CHAPTER 3
We worked with a telecom company that had bumped into an oh, sh*t! moment nine months earlier and had opted out ever since. They had hired two other consulting firms before asking us to help them on their network tower strategy. Both previous attempts to roll out the strategy had failed. They wanted our help to develop a new network tower strategy that would work.
We said we would work with the team if they agreed to first spend the morning fostering healthy conflict before we got to their strategy. Shortly into the first day, the tension between two vice presidents surfaced. Floyd, a member of the team looked at Ed, the EVP of networks and team leader, and said, “I don’t know what we’re doing here. This is a complete waste of time!” Then he turned to Luke, his teammate sitting on the other end of the table, leaned forward, pointed his finger and said, “I don’t like you or trust you!”
We were stunned into a bit of silence. Susan recovered first and said, “Okay Floyd.” Then she turned to Luke and asked him, “So what do you think?” Luke folded his arms, turned away, and said, “Ditto.”
We dove in to discover what had broken down. Nine months earlier Luke’s department had been late handing off a deliverable to Floyd’s team. In Floyd’s view, Luke had not taken any responsibility when the entire project was late. Luke was angry because Floyd had been continuously undermining their department and didn’t know why. Their two departments had been at war ever since.
Everyone else on the team knew about this issue, but no one dealt directly with the problem. It was clear that when the oh, sh*t! moment happened nine months earlier, they had opted out and had continued opting out ever since. As a result, resentment built, trust broke down, work stalled, and money flowed down the drain. The team kept trying to fix a process that wasn’t broken rather than deal with the unresolved issues—until we showed up.
When it was clear the issue originated between Floyd and Luke, we spent thirty minutes debriefing the earlier incident. First, we introduced the VPs and the entire team to the value of vulnerability and curiosity. Then we mapped out our core communication tool, Check It Out, a powerful way to bridge differences.
Ed, the team leader, was first to show up real and vulnerable. He said, “I want to acknowledge that I let this go on for too long. I worked independently with you both, but I never really forced the issue at our team meetings. I want this resolved, because I know it’s hindering our progress, and no one is happy.”
It didn’t take long for Floyd and Luke to show up real too. They each were willing to acknowledge their responsibility in creating the original oh, sh*t! moment.
Was it completely resolved in that meeting? No.
Did they learn some skills to continue to work through it? Yes.
At the end of the two days, the team agreed to go back to their original network tower strategy. The VPs and the entire team also committed to work through their unresolved issues during our six-month engagement. It gets better! During those six months, they rolled their strategy out without a hitch!
Still, that company lost a substantial amount of money throughout those previous nine months. They did an analysis, combining team member salaries, stalled progress on projects, and consulting fees for two other firms, and it was estimated that avoiding their oh, sh*t! moment cost the company more than $750,000.
Seems obvious to us, but it’s your choice: Thirty minutes to clear up the conflict? Or, $750,000?
SIGNS OF TEAM CONFLICT
Most people don’t recognize the signs of a team in conflict. They tend to think conflict is present only when team members are yelling at each other. We work with those situations too. But, more often, the signs of conflict show up in other, more subtle ways, with avoidance at the core. Team members may be:
- Bored at their meetings. Rather than having engaged, passionate, healthy, conflict and debate, they just give status reports, and the leader makes all the decisions.
- Managing their behavior in meetings but gossiping behind the scenes. They maintain the illusion of harmony, rather than being real and unfiltered in what they say. This leads to unproductive gossip and politics outside the meeting room walls.
- Doing their own thing by checking email during meetings, or otherwise disengaging from team activities. They focus on their own responsibilities rather than feeling committed to, and inspired by, collective results.
Team leaders may try to manage team dynamics through one-on-one team member conversations. Or even worse, like the team above, they create work-around processes so people don’t have to work together. Not only is this exhausting, it rarely resolves the issue until the two people talk directly.
These are just some of the signs of unhealthy and unused team conflict. These behaviors waste time and money. Because they don’t address and resolve the real issues, or use resources effectively, individual efforts are slowed, and there is no collective effort to move the business forward.
Alternatively, when they opt into conflict, they benefit from the juice of creativity and get to innovative results sooner. This impacts the bottom line in a healthy way.
If your team doesn’t know how to navigate oh, sh*t! moments, opting out seems easy. That’s what Floyd, Luke, and their entire team did. It’s no wonder this is a typical response. Growing up, we weren’t taught conflict resolution in school, and many of us never even learned to deal with conflict within our own families.
If you don’t know how to handle moments of intense conflict at work, it’s natural to resort to what you know and can control. In a team setting, that’s typically your own area of work. You’ll go to the meetings because you have to. You’ll play nice with others until you can get back to your desk and do your real work. Sound familiar?
Stop it! That behavior sabotages the success of you, your team, and the business.
Remember: tension is your friend. Tension prods you to find new answers to old problems.
At the telecom company, a team of smart, capable people chose to opt out, which cost the company three-quarters of a million dollars. When they recognized signs of team conflict and chose to develop their level of candor, they were better able to deal with tough issues, and their collective results skyrocketed.
It is easy and seductive to avoid dealing with differences, to tell yourself that it is no big deal or it’s not your problem. But the truth is that when you opt-out and don’t deal with the conflict, you undermine your own success, the team’s cohesion, and the business’s bottom line. Just ask Ed.
Next, we’ll show you the three styles people typically use to avoid, defuse, and opt-out of conflict. Which style do you use?