The Role Constructive Conflict Plays in Creating High Performance Teams

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

She's got 20 years of experience as a human capital management professional. She's dedicated to ensuring that organizational talent is optimized. She's worked in a number of different industries, including consulting, financial services, manufacturing, private equity, and she. Specializes in talent management, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, organizational development and leadership development.

vels of the organization and [: 00:01:00

She is a diehard UGA fan. So if you are a Roll Tide person listening to this conversation, you probably want to tune out. Tessa Carey, welcome to the show.

Tessa Carey: Thank you for having me, Dr. Jim and Go Dawgs.

Dr. Jim: Before we dive into the conversation, I want to thank you for hanging out with us. I'm looking forward to a really fun conversation. Why don't you get the listeners up to speed on anything else that you feel is important, that's going to inform the listeners about how you're approaching this conversation.

Tessa Carey: I think that 1 of the things that listeners probably need to know about me is that I really am a people person. It is an innate God given thing. And so I spend a lot of time. Around people and understanding what they have going on and what they're dealing with. And a lot of that has informed how I feel about conflict.

The fact that people [: 00:02:00

Dr. Jim: Why don't you share with us a little bit about how you developed. That affinity for people, the ability to give grace, even when there's conflict in place, what are the roots of that?

Tessa Carey: I think a lot of the roots of it are just my upbringing my, and I really do believe that I got it honestly, because my dad is exactly the same way. He is probably 1 of the most friendly people you've ever met in your life. He doesn't meet a stranger. He can talk to just about. Anyone and he can make anyone comfortable and he's able to raise concerns with people without it being a bad experience.

in the way that he managed, [: 00:03:00

And I know people say this all the time, but how to disagree with somebody without being disagreeable.

Dr. Jim: Really appreciate that context. Let's dive into the main part of the conversation. For those who are new to the show, the goal of these conversations is to bring on senior leaders in HR, senior leaders in people leadership and have them share with us the game changing realizations that they had that really helped them supercharge their ability to build high performing teams. Share with us a little bit about what the game changing realization that you had that really helped you build high performing teams.

s that conflict is not a bad [: 00:04:00

Those are the people that make the best teammates and those are the people that have the best relationships. You can even liken work relationships to external relationships. Those. Family units, right? Who can manage conflict and do it in a productive way and who don't feel like conflict is bad.

It's just something that happens. Those families have great relationships. Those romantic relationships stay together for long periods of time, but in those relationships, plutonic that, do not manage conflict and manage in an effective way. Those relationships don't last.

They all come from different [: 00:05:00

Dr. Jim: Those are all really solid observations. The whole point about, effective teams need to be able to manage conflict. It takes a lot of work to get to the point where you're successfully doing that. What are the foundational things that need to be done to set yourself up either as a leader or as an individual to be able to navigate conflict effectively?

Tessa Carey: There's two very important things. The first is mindset. You have to understand where people's mindset is around conflict because if they've only had an experience where conflict has always been negative and it never led to the best idea and it never produced anything good, it's going to be hard for you to get people to go there.

right place it's going to be [: 00:06:00

In those conflicts, either at work or in a relationship. And so mindset is really where you have to start. The 2nd thing that's really important is the whole trust factor, you can't. Manage conflict effectively, if you don't really trust the other person or the folks on your team.

And so you really have to understand. Whether there is trust there or not, and, some of the ways that you can quickly figure out if a team trust each other or not is if you see them doing things like double checking each other's work, or seeing everybody in their mom on an email. Keeping their receipts right.

from each other, or you can [: 00:07:00

Otherwise, conflict will happen, but it will not be managed in a productive manner.

Dr. Jim: When you're dealing with. those sort of environments where you are trying to work on mindsets, trying to build for us. What are the things that leaders need to be doing on a regular basis to create that environment where people are oriented the right way from a mindset perspective and trust perspective?

Tessa Carey: 1 of the things I've seen work really well is for the leader to invite people to challenge. To say, hey, this is especially to invite them to challenge them as the leader.

eraction goes well. And they [: 00:08:00

I think that's one of the fundamental things that leaders can do. They can invite to challenge themselves and they can invite the team to challenge each other and just say, we are going to be respectful when we do this, but it's okay if you disagree. Tell us why you disagree and then let's have a conversation about it.

It doesn't have to be a fight. People's faces don't have to be read, nobody has to get upset. I think that's one of the fundamental things that I have seen work very well to help people build that trust that it's okay if you disagree.

Dr. Jim: That makes a lot of sense.

The devil's always in the details. When a leader is creating that environment where they're open to being challenged, there's also this component where in the back of their mind, they have to be able to establish what the line is. How do you set up the ground rules for that sort of behavior without it going too far over into the other direction where that becomes openly toxic.

ant for teams to really. Set [: 00:09:00

We're not going to yell. We're not going to screen the fundamental kind of ways that research will tell you to set up a team is at the beginning. You set up what your team norms are going to be. Every team that I've ever led whether the team was already formulated or I built the team, we always set up standards of how we're going to communicate with each other and how we are going to interact with each other and how we're going to manage conflict.

So that we know ahead of time when it arises what we need to do. A lot of that stuff has to be set up ahead of time. And a lot of leaders will skip that, they'll just go right into leading the team. And we have work to do versus really, coming back and forming the team and making sure that there's some standards that the team is going to work under.

ic with each other. When you [: 00:10:00

Even if 1 of my team members gets out of pocket, I'm always going to be respectful because I want to show my team, what that looks like. And then I will talk to the team member later at another time and say, hey. I feel like you crossed the line a little bit, and this is why, and, let's talk about what we can do differently the next

time.

Dr. Jim: I really like how you framed communication expectations. Starting from a clarity perspective, and what's interesting is that in today's world, everybody is running lean and everybody's super busy and focused on. What are the things that you have to get done?

ules of engagement are. That [: 00:11:00

Let's look at the flip side of the equation. If you're in an environment where things are, just ignored or we don't constructively address conflict or constructively confront what's the outcomes that you can expect in that sort of environment?

Tessa Carey: If you're talking about a team, that's in that sort of environment, you can expect not to get the results that you need to get. You can expect things to take longer. You can expect the team not to be able to move as agile as it needs to. Because people are tiptoeing around especially if there's someone on the team, or multiple people on the team who have that toxic behavior.

want to deal with that stuff [: 00:12:00

And so we'll just do it the way they want to do it. Because I'm just going to, go to work today and then go home to my family. So when you don't manage these kinds of things, just like in a family, when you don't manage these kinds of things, it bubbles up and you're going to see, the results in a lot of different ways.

But with a team. You'll definitely see productivity, go into the dirt.

Dr. Jim: You just hinted at one of the warning signs of a potential negative situation existing and that productivity goes down. If you're a leader, you generally have your team reporting underneath you, and you might have a couple of layers of people that are in between you and the individual contributors.

What are the things that leaders need to be constantly looking for that are warning signs that might indicate a communication problem, a failure to confront a failure to manage conflict. What are the things that leaders should be watching out for that are leading indicators of this sort of dynamic happening within their environment.

of the easiest ones is[: 00:13:00

And I was like, guys, okay, let's what's going on. Why are you CC me on this? Do I really need to know this? And when I dug into it, it was. Because there was an issue. There was some conflict happening in the background, and it wasn't being managed partly because I didn't know but they weren't able to manage it.

And so it started to come out in that kind of way. Another thing that you can be looking for is changes, in the way your team responds to things. If there is some sort of conflict going on and if a team member doesn't respond the way they would normally respond to something, that's probably an indicator that something is going on and it could.

. When you see those subtle, [: 00:14:00

A lot of leaders will overlook those kinds of things, but being a people leader. Is it's like a constant sort of looking around for signs about what's going on with your team. And as those things change, you need to pay attention to them.

Dr. Jim: I really like what you said there about it's 1 of the responsibilities of a leader is to be constantly looking around and having your eyes open and that.

Can't be accomplished if you're hiding behind your spreadsheets or your dashboards all the time. You really have to take the time in engaging on a regular basis with everybody on the team. That's where a lot of busy leaders or busy organizations go sideways is that. You try to manage by numbers instead of leading and developing your people, but with that personal interaction.

t, the broader world of work [: 00:15:00

Why that's sometimes misguided. When we look at advising other people, leaders who are listening to this show, what are the key things that people need to be doing to build that kind of culture and build that kind of habit?

Tessa Carey: I would say 1 of the 1st things that needs to happen is you really need to understand your team. You need to know who your team is. You need to have 1 on 1s with your team, and you need to do it regularly. I spend. The majority of my time on my team and I have 1 on 1s with each of them once a week.

oing to talk about projects, [: 00:16:00

With others, and in other meetings the 2nd thing I would say, and we talked about it a little bit is that you have to invite people to challenge and you have to show them that when they do, it's not a bad thing. You can't get upset, even if you disagree with them, you can't get upset when somebody challenges, or somebody asks the question, or they disagree these.

The people on your team have experiences, right? They've worked other places. They've done other things. You hope that they're very smart, right? Because you hired them and so you need to trust that. They've got a point of view. And as a leader, it's important that you hear what that is. So again, everybody can get to the best outcome.

s are under construction. So [: 00:17:00

So when you're just not with your team all the time, you have to pay attention to how they're communicating and how they're showing up on camera. If they're on camera, those things are important. And they may seem like nothing, but they'll help you sniff out issues. If you just observe and pay attention.

And the last thing I would say is just don't practice the Abilene paradox. I know a lot of people have heard of that. And really the Abilene paradox is that tendency of people to just go along with what they think the group wants to do, even if they themselves don't want to do it and they end up taking a lot of trips.

obably pretty low risk. This [: 00:18:00

because all healthy workplaces depend on individual skills. They depend on insights and opinions of a lot of people. And so when those voices are silenced it's difficult to get to the best outcome. So don't practice it. It's not a best practice.

Dr. Jim: So I hadn't heard about the Abilene paradox, but it sounds like taking a bridge to nowhere .

If people want to continue the conversation and pick your brain on any number of of best practices from a people leadership perspective, where can they get a hold of you?

Tessa Carey: They can get a hold of me on linked in just search for Tessa Carey

I don't think there's many of us. You can, search Tessa Carey graphic packaging, and you should be able to get me.

Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us, Tessa. And as usual, you laid out a lot of great insights into this conversation. I think when I reflect back on the discussion that we had, if I'm building a model for what best practices look like coming out of this conversation, I've boiled it down into sort of four steps.

One is [: 00:19:00

That's looking to build a high performing team. And I appreciate you hanging out with us and spelling that out for me and the listeners. For those of you who have heard, listen to this episode. Appreciate you hanging out. Leave us a review, tell us how we're doing, and then tune in next time for another great conversation where we will spotlight a senior leader sharing with us the game changing realizations that they uncovered, which helped them build a high performing team.