Fostering Healthy Conflict

This week’s article summary is Fostering Healthy Conflict.

Teaming is an integral aspect of teaching today.

If you’ve been in education as long as I, you remember what teaching was like before teaming: one teacher alone in a classroom. Yes, teachers in the Faculty Room or in after-school faculty meetings might share a little about their craft, yet overall teaching was a very independent existence. I learned more by trial-and-error than by mentorship.

As I mentioned in preplanning, there are many benefits to team teaching and being on a team: more ideas and perspectives shared, greater willingness to experiment and pilot new ideas, more support and feedback, closer relationships, and better productivity.

Yet, there are potential pitfalls as well: personal agendas, power dynamics, tension (overt, covert), distrust, passive/aggressive behavior, lack of follow through and accountability.

Patrick Lencioni in his classic book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team writes that the foundation of effective teaming is trust.

A vital aspect of trust is the willingness to be honest with team members. However, many of us shy away from honesty for fear that we will hurt the feelings of others.

The brief article below provides some sentence stems to help encourage healthy skepticism and disagreement in team meetings.

In our personal and professional lives, we know and work with some people who have excellent bedside manners. They have the ability to push and disagree in a non-threatening, respectful manner. They have natural empathy and can put themselves in the place of others.

Others, however, can overly blunt and confrontational. These people need support and scaffolding to help them work effectively with others.

One of the qualities of a high-functioning team is the ability to productively disagree. The article below helps provide some guidance for those teams that struggle with this and consequently aren’t maximizing their potential.

 Joe

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If educators are to have the kinds of conversations necessary to meet the needs of every child, then we’re going to have to learn how to navigate conflict.

Not angry, personalized, win/lose conflict, but healthy exchanges where colleagues wrestle with ideas, ask questions, demonstrate curiosity, change their minds, and keep students at the center.

How can we build the skills necessary for productive conflict?

One way is using sentence stems that lead the conversation in the right direction. Some examples:

Can you elaborate on your thinking, because I’m not sure I understand?

I have some concerns about that suggestion. Could you explain it more?

I want to push back on that idea. I’ve noticed ___ and would like to suggest ___.

I hear what you’re saying, but have you considered ___?

Can you help me understand why you believe that? My experience has led me to a different conclusion, but I want to understand your perspective.

I disagree with you about that, but I want to hear your thoughts.

It would help me get behind that idea if I could hear more about ___.

I agree with several points you made, but I want to challenge you on this idea. 

I have a request to make. Are you open to hearing it?