Learn more about the psychology behind team dynamics and conflict, and how Resologics’ processes help teams be super creative, high performing and fun!
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A healthy business team is one with strong relationships and vibrant engagement. It’s a beautiful place to be, where people feel heard and creative ideas bump against each other in an open, constructive way. We call it the Creative Tension Zone and it’s the dream (or should be) of any organization with an aim toward consistent growth.
Teams fall out of this place for various reasons, and the spiral downward can devolve into destructive conflict. It is critical to know where you and your team are on the Conflict Curve in order to make good decisions in “real time” so you can recognize what’s happening and pull your team back from the Conflict Spiral abyss.
On average an ombuds will see 3-5% of an organization’s members in the course of a year. Our work as organizational ombuds has increased steadily over the last couple of years, where we’re initially called in because someone in leadership is being dogged by a “small” conflict that won’t go away but keeps festering and growing until they can’t sweep it under the rug any longer. (From there, we typically enter a contractual arrangement with clients where we serve as their ongoing go-to ombuds, mediator, and conflict adviser.)
He could have been sitting in the corner of the conference room where I was convening as Organizational Ombuds for a team that was stuck - there was (emotional) clutter, plenty of discord, and a really difficult situation. Tension was high, people were venting. At any moment (my experience told me) someone could explode with frustration. It was like a freight train approaching the room, about to crash!
Creative Tension Zone is where huge ideas emerge, innovation thrives, and empires are built! The most successful workplace teams know how to manage constructive conflict to encourage creative tension. What every leader needs to know about leveraging the power of conflict in a team.
Have you ever said: “That person just presses my buttons”? We call these 'conflict hooks', because your reaction to the button-pusher has the potential to feed conflict. Understanding what conflict hooks are can help you and your team make better response choices.
Conflict doesn't just appear out of nowhere. There are always signs warning that a conflict is developing. Managers who know what these signs are can be more effective leaders by confronting the problem before it rages out of hand. By resolving conflict in the early stages, the company will run much more smoothly and the overall productivity level will be increased considerably. What are these subtle signs of conflict to look for?...
Why build conflict resilience into your company’s culture?
Fact: In any business environment, challenges and disagreements WILL happen. For a productive and happy workplace it’s crucial to have a plan in place to manage and de-escalate negative conflicts—with the intention to head them off before they begin.
The costs of conflict to your business are real and they are high.
When it comes to human behavior (especially predicting and managing it), professionals in the field talk about "measuring the unmeasurable."
Most leadership assessments I've seen are based on important skills such as executing strategy, hiring, retention, succession, team and change management. However, when the rubber meets the road, it's an individual's personal characteristics and style that can make or break their success as a leader.
My work with teams and leaders has convinced me that it's a worthy effort to assess individual styles and behaviors and their impact on achieving outcomes. The cost to a leadership team that ignores—or accepts—abrasive behaviors is high.
Read MoreConflict De-Escalation is a slowing down (or stopping) of the escalation of conflict. In the mediation world, de-escalation techniques are used to reduce tension, hostility and emotional intensity during the mediation process.
We de-escalate conflict so we can check in with everyone’s needs and take action that will satisfy enough interests to end the conflict or at least restart the negotiation.
If you are in any type of management for your organization, it’s very likely that at some point you’ll encounter negative conflict that needs to be de-escalated. These same mediation techniques can help you diffuse a situation before it gets out of hand.
The best solution is for an organization to do their best to head off negative conflict in the first place, but that’s another story you can read about here. In the meantime…
Read MoreWhat factor in high-performing teams is even more important in a hybrid work environment than it ever was in the office setup? In one word, Trust.
Here are just a few key reasons why:
Trust bridges the gap caused by people working from different locations and time zones. Separation can cause misunderstanding, wrong assumptions and, well, mistrust. When trust is embedded in the org culture, teams are more apt to believe in each other’s commitment, intentions, professionalism and work ethic. Trust engenders collaboration which is connected to strong performance.
Read More[Excerpted from International Ombudsman Association (IOA) article by Mark Batson Baril, Dec. 21, 2020. Read the full article here: “What to Do When Abrasive Behavior Enters Your Organization,”]
In my work as a Conflict Resolver, Mediator and Ombuds, I have encountered 17 situations to date that have involved a leader with an abrasive leadership style. It’s been hard for me to admit, but it took eight of those cases over several years before I really understood what was going on — and what to do about it.
In most of those cases the teams and organizations worked toward agreements that more or less stuck and the team’s performance improved. Yet, lurking beneath those changes was the abrasive behavior of the leader/individual that had not changed, so had not been addressed in a substantial way.
The cofounder team of six people were all best friends. They threw in all their money and joined together to start this coffee/bakery business in Nevada. They had a really good go in the first couple of years – customer base growing steadily, lots of popularity and people coming into the business interested in what they were doing because of their unique products.
At some point a few years in, they started having disagreements about how things were getting done, who was working the hardest, who was being paid fairly, and who was accountable for which responsibilities. All while the business was in the middle of growing pains.
They called me in as a coach and we did some team coaching. In my process we did interviews and surveys with everyone at the bakery as well as outside stakeholders.
Read MoreFor professionals responsible for a productive, engaged, harmonious workplace, it’s crucial to know what will be disruptive to that environment. Especially when the culprit could likely be a leader in the company.
What do we need to know, and do, about leaders who are regularly behaving badly and harming everyone in their orbit?
Let's get to know these folks, and what may be behind that behavior...
First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. Often it's their technical competence that led to their rise to management. It's this competence that often has management, fellow leaders, and stakeholders choosing to ignore the behavior—even as it continues to poison the workplace.
“You know you should do something about Chris, but you’re not sure what. You just received another complaint about his abrasive behavior. This isn’t the only complaint—they’ve been adding up. You haven’t done anything yet—you’ve been busy…You’ve been waiting to see if things would improve on their own. They haven’t.”(1)
If you’re wondering when to cross that line and do something, please consider this: Employees rarely report the suffering they experience from bosses or managers who bully them. Read this to learn why this is true. If it has gone so far that you're receiving more than one complaint, err on the side of believing that the effect of the behavior is more damaging than you think, to have brought these people forward to report it.
Read More"See something, say something" or "Snitches get stitches?" headlines the 2023 Ethical Culture Report, recently released by Ethisphere Institute. The standout for me from this analysis of global trends in org culture was about unethical behavior in the workplace and how, or if, employees are reporting it.
What struck me is that even though employees responded that they were willing to report misconduct when they saw it, only about half of them actually did so.
At some point in your work life you may have witnessed an employee who had an overly aggressive management style that caused friction and conflict with everyone around them.
More often than not, this kind of behavior is swept under the rug, tolerated, or “forgiven” because the person is in a leadership position or they’re perceived to have so much value to the company that it’s “worth” the behavior.
Let’s throw a flag on this play and call it what it really is: Bullying — no matter who does it, no matter how it’s done. It’s unnecessary and unacceptable as a leadership style.
Read MoreWhen I was in my mid-20s, I moved to New England to work as a shop manager for a construction company. A family business of about 40 employees, I worked directly for the owner, Jack.
I remember like it was yesterday the very first day I arrived at work. Parking my truck and turning the corner toward the building, I heard before seeing my new boss screaming at the top of his lungs at a woman, who I learned later was a sister who worked for him. I really thought they were going to come to blows, but she seemed to be beaming right back at him, so I made myself as invisible as possible and continued on my way into the office.
Read MoreIn the top 3 of any list ranking the most common workplace issues, you will see “interpersonal conflict” or “bullying and harassment”—not pay, not recognition, not opportunities for promotion...
“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]
It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.
Read MoreAs team lead, manager, or head of your organization, you want to ensure that your teams are cohesive, collaborative, high performing, and strong enough to weather any stormy seas of conflict, crisis, and disruptive behaviors.
This is the stuff of team agreements.
What I sometimes hear from folks is, "Sure, yeah, of course our teams have agreements. Everybody's on the same page." What turns out to be true is that their team agreements are unspoken, unwritten and un-negotiated—meaning, not designed in any thoughtful or clear manner that will set the team up for success.
They are informal agreements that have become the rules of behavior over time and morphed into the organizational culture. They become "the way things are done around here."
For better or worse, they are binding on team members. They may not be spelled out in the policies and procedures manual (or even ethical or legal...), but it doesn't take long for new team members to figure out what is rewarded and what is punished. The so-called agreements continue as the norm, and nobody questions if they're good for the team, the workforce, or the organization.
“The accelerated pace of change in today’s workplace and in our overall society is one more factor impacting workplace mental health.” [Source: SHRM]
It’s no surprise that the most common workplace issues on almost every survey list are not about pay, promotion, or benefits. We see that interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, communication and relationship problems consistently top these lists.
Recent statistics show that [Source: 2021 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey]:
30% of adults are bullied at work (compared to 19% in 2017)
43.2% of remote workers are bullied
65% of bullies are bosses; 4% have admitted their bullying which represents 6.6 million individuals
It’s natural to make (negative) assumptions about the type of bosses and leaders who make our lives miserable at work—even including terms like “evil,” “a monster” or “insane.”
For professionals who are in the business of working toward a harmonious, engaged, productive, innovative workforce, it’s instructive if not crucial to unpack the package that is called the “abrasive leader.”
First off, we know that abrasive leaders aren’t lacking in ability. In fact, it’s often their technical competence that led to their rise to management. Their skills in their field are rarely brought into question, and in many cases, it’s this competence that has management, leadership, and stakeholders often choosing to ignore the behavior—as it continues to poison the entire organization.
Read MoreWhat I know from my work as conflict advisor/mediator is that tough conversations are inevitable - in our work lives, community lives, and personal lives. And who in their right mind wants to have a difficult conversation?
Right - no one! So what we tend to do is avoid it, put if off for a day, a week, even a year. But does the issue go away? No, in fact, it festers and grows until it becomes something much more destructive and even dangerous. (That’s too often when we’re brought in to mediate a dispute or conflict that’s gotten out of control over months or even years.)
As an expert in conflict, I’m here to tell you conflict cannot be swept under the rug!
Read MoreThe Cambridge University Human Resources Department defines behavior as being unacceptable if:
It is unwanted by the recipient.
It has the purpose or effect of violating the recipient’s dignity and/or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment
As a conflict advisor and coach, I’ve worked with countless leaders who didn’t know they were exhibiting unacceptable behavior. I’m talking about more than a one-time personality clash — it’s chronic behavior that chips away at person’s morale and, literally, ability to do their job. It’s behavior that needs addressing before it permeates an entire organization.
Read MoreWhen someone consistently “rubs us the wrong way,” we often struggle to separate the behavior from the person. We see the act, attribute it to the actor, and the two become synonymous. What follows is a classic relationship slippery slope that usually ends up badly. What we forget in those situations is that behavior can change—and not always for the worse!
As leaders of our organization, we are responsible for our personal conduct on behalf of our company’s values and for the sake of our workforce. This might seem like an optional “soft skill,” but from what I’ve seen as a conflict advisor and coach to leaders, I believe it’s a crucial part of leadership success.
Read MoreIn a world of Hollywood movies and childhood stories of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, it’s natural that we see ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ in our lives. We’re the main characters in our stories, and the role of antagonist is often carried by those who make our lives difficult. For many in the workplace this means the boss.
Let’s reframe that script for a moment by remembering that our bosses (or anyone who has authority over us) are people too. They are main characters of their own story, with their own dreams and struggles and interests, trying to make it through life just like the rest of us.
So why do they struggle to be kind? Why do they feel they have to “flog work forward?” Why is aggression their go-to leadership style? How do we marry this discrepancy?
Read More“It’s not sweat or revenue that makes companies tick; it’s trust,” says John Hall writing for Forbes.com. Trust is a foundational principle of the work we do with teams at Resologics, which is why we study interpersonal relationship factors in the workplace that either enhance trust or erode trust.
My work with teams and leaders has convinced me that it's a worthy effort to assess individual styles and behaviors and their impact on the level of trust within a workplace. The most poisonous situation I see that challenges trust involves the abrasive coworker or leader.
We see how a persistent pattern of disrespectful, aggressive, even bullying behavior drives people away from that individual and the goals they're trying to accomplish. It erodes trust in the individuals at the receiving end of this behavior, and also in the perception that management isn’t doing anything to address the problem they are experiencing so acutely.
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When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.