[Reprinted from Forbes.com article by Forbes Coaches Council Member Mark Batson Baril, October 8, 2019]

You are feeling it, too, of course. You get a weird feeling leading the team meeting or walking around the office, but you let those feelings pass and don’t grab onto them. Then you start hearing gossip and grumbling, and one or two people sharing the same concern with you. Now it’s time to pay attention. Do not assume it’s a minor interpersonal tiff that will go away on its own, or you may find yourself in the midst of a flurry of frustrated employees and a situation that’s escalating.

Conflict is a given; the outcomes of that conflict are a choice.

[Reprinted from Forbes.com article by Mark Batson Baril, September 18, 2019]

“We avoid tension like the plague. We’re happy when everyone’s calm and things are quiet around here,” said an HR exec to me. Fair enough. Who wants to invite negativity and conflict into their workplace?

The answer is: It depends. Conflict is a natural occurrence in any workplace or team, and tension may arise whenever different ideas or perspectives bump into one another.

We’ve seen in our Organizational Ombuds work with teams that there are as many kinds of workplace experiences as there are possible dynamics within any group of individuals who gather around a mission or goal. Sometimes trying to fit a growth-ready business into an old-school corporate structure just doesn’t cut it. As often, the leadership can’t figure out why it isn’t working, which leads to a disconnect with their employees that can result in valuable talent turnover, burnout, and less-than-successful business results. 

It’s clear that we are in rapidly-changing global times with brilliant, creative minds doing innovative things and fresh young professionals boldly changing the expectations and rules on doing business. This is why I so enthusiastically welcomed the newly-released 2020 Global Culture Report published by employee-engagement powerhouse, O.C. Tanner Institute. 

I have found - in respected organization culture research, my own research on high-performing teams and decades of working personally with teams - is that a cornerstone of what makes workplace teams work successfully is TRUST. Workplaces with a high-trust culture have been shown to have:

• 50% lower voluntary turnover

• Employees who are 3 times more likely to give extra on the job

• High-innovation in teams built on trust where collaboration and creativity flourish

Here are 3 keys to build up trust to an even higher level in your team.

What IS Creative Tension and why does your workplace team need it?

“Creative tension:” that place where the ideas of smart people are mixing and boiling and bumping into each other in ways they never have before. It is that space where huge ideas emerge, empires are built, and uncontrollable fun is around every corner. It is that place where people are opening up their minds to push out their best work, and are opening themselves up for praise and critique like they never have before.

Few professionals or leaders are trained in conflict management – this is where your friendly neighborhood Organizational Ombuds comes in. More and more businesses of all sizes are embedding Ombuds services into their organizations, trusted advisors who can provide support in all kinds of areas – proactive conflict awareness, conflict diagnosis, coaching, training, team development, company policy updates and compliance, shuttle diplomacy, mediation and more. 

Is there someone on your team or workspace who just pushes your buttons? “Conflict Triggers” are a fact of life in a team. Our response to them can either move a conversation forward constructively, or precipitate conflict that’s headed for negative outcomes.

At a workshop I led with Laura Weiss called “Understanding Conflict Hooks at Work,” at the Community Boards, a conflict resolution center in San Francisco, we helped people realize how easy and natural it is to get triggered by someone else behavior, and how they can respond constructively - with a little help from “Frasier!”

Your friendly neighborhood Organizational Ombuds is a trusted navigator for an era of accelerated change. We serve organizations and leaders of all types, guiding them through the changing business (and world) landscape, challenging decisions, and sticky “people” situations that inevitably accompany growth.

As conflict adviser and ombuds to businesses, I talk a lot about the importance  of building trust in an organizational culture, within teams, and among team members. Trust is the key ingredient in client relationships as well.

Behavioral studies and stats reveal that we consumers base most of our buying decisions and loyalty to a company/brand on trust.

Harnessing the power of positive conflict in your team and workplace creates a higher level of engagement, decision-making, innovative thinking, and productivity. The foundational factor that creates this kind of high-performing team? Simply put, Trust.  

Here’s a quick exercise to help build trust in your team…

It’s no secret that organizations, of every stripe and under every flag, are experiencing the disruptive power of rapid social, political, economic, and technological change. And we are in an era increasingly defined by polarization and conflict.

Today, it’s more about engaging people to come together around critical decisions for a lasting, positive impact. Ombuds around the world are increasingly involved in proactive problem-solving, toward the goal of instilling respect, civility, and justice in organizations and professional relationships. Ombuds help individuals return to productivity and contribution in the workplace. The modern ombuds works every day to create a positive culture, inform systemic change, and identify risk. And more than ever, especially in the C-suite, we have a seat at the table as conflict advisers.

I had just finished a tough series of mediated conversations with a large co-founder team in the San Francisco Bay area. A coming  together happened, agreements for sustainable change were made. Most of the change they promised each other was around behaviors, and they asked me to stay involved to make sure what they promised each other actually happened.

This was not unusual in our work - doing follow-up sessions, phone calls, check-ins, and staying on top of team agreements until implementation is complete. Experience has taught us that the mediation is oftentimes the easy part, compared to the actual work of implementing all the agreements the newly-mediated team has agreed upon.

Volumes of research have been written about organizational culture as it relates to employee satisfaction. In our work as conflict advisers we always circle back to a foundational piece: Trust.

What happens when a team, a group of employees, or individuals with differing levels of trust (or huge amounts of distrust) begin to rub against each other and abrade relationships which turn into unproductive conflict? Enter the Trust Formula.