conflict 😐
October 25, 2024
July 28, 2024 | Read Online
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- Adam Grant, author of Think Again
Speaking of conflict, this we received a cease and desist letter from the attorneys of the rightful owner of the trademark "Growth Curve." Truth be told, we aren't in love the with name anyway...
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Now let's get to it.
"Customers churn when they don't know how to use the platform effectively."
“Lacking the knowledge and manpower, customers fail to see ROI and eventually leave.”
Sound familiar?
Read Mayple’s full report on how to effectively combat churn in 2024 (surprise: it does not include AI )
The best leaders know that conflict is inevitable and healthy.
The right kind of conflict makes companies, teams, and individual contributors better. When you avoid conflict, you adopt a posture of apathy toward your work and the outcomes you desire to achieve as a leader.
But what exactly is the right kind of conflict?
According to Grant, there are two types of conflict: task conflict and relationship conflict.
Task conflict involves the work itself. It focuses on process. How you work with a team to identify the best way forward in a situation; e.g., launching a new product, running a campaign, or handling a customer escalation.
High-performing teams should experience high amounts of task conflict. They have a fundamental trust for one another and are therefore willing to challenge and debate to get to the right answer. They seek truth.
These teams tend to achieve better outcomes than those who don’t, or can't, or won't behave in this way.
Teams that don’t like one another have a different experience. They have minimal task conflict because they lack trust. The environment is emotional and political.
Rather than engaging in dialog and debating issues, an easier route is pursued: going along to get along.
The end result? Mediocrity.
In the most severe cases, the consequences are dire. Grant uses NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to illustrate.
Rather than admitting a problem and engaging in debate on how to address a potentially life-threatening issue, NASA managers chose not to engage when they noticed heat-shielding tiles were knocked off the orbiter at launch.
The result? A four-inch wide portion of the body was exposed to intense heat upon Columbia's reentry to the atmosphere. Columbia broke up miles above Earth at 18 times the speed of sound. Seven American astronauts died.
Would a different outcome have been possible if NASA’s leaders had more trust and deeper interpersonal relationships? Would they have been able to engage in task conflict needed to bring our men and women home safely?
Yes. This was a preventable tragedy.
But the team lacked psychological safety and trust to engage in good and necessary task conflict required to save human lives.
The purpose of leadership is to create an environment of safety and trust which enables teams to engage in task conflict.
Under these conditions – low relationship conflict and high task conflict – teams and individuals enter the High-Performance Zone and can do their best work.
Task vs. Relationship Conflict
As we prepare for the week ahead, here are some questions to ponder about your team and the environment you're creating for healthy conflict:
Do team members speak their minds in a group setting?
Are they comfortable challenging one another? And will they do it in public?
Does your team disagree, debate, decide, and then align?
If the answer to any of these questions is no then perhaps your time is best spent this week focusing on team building and interpersonal relationships.
Here's to a great week ahead.
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