The Beauty of Productive Conflict

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Jiayu Carl He (ECE 1T7) and Julie Diamond work through a productive conflict exercise on January 14, 2015 (Photo: Alan Wu).

The scene is all too familiar: you and your teammates are stalled by a conflict during the decision-making process, or you are all arguing against each other’s ideas and can’t move forward. Many people find that it is an unpleasant experience to have conflicts with your teammates. But have you ever thought that conflicts could also be productive?

On January 14, 2015, Julie Diamond, international coach, consultant, facilitator and trainer extraordinaire, hosted a session in GB202 to talk to The Gamers and inspire them that conflicts could be beneficial with a psychological experiment.

Before the session, everyone was asked to fill out a questionnaire with questions related to team culture, team experience and team contribution. These questions have helped us to think about the challenges we have experienced in our team and get prepared for the session.

“What is the most important skill one should have to work in a team?” Julie started the session by asking a question. Communication? Understanding? Respect? Comprise? All these skills could be put under one big umbrella – good conflict skills. With good conflict skills, every single conflict could be productive. According to Julie, a productive conflict is not personal, not win-lose, respectful, and the solution is emergent. Furthermore, a productive conflict will help the team to understand the problem better and improve the performance.

But how could you transform a conflict into a productive one? In order to have a productive conflict, there are two important components. The first component is freedom: the team should have a culture and environment that everyone could feel that they have the freedom to be different. The second component is power: all the team members need their personal power to believe in themselves and express their ideas. By using a few examples, Julie re-emphasized the importance of each individual’s opinion in a team and encouraged us to express our ideas.

With the basic concepts in mind, Julie introduced the three sides to conflict exercise. In every single conflict, there are only three possible positions: My Side, Your Side (the opposite opinion) and the Outside (the neutral position). To our surprise, Julie mentioned that the hardest thing in the world was to represent your own side/opinion. As you can imagine, it is easier for people to argue against the other side during a debate instead of expressing the core values of their own ideas. To further explain the concept, Julie encouraged one team to get involved in a psychological experiment. The team members were asked to express their ideas without putting down the other side and were allowed to change side if they want to. Different from most of the conflicts we experienced before, this time it was easier for the team members to appreciate the ideas in opposition and even change their own sides.

By the end of this session, I learned that we should not be afraid of conflicts. By creating a friendly and open environment, conflicts could be productive. The most important thing is to express the core values of your ideas clearly and learn to appreciate the other side. Don’t be frustrated if you could not defend your own side. Sometimes, you will be surprised by what you could discover from the other side. In the end, you will realize that you and your teammates share the same value, which is to make the team better and work toward your goal. And this is the beauty of productive conflict!

-Tianyuan Amy Li (Gamer, CivE 1T5+PEY)

For another perspective on the Julie Diamond workshop on team consciousness and productive conflict, check out Deniz Jafari’s summary of the session.