Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators

Chapter 4. OVERCOMING DYSFUNCTION #2

MASTERING CONFLICT

Once a team has begun the process of building trust, it's time to think about leveraging that trust. That's right. Trust is important because it is a requirement for overcoming the next dysfunction, which is the all-too-common fear of conflict.

When I talk about conflict on a team, I'm talking about productive, ideological conflict: passionate, unfiltered debate around issues of importance to the team. Any team that wants to maximize its effectiveness needs to learn to do this, and doing so can only happen if vulnerability-based trust exists.

That's not to say that some teams that lack trust don't argue. It's just that their arguments are often destructive because they are laced with politics, ...