A team that ‘doesn’t do conflict’ is either still forming – or very good at avoiding it. So: if conflict in your team drives decisions and new ideas, you can skip this one. But if you just go around in circles, or conflict tends to end with winners, losers, and sometimes the wrong solution – read on.
This is Part Two of a two-part series on managing conflict in teams. In Part One , I proposed a model for thinking about conflict, which focused on our own ‘agency’ in it. Here, I’m turning to what we can do as a team to resolve conflict.
How to Deal with Conflict in a Team: A Quick Recap of the Framework
Our greatest resource in any conflict is ourselves (ME in the diagram): our ability to self-regulate, which enables our ability to read what is actually happening in the room and engage in a way that can have a constructive impact on the conversation. Previously I discussed how we can improve our self-regulation and awareness of what is happening in others – here I’ll discuss the types of team conflict, and the strategies for resolution within the team.
Types of Team Conflict – what are we arguing about?
It can be useful to name what we are talking about.
In the context of team collaboration when we think we are in conflict – it can be useful to determine what is it that we are disagreeing on. I have observed the following patterns in teams:
- nothing, it’s a misunderstanding
- nothing, we are saying the same things in different ways
- we are disagreeing and it is about the strategy re how to address the issue
- we are disagreeing and it is about the needs at the heart of the issue. We disagree on what they are or their priority
Karen Jehn’s research identifies task, process, and relationship conflict as distinct types – later researchers added a fourth: status conflict, disagreement over who holds the power to decide. I’d note that sometimes what we call “relationship” is in fact systemic – our roles in the system, and the objectives we each have to deliver on, can be what brings us into conflict in the first place.
There is one type of conflict that deserves special attention: problems versus polarities
Types of Team Conflict: Problems vs Polarities and why that matters!
Not every disagreement in a team is actually a problem to be solved – some are polarities to be managed. This distinction comes from Barry Johnson’s work on Polarity Management. A problem has a right answer: once you find it, you can solve for it. A polarity doesn’t work that way. It’s an ongoing tension between two positions that are both right, and both poles will need to be prioritised at different times.
Teams argue about polarities more often than they realise: Long-Term Thinking vs. Short-Term Thinking. Pace vs. Quality. Autonomy vs. Oversight. Consistency vs. Flexibility. Task vs Relationship. Individual vs Team. etc
Each pole has an upside and a downside, and the work is both to understand what focus is needed for the business in this moment, whilst still considering the downside (risk) of that focus and the impact on the other pole. So, the tension, is not something to solve for – but rather something to:
- Make space for – exploring both sides, considering the current business situation
- Get alignment on what’s needed:
- Does the situation call for prioritising one pole right now? (e.g. Hormuz-driven freight costs may mean focusing on cost control, at the expense of planned investments)
- Can we still do both?
- Is this pointing to a broader problem in how we are managing both poles
- Agree how to mitigate the negative impacts if we need to prioritise one pole over another
Exploring Polarities – A Real World Example
There is real value in exploring polarities – as sometimes it can be the catalyst for extensive change. An example from my own career seems particularly relevant here.
Every month, the sales team delivered a forecast. It was inaccurate. The supply chain team delivered what was asked for. And every month, the same feedback loop played out: “We couldn’t sell it, because you didn’t have it” (Sales). “We didn’t have it because you didn’t forecast it” (Supply Chain). Both teams were right. Both had different KPIs to manage – sales: revenue; supply chain: stock.
This only changed when we acknowledged the polarity and the inherent conflict: forecasts would never be accurate (consumers can change their tastes/their minds); the sales team’s focus is revenue (forecasting is just an activity they do to support that); the supply chain team’s focus is stock (right product in the right place at the right time).
What we did next, without getting into the detail, was figure out how to use the supply chain itself – and the data we already had – to buffer for forecast inaccuracy. That took genuinely new ways of working: different processes, meetings, timing of interventions, and pulling in stakeholders from other teams entirely. It shifted the dialogue completely, from the blame game to concrete, proactive steps to get stock where it was needed. The quality of the conversation between the two teams changed radically – and the targets got easier to hit.
How to Resolve Conflict in a Team
1. Name it:
You’d be surprised how often this doesn’t happen; how often people try and accelerate past what could be a potentially difficult conversation. It is important to be able to articulate what is actually going on – as objectively and concisely as possible. While this can take a bit of time it typically saves much more in the long run.
Some useful questions to ask yourself and the team are:
- Is this a real problem or a misunderstanding?
- Are we disagreeing about the strategy or the need behind the strategy?
- Are we disagreeing about the task itself or the process by which we will deliver it?
- Is this about the decision itself, or about who has the authority to make it?
- Is this actually about us, not the issue in front of us?
- Is it a problem or a polarity?
The first five questions tell you what you’re actually disagreeing about. The last one tells you what kind of disagreement it is – something you can solve once, or something you’ll need to keep managing over time.
2. Allow it to breathe
Assuming this is a conflict, and it is a good use of our time to solve for it now – this is where time is needed. Can you make space for all the alternative perspectives to be heard. There are a number of useful models here – but effectively what they all have in common, is asking the team to stay curious, using questions to probe further, to create more understanding. The invitation is not to defend your own position but to get curious about the other perspectives.
3. Lean into Dialogue not Debate
William Isaacs, in Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, names four practices that move the conversation from debate (the territory of right and wrong, winners and losers) to real dialogue – where we can learn more and potentially even change our minds. These practices are:
- Listening – listening to understand, not just waiting to respond. You can physically see the difference: someone who is listening from the perspective of curiosity and understanding, leans into what is being said.
- Respecting – accepting everyone has a right to a perspective, even when you disagree with it. This is visible in a team: you see people having the time and space to fully explore their thinking, without being contradicted or silenced.
- Suspending – holding your own certainty loosely enough to actually be able to hear alternative perspectives and potentially even change your mind (suspending your judgement, your intervention). When this is alive in the team, you feel them slowing down, considering the opinions being put out. There is no rush to judgement or quashing of ideas.
- Voicing – saying what is true for you, even if it is difficult. Without the previous three practices, voicing can just be singing the same old song. Isaacs frames ‘voicing’ as a response that comes from within you and what has been moved in you through the dialogue – that is what makes it different.
Coaching the Team To Resolve The Conflict
As we tackle the more difficult conversations it is important to pay as much attention to how we are having the conversation, as to the content. Our process of conflict if you like. Three focus areas matter here when it comes to coaching teams to resolve conflict:
- Notice dysregulation – If someone’s dysregulated, it’s important to notice, and to give it space – even something as simple as “I can see this matters to you,” and the room to say more. Sometimes it helps to let people work it through in pairs or small groups first. What matters is that you don’t blow past the emotion in the room, or rush to move things along.
- Notice the patterns in the conversation – can you spot who is included, and who is excluded in the conversation; who speaks, who listens, who is holding back? These patterns in teams can be well worn tracks – it is useful if we can name them and check in with how they are or aren’t serving the team. Drawing the pattern to the team’s attention is the first step, asking them what they make of it, and whether it is useful or not useful is the second step. From there the team can decide what if anything they want to do differently.
- Agree next steps – Difficult conversations take time, and it’s worth checking where you actually are in the process against the time you have. What can genuinely be tackled today? How do you close out with real clarity on next steps – agreement on where you’ve landed, and how you’ll proceed? This is what settles a team: knowing the issue will be dealt with, and how.
Improve How Your Team Thinks and Acts
Holding difficult conversations in this way, gives people a sense of being heard and being held. It doesn’t have to be the team leader who plays this role – any team member can. What matters is agreeing, as a team, that this is a shared focus. Done consistently, it becomes a muscle you build together: the ability to attend not just to what you’re discussing, but to how you’re discussing it. That’s what takes the sting out of disagreement, and makes room for genuinely different perspectives to improve how the team thinks and acts together.
If this is playing out in your team, I’d love to help you work through it. Contact me online to schedule a free 30-minute call and we can talk it through and see what might be useful.