Why Teams Fight and What to Do About It
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Nothing is more frustrating, from a leadership point of view, than a group of individuals circling each other like vultures. In-fighting wastes time, energy, and resources.
Incompetent leaders have teams who turn on each other.
Focus:
Lack of focus invites conflict. Teams who don’t know what’s important can’t focus. Leaders focus teams by showing them what’s important, now. Focus generates energy, unleashes creativity, and fires urgency.
Personal agendas:
Everyone knows Mary wants her way because it makes her look good. She cares more for her career than the team’s success. Immature people think only of themselves. Mature managers manage for the benefit of others.
People, who need control or credit,
fight to get it and refuse to give it.
It’s time for a tough conversation. Reform or remove her. If you can’t remove her, make her insignificant to the team.
Naughty or nice:
Teams flounder when they don’t know how to fight nice. Advocating for ideas isn’t naughty until it becomes personal.
Naughty fighting focuses on people.
Nice fighting focuses on issues.
Naughty fighting is filled with “you.” But, blame and accusation never solve problems.
Past tense conversations never create the future.
Fit:
Those who don’t fit, fight. Give team leaders a voice in forming the team.
Team formation establishes team potential.
High performers, who don’t fit, ruin teams. Creating fit:
- Identify purpose. Why are we here? Know who you are before identifying those who fit.
- Authorize teams to choose new members.
- Interview for team positions like you interview for new hires.
- Establish your code of conduct. How will you treat each other?
Will we interrupt each other during discussions?
What happens if someone is late or doesn’t follow through?
Will we have fun or be serious?
How will we solve disagreements?
What does candor look like?
Why do teams fight with each other?
How can leaders deal with conflict in the team?
Dude saunters up to the bar. Sits by the pretty girl there. Leans over, grins and asks, “what’s worse ignorance or apathy”? Pretty good ice breaker, huh?
Pretty gal at the bar ponders just for a second, stares Dude right in the mug and exclaims, “I don’t know and I don’t care”!
There are far worse things Dan than teams that fight. At least you got to care to be willing to fight.
Helping resolve stuff is simple enough. Get out our agreed upon, stated, repeated, undisputed beliefs and values. Put a copy in front if everyone at the table.
Ok listen up, we are here till we come to am agreement. What choice right now brings us closer to fulfilling these beliefs and values? Anyone, anyone Bueller?
I will take the passion of anger and redirect it over the sadness of apathy anytime Dan, how bout you?
I Concur!
Shifterp Out!
Thanks Dan for opening up the week with this topic. I work in a large state institution and I get to see the full spectrum of employee attitudes and abilities. We struggle quite a lot with infighting laced with apathy. I have learned the hard way that providing clarity (and being consistent) is the first step to getting the team to pull together.
I agree with Scott…. at lease you can do something with the energy and passion of anger. it is much more challenging to light that fire with soggy matches.
Scott, thanks for adding your insights. Couldn’t agree more. Channeled anger gets lots done. Nicely said.
I’m not convinced an ultimatum will achieve your goals but the role of values in the process of conflict resolution within teams is essential.
Lol I understand Dan ultimatums are after all ultimatums!!!!!!
I will tell you tho if you take this strategy to its logical conclusion….you will be amazed how people’s resistance and bull headed ness goes out the door when they got to go to the bathroom, pick the kids up and take them to practice, make their hot date in time.
They want to mess around and not work together to benefit each other, fine!!! Sit!!!!
Ok then one thingy too that can be drawn from this technique. One can see a lot about the people they got. Who is a team player? Who is really aligned with our agreed upon values and beliefs? One can tell by who is working with everyone else and who isn’t.
Anyways leverage if action is desired is where it is at whether it be bladder, hunger or to get to that hot date leverage.
Find the leverage point, push it and people will engage is the point, yes?
Once they get the idea you are not messing around they will get jiggy with working together for their solution quicker!
Leverage works everytime!!!!
I Concur!
SP Out!!
I also observe that people have legitimately differing styles, and for some style becomes as large as / larger than goals, saying HOW we go is as important at WHERE we go…
…There is an ethical component too, some willing to compromise at differing points of conduct.
Teams are complex organisms! 🙂
Great add, Ken. You capture an essential idea when you say, “How we go is as important as where we go.” Leaders often focus on where while forgetting how. “How” is about culture. Culture building is the mission of top leadership. It enables organizations to fulfill their mission.
There wasn’t room in today’s post to hit on the importance of celebrating diversity or the willingness to compromise. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
I’ve definitely failed in the past on this one but am working hard not to “naughty fight” anymore. I have a question, Dan, on establishing code of conduct. What are your thoughts on having fun versus staying serious. I am leading a variety of work groups and find that having some fun and also being serious at times is a good combination. What are your thoughts on this particular code of conduct or any of the ones you mentioned above?
Thanks Patti. Great question.
Would you think that the type of organization is an important factor when it comes to fun. Take hospitals and financial institutions compared to retail stores selling costumes and party supplies.
Also, fun and frivolous are separate issues, or at least might be. Jack Welch love to say that winning is fun. For him, high performance is fun. For others, party hats and horns on Friday afternoon are fun.
I’m ok with sitting down with the team and defining fun. Perhaps, every few months coming back and asking:
Are we having fun? Do you want to have more fun? What does that look like? Is fun enhancing or hindering performance?
I think ideas about fun evolve as organizations grow and morph.
What about you?
Conflict is fine, since it IS energy and that, like Scott says, is a lot better than apathy. We are competitive creatures and there are always differences of style and opinion and perspective. The issue is around how the conflict leads to progress/
In Frank Herbert’s Dune Trilogy of books, the common statement was, “Fear is the mind killer…” — It is that emotion that makes things difficult. Fear generates conditioned helplessness and defensiveness and all that stuff.
Conflict, fine. That offers the possibility of alignment. That is about movement and pressure. Politics is another factor. As all of us are well aware, politics can create concrete bunkers…
Well said.
I concur
Sp out
Nice add, Scott. Love the connection with politics. Politics may be a way to cover up and/or avoid conflict. Not healthy…not effective…not fun.
I sure hope I didn’t leave the impression that all conflict is bad. Conflict concerning “how” things get done is often useful, for example.
Ignoring the drama of circular arguments works well….
Asking….” Are we able to move beyond this?”
“How do you see that happening?”…. Shifts the brain from passive to active thought…
Shifting the topic altogether from complaining to building and highlighting successes works well with women in direct sales industry.
Find that most fighting is pointless.
I like the idea of interviewing for team positions. It has been my experience in schools that teams are hand-picked or made up of volunteers which sometimes has the desired result, but many times does not. In theory an interview process would allow team selection to be focused the mission of the team by identifying the knowledge and skills that are needed to achieve team goals. By creating a team of people with different strengths, it ultimately becomes a very effective team if they possess similar passion for the task/goal and are given the tools to make it happen. Just as in any athletic endeavor, teams are created with a blend of talent, skill, work ethic, and chemistry as they work toward a common goal. It doesn’t happen overnight because it takes commitment, time, selflessness, and the ability to make adjustments.
Good teams can become great by establishing group norms (code of conduct). These agreed upon behaviors are a great way to establish boundaries and expectations which not only serve to keep everyone on task but also reduce personal agendas. Go Team!
Love this, Vicki!
I say leave the fighting for the court room. Have you ever noticed that most lawyers do just that? And, under a controlled environment. They make their case and move on leaving it to the majority to rule in justices favor. When they leave the courtroom they leave their opposing thoughts in the courtroom and often are friends who share drinks afterwards.
I think we can have different opinions of what is right and wrong and in the end it is the leader’s role to determine what opinion is best for the organization. I know sometimes it is not always black and white. In that case a good leader leaves room for negotiation between the parties and defines the gray.
A good example in sales would be when I worked for a cellular company in the mid 90’s. We had a salesman who had close ties to a large organization that wanted to purchase several phones. The thing was the organization was not inside the salesmans territory. The persons whose territory the organization was in wanted the contract… But did not have a relationship with the potential client. The sales manager saw both sides of the concern but explained to each person that they could not do business without the other persons involvement. The end result: The two salesman split the account. Not what either person wanted but lets face it 50 percent of something is better than 50 percent of nothing.In the end everyone was a winner.
There is a great book called The Art Of Persuasion that teaches leaders and their team how to Win without Intimidating. This book has helped me in several situations. It is in the art of the words and how we use them.
we had a brilliant guy who caused dissension everywhere – he moved on and everyone stepped up and everyone is happier.
I say if anger is present in any type of fighting this speaks about fear and this is a deeper issue than the conflict in itself. When there is fear in a team there is a leadership crisis that will not solve itself by establishing rules of conflict. When fear is present the leader has a bigger challenge to restore trust and commitment among the team before expecting positive outcomes from though disagreements. The bigger issue then becomes if the so-called-leader has the needed level of introspect to know if he/she is the problem?
When I first read this post, did you have an additional document that was a code of conduct for teams As a team we will… As a team we will not…. I came back to this a day later and could not locate that information.
I don’t think so Paul.
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