From “Us & Them” to “We”: Leading Toward Healthy Group Dynamics
By David Dyck
A) The Challenge Identified:
Conflict among team members is inevitable in any group setting. Put people together long enough and there will eventually be friction of some kind. In fact, if work groups are not aware of or processing tension of some kind after a prolonged period of working together, it may be a sign of what author Patrick Lencioni calls “artificial harmony.”[1] The Chinese proverb “if you have not fought one another, you do not know each other” captures this dynamic well.
So, the good news is that conflict is not the problem. Conflict in the group is—as we are fond of saying in the mediation business—okay. Indeed, tension can be a good sign; a sign of respect, interest and trust. As in, you respect me enough to notice where I differ from you, you are interested enough to believe that those differences might matter (i.e. are worthy of your attention), and you trust me enough to risk telling/engaging me about it. As long as conflict involves differing people in differing combinations and varying patterns who stay in communication with one another, it can actually have a binding or strengthening effect in groups.
But when conflict divides groups into two camps, the same two camps, over and over again—no matter what the issue—now we have a problem. And once people move from a sense of being on the “same team” to seeing themselves and the person(s) with whom they are in tension as members of opposing teams, it is likely only a matter of time before we experience a split of some kind. In the worst cases, this divided mentality devolves to a semi-permanent state of “cold war.” It is at this point that conflict has definitely turned destructive.
So what can workplace leaders/HR, colleagues, and union personnel do to help prevent this from happening or to recover once it has? Since different forms of assistance and intervention are appropriate to different levels of escalation, we must first learn to recognize the typical stages of conflict escalation to be better positioned to prevent escalation and to assist in recovery. Regardless of the stage at which we become aware of a group conflict, our overarching goal should remain the same: that of influencing all parties to continue to regard one another as members of one team working on the same challenges for the benefit of all.
Watch for next week’s follow-up post on understanding conflict escalation and change and how it impacts team dynamics.
[1] Patrick Lencioni, Five Dysfunctions of a Team (United States: Jossey-Bass, 2002).