Here’s a quote from the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team that I think will resonate with a lot of experienced coaches.
Ironically, teams that avoid ideological conflict often do so in order to avoid hurting team members’ feelings, and then end up encouraging dangerous tension. When team members do not openly debate and disagree about important ideas, they often turn to back-channel personal attacks, which are far nastier and more harmful than any heated argument over issues.
If you’ve coached for a while, you likely will have had at least one team, if not many, that have had issues with this sort of thing. I know I’ve been involved with several!
We often think that a good team dynamic is one where there’s no conflict. As the quote above suggests, however, that can be far from the through. There will always be conflicts within a team. Sometimes they’re minor. Sometimes they’re more significant. It’s…
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