The Power of Constructive Conflict

When I teach seminars on teamwork, I usually break people into small groups and give them a few minutes to come up with what they think are the five most important aspects of a high performing team.  What would you say?

Usually groups come up with lots of good ideas, but almost never do they list the importance of “constructive conflict.”  Yet, the research on teamwork tells us this is a very important ingredient for a high performing team.  Why?

Imagine this.  A team is having a meeting and “Billy Bob” has an idea.  “Sally Mae” thinks it is a bad idea, but not so bad that she wants to “rock the boat.”  She doesn’t say anything, the idea does not work, and it wastes a lot of time and money.  This happens every day in organizations and bad ideas get implemented because someone won’t speak up.

Or maybe it goes down like this . . . . . Billy Bob’s next idea is SO bad that Sally Mae can’t stand it.  “Billy Bob, that is an idiotic idea.  Are you trying to destroy this organization!?!?”  And that’s what we call negative conflict – and you have seen the results of that.

What is needed is a “norm” of valuing constructive conflict and developing a team competency to disagree without being disagreeable; to collaborate and create better ideas together.  The lack of constructive conflict leads to mediocre or even disastrous decisions.  It can lead to “Groupthink” which has been blamed for causing such tragedies as the Challenger explosion.

I’m oversimplifying (it’s a blog), but here’s the advice:  don’t be overly polite, but don’t be a jerk, and don’t get upset if someone respectfully critiques your idea.

How do you develop the competency of “constructive conflict” within your organization?

Of course you could hire a great consultant to come in and do a workshop for you.  But if you want to try something on your own, I suggest buying the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni for everyone.  Lencioni’s formula for a high performing team, which is backed up by the research, is:

*They trust one another

*They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas

*They commit to decisions and plans of action

*They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans.

*They focus on the achievement of collective results

Bring your team together and ask these questions:  Based on what the book says about teamwork:

*What are we doing well?

*What’s not working?

*How can we make what’s not working, work?

This will give you the beginning of a dialogue that you will have to reinforce over time to develop the competency of constructive conflict and the other four competencies.  Over time you can develop your group into an even higher performing team.

Try it for your next off site or summer staff retreat and practice disagreeing . . . without being disagreeable.  It will help your team make even more of a mission impact.

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site at www.SheehanNonprofitConsulting.com   You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.

The Four Fundamental Questions

If you want focused, effective, coordinated action from the people in your organization, then every one of them should be able to answer these four fundamental questions:

*Why are we here? 

*What do we stand for? 

*Where are we going? 

*How are we going to get there?

Why are we here?  This is the mission question.  But we don’t need to make people memorize the mission statement.  It’s much more important that everyone can, in their own words, explain the impact your organization intends to make and for whom.  Invite people to practice doing this with one another at your next staff meeting.  It will help them the next time someone they meet asks what you do.

What do we stand for?  If you don’t have a list of articulated values of your organization, then add this to your “to do” list.  But don’t just check the box when you are done and file them away.  Regularly – maybe quarterly – refer to them and ask one another how well your organization is living up to them.  How well have you navigated the inevitable ethical challenges that have come along?

Where are we going?  Can everyone state the organization’s most important goals for the coming year, and for the next five years?  And what about your vision for the future?  Have people been given a chance to share their dreams and contribute to creating a shared vision for the organization?  Allowing people to participate in crafting the future of their organization can help develop a more empowered team.

How are we going to get there?  This is, of course, the strategy question and most people in most organizations cannot articulate this.  Writing in Harvard Business Review in 2008, Collins & Rutland made this observation:

“Leaders of firms are mystified when what they thought was a beautifully crafted strategy is never implemented. . . .  They fail to appreciate the necessity of having a simple, clear, succinct strategy statement that everyone can internalize and use as a guiding light for making difficult choices.”

Make the four questions a topic for your next staff meeting or go even deeper on them at your summer staff retreat.  The questions are also a great topic for employee orientation.  When everyone can clearly answer these questions you have a much greater chance of coordinating action and making even more of a mission impact.

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site at www.SheehanNonprofitConsulting.com   You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.

The 7th Deadly Sin of Nonprofit Strategy: “Not Ambitious Enough”

A strategy and its associated goals and plans should be focused on a vision that is big, bold, and inspiring. 

Many strategies are based simply on an analytical forecast of the way things are currently headed.  How dull.  It was Goethe who said:

“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

In his presidential run, Robert Kennedy used to quote George Bernard Shaw at the end of his speeches:

“Some men see things as they are and say ‘why,’ I dream of things that never were and say ‘why not.’”

The way to tap into dreams is through Vision.  One of the very important steps in the strategy process I use is for a nonprofit to focus on its commitment to fulfilling its unmet mission needs (aka Mission Gap) and then dream about what the organization would look like in an ideal state – so that it could close its Mission Gap as effectively as possible.

We need to let people dream these big, bold visions.  They want to be inspired by something.  Ask your stakeholders about their dreams.  Ask them what your organization would look like if they could have it any way they wanted it – so they could make even more of a difference for those they serve.

Ask, listen, share your own dreams – and create a vision with others that inspires you all.

I am often told that this approach to dreaming an ideal is a totally unreasonable way to go about creating a strategy.  When I am told that, I enthusiastically agree!  And then I share another quote by George Bernard Shaw:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in attempting to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

We need big, “unreasonable” visions because – face it – we are trying to solve big, challenging problems.  And incremental improvement is just not satisfactory.  Not for me, at least.  Whether your passion is providing affordable housing, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, or something else – we need organizations to build capacity to address these needs.

Doing this is important because vision – based on the opportunity to close a Mission Gap effectively – drives strategy.  And it ignites the “out of the box” thinking that everyone talks about.

Resist the temptation to create a vision you are sure you can achieve.  And remember the words of Nelson Mandela:

“Your playing small does not serve the world.”

For more ideas on how you can lead breakthroughs in your organization, follow this blog and check out my web site at www.SheehanNonprofitConsulting.com   You will find free resources you can download, including a Breakthrough Strategy Workbook that you can download at no cost.  You can also check out my book, Mission Impact:  Breakthrough Strategies for Nonprofits, and buy it if you are interested.  And you can follow Sheehan Nonprofit Consulting on Facebook.