The 5 Sources of Conflict On Your Team
And what they have in common with a group of friends going to a dance party.
I’ve never met a team that didn’t have issues with conflict.
It could be a leader who talks over everyone in a conversation. Or a long-tenured, senior expert who inspires enough fear in everyone to manipulate every decision. Or it’s isolated to two people who interact like oil and water, and disrupt every meeting.
Perhaps this resonates? If you’re being honest, I’m guessing you can name a few issues on your team.
Conflict isn’t in itself bad. As a leader, you know that.
But you also know that some types of conflict on your team don’t feel like the kind that is like medicine and will lead to good outcomes.
Too often, leaders want to jump to the solution. But unless you know the root of the issue, you risk addressing the wrong problem.
My recommendation is to start with a diagnosis.
How a night out with friends can help you diagnose the source of your team’s conflict.
I find that an analogy can sometimes help you achieve a helpful emotional distance from a problem.
If you’re like most leaders struggling with conflict on your team, you will literally feel your blood pressure rise as you think about the different issues and how they are hurting your organization and your goals.
So bear with me as I take us through one such analogy that has helped me:
Most of us have grown up with a group of friends. High school, college, and those roaring twenties. For many, these groups aren’t just a source of emotional support; they’re a source of fun activities.
When I think back, one of the things I loved doing with my friends was going to a party — a dance party.
But the process of going to a party wasn’t always easy.
We sometimes had trouble choosing a party
Some friends didn’t want to go to the party we chose as a group
When we got there, some might not know the dance moves
Even if you know the moves, you aren’t dancing in sync
And if you wanted to switch partners, good luck. It was often difficult and a risky move. You might end up not clicking with anyone else
The point of a night of dancing with friends is simply to let loose, enjoy the music, and each other’s company. Everything above is the opposite — tension-filled, angst-inducing, and fun-zapping.
And it all maps well to team conflict:
Can’t choose a party —> Lack of shared vision and goals
Don’t want to go to the same party —> Misalignment of personal and organizational goals
Don’t know the moves —> Unskillful interpersonal engagement
Are not in sync —> Lack of behavioral norms and expectations
Switching partners is awkward — Individual differences get in the way
These are the 5 ways most teams sink their performance even before they get started. Even if it is only a subset of the group that is the cause, their negative interactions contaminate the entire group.
To help you diagnose what’s happening in your team, let’s go a little deeper into each one.
The 5 Sources of Team Conflict
I outline the five sources I’ve found most common through my leadership and coaching experience. In addition to signals, I share one path to help you move forward. Each person and situation is different, but these have proven to work over and over again.
1. Lack of Shared Vision & Goals
When the team doesn’t know where they’re headed and why, it’s hard to be in alignment day-to-day.
Signals
Your team is struggling to know what to prioritize
They fight over one area being more important than another
When you ask one person to name company goals, they answer differently from another teammate
One Path Forward
Take the time to clarify where you’re headed and why. Use scenarios to help make them clear — for yourself and your team. Everything sounds great until you start to apply it to real-world scenarios.
Start with a document to organize your thoughts. Chances are, you already have your goals written down. Add scenarios and examples. Then, the key is to incorporate conversation into your process. When people have a chance to engage live, that’s when you’ll learn if the direction you’re setting will hold up.
2. Misalignment of Personal & Organizational Goals
Sometimes, your team knows what the organization’s goals are, but they don’t align with their individual goals. Maybe someone wants to work less, but the organization needs people who are willing to push harder. Or the person wants more growth, but the organization is in steady-state or even downsizing.
Signals
They consistently push a particular approach, regardless of context, complexity or relative importance (e.g. faster, slower, bigger, etc)
They seem disengaged in the work and/or irritable
They are argumentative beyond productive dissent and criticism
One Path Forward
Document your observations. Check with others what they have observed without asking leading questions. If you see a pattern, approach HR and discuss a path forward.
More likely than not, it means having a conversation with the person 1:1. Don’t hide your concerns, and don’t assume why they are behaving the way they are. Be curious and ask. And offer them the opportunity to share that they may not be aligned with the organization.
Even someone who is senior, long-tenured, or historically well-aligned can shift. And that’s OK. What you need to do is help them communicate openly about the shift, if they have shifted, and to align on what to do next. And if something else is the root issue, having this conversation will help as well because it’ll get at the root of a set of behaviors that is disruptive to the team.
3. Unskillful Interpersonal Engagement
Sadly, most professionals don’t get training on how to collaborate productively. Even if someone is a seasoned, experienced leader, it does not mean they are skillful in interpersonal engagement. Perhaps they didn’t need to be in prior roles, or others compensated around them.
Signals
They struggle to listen actively and instead, speak over others or take up all the air space
They avoid difficult conversations, either deprioritizing them or delegating it to other people
When they engage, others leave the conversation deeply frustrated not simply based on what they discussed, but moreso how they choose to approach the topic (e.g. heavy handed, unclear communication, accusatory tone, etc)
One Path Forward
Given the person direct, and clear feedback where you outline their observed behaviors and the negative impact. Consider getting them a leadership or communications coach or sending them to training that will directly address their specific challenges.
Whatever you do, don’t wait. The longer you let their behavior persist, the more you are indicating to them and those around them that their behavior is acceptable. That is a surefire way to lose top talent.
If you find that it isn’t just one person, but a group of individuals who are challenged (possibly in different ways), then group coaching, 1:1 coaching, and/or group training may be necessary. The reality is that each person needs to up level, but they also need to be aware of how they may be triggering each other. No one exists in a vacuum; don’t treat the issue as if it can be easily quarantined.
4. Lack of Behavioral Norms & Expectations
Sometimes, your people aren’t being unskillful; they keep bumping into each other because they don’t know how to get in sync. (Imagine a group of people doing a line dance, but in completely different directions — it’s a mess!)
Signals
People are talking past each other because they are at different stages of a process (e.g. one person is brainstorming, while another trying to plan)
There aren’t clear roles and responsibilities and so people stepping on each other’s toes
Critiques are becoming personal, and cliques are forming; meetings are starting to feel like a middle school lunchroom
One Path Forward
Draft a Code of Conduct and outline the behaviors you expect from the team. Invite discussion and conversation around the draft, including soliciting edits and additions. You’re not operating a democracy, but getting input is a helpful way to make sure you aren’t missing anything or misstating an idea. It’s also a way to build buy-in from your team.
One concept to include is “disagreeing and committing.” This allows everyone to commit to decisions even if they expressed dissent, and it ensures cohesion when the team starts to execute. It’s helpful for day-to-day operations. It’s also essential to align on the Code of Conduct (because, let’s be honest, not everyone will agree to every point) and move forward.
5. Individual Differences Get in the Way
Even when you have common standards of behavior and the same “dance steps” shared across a team, each person will still have their own style: of thinking, of communicating, of processing, and of disagreeing.
Having differences across the team is usually a great thing. The only time you need to address it is if it starts to impede progress and create unproductive tension.
Signals
Someone becomes immovable in demanding that collaboration proceed a certain way, and always in that way
Two people have different communication styles and are not hearing each other when they speak, and struggle to find a way to reach the other person
Team members are starting to gossip about another teammate and their different approach to a body of work, but they aren’t approaching that team member
One Path Forward
The key to this issue is to address it early and before it develops into a pattern or theme. You don’t want anyone to become a target of ridicule or avoided because their reputation precedes them. This is true of the most junior person on the team or the most senior.
Don’t wait to dive into this one. It might feel more risky because it requires delving into a particular person’s style, but that doesn’t make it less worth addressing. It makes it even more powerful. Because of your intervention, that person may have a far more productive career future because you helped them get the feedback they critically need.
Your Turn
If you’re like most leaders, unproductive interpersonal conflict is just one of many issues on you long list of to-do’s.
It truly might not be one of the most urgent and critical things to solve, but it’s probably also costing you and your team more than you realize — not just in lost productivity at work, but in sleepless nights or at least more irritated commutes and dinner times.
If you’re not sure where it stands, talk to your team. Or just pause to observe what’s happening in your team’s interactions. What might realize may surprise you. It might not be an issue that is simply caused by your team’s lack of skillfulness or style differences.
The source might even be you. This your invitation to assess the situation before a truly negative outcome emerges.
If this piece was helpful to you, I’d deeply appreciate your sharing it with another leader.
I write each week about the topics I knew made a differentce for my teams and the businesses I led, but felt challenged by as a leader. With my newfound 20-20 perspective, I want to help more leaders make better decisions and build stronger organizations.
When you’re a leader of leaders, it’s that much more important to invest in your people and how they interact. If you’ve found ways to diagnose (and address) the type of team conflict that derails, I’d love to hear it in the Comments. I read and respond to every one.
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I enjoyed reading this article. Well done!