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Trust
Benign conflict
Act with determination
No complaints
One obstacle to teamwork is the fear of conflict.
On the one hand, many managers take various measures to avoid conflict in their teams for fear of losing control of the team and the damage to some people's self-esteem; on the other hand, others treat conflict as a waste of time.
They prefer to keep meetings and discussions short, to make decisions that seem to them to be taken sooner or later, and to allow more time to implement decisions and other tasks that they consider to be 'real'.
In either case, CEOs believe that they are strengthening their teams by avoiding destructive differences of opinion.
This is ridiculous, because what they are doing is actually stifling constructive conflict and sweeping under the carpet the major issues that need to be addressed.
To be a cohesive team, leaders must learn to make decisions when there is no perfect information and no unity of opinion.
And precisely because perfect information and absolute unanimity are so rare, the ability to make decisions becomes one of the key behaviours of a team. But a team cannot learn to make decisions if it does not encourage constructive and unsuspecting conflict.
This is because it is only when team members argue passionately and unguardedly with each other, speaking their minds forthrightly, that leaders can have the confidence to make decisions that fully focus their collective wisdom. Teams that are unable to argue about differences of opinion and exchange unfiltered, candid views often find themselves confronted with the same problems over and over again.
In fact, teams that appear to outsiders to be poorly mechanised and always arguing are often the ones that are able to make and stick to the tough decisions.
The best teams don't need to be reminded by their leaders to do their best because they know exactly what needs to be done, and they remind each other of behaviours and activities that don't contribute to success.
Less-than-excellent teams, on the other hand, generally resort to reporting unacceptable behaviour to their leaders, or worse: gossiping behind their backs.
These behaviours not only undermine team morale, but also delay problems that could be easily resolved.