Four F-words for executive teams
Dealing with organizational conflict is always challenging, even more so for executive teams. There is a lot at stake: personally, because team leaders make large salaries; organizationally, because issues at the top can impact the financial picture and many employees. Coaching executive teams around the world, we’ve found that how leaders deal with conflict is central.
High performing teams are good at dealing with conflict; low performing teams aren’t. That’s why we came up with our “Four F” approach, a situational way to navigate any kind of conflict and inspire the best in your team. It’s built around four F-words: fight, friend, face and forget. The key is to know which one to use in a given situation.
1. Fight. Fight means standing up for your point of view. Most executives are good at this. They often get to the top based on their ability to fight for their ideas and win. The challenge is to get the team below you to be assertive with you and within the team.
This was the case at Swiss Re, the world’s largest insurer. We assisted the CFO to change their culture. They had made a significant statement error in Q2 2010. As a result they not only changed processes, but also realized they had to address ‘soft’ factors. The main challenge was encouraging people to not just accept numbers if they were not confident with them. The company defined new values for their culture, including creating a culture of trust and creative conflict. Employees needed to get more comfortable raising their voices and also needed to be more assertive and willing to take a risk by challenging statements and numbers. Through many workshops, meetings and communication around the globe, they were able to renew and clarify the vision and strategy of finance. Consequently, they were able to create a more productive work culture where conflict was more accepted.
To fight effectively, explain your point of view openly and directly. You may want to use something like the following logical progression to make your case:
- The data/experience I have is ____.
- What this data means to me is ____.
- The conclusions I draw from this data and my experience are ____.
- Therefore, I think the right idea/solution/ approach is ____.
Using this method will not guarantee the other person will see things your way. However, this approach gives you the possibility of convincing others of your point of view through a constructive dialog.
2. Friend. In addition to fighting for their ideas, many executive team leaders are also adept at building relationships. Sometimes, in dealing with conflict, the best approach is to support another team member’s point of view. A relationship is like a bank account: You’re either building it up by supporting each other or taking away from it by asking for favors, criticizing or being self-centered. Remember the expression “pick your battles,” and don’t spend your relationship capital when it’s not worth it.
There are two potential problems to look out for with this F-word. Some people place keeping relationships positive above all other priorities. They need to learn to fight more. Other people always need to win or get an apology for transgressions. They need to learn how put the other person first and be a friend.
3. Face. Often the best choice for executive teams is to face conflict head-on. In one example, we worked with a chemical company that had acquired two companies in a row. When three sales teams were rolled into one, this resulted in more than two years of unresolved conflicts, a toxic work environment, bad feelings toward new peers and very poor collaboration. Within one month of working with them, we stopped the infighting by getting the executives to face the conflict head-on.
Through interviews with the executives it became clear the three legacy sales directors held little respect for their peers. They all believed the others had “no clue about their business” and felt it was their way or no way. The turning point came when we were able to bring these conflicts to the open. We used the Hot Button activity, having everybody list all the things that were “pushing their buttons” about the other sales teams. This triggered a long, meaningful and very animated debate about the key issues. They discovered that many of the issues were commonly shared pains, and they worked together to quickly find remedies.
Sometimes the obvious solution is the best solution. In this case, the sales leaders had never gotten together to directly discuss the issues they had with each other. The only way to stop conflict was to get all the people who were fighting in the room, and get them to discuss the issues directly.
Four steps to effectively face conflict:
- Share the issue and the impact it is having on the business.
- Move the conversation past the problem and toward the vision of a future solution.
- Discuss what you can each do to reach the vision.
- Commit to take action.
4. Forget. Sometimes it makes sense to walk away. You don’t want to waste time or burn relationship capital on a minor issue. We worked with one CFO who couldn’t let conflict go and forget it. Instead he went into fight mode every time. He ended up being let go after he had alienated most of the executive leadership team.
Use Forget when the whole issue is just not important—to you or the other person. But be careful. The worst thing to do is to forget because you’re afraid of conflict when an issue is important to you. This is a recipe for being a doormat. Be wary of these excuses:
- This person is my boss, so I can’t confront him.
- I am not good at conflict.
- I might get too upset.
- I might hurt her feelings.
- He’s not worth it. I don’t need him that much.
- It’s not a big deal.
Which F-word to use. All of these F-words are effective. The challenge is to use the right one at the right time. Choose based on how important the issue is:
- Fight when something is important to you but not so important to the other party. Fight openly and respectfully to get what you want.
- Friend if the issue is important to the other person but not to you. Build the relationship by supporting their decision.
- Face when the problem is really important to both of you.
- Forget if the issue is not important to either of you. Just let it go.
Among these, the biggest challenge is facing conflict head-on. It takes hard work. But using this approach we have solved complex, multi-party conflicts, seen communication issues resolved, and gotten splintered and dysfunctional groups pulling together as a team.
