Teach Your Team to Wrestle with Ideas, Not Each Other
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni makes the point that high performing teams are able to engage in conflict around ideas, and they are able to keep the focus on the ideas and not make the conflict about the people.
As a leader, it’s your job to help your team engage in healthy conflict around ideas.
A relatively easy first step is to keep the focus on the ideas even before any conflict arises.
You want to avoid calling out a team member’s name when commenting on an idea. Imagine you’re in a leadership team meeting discussing whether to sponsor a conference and a colleague, Neha, comes up with an idea that you like.
I recommend NOT saying:
I agree with Neha on this one.
Why? Because you risk creating a faction with two allied people. It's now harder for a third team member to speak up, which lowers the chances diverse thought enters the conversation.
Model focusing on the ideas themselves and not the people:
I like the idea that we should talk to finance to see how sponsoring this conference would fit with our budget.
This takes a bit more effort because you have to rephrase Neha's idea. And in doing so, you just may give it your own personal spin with a nuance that supports increased clarity or alignment.
But what about the conflict part?
Your role as a leader is to promote healthy conflict on your team. Remind your team that engaging in conflict around ideas is important, healthy work that they can do. It will make the team stronger. Again, keep the focus on the ideas, not the people.
For example, if a team member named LaKeesha said:
I think we should sponsor this conference. It's our target market and the investment is reasonable.
Instead of saying:
What do people think about LaKeesha's point?
You could say:
What do people think about the target market and investment?
Healthy conflict is the antidote to groupthink, and ideally, all concerns about sponsoring this conference are voiced before the team agrees to move forward. As the leader, you can ask specifically for divergent views. Here's more on that.
A 'check-out' can help a team reconnect after a meeting where there was healthy conflict because it reminds them that they're all on the same team. Here are other ways to create psychological safety.
