How to transform conflict into collaboration
#189 - Oct.2024
When we think about innovation, there's one area we often overlook:
Resolving conflicts.
As someone leading innovation or starting a new business, you might face this right now.
When you’re trying to affect change, tough conversations are inevitable. Resistance is normal. People may have different opinions or perspectives. Some might even fear change.
All innovation brings uncertainty. This can lead to conflicts with peers or across teams. As a leader, you need to develop the skills to handle these situations. You can see conflicts as something negative, or you can view them as opportunities to build stronger relationships.
Ignoring conflicts only makes problems bigger. They can slow down your team or reduce the impact of your solution.
You need to take action.
I’m not saying you should seek conflicts. But to use them to learn more about people, assumptions, and perspectives.
In my experience, conflicts during innovation projects often derive from these issues:
- Lack of alignment on goals
- Mixing up customer and stakeholder expectations
- Resistance to change
- Communication during conflicts
Let’s dive into each and let me share practical ways to manage them.
Working toward a common goal
Set clear priorities and goals from the start.
When people from different areas (product, engineering, design) work together, boundaries can blur. You start seeing common conflicts around ownership and accountability.
Many turn to responsibility matrices to solve this. While defining clear responsibilities is needed, I don't believe it tackles the root cause of the problem.
At the core, most of the ownership problems are just a reflection of conflicting goals and incentives across teams. Multi-disciplinary teams can share accountability as long they are aligned with a common purpose.
Start by framing the problem and defining outcomes for everyone on the team. The sooner you define this, the better. This is one of the simplest ways to avoid conflicts early in the journey.
There are many frameworks for defining great goals (I use SMART). When defining goals and priorities I like to focus on deeper questions that can lead to clarify:
- What tasks consume energy that could go toward understanding customers?
- What small step could we take today to learn more about the problem?
- What’s blocking our team from experimenting more?
- What processes could we eliminate?
- What would you try, even if you risk failure?
Beware of the incentives that are driving each team.
Check that the incentives align with the shared goals. Common anti-patterns:
- Engineers focused on delivery speed, not value
- Product managers tracking success by feature count
- Designers rewarded for aesthetics over functionality
Good goals don't compensate for bad incentives. You need both aligned.
Customers vs. Stakeholders
Teams often struggle with this.
They treat customers and stakeholders as being the same thing. When you do this, you create the wrong expectations and it usually results in frustration.
Stakeholders aren’t your direct customers.
You need to create value for your direct customers, not your stakeholders. I’ve seen many teams prioritizing features based on stakeholder demands from people who never use the product.
This usually creates conflicts between what stakeholders request and what customers really need.
Does this mean you should ignore stakeholders? Surely not. They play a key role in the process. Stakeholders need to bring inputs on the constraints, assumptions, and risks. Customers bring the perspective of the needs and opportunities.
Solve this by mapping your stakeholders and customers.
Create a stakeholder map and customer journeys (I have a template if you need one). Make sure your team knows the difference.
Set clear expectations with stakeholders. Help them understand their role and how they can best contribute.
Resistance to change
In the past, I wrote about how businesses buy IT solutions and how change is an important part of the process.
I believe that the same principle applies to innovation projects.
Innovation often leads to important changes, which can create pushback from teams used to the status quo.
Your skills in how you lead others through change can make a huge difference in avoiding these conflicts.
To lead change you need to have a deep understanding of the current situation, promote a clear vision of the future, show others the process to get there, and acknowledge the barriers or costs when making this change.
Your goal is to demonstrate that the current situation, vision, and process are worth the cost of overcoming the resistance to change.
In my experience, many of the conflicts that derive from managing change are related to either a blurry vision (we don't know where we are heading) or a lack of clarity to show the process (how we'll get there?)
Aligning not only the vision but the process to get there creates trust. People might still push back but your transparency creates a common ground for collaboration.
This becomes even more effective if you listen and use feedback to iterate. Make them part of the journey. When people understand how they contribute to the process, they become engaged and supportive. Everyone wants to feel included.
Effective communication during conflicts
One of the most important skills for an innovation leader is communication.
But let’s face it: few people like difficult conversations. We tend to avoid them.
However, the way you lead with these hard discussions can help you build stronger collaboration. Your approach to managing conflicts can significantly impact your team’s success.
Effective communication during conflicts isn’t just about having good arguments; it’s about listening.
Here are some common pitfalls in communication during conflicts:
- Confusing perceptions with reality
- Not considering the role of emotions during debates
- Linking debates to self-worth or competence
At the beginning of a conflict, focus on exploring assumptions, perspectives, and facts. You do this by listening. Active listening is contagious—it invites others to do the same. Explore how everyone contributed to the problem. That sets the stage for collaboration.
In corporate settings, people often avoid sharing their feelings. But the truth is that emotions shape discussions. We see feelings as a vulnerability. But being aware of your emotions can help you drive a better debate.
Many debates are ignited by perceptions, not reality. Discovering the feelings behind people can lead you to a better understanding of their real intentions.
One simple questions that open this door is using more "I feel that..." and separating your assumptions ("it seems to me that...") rather than framing your arguments as facts.
Difficult conversations can threaten our sense of identity. Discussions become complicated when mixed with concerns about competence, worth, or self-image. Separate your identity from the problem.
The fact that you are having a debate doesn't make you a better or worse professional. These frictions are part of a journey when people are trying to find their way through the ambiguity of an innovation.
You have the power to turn conflicts into catalysts for creativity and collaboration.
Friction is a natural effect of change.
How you handle conflicts can define how you build trust with others.
And trust is one of your most powerful currencies.
¡Saludos!
