they set up a nine-month managerial rotation. Key mid-level managers would rotate between the main business and the other start-up businesses.
This strategy was hugely successful in the short term with the first new business line. The next two lines achieved success even more quickly. The leadership team stayed aligned and continued to lean into the oh, sh*t! moments to reap the value of teamwork. As we worked at other levels within the organization, focusing on improving teamwork and using conflict skills, we were excited to witness the level of engagement driving innovative problem solving across the organization. The company’s gross revenue just two years later when we finished our engagement was more than $500 million.
DESIGNING THEIR WAY TO CREATIVITY
We worked with an architectural design firm that ran head-on into similar issues. The firm’s founders were Valerie and Wilson (a couple) and Valerie’s best friend, Jodi. Valerie was the CEO, and her focus was design. Wilson was the architect, and Jodi was the CFO. The business had grown steadily for eight years, and they were hitting more than $15 million in revenue with just ten employees. The three-year goal was to hit $20 million. One year into that goal, revenue stalled. Jodi asked us to do a strategic off-site for the company.
In our first conversation, Jodi revealed that the business had actually begun losing money. Jodi thought the company needed a strategic offsite to sort things out, but the real issue was an increasing gap between Valerie and Wilson. Jodi did not know how to handle it. She brought Valerie and Wilson to the off-site saying they needed a strategic session to reignite inspiration and get back on track to hit the $20 million goal.
During the off-site, the team revealed that six months prior, Valerie had landed a contract with a high-end intentional-living community. This was right up Valerie’s alley. She was passionate about the project and believed everyone was on board, driving for that $20 million goal. By the time of the off-site, though, the project’s profit margin was eroding. Jodi went through the numbers and shared how much was being spent in architect fees. Valerie exploded.
“What?” she nearly yelled. “Wilson, why are we paying other architects when you are doing the job?”
“Look, I’m doing the best I can,” he shot back. “I needed help. Back off!”
We were smack dab in the middle of the team’s, the couple’s, and the business’s oh, sh*t! moment.
The easy button at that point would have been to follow the blame game: It’s Wilson’s fault for not working hard enough. It’s Valerie’s fault for picking such a big project without buy-in from the rest of the team. It’s Jodi’s fault for not addressing the money issue sooner.
Any one of these rabbit holes could have eaten up lots of time and maybe even generated a solution, but the team would not likely discover the best or most creative insights. We suggested a different route. Why not step away from problem-solving and instead go deeper into what was driving each person’s decisions and behaviors. As we’ve shared, we believe the most effective path originates from a place of genuine curiosity, not from the right-wrong trap.
CrisMarie said, “Seems like Wilson’s hiring of architectural resources took you by surprise, Valerie.”
“Yes! I thought we were working this together. I didn’t know he was outsourcing the whole thing!” Valerie was annoyed and hurt.
CrisMarie said, “Wilson, it might be helpful if you let Valerie know what drove your decision to hire other architects for this project.”
Wilson turned to Valerie, “Listen, I tried to tell you before you signed on to this project: this is your passion, not mine. I’ve always wanted to do more commercial work. I’ve gone along as best as I could, but I’ve picked up some commercial projects of my own. So I hired people from another firm to do the work.”
Valerie was crushed and still upset. “How did I not know?” she asked. “I always thought this is what we both—all of us—wanted. We worked so hard to create this direction.”
Wilson was silent. Jodi looked on helplessly.
Valerie continued, “I don’t know how to get through this. You want something I don’t. We want such different things.”
Valerie and Wilson faced differences that felt irreconcilable and could split the company apart. We encouraged them to hold off trying to solve the problem. We wanted to help them get unstuck from the creativity-killer trap and shift to access their collective potential.
The first step is to slow things down and not rush to a solution. Truly hearing someone else requires you to suspend the desire for the right solution. This is counterintuitive. Naturally, when there is a problem, we want to fix it. Fixing it is not always the best solution, but discussion is invariably the first and best step to reach a creative outcome.
When Valerie, Wilson, and Jodi were able to slow down and get curious, Wilson let Valerie know he was unhappy. He shared that he had never been in alignment with the new project. This caused some pain and concern, but Valerie let it in. She acknowledged that while she had heard his desire for something other than residential design, she thought the intentional community met his passion for commercial projects. And, she acknowledged that when she got the contract, she was so excited that she probably didn’t listen when he said no.
By shifting focus from quick solution to what was driving each person’s behaviors and actions, we got underneath to a better space for creative options and not just fixing problems.
Once the conversation got to the core of people’s behavior and opened to vulnerability, curiosity, and new possibility, magic did happen!
Jodi remembered that the intentional community had talked about their own financial goals. They had brought Jodi in for a consult some months ago and were looking for commercial properties to invest in. The request for advice seemed separate and unrelated to the team’s issue. Jodi never even considered talking to Wilson or Valerie about the meeting. But now as she listened, she connected the dots. The intentional community wanted to purchase commercial properties to redesign, upgrade, and rent or sell at a profit. Now, with everything out on the table, Jodi realized Wilson might be the perfect architect for their project.
The idea evolved into a win-win for everyone. Wilson met with the board of the intentional community and happily agreed to partner with them on its commercial projects. This architectural design firm hit $20 million six months ahead of schedule, and each of the founders was thrilled with the work they were doing!
When teams, even couples, are facing what feel like irreconcilable differences, sometimes the best, most creative solution will only emerge when they take a different approach. They must remain curious, or regain curiosity through conflict. In doing so, they step away from immediate problem-solving and slow down, listen, and get underneath the differences to find the creative gold.
SUMMING UP
Learning how and having the courage to use the energy of conflict during tough conversations can change business failure and business success. Whether it’s a team of two people or twelve, being vulnerable and real (the ME) and being curious about the other by checking out your stories (the WE), are the raw ingredients that transform conflict into team brilliance. The focus shifts from my way or your way and opens possibilities for a whole new way. The magic is right at your fingertips, and it is free!
This system helps your team reach innovation and transformation; not just once, but repeatedly. A natural inspiration fuels you, the team, and the business. It’s the catalyst that turns lead into gold, and the team awakens their creative genius. It’s the very essence of what we call collective creativity. The experience is unmistakable. It feels expansive, exciting, and inspiring. Success and fulfillment abound, the bottom line grows. What will you choose: avoid or use?
People in business are always looking for the next big thing. We strongly believe that the next big thing isn’t out there, it’s within and between you and your people.
Nothing is more powerful and transformational than people working together and enhancing their relationships while reaching for phenomenal business results.
Simply put: you, me, and results matter. When we hold the tension that rises with that combination, magic happens. Don’t settle for anything less on your team or in your business!
Try it. If you get stuck in the mess of conflict and want some help, give us a call. We’ll work through the mess with you and your team, and help you develop the skills to regularly access innovative, creative solutions that build your team’s competitive advantage!