Hidden Potential: Embracing Conflict Can Pay Off For Teams

The obvious suggestion is that

teams should try to have more task

conflict and less relationship conflict.

Although teams may try to do this,

their efforts often fall into jeopardy

because what starts out as task con-

flict can easily be transformed into

relationship conflict. Criticism of

someone’s idea can be interpreted as

criticism of the person, and this can

provoke an angry response and spark

relationship conflict.

To benefit from the upside of task

conflict and avoid the problems asso-

ciated with relationship conflict,

teams need to foster open, honest dis-

cussion and at the same time keep

conflict from turning personal. To do

this they need to create ...