In his book Dream Teams, Shane Snow shares about The Dream Teams Framework. The framework came about from the study of game-changing teams in history and the psychology and neuroscience underlying their behavior. A team that makes breakthroughs has as one of its components cognitive friction. He makes the following points:

• Practicing productive debate, where the goal is to explore ideas together rather than “win.”
• Becoming comfortable exploring all points of view – even seeking out ideas and experiences that push you out of your comfort zone.
• Becoming comfortable with and inviting disagreement.Creating an environment where dissent and pushback are appreciated rather than discouraged.

One of the elements that resonated most for me was the concept of task conflict v personal conflict. Task conflict is a difference in opinion on how a task should be completed (debating over the right strategy for a project or a difference of opinion re: resource allocation). Personal conflict is a type of conflict that develops over disagreements and differences between individuals or groups. Personal conflict is toxic. Task conflict is healthy.

I recently started following Dr. Nicole LePera on Twitter. She shared some excellent points about confrontation:

• People avoid confrontation because it is overwhelming.
• Without confronting issues, those issues will continue.
• Healthy confrontation is acting assertively in expressing an issue to find a solution. (Are you an assertive woman? Good luck with this one.)

“You need to tell someone what you need from them in order to get what you need from them.”

– Jen Boyd

Snow and LePera make outstanding points. But I wonder, aren’t conflict and confrontation connected? And can we have one without the other? And which comes first? Does the order matter? And why do both have such negative connotations?

To confront an issue means to discuss it, to share concerns and try to come to a resolution. What’s so wrong with that? Conflict, in my view, is our internal feedback mechanism for personal growth. We’ve all been provided with feedback that has made us uncomfortable. That, my friend, is exactly how growth works. We’ve discussed growing pains in a past blog and we will continue to do so. It hurts to grow – to change. We need confrontation and conflict to push us out of our comfort zone. Confrontation should lead to some degree of internal conflict. It’s the external conflict – personal conflict – that we need to work around. In my experiences, when confronting someone, when discussing a concern with someone who may not be ready to hear it then conflict typically ensues.

Why?

Not all conflict is bad. Not all confrontations are meant to harm. Shouldn’t we change the narrative around the two if growth and change are the goal?