Wanna hear a great success story? Let me tell you about Team Clash.
I often facilitate the Academy for Compassionate Leadership (aka the Seniors Care Leadership Academy for folks in that sector) for peer groups within organizations who start as acquaintances, then support each other through successes and disasters, while gaining the leadership skills to build flourishing teams.
It’s pretty great.
We also sometimes do bespoke training and coaching programs for established teams . . . even teams with a history of conflict. Like Team Clash.
At first, some of these folks could barely tolerate being in the same room together.
Their icy silence was an ouch that signalled, like many of us (especially women), they regarded conflict as a high-stakes war game nobody wanted to lose.
So they’d pulled back and given up on collaborating. Not surprisingly, absenteeism, burnout and inefficiencies plagued this group, making recruiting and retaining talent a soul-sucking struggle. Ugh.
Enter Conduit Coaching.
Flipping the Script.
Here’s what Team Clash didn’t know.
Not only are differences in opinion inevitable, but research tells us conflict is vital for the success of high-performance teams.
Yup.
The same kind of conflict that pulled Team Clash apart can become a powerful tool to improve productivity, collaboration and creativity on your team.
Through several team coaching sessions and some 1-1 leadership coaching along the way, we witnessed and contributed to the transformation of Team Clash. Trust, respect, accountability, productivity—you name it, we measured it all, and it all improved. Yay!
Pretty remarkable and . . . it didn’t happen by chance.
Beyond ensuring psychological safety and boosting listening skills, Team Clash took three essential steps you can use to help your own teams become more skillful at constructive conflict.
1. Reframe Beliefs about Conflict.
Team Clash wanted to be better; they just didn’t know how.
Learning that many high-performance teams see conflict as an opportunity for discovery, growth and creativity was a lightbulb moment.
Avoiding conflict wasn’t the answer. Changing how they handled it was.
Of course disagreement still felt uncomfortable but the insight that conflict was normal, good even, increased their tolerance of each other’s foibles and their connection.
2. Cut back the Crummy Stuff.
We are intelligent human beings. We know insulting others won’t get us what we really want. And yet . . . we are also mere mortals who sometimes experience a grand canyon between our brains and our behaviours.
Oy.
Flourishing through conflict requires bridging that gap.
So we gave Team Clash information and guidance that boosted their competence and confidence in having difficult conversations. As a result:
- They worked to end not-so-helpful behaviors (aka the usual suspects of criticizing, blaming, and defensiveness).
- They discussed and agreed on behavioural norms we posted in clear view and revisited at the start of every meeting.
- They were willing to invest in external resources, i.e., yours truly, to continue supporting them as they mastered these skills over time (since that’s how adults learn).
3. Increase Positivity.
With support, Team Clash created a work environment that brought out their better selves, even amid adversity.
They’d learned that teams are more likely to reach productive solutions when challenges are addressed politely and kindly, maybe even with a bit of appropriate comic relief.
No, positivity isn’t always accessible when we feel annoyed.
And . . . feelings aren’t facts.
A simple breath before looking someone in the eye and saying their name in a neutral (even considerate) tone can open our minds and hearts to helpful possibilities.
You can do it too!
These three strategies can help your teams transform combativeness into camaraderie.
In my years coaching various problematic teams and facilitating the Leadership Academy for leaders like you . . . I’ve seen it happen over and over. Really.
No, Team Clash didn’t become best friends. But they did move to better solutions and a better experience for their 40+ hours of weekly working together.
My thinking, for what it’s worth?
If Team Clash could harness the power of constructive conflict, your teams can too.
And we can help you learn how.
Especially for Leaders & Teams in Seniors Care.
Yes, Team Clash was in health care. And yes, health care is often considered the most toxic work environments . . . and that was before COVID. It kinda makes sense.
- Your work is high stakes, chronic stress.
- There’s often a rigid hierarchy that has underlings feel, well, like underlings.
- Folks are exposed to violence at work, whether from residents, residents’ families, or colleagues.
- Oh, and top of that are the systemic pressures of underfunding, policy changes, constant restructuring.
Without deliberate interventions to build psychological safety, support, and fair workload distribution, toxicity becomes almost inevitable.
What you do can make a difference. Really. You can help your teams transform combativeness into camaraderie.
Experiment with the three suggestions here. They’re not just Mary Ellen’s idea . . . they draw on boatloads of empirical research on what helps teams thrive in challenging environments.
Because when your team flourishes it has a profound impact on you, your colleagues, the people you care for and their families. If ever there was a workplace to make the effort, your’s is it.
