
James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The debates leading to the ratification of the United States Constitution emphasized two fundamental perspectives. The Federalists advocated adoption of the draft document in toto. The Anti-Federalists disagreed — they wanted changes that specified the rights of citizens, and reserved to citizens all rights not specifically granted to the government. Madison was a leading Anti-Federalist. He formulated a set of twelve amendments limiting the rights of the government. After constitutional ratification, the First Congress adopted ten of these. An eleventh was ratified in 1992. The first ten, now called the Bill of Rights, include the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. They are now so central that to many, they are the most important part of the Constitution. Clearly the conflict between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists was constructive — it produced a superior result. Photo of a painting of Madison ca. 1821 by Gilbert Stuart, oil on wood. The painting is at the National Gallery of Art.
The first in this series about teamwork myths explored erroneous beliefs about forming teams. In this second installment, we examine three myths about team conflict.
- Team cohesion is determined by personal chemistry
- Some believe that all members of high performance teams like each other. They attribute interpersonal trouble on teams to so-called "personality clashes." They believe that team troubles are always due to misbehavior by individual team members. This conveniently exonerates everyone and everything else, including policy, customers, layoffs, pressure, culture, and management.
- This erroneous belief is often used to justify individual-oriented corrective actions that include reassignment, discipline, and termination, but when the causes of poor team cohesion aren't personal, these actions are ineffective. Moreover, in misguided efforts to form high performance teams, we sometimes staff teams according to personal chemistry rather than knowledge, skill, or capability.
- When team members believe that chemistry drives cohesion, toxic conflicts erupt unnecessarily, because members believe that honest differences are driven not by professional judgments but by personal agendas. Adherence to the myth validates the myth.
- Conflict undermines performance
- Many believe that conflict is always bad and destructive, that disagreements always threaten team goals, and that those who disagree aren't team players. To disagree is to be disagreeable. This is a particularly destructive myth.
- Many don't know how to disagree agreeably, or how to engage in substantive debate while avoiding personal attacks. Many experience disagreement as personal attack. For all these people, disagreement often leads to toxic conflict. This might explain some of the popularity of this myth.
- If disagreement Some attribute interpersonal
trouble on teams to
so-called "personality
clashes," which conveniently
exonerates everyone and
everything but the clashersis disallowed, how can we ever perfect group decisions? All positions would remain unquestioned until their advocates moved on. Indeed, this is what happens in dictatorships — and in groups that don't tolerate disagreement. - Conflict usually entails disagreement, but conflict can be either destructive or constructive. Constructive conflict is essential to high performance.
- Team trouble is always due to bad apples
- The bad-apple myth holds that team trouble is always due to a few "bad apples," and after we find the bad apples, and eliminate them or modify their behavior, the trouble ends. Rarely does this actually work. At best, everyone else learns that quiet compliance and currying favor is the safest course. High performance remains elusive.
- Usually, the people we identify as bad apples are just the visible manifestation of systemic problems. If that's the case, eliminating the bad apples just drives the symptoms underground. To achieve high performance we must actually address problems, and that requires people who are willing to speak up. If we teach the team that speaking up is dangerous, we close off the only path to achieving high performance. You can't fix what you can't talk about.
Some readers no doubt subscribe to one or more of what I am here calling myths. I guess, for now, we'll have to agree to disagree. First in this series Next in this series Top
Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
For more teamwork myths, see "Teamwork Myths: Formation," Point Lookout for May 27, 2009, and "Teamwork Myths: I vs. We," Point Lookout for July 1, 2009.
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Related articles
More articles on Conflict Management:
Knife-Edge Performers
- Some employees deliver performance episodically, while some deliver steady, but barely adequate performance.
Either way, they keep their managers drained and anxious, on the "knife edge" of terminating
them. How can you detect knife-edge performers, and what can you do about them?
Virtual Termination with Real Respect
- When we have to terminate someone who works at a remote site, sometimes there's a temptation to avoid
travel — to use email, phone, fax, or something else. They're all bad ideas. Terminating people
in person is not only a gesture of respect. It's good business.
Responding to Threats: II
- When an exchange between individuals, or between an individual and a group, goes wrong, threats often
are either the cause or part of the results. If we know how to deal with threats — and how to
avoid and prevent them — we can help keep communications creative and constructive.
Preventing the Hurt of Hurtful Dismissiveness
- When we use the hurtfully dismissive remarks of others to make ourselves feel bad, there are techniques
for recovering relatively quickly. But we can also learn to respond to these remarks altogether differently.
When we do that, recovery is unnecessary.
Fear/Anxiety Bias: I
- When people don't feel safe enough to report the true status of the work underway in an organization,
managers receive an inaccurate impression of the state of the organization. To understand this dynamic,
we must understand psychological safety.
See also Conflict Management and Problem Solving and Creativity for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming December 6: Off-Putting and Conversational Narcissism at Work: III
- Having off-putting interactions is one of four themes of conversational narcissism. Here are seven behavioral patterns that relate to off-putting interactions and how abusers use them to control conversations. Available here and by RSS on December 6.
And on December 13: Contrary Indicators of Psychological Safety: I
- To take the risks that learning and practicing new ways requires, we all need a sense that trial-and-error approaches are safe. Organizations seeking to improve processes would do well to begin by assessing their level of psychological safety. Available here and by RSS on December 13.
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