Conflict and Communication

What?

Conflict in team and group work is inevitable. No group is going to completely agree on everything, nor should it. While many people view conflict as unhealthy or destructive, it can actually be very healthy and productive! 

However... 

There is a difference between conflict and dysfunctional conflict. 

Healthy conflict is when group members trust one another and they feel free to express divergent feelings and opinions. This contrary views are valued and there is tolerance for disagreement.

A group having dysfunctional conflict does not have psychological safety. A great explanation of psychological safety is found in this TedX Talk.

But simply put, psychological safety is "the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes".

So what?

I think Amy Edmondson in the TedX talk does a pretty good job of explaining why psychological safety matters. If people do not feel safe to speak up, if conflict is viewed as harmful instead of helpful, mistakes are made, group think takes over, and people are not happy or satisfied with their jobs.

I once worked somewhere that looking back I can categorize as being no psychologically safe. People didn't want to speak up against the leadership, even when potentially harmful decisions were being made. There was an undercurrent of hostility. Team members were pitted against each other. Conflict interfered with us accomplishing goals. Overall, it was a dysfunctional work environment. Unsurprisingly, those who wanted to speak up but felt like they couldn't, left, myself included.

Now what?

You may be thinking, "everyone works for a dysfunctional office at some point". Sure, most of us will, which is why understanding the causes of dysfunctional conflict are important. If you can understand why the office or group is acting like it is, then you can try to counteract.

In my example, I could have tried to frame my descent around specific tasks or goals instead of remaining silent or critiquing the office as a whole. By focusing on the task, individuals may not feel attacked. I could have also tried to be more clear in my communication. It is possible that we had a great deal of miscommunication, misinformation, and misperception happening. Communication may have also helped to highlight where the disconnect was coming from, what differences in styles or values. Maybe if we had found other ways to communicate, we would have realized we all wanted the same thing, for our office to be successful.

Social Capital

I've been thinking a lot about social capital in context with leadership and group dynamics. What I mean by social capital is the connections between people that enable you to reach further, to connect with more people. It's networking.  Social capital is the value of your networks, the more networks you have the more social capital.

It all goes back to the saying, "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

Now what?

So social capital is this great thing. We connect with others, we do good things for them, they do good things for us. The trouble I have with this is that not everyone has the same opportunities to make these connections that are so vital. Someone with a less privileged identity does not have the same access. We all know that someone with "rich parents" is more likely to get the awesome internship or know someone who knows someone who can connect them with a nice job.


So what?

While I do spend a lot of time focusing on the downside of social capital, social media and the ever expending presence of online social networks are helping people with others from afar. It is easier than ever to find niche groups of people to bond with and small groups are able to bond together to bring about real change. The #Blacklivesmatter campaign is a good example of this. Another example is the students of the University of Missouri bonding together to remove the president that was dismissing students concerns over racist incidents. This cohesion enables groups to accomplish more than they could on their own.

As someone who currently preparing for graduation and thus looking for a job, I'm going to make use of the social capital I have. While I didn't have many networks when I graduated from undergrad, I have far more connections now. I've let friends, family, and former coworkers know I'm on the lookout. A supervisor sent me a job posting, a former colleague let me know of a job and commented that she knew the hiring manager. Social capital might enable me to find a job, or maybe I'll find one on my own, either way, with so many people looking out after me: I am richer than I thought.

Importance of Communication

It goes without saying that communication is important, right?

Maybe not. A quick google search reveals an article on the "Importance of Team Communication Skills", Inc.com has an infographic on the importance of internal team communication, and there are a number of sites promising to improve team communication here and here.

There's even a Ted Talk about how to have a better conversation.

So what? What does this have to do with leadership?

I'm glad you asked.

Franz (2012) claims team communication can be improved with trust and active listening.

It makes sense that trust and communication go hand in hand and a good leader knows this. Facilitate one, and you'll develop the other. Why would we trust someone who didn't listen to us? Why would we share ideas with someone we don't trust?

If you want your team to communicate they have to trust one another... and build trust, there needs to be communication. And this isn't just Franz (2012) who saying this.

Countless articles talk about the relationship between trust and communication, such as Boies, Fiset, and Gill's, "We contend that effective leadership stimulates communication among team members,and that, through increased communication, team members are able to acquire important information about their teammates, such as personal competence" (2015, p. 1083).

A good leader gets their team communicating and facilitates conversations when things get tough.

Now what?

In my leadership class we have a group project. The problem is that there isn't much communication happening... Without communication, there's no trust building... without trust, it is difficult to get the conversation going.

In hindsight, we should have done additional introductions to start the conversation instead of jumping directly into "What group do we want to choose for our project?". Moving forward, we are trying to meet via video which should lead to better communication, and hopefully, more trust from here on out.