What Would Happen If I Listened to Colleagues to Get What They Really Think?

Over the years of coaching executives and their teams there is one conversation that executives say has defied their best efforts to get rid of it – and that is gossiping and undermining. And the companion complaint – people don't speak up, and when they do they don't speak straight.

One executive complained recently, with more than a little resignation and hopelessness, "Why all the back channel BS? Why don't people speak up when they have something to say, why do I have to hear that there is stuff they are not telling me through intermediaries? We need adults around here, we need people with a bit of spine, with courage to say what's on their mind...".

Executives, like the one I just referred to, persistent in externalizing the source of the issues in their organizations to the ubiquitous them. They bristle at the very suggestion they might be a factor to consider – that they may even be part of the problem.

If We Are Not Willing to See Ourselves As Part of the Problem, We Will Not Be Able to Be Part of the Solution

Let's face it, we can't ever expect to have open and straight communication if we provide no listening for it. Most of us are very good at dishing out our feedback – not so good at receiving it. We are good and broadcasting, not so good at receiving.

Tell the truth, when did you last solicit feedback? And how do you deal with it if you are lucky enough to get some? When did you last listen for what was not been said?

So Let's Look: Ask Yourself, How Well Do I Receive Feedback How Well Do I Listen?

It's always useful to pause and reflect on how well we are doing in listening, I mean really listening – as in getting the feedback of others.

If it is valid that you have a commitment to be really effective in receiving feedback then take a moment and score yourself against each of the following statements on a scale of 1-10, 10 being high.

1. I listen to feedback with the intention of discovering how I can improve my leadership and management effectiveness
2. I don't react to feedback with argument, justification or excuses. I listen to really get how I occur to the person giving me feedback – what their experience of me is
3. I want to learn from feedback, even if it is given in the form that sounds like a make-wrong, invalidation or criticism of me
4. I am willing to acknowledge feedback about my leadership, behavior and performance at work, and I am willing to say how, and by when, I will make a correction, if a correction is called for
5. I actively seek out feedback. I initiate conversations about how I occur, how people experience my interactions with them, and how I can improve my performance and make the interactions I have with colleagues more open and productive
6. I manage my emotions when receiving feedback. I don't let them get in the way – either by shutting down the feedback, or my willingness to hear it, because of my uncomfortableness, ... or whatever the emotion is
7. I relate to feedback as a gift, as an opportunity to see my blind spots, and opportunity to make corrections so as to be a more effective leader, manager, and individual contributor
8. In my role as a leader and manager I encourage others to be open to giving and receiving feedback, to see the developmental possibilities in it, and I coach them how to get the most value out of receiving feedback
9. I am a role model for my colleagues in being open to receiving feedback. I am also a role model for acting on the feedback I receive by making corrections when that is what's required.

What Would Happen If You Said What You Really Think? Part 2

We Have Loads of Opportunities to Say What We Really Think – Yet Mostly Don't

IF? If we have a commitment to be open, direct, and honest in our interactions with the people we work with it is useful to check in with ourselves from time to time to see how well we are doing.

Take giving feedback for example. We all have lots of opportunities to give feedback; in performance reviews, in one-on-one meetings with colleagues, and in the ordinary day-to-day interactions.

Start by noticing your background conversations as you are speaking to colleagues. Is the background conversation about making a contribution to the person we are speaking to or is about making them wrong, showing them how they screwed up, while letting them know how upset/angry you are?

How Well Do I Give Feedback?

If it is valid that you have a commitment to be really effective in giving feedback then take a moment and score yourself against each of the following statements on a scale of 1-10, 10 being high.

1. I give feedback with the intention of helping the person to whom I am given feedback to see how they can improve their performance and/or modify their behaviors
2. I give feedback often – it is part of my day-to-day discipline and practice to look out for teachable moments
3. I look to catch someone doing something great and acknowledge and appreciate them in the moment, and tell them specifically in what way their actions forward our goals and/or values
4. I pay attention to what people are doing that does not forward their goals, or is inconsistent with their promises or values, and I ask them if they are open to hearing about what I observe
5. I encourage people to invite me to give them feedback as someone committed to their success, growth and development
6. I create a safe and non-threatening context before I give feedback by making sure people understand my commitment is to contribute to them, not to make them wrong or invalidate them
7. I can be counted on to be specific in my feedback, just the facts – what happened or did not happen
8. I can be counted on to manage my own emotions when giving feedback and not direct my anger, upset, frustration... at the person to whom I am giving feedback
9. I can be counted on to leave people with the experience of having been contributed to, grateful for my feedback, and with a pathway to make corrections.

Answer The Following Questions

For every score below 10 ask:

1. What is missing, that if I were to put it in place, my score would go up?
2. What is present, and in the way, that if I were to remove it, my score would go up?

Act on Your Insights – Now

Paraphrasing +Bill Gates – an insight has the half life of a banana. So act on your insights, put the missing in place and remove what's present and in the way.

If we are in a make wrong/blame mood, if we are angry, frustrated even, with someone or frustrated by something that happened, or something that didn't happen, then the first step is top notice the emotions and moods that are swirling around.

What Would Happen If You Said What You Really Think?

My Implied Accusation Is That We Don't Tell The Truth

Or said another way, I am saying we lie, and we lie about the fact we lie – often even to ourselves.

You’re lied to 10 to 200 times a day, and a stranger will lie to you three times in the first 10 minutes of a conversation. That’s unsettling news, but according to a TED Talk by Pamela Meyer, we only pretend to be against lying. Because obviously, we’re all, to some extent, covertly supporting lies by propagating them.

In a sense, we’ve built our whole world around lies, and that’s an idea that’s quite literally mapped out by this visualization of Meyer’s talk, created by Ben Gibson, co-founder and art director of Pop Chart Lab, in collaboration with the team at TED.

What's The Cost of Lying In An Organizational Setting?

I am going to ignore the obvious cost that come for lying that is a cover up for fraud and other criminal behavior. But what about the lying that we do daily by, for example: 

• By avoiding difficult conversations
• By talking around the elephant in the room
• By agreeing with a decision that we think is wrong only to covertly undermine it later
• By gossiping to others instead of directly to the person we have a complaint about
• By making excuses and justifying a mistake or failure instead of acknowledging it

It is not hard to work out that a group of people who have a shared practice of lying and (implicitly) agreeing to being lied to hugely sub-optimalize their capacity to produce desired results. 

What Would We Have To Give Up To Have Authentic Communication?

Can you imaging an organization in which open straight and honest communication was the order of the day. For example we'd have to give up:

• Hiding our real feelings so as to avoid upsetting someone/anyone
• Being inauthentic disguised as being nice, being polite
• The results we want in favor of the best we can get
• Trust as a value in use – we'd have to give up trust if we are lying and being lied to all the time.

We Lie, And We Lie That We Lie, Except – Not Always

If we knew that humans lie, and lie that they lie – but not always, wouldn't it be a normal and natural part of each conversation, each interaction with colleagues, friends and family, to probe to discover, is this the truth, or is this one of the occasions he's lying? 

Wouldn't we be more intentional so as not to settle for the untruthful answer and press for, what's the truth, really?

What about a practice to rehabilitate integrity – to make truth telling an organizing principle?

Making the Choice Between Money and Meaning

Do We Make Choices Really, Or Did Circumstances Get Us Here?

I have heard a lot of talk recently about the choices people make between meaning and money. At one end of the career spectrum the conversations have been from people waking up to the fact that they have not led the life they envisioned for themselves.

And at the beginning of a career, with survival a paramount concern, the choice for many seems to be a luxury they cannot afford – it has to be money first.

This Is Not The Life I Envisioned

A recent example of this is not the life I envisioned was from a lunch meeting with an investment banker referred to me as someone who could use some coaching. He confessed that after 35 years in banking all he had to show for his life's work was money, and the experience he had wasted his life. "I could have stopped accumulating money 20 years ago and I'd have been just fine".

He complained that somewhere along the way he was not making choices about what he wanted his life to be about, he was just reacting to day-to-day circumstances and was experiencing being adrift looking for some way to put meaning into his life.

What About Starting Out?

Starting out most young people are idealists, if resignation and disappointment hasn't gotten to them first, they want to change the world. A few are actually doing it. Hugh Evans and Simon Moss the founders of the Global Poverty Project, or Adam Braun of Pencils of Promise are just two of many inspiring examples. These activist/idealists attract lots of like minded supporters who make a conscious choice of a life of meaning over money. The myth that those working for social causes, and those who support them, live with is that you can't have both meaningful work and money. But that's a topic for another day.

In a recent article a friend of mine wrote, "I recently attended the Social Enterprise Alliance Regional Conference in Los Angeles, and I heard a lot of talk about young people and their growing desire to find meaningful and purposeful work. It was a theme that came up in many of the sessions I intended. Or at least it was something for which I was listening. When I asked Adlai Wertman, USC Marshall School of Business—Society and Business Lab, what percentage of students he thought were leaning in this direction, the answer was suddenly qualified. What happens, he explained, is that when corporate recruiters come on campus and begin offering large signing bonuses amidst the specter of $10,000s and perhaps $100,000s of student loans, a palpable reality emerges, and in that instance, finding work that is meaningful and purposeful becomes less of a defining quality." [Ron Schultz: Adjacent Opportunities: The Emergent Choice  E:CO Issue Vol. 14 No. 3 2012]

So do young people, choose a career so as to pay for college and, in the US at least pursues the illusion of the American Dream, which is making a ton of money? I say, "illusion" simply based on the small percentage of people who actually make it.

And What About Mid-Career?

If I were to generalize from my experience of the thousands of executives I have worked with over the years, as colleagues when I was an executive myself, and as my clients as an executive coach, I would have to say the majority are working for money and status. Or more recently, money and the fear of losing the money source – their jobs.

Too few organizations are purpose-driven beyond making their numbers, and doing more of what they have always been doing, that is. Too few people, in my experience, see their work as forwarding some purpose, some mission, some set of principles or values. That is often the argument made for paying people high salaries – if it weren't for the money they would not want to do the work – "Would I sit in front of these screens all day in this pressure cooker environment if it weren't for the money? Are you kidding me!" was one traders response to my question about how he saw the purpose of his work.  

Has The Financial Crisis Caused a Rethink About Money And Meaning?

A rethink about money and meaning? For some inevitably, especially those who have lost jobs, and in many cases their net worth too. But what about any signs of a more systemic shift in our relationship between money and meaning. Do we get any sign in the media that a shift is under way, or that our basic assumptions about money and worth/contribution/meaning is under way?

I don't see the possibility of a life with too much meaning – that sounds like bliss. But how much money is enough, beyond which it is too much? We seem to be fascinated with millionaires and billionaires, but why? Is accumulating money what our society values really, the only thing we value and acknowledge people for, really? Is the implicit message if you have not amassed a fortune then you have not had a meaningful life? Or is there an alternative narrative emerging?

I detect that inquiry is underway.

What Do You Wish Your Bosses Had Told You...

I asked: What do you wish your bosses had told you as you moved through your career?

And, what difference would it have made to your career, to your life, and how you feel about yourself?

He paused for a good chunk of time and then responded: "What I wanted to hear is different from what I needed to hear."

I asked him to explain. And he did...

What I wanted to hear was, "It will be okay," when I messed up or was upset about something. And, "That's terrific, you're great!" when I did something well. That would have helped me feel supported and certainly would have been better than feeling put down, which happened a lot.

But what I needed to hear was, "I see that you are upset about something, tell me what happened [with real curiosity and compassion]," or, "Wow, I see you are really excited about something, tell me what happened [again with curiosity, and this time with enthusiasm too]. By Having my feelings seen and validated, and by being able to tell the entire story of what led to my feeling that way, and then have my boss talk with me about it, I would have learned to be much more competent and confident.

Caring comes not from what you say to your reports, but what you enable them to say to you that is weighing on their minds, hearts and souls – then, how you hear them out so that instead of them feeling dismissed and not worth your time, they feel understood, feel cared for, less alone and, they feel worthy. All important feelings for employees to have in an organization that is working to produce breakthroughs – especially in stressful times.

One of the advantages of being an executive coach is that learning, and constant stream of great stories you get to share with people, is part of day-to-day interactions with clients. One of the disadvantages, is that some times who said what to whom, and when, is fuzzy. 

What I have just shared is from one of these fuzzy memories. I was not party to this conversation, and I cannot recall who shared it with me. That said, with that disclaimer, so to speak, I want to share it anyway - it is just good stuff, and a valuable lesson for us all.

So You Want The Future You Created to Become Reality...

A Few Simple Recommendations

1. Stay in touch with people who are passionate about the future. Passion is contagious – go for it
2. Get into action – do something that forwards the future – today, before you go home
3. Start a project that will forward the future – not some big grand, needs permission/buy in from everyone kind of project. Make it a short-term project, something you and your colleagues can do in a week, or maybe two. Something that will make a difference
4. Name your project, call it something sexy, a name that will speak to the possibility your see
5. Be a leader – how you'll know you are a leader: call a meeting, propose and idea, start something – if folks show up and follow; you are a leader.

Find Role Models

Find role models from inside your organization and from wherever

1. Who are the heroes – get them involved in your projects. Just invite them, if they say no, that OK, then invite someone else. Let your passion and enthusiasm do the work of enrolling them – not your reasons or explanations
2. Look for people who are doing really great things, people like Jason Roberts. Check him out – no authority, no permissions from anyone, no money to spend...yet he has made a huge amount of really great changes that have made a huge difference in peoples' lives. He is also a great model for Being passionate.

And Remember Luck and Serendipity

However, you have to show up and be in action for luck to find you.

A New Possibility – An Exciting Future Shaping Our Present

As Well as Forecasting From the Past – Backcast From the Future 

Backcasting starts from the future. A future, though not yet realized, lives nonetheless in imagination, in aspiration, in vision. It lives with all the reality and concreteness of an architect's blueprints and models of a future cityscape. Time has to pass, work has to be done, this backcast future is here, in the now, shaping actions and outcomes.

A backcast future, in the moments of creation, is one in which leaders scan the accomplishments of their enterprise in the future with satisfaction, with a sense of, "WOW! We did it, we pulled off an amazing transformation of our business and our industry. And, we have a sustainable, almost unstoppable, momentum. We have created an organization of excited, energetic and aligned people and a host of supportive collaborators". 

The process of backcasting in a process of remembering – remembering what happened and when it happened? What were the key accomplishments, milestone by milestone? Who were the heroes, the people who made audacious promises and produced breakthrough results? What were the setbacks and how did we deal with them? And so on into ever more granular detail till the whole pathway that led to the future is remembered.

As in any remembering of the past there will be different recollections, people will remember things differently. However, there is no doubt though – we did get to here, from there – about that there is no disagreement.

That was the journey of remembering is one in which I guide senior leaders through so they end up with a clearly articulated, and aligned on future for the enterprise and the pathway that got them there.

So How Does Forecasting and Backcasting Work Together?

Forecasting is our best shot at predicting what the future will look like, informed by the past – the enterprise's past, the industry's past, the economy's past, .... 

Forecasting is an essential tool. It is useful to know where we are and where we are headed if we stay on our current trajectory. 

Backcasting however, starts with the future, with realized vision, aspiration and intention as the context. A future arrived at unconstrained by circumstances, or limited feasibility [feasability is a past-based viewpoint anyway]. A future the leaders really, really, really want – not a pipe-dream. This is a future that was arrived at by creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and action, and by the thoughtful work of dedicated and committed people.

Mapping the forecast future onto the backcast future clearly shows the scale of the breakthroughs that were accomplished in making the backcast future real.

Using forecasting to support backcasting:

• Gives a way to think about present day reality – if we don't change course this is where we are headed – this is what we can expect qualitatively and quantitatively
• Shows clearly the scale of the breakthroughs that were accomplished on the way to realizing the future leaders really wanted – we could not have gotten here with more or better of our practices of a few years ago
• Shows, milestone by milestone, the problems that were solved, the projects that were taken on, the systems that got changed, the processes that got put in place, the accomplishments that were achieved...
• Shows where and how behaviors and practices got altered, where new accountabilities were established, where new ways of relating, collaborating and working showed up, who and where the heroes were...
• Shows too where breakdowns happened – stuff happened, it wasn't all plain sailing – and it shows where new approaches and solutions were invented turning breakdowns into breakthroughs...

Standing in the present: backcasting provides the context for inventing, generating and discovering – forecasting shows us the scale of breakthroughs that are needed and the timing in which they need to happened. The gap between the forecast and the backcast is the context in which leaders, visionary leaders, lead their organizations – these are leaders who are shaped by a future they really, really, really want, not circumscribed or constrained by predictions from the past.

Backcasting and forecasting – the two together are THE essential drivers of innovation, and THE context for a sustainable transformation of the enterprise – its culture, its strategies and its architecture, and its role in the larger network of relationships that make it a viable business.

A Leader's Primary Focus – Creating a Sustainable Future for the Enterprise

The Past Shapes Our Present

Over the years forecasting has been the dominant methodology to determine [predict really] what the future of an organization will look like. After forecasting all the possible scenarios a path forward is chosen – the future strategy of the enterprise. 

The strategy is designed to shape future actions, so as to produce the predicted/forecast future. It is a strategy that can be defended with facts, and supported with a credible logic. In this model it is valid, even necessary, to show how the activities and events of the past have given us our present. And, equally valid to show all the options that were considered in deciding on a most likely scenario for a future.

For a forecast model of the future to be supportable with financial investments and other resource allocations it has to pass the "reasonable, feasible, doable" test – we have to be able to say: we have the know-how, we have the resources [or can get them], we know the territory, we have the reputation, credibility and relationships to execute the strategy. 

So we are set, right?  Just execute the strategy, right? Well not quite. 

So what about "the vision thing"? Lou Gerstner is quoted as saying [talking about IBM as its new CEO] that, "the last thing IBM needs right now is a vision… What IBM needs right now is a series of very tough-minded, market driven, highly effective strategies for each of its businesses – strategies that deliver performance in the marketplace and shareholder value”. 

Yet most leaders will readily confess [as Gerstner did] that they want more for their enterprise than the best case scenario forecasts and good past-based execution. Essential though that is, it is not sufficient to unleash the creativity, imagination and passion of the people of the enterprise and create a sustainable business. 

People need an audacious future to live into so as to unleash their genius. That is what inspires us and gives us the "juice" to innovate – no compelling future no breakthroughs, no genius, except by luck. We just have to settle for business as usual.

In my next post I will look at another possibility – creating an exciting future to shape our present.

Backcasting: A Process and a Way of Thinking and Leading

First there's Forecasting: the Process of Predicting a Likely Future

We are all familiar with the process of forecasting. Basically, it is a process, and way of thinking and leading to predict a likely future.

To forecast, we stand in the present and look to the organization's past – what has been accomplished: are we growing or contracting? What skills and competencies do we have, what resources are at our disposal, where have we succeeded and where have we failed, what is happening in our market with customers and competitors, are our products and services competitive, do we have anything innovative to offer that will alter the trajectory of the past going forward?

Then, informed by the past, we make a series of assessments about what the likely future will look like – the most likely case supported by data and analysis of risks and opportunities. The culmination of the forecasting process is choosing a strategy to organize actions and allocate resources so as to realize the forecast.

The value of forecasting is that it provides a grounded assessment about what is likely and what is possible based on past experience. It provides a context for management, prediction and control. It provides the basis for continuous improvement using tools like six sigma, scenario planning, financial modeling, and so on.

The limitations of forecasting: is that it is past based – it relies on experience and knowledge of the past. The strength of forecasting can quickly become its weakness in any effort to create rapid and discontinuous growth: the reliance on data, on analysis, on agreement about what's feasible, and on certainty about the organization's ability to deliver. 

Audacious plans are often shelved because the data doesn't support them. So a subtext of forecasting in be reasonable, be predictable and be close to certain – or at least within defined limits. 

Then there is Backcasting: the Process of Creating a Desired Future

Backcasting basically, is a process, a way of thinking, a way of Being and a way of leading to create a desired future.

The context for backcasting is an experience that leaders and members of an organization have of a possibility for the future beyond what is currently being achieved by the organization. A desire even to create a future for their organization that in not predictable given the past – a future they really, really, really want for their organization. 

The process of backcasting starts in the future. It is a process of remembering from a point in time looking back – what got accomplished and when, with all the nuances and detail that the collective memory of the organization can recall. It is a process of remembering the qualitative outcomes and the quantitative ones too; the successes and the failures, and the many acts of heroism that made the desired future real.

It is a rigorous process grounded in intention, vision and desire on the one hand, and also in specificity on the other hand. The roadmap back from the future is full of detail: who did what, when? And how did they do it? What was the response of the market? And so on in ever finer detail till the what happened is clear.

Next time: More about a leaders Primary Focus

How Come Some Leaders Still Just Don't Get It?

Last week as I was reading about Duke Energy's latest developments – $44 million for one day as CEO – nice work if you can get it I thought. But that thought quickly woke me up to the fact that this piece of news is just another piece of evidence that not all is well with the way many corporations are run, and the fundamental organizing principles and practices of their leaders. Can anyone, even the most ardent supported of "go get all you can capitalism" think this is sane and responsible leadership?

While I am on that topic of sane and responsible leadership, if you haven't read Firms of Endearment (FoE), I highly recommend it - Raj Sisodia the lead author is a professor at Bentley U in MA and a highly respected thought leader. He and his co-authors shows that there is huge economic upside to managing a firm with the interests of all stakeholders driving every decision (high on the list is employees). For example, the 15 year ROI of FoE companies is 1646%; vs, Good to Great companies 177%; and S&P companies 157%. These numbers unequivocally demonstrate that when leaders create: 

• Meaning and purpose, so that everyone knows what the organization is up to, really. They can answer the question, "what would be missing to society, to our stakeholders if we disappeared?"  
• A clear and unequivocal concern for, and commitment to, every stakeholder expressed in specific measurable outcomes that they know (or strongly intuit) that when they deliver, each stakeholder will be thrilled
• A culture that is an expression of consciously-lived values – no platitudinous  warm and fuzzy statements made for PR not for living
• A caring and responsible leadership – which in simple terms means walk-the-talk.

Not only does leading this way really pays off in the only measure that too many investors and analysts care about – ROI; but it also pays off in all the other key measures of performance.

It still puzzles me that so many "leaders" still don't get what is blindingly obvious – if they would just be open to looking at what is being done that works in many highly respected and well know organizations – if they would just be open to experimenting with a few low risk and high payoff proven practices that could (would I say)  transform their businesses.

Another part of what works, I have found, is to design work so that each person experiences making progress in whatever it is they are working on and accountable for – some tangible evidence they are moving closer to the specific measurable desired result they want and are committed to. This perspective too is well validated by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in the well researched book The Progress Principle.

If everyone can experience making progress every day, then in a month, a quarter, a year huge changes are made. With hindsight, people will notice it did not appear to be struggle or effort – just lots of small satisfying changes that added up to something big. It's a variant of the old story, "how do you eat an elephant?" – one mouthful at a time.

Seven Things to Take Into Account in Leading Change

The primary role of a leader is to speak for what isn't, not about what is. Or, said another way, a leaders role is to speak for a future he/she is committed to that is not going to happen anyway. Leaders bring futures into existence by speaking possibilities and then by enrolling and mobilizing their organization to make the possible future they envision real.

Seven things for leaders to take into account in leading change:

1. The organizational bias is to work inside the status quo – we've always done it this way is deeply embedded and will thwart change if not confronted
2. Demonstrate your commitment to change is real – find a symbolic change that will signal intentionality – handle a persistent complaint, change a rule or a policy, slaughter a sacred cow. Make sure people get your commitment is not a passing fancy
3. Create space for experiments, for failures – make setbacks the evidence of having tried something new, not the evidence of having done something wrong. Reward trying as much as succeeding
4. Create a network of support – mentors, coaches, trainers and buddies – so there are people to help with setbacks, difficult problems and the host of new unknowns that come with taking on something we've never done before
5. Create practices, processes, procedures and protocols so that progress can be measured, new learning is being generated, and can be replicated and shared around the organization – and, remember to dismantle those practices, procedures... that don't serve the new future
6. Make not knowing safe – causing change requires a healthy relationship with not knowing. Ignorance management needs even more attention than knowledge management. As Peter Drucker put it, "Great managers find the answers, great leaders find the right questions" and implicitly, questions for which we do not yet have the answer
7. Acknowledge and celebrate – look for the heroes, the bold tries, expressions of courage, risk taking and in doing so keep reminding people of the mission, the purpose the ultimate outcome that their efforts are helping to bring into existence. 

Surface and Deal With Conflict – Please!

One of the myths we live with in the world of work is that conflict is undesirable. Worse, that conflict should be avoided, and that those people who are the instigators of conflict need to be dealt with – code for, shut up or removed.


The standard operating procedure is: be nice, get along, don't rock the boat, be loyal, be respectful and the many similar implicit and explicit elements that are part of most organizational cultures.  These cultural elements disempower people when they are faced with a conflict – whether it is with a policy, a practice or a person. 


Most people have no agreed on/shared way to deal with conflict except by being resigned about it, and so keep quiet; or be outspoken about it, and risk alienation from colleagues.


Here are some causes of workplace conflict:

The Conflict that gets built into audacious goals – an intentional function of strategy design.

Although seldom spoken explicitly, some workplace conflict is a necessary by-product of establishing big hairy audacious goals (BHAGs), of satisfying the demands of the marketplace, and creating opportunities for ambitious people. In pursuing of these ambitious goals there will always be the competition and conflict for finite resources – time, money and people. 

These conflicts, well managed, become the source of innovation and creativity on which a growing enterprise depends. Having intelligent committed people faced with a problem to be solved, with conflicting outcome criteria to be addressed as part of the solution, is a necessary design condition for breakthrough performance. Which means it is essential to have rigorous conflict resolution processes that are widely shared and frequently used. 

A by-product of missing process, practices, procedures or agreements.

Some sources of workplace conflict are a function of uncertainty or lack of clarity about processes, practices, procedures, accountabilities and authorities. These conflicts can be reduced, if not avoided altogether, by clarifying how things are designed to work.

They can also be reduced by doing regular after action reviews to surface “what’s not working” and “what’s missing”, which will help in surfacing potential conflicts, or catch them sufficiently early so that they can be handled easily.

This type of conflict is different from the “designed-in conflict” and, is best managed by eliminating the source of the conflict. It includes things like:

• Poor communication of: expectations, values, standards, decisions made, directions, policies
• Unclear accountabilities, roles, authorities, and responsibilities
• Poor hiring and on-boarding practices
• Gossip, undermining, rumor-mongering, uncommitted complaining, and negativity
• Mixed messages from leadership - their speaking and actions are misaligned

A function of friction in interpersonal relationships.

In any group of people working together there will be conflicts that are a function personal styles of relating. We say we value diversity, we say we want people who bring different work experiences and different ways of approaching challenges and yet, in practice, these differences are often the source of conflict as much as contribution.

Most organizations have not fully addressed the potential for conflict that can come from the simple fact that we are all different, with different life experiences, different priorities and different ways of seeing the world. Further, we have not been trained, for the most part, to see ourselves as others see us.

We deal with interpersonal conflicts in a variety of different ways, most of which sub-optimalize the possibility of individuals, teams and the enterprise. For example:

• We mostly avoid difficult people or contentious topics
• We withdraw at the first sign of conflict or tensions, I'm not going there
• We use our status and bluster and dominate – the various forms of bullying that people use to dominate others
• We surrender, we give in to the others point of view rather than run the risk of conflict, and are disempowered in the process.

So we need a shared process to surface and deal with conflict.

Some actions to take:

• Socialize that  conflicts are not bad and wrong and should be avoided
• Socialize that surfacing conflict does not violate any value or organizing principle. On the contrary, to know about, and not surface conflict is inconsistent with the organizing principle that conflict is not bad and wrong, and when resolved leads to innovation
• Socialize that conflict is a necessary starting condition for innovation
• Train everyone in using a methodology for surfacing and dealing with conflicts.

And remember, conflict is not bad or wrong AND should NOT be avoided – that will kill the possibility of breakthrough results and stifle collaboration and empowering relationships..