Conflicts can be very helpful! That is why it is crucial to build your stomach for handling them. (Does that sound strange to you? Have a look here.)

We use a lot of time, energy, and money to prevent conflicts from developing or at least to clear them from our table as fast as possible. Executives I coach often tell me that they avoid passing on “pressure from above” to their teams in order to keep away from conflicts. Why are we doing this if conflicts can be productive?

There is a good reason for this behavior: Not all conflicts are productive or helpful. But how do you know when that’s the case? What makes some conflicts harmful – and others helpful? Imagine the following: A conflict creates a certain heat or tension in a group the extent of which can vary:

Low heat = comfort zone. Here, the conflict is not productive because it is being avoided, denied, or ignored.
High heat = panic zone. Here too, the conflict is not productive because it is overwhelming the stakeholders involved.
In between these zones = learning zone. This is the range of conflict in which engagement, learning and progress is possible.

As you can see, conflicts are productive when the metaphorical heat is dosed well. The heat needs to be high enough for the parties in conflict to move out of their comfort zone and into confrontation and learning. Meanwhile, the tolerance threshold mustn't be exceeded – it cannot get too hot.

Humans react emotionally towards heat and tension – me included. To find out where you, your team, or your organization stand, you need to be able to perceive emotions carefully and accurately. This is what we mean by emotional intelligence. You’ll want to diagnose whether the emotional reactions you observe are indicators of learning, panic, or comfort. It is best to start with yourself. Think about a regular workday. When do you learn the most? How much do you develop and grow on a business-as-usual day? How much do you learn when there are small moments of tensions in your team? How is your ability to learn affected when the tension is too high? How do you react?

You can apply these same questions to your team and organization.

Possible indicators for a group that is in the learning zone are:

Discussions are authentic and deep
Controversial points of view are welcomed and grappled with

Possible indicators for a group that is in the panic zone are :

Mentally zoning out

Physically leaving an ongoing meeting
Attacking or finger-pointing
Criticizing the meeting style, facilitation, setting etc. Focusing on technical aspects of the problem and denying adaptive elements (Want to know what we mean by technical aspects? Have a look here!)

Please note: Panic does not only mean acting angry or anxious – panic can be expressed in multitude of ways, from fight to flight to freeze.

Indicators for a group that is in the comfort are:

Passive participation
Unwillingness to take on responsibility
Limited involvement (verbally or engagement in thinking)

On your journey to becoming more effective at handling conflict, you’ve taken two important steps:

You’ve built your own stomach for conflict
You’ve learned to step back when faced with conflict and assess how productive the conflict actually is

The question that comes up next is: What do I do when faced with a conflict that is languishing in the comfort zone – or causing upheavals in the panic zone? How can I regulate the temperature so it’s just right – so that my organization, team or I can manage the conflict productively. Learn more about that in my next blogpost.