Work conflict, compliments, and experts on your team

The Draft Newsletter

Communicating can be messy. That’s what this newsletter is all about.

Every two weeks we’ll give you three communication tips. If you find them valuable, please invite someone else to subscribe to this newsletter.

Let an argument break out.

Do you avoid conflict at work? Maybe you shouldn’t. Some types of conflict are healthy for a team and can lead to better performance.

Research by Karen Jehn has identified three types of team conflict.

Task conflict is awareness of differences in viewpoints and opinions about a group task. Similar to cognitive conflict, it pertains to conflict about ideas and differences of opinion about the task.

Process conflict refers to duty and resource delegation, such as who should do what and how much responsibility different people should get.

Relational conflict is when personal issues such as dislike arise among group members. They include feelings like annoyance, frustration, and irritation.

Studies show that Relational Conflict is always detrimental to team performance. Process Conflict often leads to relational conflict and reduced motivation. Task Conflict can be beneficial when it’s focused and processes are clear.

Read more about different ways to respond to relational conflict.

Tell your audience how good they look.

Next time you speak in public, compliment the crowd and invite them to give themselves a round of applause. “You all look so good!” works well.

This is an easy win for so many reasons:

• It gets them invested because now it’s about them.
• It gets them in a good mood because you’ve paid them a compliment.
• It raises the energy level because they are clapping right away.
• It gets them on your side because they agree with your very first assertion.
• It loosens you up because they are smiling and laughing from the jump.

This tip comes from Victoria Eady Butler. She gave a keynote speech at a women’s event hosted by Impact Magazine. It was supposed to be just a fun night out for me as my wife’s guest, but I learned a lot from the fifth-generation descendant of master distiller Nearest Green, of Uncle Nearest, Inc. Butler holds the title for the Whiskey Magazine’s Master Blender of the Year for 2021 and 2022, the first person ever to achieve the honor in back-to-back years. She is as good a public speaker as she is a maker of spirits.

If you are presenting from slides, try these other pro tips.

Sometimes the grunt knows more than you.

MIT president James R. Killian Jr. said, “The best way to get the right answer is to ask the right question to the right person.” It’s especially true for teams to perform at a high level.

Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe are the leading scholars of highly reliable organizations. One of the five key practices of HROs is deference to expertise.

When teams value expertise and experience over rank and title they perform better.

Read about how the best leaders create the best teams.