Learning to embrace conflict as a part of startup culture⁠↗

the most common conflict failure mode at a startup is when the leadership disagrees on what should happen, but no one speaks up because it’s uncomfortable to do so.

It is crucial for a company to make sure that conflict is not resolved simply by the strength of personality. Otherwise, the company will have a scenario where personal victory – “I need to be right” – comes before company victory – “we need to be right.”

The inability to decisively move forward, and instead find a middle ground on each topic, leads to Frankenstein solutions that rarely yield the correct answer. In this way, the startup prioritizes compromise over finding truth. If there is always a more true answer and team members are in conflict on what that answer is, there is little probability that the compromise answer is the right one.

Companies need to build a culture where it is okay to question whether a colleague is being fully objective.

By being soft on people and hard on problems, the company can build trust as the basis for the exercise of doing the hard work of making decisions collectively, rather than playing the ego game.

While maintaining empathy for individuals, the culture shouldn’t have empathy for ideas.

The challenge is to build a culture where team members work as hard as possible to defuse the fight by showing enthusiasm for the debate.

When taking a break, always address when the debate will continue, or breaks can often slip into conflict avoidance.

Constant dissent on the decision, once made, can be as problematic as not engaging the conflict in the first place. After the decision has been made, the company needs the benefit of a single team moving forward together.

I had a boss who frequently repeated the statement, “you’re paid for your opinion.” He was encouraging energetic debate by trying to draw out the wallflowers and build a culture where the stronger personalities learned to listen. Crafting this type of culture is the key to a successful team.