We all hope to have employees who can think and operate independently, who want what is best for the business and who care about the organization and its members. Yet these are the same attributes that mingle to create and sustain organizational conflict. And conflict can either motivate change or completely debilitate movement and growth within an organization and among its team members.

How do you foster one and discourage the other? We have some really great collaborative technologies but none facilitate a heated discussion of opposing ideas, needs or perspectives. None help to expose core issues and motivations behind human interactions. And they certainly don’t help to navigate the spectrum of communication styles. That is our job as managers of people and processes. We need to have a certain tolerance for conflict that encourages rational discussion. We need to understand that whenever there are choices, we can assume some level of conflict… and that is not a bad thing. As managers we can learn conflict resolutions skills but first we must understand the important role that conflict plays in the evolution of an idea. Only then can we apply our skills to address conflict in a meaningful way.

In a slower economy conflict may be seen as “rocking the boat”. But it can also be seen as a measure of employee engagement. If someone on your team cares enough to have an opinion and defend it, there is justification to take time to understand their perspective and try to gain additional context behind it. The payoff may vary – maybe you get a satisfied team member who is more invested in the outcome, maybe the discussion leads to a better overall solution or maybe you’ll get both.