Leading with Strategy

33From My Way to Our Way: A Strategic Approach to Conflict Management

Conflict is inevitable in any team, even in high‐performing ones. The question is not how to avoid conflict; it’s how to navigate it. Healthy teams don't shy away from tension; they develop shared rules of engagement, practice open dialogue, and treat conflict as a potential catalyst for clarity, learning, and innovation.

They don't create conflict for conflict's sake. But when it arises, they don't fear it, they mine it. They develop ways of mining the conflict: constructively addressing dilemmas and paradoxes and building on what they uncover to move forward.

In most organizations, conflict is treated as something to avoid, resolve, or suppress. But conflict often signals that something important is at stake: a tension between truths, a misalignment of expectations, or the presence of competing assumptions that need to be surfaced.

Let's look at the kinds of conflict that commonly show up in organizational life:

• Conflict in Vision: Where are we headed?
• Conflict in Goals: What are we trying to achieve—and how does it align across teams?
• Conflict in Communication Styles: How do we relate and interpret each other's intent?
• Conflict in Values: What do we stand for and what happens when ethical frames clash?
• Conflict in Resource Allocation: Who gets what and how are those decisions made?
• Conflict in Roles ...