You have to avoid conflict within your organization to get things done. That’s what most of us are used to. We have learned that you fight for issues that are important to us, but avoid getting involved in issues that aren’t. And we expect the same of others. That’s how we foster teamwork. All teams, however, aren’t successful. It’s more a characteristic of losing teams than winning teams to ignore problems and avoid conflict.

Avoidance of conflict is neither healthy nor productive when the conflict is over serious differences of opinion. Conflict avoidance does not reflect an understanding of conflict or an appreciation of the potential benefits of well-managed conflict.

What is Conflict?

In many health care organizations, conflict is seen as a destructive force that interferes with teamwork and getting things done. That’s because in most organizations, conflict is expressed with anger and aggressive or resistant behaviors. Conflict originates from not getting things done the way one believes it should be done. Let’s call it a self-situation mismatch. The expressed emotions have given conflict a bad name.

There are two types of conflict. The undesirable and too familiar type of conflict is called relationship or affective conflict. Relationship conflict is a conflict based in dislike and distrust. It has a strong emotional component and manifests itself in disrespectful behavior, both verbal and actions, which result in non-productive and disruptive interactions.

The other type of conflict is called task or cognitive conflict. This type of conflict originates from differences in perspective about understanding. Studies show that groups that generate task conflict and manage it well, perform better than do groups that have little task conflict.

Why is this true? Advocates frequently get carried away by their enthusiasm for a solution and overlook important issues. Sometimes, people don’t know what they don’t know. Finally, habits tend to produce the familiar solutions even when the familiar is inappropriate or ineffective. That’s where task conflict can be helpful.

Task conflict can illuminate the overlooked issues, identify biases, and the sources of differences of opinions. When teammates view problems differently, the group explores the definitions, assumptions, logic, and biases that underlie the differences of opinion. In addition, oversight of important contextual factors may be identified and remedied. In effective teams, other teammates participate in the discussion to raise questions and defuse the emotions of the discussion, and provide additional insights. Ultimately, a robust discussion yields a better solution and stronger commitment to the agreed upon plan of action.

What happens if you don’t manage task conflict well?

It is likely to degenerate into relationship conflict. That’s why most of us avoid generating any type of conflict. We are weary of relationship conflict and fear that we cannot control the genie after it has been released from the bottle. Unfortunately, by giving up conflict altogether, we run the risk of missing the opportunity to correct planning deficiencies that originate from flawed thinking of individuals and diminish the benefit of collective minds.

Hospital senior teams are well positioned to engage in cognitive conflict. Hospital leaders are experienced executives who have distinguished themselves within their professional scope of work. Unfortunately, this means being successful within one of the hospital’s professional silos. It is extremely rare for executives who work their way up the hierarchy to gain experience in another organizational silo. How often do physician executives work in Finance? How often does a finance person work in radiology or nursing? Professional training and licensing are significant impediments to developing cross training.

Yet, the education and experiences of a physician, nurse or financial executive produce different points of view. More importantly, it produces different values, different assumptions about causation and possibilities, and meaning attached to beliefs. These differences can produce arguments but if managed properly, disagreements can produce insights.

Engaging in Constructive Conflict

The first step towards constructive conflict is to create the right climate. First, provide education. People will need to become aware of the two types of conflict. They must be trained to develop an appreciation of the potential value of task conflict, while recognizing that relationship conflict does not need to follow.

People need to be educated about the two types of conflict. People need to appreciate that differences of opinions should not be allowed to degrade into relationship conflict. Instead, differences of opinions should be explored as an opportunity to learn something. In addition, the group needs to foster trust, safety, and emotional intelligence. These considerations are tightly linked because it is difficult for any component to exist without the other two. Without these preconditions, group members are unlikely to be willing to engage in task conflict for fear that relationship conflict will emerge.

The next step is to initiate skills development within defined work groups. These are groups that meet often enough so that lessons learned are remembered between meetings. Start with groups that meet at least weekly. Remind the group of the skills that are needed to manage the balance between the two conflicts. Some groups do well to have a facilitator act to encourage task conflict but alert the group to emerging signs of relationship conflict.

There are several key behaviors that need to be taught and mastered so that a trusting environment is created where conflict can be constructive. First, the participants need to avoid the tendency to evaluate while listening and focus on listening for understanding and appreciation. Then, individuals should delay responding to comments until they have had a chance to think through their comments. Reflection may raise some questions that need to be clarified. Most importantly, reflection can help remove emotion from comments and focus on identifying differences of opinion.

Another challenge for the group is to make sure disagreements don’t derail the progress of the discussion. Someone in the meeting will need to assume the responsibility for identifying when the discussion is becoming too contentious and redirecting the conversation to the matters at hand.

Although busy people prefer developing their skills by doing meaningful work, this can be dangerous when dealing with conflict. A lack of skill in engaging in conflict can result in hurt feelings (relationship conflict) that might be difficult to overcome after it has gotten out of hand.

Ultimately, the benefit of a senior executive team developing conflict management skills will be an organization that produces better plans and achieves better commitment to the plan.

Fear of conflict can commit an organization to a path of mediocrity.

Since meaningful success requires taking chances, are you better off taking a chance on building the capabilities of the senior leadership team or on individual initiatives? The answer is that making your leadership team conflict competent will produce better results from each initiative you undertake. Published research proves it.