Leading Winning Teams

12Conflict and the Rules of Engagement

ONE OF THE differences between conflict in a business and conflict that may occur in professional sports is the intensity. That is not to say that conflict is not happening everywhere and that it's not intense. We have seen workplace violence since the beginning of time, and we also know that there is plenty of conflict regularly occurring in most of our lives at some level.

Disagreements, challenges, and conflict are a few of the primary reasons why people work every day. It is why people have roles in organizations: to solve issues and complex challenges. They are the people with training called on to resolve issues through their sense of ethics, skills, training, logic, and more.

A Threat of Violence

The reality is that the threat of violence in sports is much higher among men. I had not really considered it, but when I heard Dr. Jordan Peterson discuss conflict in an interview, I was stunned when he talked about the ever-present underlying current and threat of violence when conflict arrives among men versus women. Conflict shows up in many ways and begins in ridiculously small terms, such as embarrassment, snarky comments, gossiping behind someone's back, water cooler disagreements, sarcasm, or debates, often indirect to the conflicting parties but passively aggressive.

Direct challengers are often seen as overaggressive and “problems” in an organization. This has always challenged my thinking because I am not sure I understand ...