A Guide On How To Have Healthy Conflict At Work
Conflict at work is integral to creating a workplace where risk-taking and speaking your mind are encouraged.
It’s part of our workplace manifesto here at Playficient.
What do I mean by conflict at work? It’s not shouting matches in meeting rooms, stabbing each other behind the back, petty gossip, Machiavellian levels of politics, or utter contempt of your coworkers.
By conflict at work, I mean the value of speaking your mind, taking risks, and not being afraid to disagree with how things are.
Disagreement at work needs to be encouraged.
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There should not be a fear of disagreement in the workplace.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
Napoleon Bonaparte
I’m not saying to disagree to be the contrarian, but don’t be afraid to be the Doubting Thomas. Your organization shouldn’t fear Doubting Thomases.
A fear of disagreement is not something you want your organization doing.
Disagreement at work (not for the sake of disagreement) is what allows employees and organizations to grow.
Source: Wikimedia
What This Guide Will Cover:
(click on the titles below to jump to that section)
- Two Different Types Of Organizational Culture
- The Value Of Conflict At Work – On Telling Stories, And Stories Without Conflict
- How to have healthy conflict at work.
1. Two Different Types Of Organizational Culture
For conflict at work and how it can arise, let’s take a look at two different types of organizational culture.
- The Culture Of Fear.
- The Culture Of Agreement
1. The Culture Of Fear
This is your stereotypical old-school cutthroat organization that is driven by fear. No one speaks up against management for fear of getting canned. People are afraid to speak out, even if they know things are wrong.
The fear of disagreement comes from the fear of being fired. Disagreement at work doesn’t happen, because it’s not allowed to happen.
This wasn’t always the case that these organizations had a culture of fear.
At some point, the organization took risks to get to where they were.
Along the way, however, things changed. They got complacent.
More management are brought in. Incentives that were used to encourage good management start to work against them (something that was pointed out in the works of Clayton Christensen, especially The Innovator’s Dilemma).
As a result, what caused the organization to grow (the risk-taking) is no longer there.
The organization can potentially cruise for a long time by this approach, but if not tweaked, can cause many issues down the road. That fear of disagreement continues to boil up, until it boils over and the organization begins to lose out to competitors.
One day, these organizations may wake up to the fact, and upper management start wondering, “How the hell did this happen? Why didn’t anyone say anything?”
Well, it’s because disagreement at work wasn’t encouraged, with the fear of disagreement paralysing your employees to keeping their mouths shut. That’s why.
2. The Culture Of Agreement
While this kind of a culture has a different approach, if not taken care of, the end result is more or less the same as the long-term outcome of a culture driven by fear.
Again, there is a fear of disagreement, but it manifests itself in a different way than a culture of fear. Disagreement at work does not occur, but for a different reason than at a culture of fear.
How does this occur?
Think of these cultures as more millennial-friendly, for better lack of a term. More new-agish, more hipsterish. The word “fluffy” can be a way to describe these kind of organization cultures (and one I’ve heard before).
Enjoy this fluffy dog. Source: Wikimedia
Unlike the culture of fear, these organizational cultures on the surface level appears that everyone is getting along just fine.
Everyone is on the same page, and having a great time at work. No major conflicts are going on. No disagreement at work happens.
However, that’s just at the surface level.
What goes on below the surface isn’t that different from the culture of fear. It just emerges in a different manner.
It becomes the elephant in the room that isn’t discussed, but people are aware of. That fear of disagreement sits within the stomach of the employees and of the organization itself.
It creates conflict (not the good kind) that can emerge into many forms. Perhaps decision-making is halted until someone steps up to take charge. It can show up in a passive-aggressive attitude.
‘I much prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.’
Orson Welles
Orson is a quote machine. Source: Wikimedia
As a result, you end up with a culture where people are afraid to speak up and take risks, which is the end result of a culture of fear.
This fear of disagreement leads to no work being done. Disagreement at work is nowhere to be found.
While how it got there was different, the end result isn’t.
Like the culture of fear, upper management can become blindsided to losing market share. How did it happen? Why didn’t anyone speak up?
Well, again, disagreement at work was stifled, and people didn’t bring up these points.
At both these kind of work cultures, there’s no real conflict at work.
Instead of allowing for disagreement at work, or taking risks, it gets squashed down. This can be the result of being on the receiving end of the pink flip, or breaking that “harmony” of a more accepting culture.
That fear of disagreement lingers in the heart of nearly every employee, from the bottom to the very top.
What happens as a result? Well, you end up with people working on ideas they don’t agree with, and end up creating more work for one another, risking the rise of the overwork culture (something at Playficient we beg for you to avoid – read out thoughts about it here). You can also create a culture where you end up with superficial connections, and see a rise in workplace loneliness (which we’ve written about here – Dealing With Workplace Loneliness – A Guide For Management).
I want to mention again that conflict at work should be about risk-taking, and speaking up your mind if you disagree with something. It’s not about the shouting matches or petty politics. Disagreement at work does not need to resort to that.
2. The Value Of Conflict At Work – On Telling Stories, And Stories Without Conflict
Let’s take a look at the value of conflict in another context – stories.
Think of all the stories that you’ve heard or told in your life.
It doesn’t matter which medium – whether a book, a movie, a TV show, a video game, a comedy sketch, all stories have CONFLICT in common.
Stories without conflict – well, that’s not really a story. At least not a good one.
Conflict is what drives stories forward.
It’s what allows characters to grow and change. Conflict can manifest itself in many forms. It can be inner conflict. It can be conflict with another character. It can be conflict with their environment.
The best and most memorable stories are the ones that resonate the most with us. The conflicts can take place in many forms, in many places (like galaxies far, far away), or ancient worlds, but the conflict and the growth that comes about is what have us invested in these stories.
The original Star Wars trilogy nailed this. Too bad the prequels couldn’t, or the sequels. Source: Medium
There is no growth without conflict in a story.
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Think of how boring a movie like The Dark Knight (which I’ve made mention of in my post on The FAANG Effect), and how boring it would be if Batman soundly defeated The Joker right off the bat.
Take a story like Lord of the Rings. How boring would it have been if they took eagles (like the fan theories say), flew to Mount Doom, and then just chucked the ring in, without all the other struggles and hardships they went through to get there?
The same thing goes for your life.
Think of how boring your life would be if you didn’t face any conflict. There would be no growth.
In another context for telling stories, look at something like TED talks. The talks that we remember are full of conflict. We feel in within our bones. The ones containing stories without conflict? Yawn.
Look at the story of an organization.
Perhaps it was started by just one individual, or a small group of people. There were many conflicts that caused growth. What’s the money situation like? How much are they flying by the seat of their pants?
Listen to stories of successful businesses, and, while stressful, look back fondly on the times of growing their business out of their garage or basement.
The lessons that were learned. The growth. Even if most businesses end up closing shop as failures (and many do), the lessons that they learned from the conflict were worth it (mostly, hopefully you didn’t bet the farm and your soul on it).
Eventually, an organization can hit that threshold of growth.
They get to that point of growth where people move out of the same room or office. The culture can be lost in the shuffle. More management is brought in.
Without proper management, the organization can easily fall apart, become complacent, and lose out to competitors. The ones they lose out to, especially in more recent times, are the young upstarts without the constraints that became part of organizations once they began to become complacent.
Ones that weren’t afraid to have disagreement at work, and didn’t have the fear of disagreement.
That said, these very organizations can one day face the same fate if they are not careful.
That fear of disagreement boiled up. They coasted for a time, and it comes back to bit them in the ass. This could’ve been avoided.
3. How to have healthy conflict at work.
We now come to the main point on how to have healthy conflict at work.
While I feel like a broken record now, I want to point out again that conflict at work is not political backstabbing, shouting matches, gossiping, and petty shit.
There is definitely no fear of disagreement in football. Source: pixabay
Healthy conflict at work allows for people to take risks in their work at organizations and not be afraid to speak their minds.
By speak their mind, I mean in the office. Not after some liquid courage after going out with some workmates after work on a Wednesday when the boss isn’t around. There should not be a fear of disagreement present.
1. Acknowledge your organization culture and what it currently allows for in regards to conflict at work.
Perhaps you’re the organization with the iron first who are afraid to rock the boat, or are the culture of acceptance…who doesn’t like to rock the book.
The end goal is to be in a spot where decisions still get made, but not because the boss said so and that’s how things go, or because everyone is too afraid to make a decision (it’s better to be decisive than right is a saying that my Dad says frequently).
Jeff Bezos (who i have quoted before, and have been critical about Amazon), says the quote “disagree and commit”, which is something interesting to think about.
“If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there’s no consensus, it’s helpful to say, ‘Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?'” Bezos writes in the 2016 shareholder letter. “By the time you’re at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you’ll probably get a quick yes. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree and commit all the time.”
Amazon, one of the most valuable organizations in the world, has not fallen victim (yet) to the fear of disagreement. While they have plenty of other issues (which I’ve discussed in the value of putting employees first, something they do not do), this is not one of them.
2. Looking to the values of your organization, and if they align with allowing for conflict at work.
If your organization talks about transparency, or honesty, or something along those lines, yet it’s not happening for various reasons (as listed above), something is off.
Where did things go wrong?
It may have been a case where the founder gets too far removed from the ground level, and is completely unaware of this. The middle management layer creates difficulties, and may lead to the fear of disagreement rising in the organization. Disagreement at work is not encouraged.
It might be time to pull a discussion together.
Don’t worry, you can still have peace and love, and still have disagreement at work. Source: Pixabay
3. Baby steps towards speaking up.
You don’t have to change this overnight. You can start with something small. Let people try small things, and then take bigger and bigger risks. I’m not saying everyone comes in Monday morning and just says whatever they want. You can try, sure, but this isn’t going to be a change that happens overnight.
I should be clear it’s easy for me to write about this, but difficult to implement.
I’m not the one working at your organization (although I can work with you with my various services, no shameless plug there), so I can only get a certain idea of what is going on, and it’s easy for me to say “it’s easy, change it!”.
I understand it’s not. It’s fucking difficult. The fear of disagreement is an incredible barrier to overcome.
Movies usually make it look so easy.
The hero has a roadblock or two, but overcomes them, gets the love interest, and things are wrapped up with a nice bow after a couple of hours.
In reality? Not so much. It’s start and stop. It’s road bump after road bump.
Conclusion: The Value of conflict.
We’ve covered the values that come from conflict in the workplace, in stories, and how to address it.
Now what?
Don’t go picking arguments with coworkers, but take a look at your organization and where they stand for when it comes for conflict at work
Do they allow for disagreements and risk-taking, or is it one driven by a culture of fear or a culture of acceptance? Does your organization have a fear of disagreement?
We at Playficient keep a list of updated books that you can read to help with your corporate culture and how to deal with conflict in the workplace – A List Of Corporate Culture Books That Won’t Bore You.
Does your organization value disagreement for the sake of transparency, or is it squashed away?
If you’re struggling to address conflict at work in your organization, we at Playficient can help you out.
We have three core offerings for organizations:
All these three are possible in helping you deal with your organizational culture and how to allow for conflict at work for growth.
Please contact us for any inquiries or questions that you may have.
How does your organization deal with conflict at work? Leave a comment below!
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