Why Conflict is a Good Thing | Dale Feinauer | TEDxOshkosh

I understand why people clap before you did anything seems to be clapping should only happen if you're good conflict so we're gonna start off this whole process with conflict and thinking about conflict well let's start with the question do you like conflict do you not like conflict so if we put this into three boxes people who would say I really don't like conflict like to avoid it yeah conflict is okay and conflict is something that I just love I just can't wait to have conflict how many of you would be in the I love to have conflict mode I'm noting my boss's boss put his hand up I don't know that that's reassuring how many of you would be in the mode of yeah I can handle conflict it's okay and how many of you in the I really don't like conflict so clean somebody's got two hands up I don't like conflict I don't like my spouse they have conflict let's think about that for a minute most folks say they really don't like conflict is that true what do you watch on TV come on anybody what do you watch you watch the news is there a little bit of conflict in the news these days yep what but the entire political process is nothing but conflict you watch dramas on TV it's about conflict you watch comedies on TV it's about conflict you watch sports on TV it's about conflict I would contend that the I don't like conflict is a little little marginal you go home the neighbors are fighting you could go to one side of the house open a beer sit there listen to TV and you will not hear the neighbors you could go to the front porch and listen to the neighbors fight no one's throwing punches it's not out of control how many of you are joining me on the porch listening to the neighbors fight and you just said you didn't like conflict so do we like conflict do we not like conflict maybe what the answer is is we like conflict as long as we're not in it conflict it's involving other people but my basic point here is the conflict can I would underline the word can can be a wonderful thing when it comes to decision-making in organizations that's my primary area of expertise also in your personal life I'll deal with that much more gingerly but conflict can be a wonderful thing in decision-making that's the basic premise now I will admit the conflict can be a terrible thing in decision-making typically we would define this as dysfunctional conflict conflict that gets personal is sort of the textbook definition of conflict that gets to be bad and and what happens when we have dysfunctional conflict we have dysfunctional conflict we lose collaboration instead of people sitting down collaboratively and figuring out how can we work together and make something good happen what we have is individuals that involve engage in what we often think of as win lose negotiation win lose decision-making I want to win I really don't want you to necessarily get what you want at most I don't care if you get what you want and if you lose that's just as good and I would contend that many of you and I will not ask for a show of hands have engaged in what I would describe as lose-lose conflict that you've gotten into conflict where I want the other person to lose that my motivation is more the pound of flesh out of the other person because they've aggravated me so much then it is that I want to get something that I want and in fact again no show of hands many of us have been in a scenario where I don't mind if I lose a little as long as I can make the other person lose a lot this is clearly not good in organ but we do this we get aggravated we get frustrated with other people and we get aggravated the point we want to see them lose this is clearly a bad thing in addition conflict can result in emotional harm people say things to each other that is hurtful and individuals become diminished in terms of their self esteem because of the nature of the conflict in addition there can be physical harm as we know conflict can get so far out of control that people shoot each other that people do do bad things what's the argument that conflict can be a good thing conflict can be a wonderful thing in decision-making because it helps us to better analyze a question it avoids groupthink I mean getting an example of where we had groupthink and it did not work out well the invasion of Cuba the the Bay of Pigs it looks like most of the audience is young enough that you may very well not have remembered the Bay of Pigs invasion so just very quickly in terms of the history you've got President Kennedy new young president height to the Cold War Khrushchev has been being very belligerent there's a felt need for a president can do something to show the Soviets that he'll stand up to them the invasion actually been planned during the Eisenhower administration Kennedy gets his advisers together the best and the brightest all of these geniuses gets him in the room and says should we do the invasion of Cuba yes or no and to a person to a man and in those days it was men to a man they all said we should do the invasion of Cuba and then they did the invasion of Cuba and it was a disaster for a variety of reasons pulling the air support etc but fundamentally it turned out to have been a very very bad idea and a terrible start for the Kennedy administration so Kennedy brings his best and brightest together in a room and says what the heck happened how did this go from we were making great decisions because I've got them the best and the brightest who we made a terrible decision how do we decide to do this and they went around the room again and everybody said well you know I had some hesitancy I wasn't sure it was the right idea but I wanted to be a team player I wanted to be part of the group I didn't want to be divisive I didn't want to create conflict in the interest of avoiding conflict we made a very bad decision if each one of those people would have spoken up would have talked about their hesitancy very likely that wouldn't have happened or it wouldn't have happened that way good conflict in a decision-making process will result in much better analysis much deeper thinking beyond that conflict can be a great source of motivation we all think about the great raw raw speech that you give a halftime of football game you don't have to give speeches and if you play sports know that anytime you go into any kind of conflict arena there's plenty of adrenaline in addition it's great for personal growth and development great for organizational growth and development the concept that we develop sitting on the beach drinking a mai tai chanting our mantra it's never really the way it works I think if you think about when your personal growth has occurred it's been in periods of conflict it's been when your life wasn't going great when there were issues when there were challenges so conflict can be a great thing and conflict in decision-making is embedded into the most important decisions we make as our society I would contend the most important decisions we make are about who goes to jail who owns what and when we go to war if we don't get those right our society does not hang together we have embedded conflict into all of those who goes to jail the criminal justice system and thus in the social justice system the property rights process are all embedded with conflict I think I own something you think you own something we disagree about this contract whatever you get an attorney I get an attorney we pay people to do what we pay them to fight we pay them to have conflict the system is predicated on my attorney and your attorney going fight before a judge and out of that conflict the judge can make the best decision it's true in the legal system it is now true in the national defense arena no longer does the president of United States ever yeah consistent advice unanimous support everybody agrees we should do X it never happens the National Security Adviser now says you folks make the argument that we should invade Syria you make the argument for a no-fly zone you make the argument for additional sanctions you folks come up with something else and I don't care what you really think that's irrelevant you go before the president United States and make the best argument you can for a for not a for B for not B because we have learned that we make better decisions if we first fight about them so premise is we make better decisions when we have conflict raising the question how do we do this how do we have good functional conflict that is focused on the outcome and avoid the dysfunctional conflict which is where it gets personal where we get mad at each other well where do we do it right I would contend we do conflict right in our society in two arenas sports and the law I know we like to pick on attorneys but I think they get this one largely right and what's true about the conflict that occurs in both the sports arena and in the legal arena in both of those arenas conflict has a very clear beginning the game starts the umpire says go and you throw out the first pitch there's a wind-up clock there's a whistle and the game starts there's a clear middle there's a clear management of the conflict process there are rules in a way to enforce the rules attorneys go to court they can't just say anything they want and do anything they want there are rules of evidence there's things that the judge does to manage the process and if you don't do what the judge tells you to do in court bad things can happen to you and there is a clear ending conflict that drags on conflict that goes on and on and on tends to become dysfunctional we have this argument again and people get annoyed by the fact that once again I'm going to have to have the same debate over and over the key to having good conflict and decision-making a clear beginning well-managed middle and a clear end so let's think about how we do those three things clean beginning well-managed middle and a clean end how do we do a clean beginning we expect conflict to happen conflict shouldn't break out in decision-making you're not in a process of trying to decide should we do a or B some important decision in life and conflict breaks out you should schedule it into the process we know that next Tuesday at 8 we're going to engage in a discussion about whether your organization should grow this way or that way a couple's about the decision so we buy a new house should we remodel this house well let's fight about it let's have conflict let's think about what are the pros and cons of a what are the pros and cons of B we're about ready to make the decision to do something one of the questions I love to ask when I'm ready to make a decision is why might this be a really dumb decision because I've made decisions in life that were really dumb decisions but I figured that out all too often after I made the decision asking the question why might this be a really dumb decision and encouraging conflict before it blows up is the way you want to do this thing you schedule conflict into the process and then you manage the middle just as in sports there are rules and there's consequences for violating rules you have a code of conduct in this organization in this relationship this is how we're going to manage conflict when we have conflict it won't get personal you're not allowed to call each other people other people's names you have to give people timeouts if they want whatever your rules are but you have a code of conduct and you have a way to enforce it one of the organization's I work with they have a bunch of stuff fish in all their meeting rooms a little plush ones not the you know I caught this trophy fish thing and if I think you violated the code of conduct I pick up one of these fish and throw it at you but first of all can you really get mad at somebody for throwing a stuffed fish at you I mean you'd this should lighten the mood a bit and the concept is you just did something fishy and so then the meeting stops we move from having debate about this - how do we deal with this violation of the code of conduct you need some methodology that says these are rules when we have conflict this is how we're going to do it and if you play outside of those rules there are consequences you need to manage the conflict you need to recognize that some people think fast I'm a fast thinker put me into a debate I can come up with an analysis right away go my wife is a slow I used to say thinker she objects to that she it's she's a slow processor I do want to be clear I'm not standing in front of a group of folks saying my wife is a slow thinker some people think fast some think slow if I'm managing conflict now I've got fast thinkers and slow processors and I put them in a room and say go make the decision now the fast thinkers are fine the slow process are frustrated because they didn't get time to think about it so the conflict breaks down we need to manage the conflict in such a way that the fast thinkers and the slow processors all get their turn we need to keep a motion out of it have you ever been in conflict where you said something that you knew had no shot of helping to resolve the issue no shot at making this all get better and instead what it was gonna do is make it worse but it was gonna feel really good to say it again I do not need a show of you but and somebody's got two hands up again on that one no don't do that that does not help you have to find a way to control your emotions you have to find a way to control the emotions of other individuals so that we can have conflict without it getting emotional loads of ways to do that and that would be a whole nother talk but fundamentally remind yourself that it doesn't matter in the big picture of life so why most of things we have conflict over laying on your deathbed are you gonna care laying on your deathbed I'm gonna think about my spouse and my children maybe a little bit else most of stuff we have conflict on the big picture it doesn't matter don't let yourself get emotionally upset and it's not going to help well manage middles and a clean ending you need a clean end conflict cannot drag on and on it it paralysis by analysis we never make a decision the organization a couple of whoever don't move forward but beyond that the conflict that drags on and on and on inevitably becomes dysfunctional so what you want to do is have a clean end and what we love in organizations is we have consensus so we got everybody in the room we had a discussion we had a debate side a side B we had the discussion we had a nice debate okay what does everybody really think and now we've all agreed that we want to do a I'm an HR person by training the accusation against us is we can't make a decision unless we first all hold hands sing Kumbaya and make sure everybody feels good which is kind of true about HR types but sometimes we can't get to consensus sometimes in organization somebody needs to stand up I do a lot of work in family businesses and say look I've heard sigh day I've heard side B it turns out my name is on the building and I've decided the answer is a I love consensus but don't be afraid to have a methodology that says this is how we will end the debate we will not let this thing drag on and on somebody will end it and my experience has been even if I quote lose I the decision is made not the direction I wanted that's okay I don't get mad at that as long as I felt like I was heard as long as I felt like my opinion was considered you never ask somebody their opinion unless you really want it but if you listen to it you hear it in the debate you recognize it echo it back and then make a decision to go another direction my experience has been in organizations people's like all right that's fine fundamentally the argument is conflict is a wonderful thing in decision-making if done right your job in decision-making is to be a thermostat if there's not enough conflict you need to turn it up if there's too much conflict you got to turn it down you've got to keep conflict in the functional non personal focusing on the outcome you've got to have a process that avoids conflict moving into the dysfunctional becoming personal and if you do that I am confident that you will have better decisions thank you and have a good day [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 70,524

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Social Science, Behavior, Communication, Community, Emotions, Psychology

Id: TF38pGE7GBg

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2017