Prefer no conflicts in the team?
“Yes, it’s great to come together as a team, but please: no conflicts!” This is a sentence I often hear when working with teams. Underlying this are perhaps beautiful needs such as harmony, cooperation, or stability. However, suppressing conflicts also means that different opinions are not heard, and it is questionable whether that is the best strategy to meet your team’s needs. It can also become dangerous for organizations if people do not want or dare to speak out. It is a symptom of a psychologically unsafe environment.
In Patrick Lencioni’s work on dysfunctional teams, the ability to engage in and resolve conflicts is one of the fundamental pillars of high-performing teams. This usually does not happen automatically. Conflict can be frightening for some, and especially in groups, submission, shame, and misplaced humility can lead to a dominant culture where not all voices are heard. Everything is left to the leader by default. This creates an unbearable and unproductive environment for both teams and leaders.
The different phases of conflict
How do you create a sustainable culture that embraces diversity, can resolve conflicts, and sees them as a path toward innovation and renewal? To begin with, it is essential to increase awareness of the different phases of conflict within groups.
“If you can feel into both sides and articulate them, growing together happens. The solution to war is not peace but growing together.” – Arnold Mindell
In Arnold Mindell’s Processwork, he distinguishes four phases in which teams or groups come together. In the first phase, there is only love and the possibilities seem endless. It is ‘We’ with a capital W and an exclamation mark. Think of a startup, a new project, or a collaboration. We are full of hope and enthusiasm that we have found each other. No problems here; the sky is the limit!
Then the work begins, and the initial enthusiasm slowly fades. Discussions arise about the goal and what the best way of working together actually is. In this second phase, we begin to realize that ‘we’ is actually ‘you and I,’ and that we are in fact very different from each other, with our own context, history, influences, beliefs, and triggers. Reality sets in: we fight for our own way of working and begin to struggle with everyday hassles.
This is also where marginalization occurs: I don’t like this, not in the other person, and (even scarier!) not in myself. Power and social status become clearer, and we discover that there is no ‘we,’ but a lot of ‘I’s. What may follow is dissonance: ugh, this isn’t for me. Anger, despair, contempt, and the list goes on. Triggers are everywhere, and we wonder, “How did I end up here?”
As unpleasant as some people may find it, phase two is an essential phase because it reveals the diversity within a group. This is the beginning of building trust. Here lies the opportunity to create a sustainable culture where people can express themselves, be heard and seen, and ultimately matter. The art of relating to others begins with venting, heated discussions, and gossip.
Relating to one another, even when we disagree
What Mindell describes in phase three is the need for flexibility: we move from ‘me, me, me’ to ‘us’. This can also be called a shift or a movement. In most cases, this does not happen by itself. It is the work of team facilitation and team coaching.
In systems coaching, we then work with ORSC’s Third Entity: the system is the client, and what is present here? What does the system want and what does it need? We study the environment, provide insight into dysfunctional teams (toxins and antidotes), and actively work on the strong relationships that form the system.
In this phase, we also move away from the individual: we are all a role in the system, and because of that, we can be free and fluid. Infinity comes into view, an endless space of creativity. We realize there is a higher purpose that brings us together. In Mindell’s fourth phase, we utilize the infinite, flowing space we have created. The possibilities are endless. We are in harmony with our essence.
Practicing conflict skills in daily life
“The Objective of Nonviolent communication […] is to establish relationships based on honesty and empathy, which will eventually fulfill everyone’s needs” – Marshall Rosenberg
The practice of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) also creates this freedom and flexibility (and more): with NVC, we practice listening without judgment, we discover feelings and needs, we reflect these back to the speaker (or ourselves), and we connect at an essential level.
We actively build a relationship with what we long for so much (our needs) and begin to manifest this by making requests of others. This results in a sense of aliveness and energy, perhaps preceded by a grieving process because many of us have marginalized our needs for years.
We return to the basics: we make room for what is important to us and create space and flexibility for honest dialogue, ultimately reaching creativity together and finding new strategies.
It is an exercise in developing our dialogue skills: to stand up for what is important to us and to connect with what is important to the other, with empathy and compassion. The ability to sustain this does not come overnight; it is a process of awareness that requires both inner and outer work.
Needs: that which binds us
“For me, the interior, individual, subjective spirituality is not complete unless I include the intersubjective, the life that exists between us in the relational spaces.” – Robert Gonzalez
Needs are the current manifestation of the life energy within us that leads directly to our essence (phase four in Mindell’s Processwork). This spiritual process of connecting with our needs does not stop at inner work. It forms a powerful starting point to connect with myself as I am, and to enter into a relationship with you as you are, based on what is important to both of us. From here, we move together as a team toward a culture where needs are seen and valued. A vital starting point for a healthy team and the success of our work.
To be able to express our needs, we must enter into relationships. And ultimately, we must practice conflict, or rather: practice the art of connecting.
For more information:
Arnold Mindell, Conflict: Phases, Forums and Solutions
Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization
Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a team
Marshall Rosenberg: Nonviolent Communication
Robert Gonzalez, The Spirituality of Nonviolent Communication: A Course in living Compassion