Intel’s culture of constructive confrontation (sometimes referred to as “disagree and commit”) exemplifies a pattern of decision making cultivated by Level 5 leaders in our research. They stimulated dialogue, debate, and disagreement as an indispensable ingredient in making supremely good decisions. They also created a climate where evidence, logic, and facts would trump personality, power, and politics. As a member of a Level 5 team, you have not only the opportunity to engage in the dialogue, you have the responsibility to do so. If you fail to advance your argument, if you fail to disagree with the most powerful person in the room, if you fail to bring solid logic and evidence to the debate, if you attack a person rather than the problem, then you’re failing in that responsibility.

My reports regularly bring their biggest challenges to my attention. A hallmark of a trusting relationship is that people feel they can share their mistakes, challenges, and fears with you. If they’re struggling through an assignment, they tell you right away so you can work through it together.

Yet, the best work happens after collaborators develop deep “emotional trust,” which requires working, talking, and failing and succeeding together over long stretches of time.

As Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and his coauthors show in their book Noise, when a system devolves into such a “random scatter of ideas” (their definition of noise), decision-making and coordination suffer, and dysfunctional conflict may abound, because people can’t agree on what to do, how to do it, and what bad or good work looks like.

Transformative Justice Tools

Generative Conflict Relationship Prompts

Conflict is natural between any two people. We all come from different life/family/world experiences—so even when we love each other, even when we are building movement together, we will have different opinions, different ideas on what is right. Here are some conversations that help clarify approaches to conflict and difference:

• What are our individual ways/practices of conflict?

• How did conflict happen in our families?

• In past (romantic, familial, friend) relationships, what are the best ways we have handled conflict? And what are the worst?

• What emotions are we most comfortable with? Least comfortable with?

How would we handle conflict and difference in our ideal world?

Specifically:

• When would we have conversations around potential tension or difference? (ASAP? During staff meetings? During a set “relationship date” time [some lovers hold a couple of hours once a week for concentrated time—babysitters, different/private space, etc.]? Before going to bed? Other?)

• Where would we have these conversations? (At the office? At a neutral location? At home? Away from home? Outdoors?)

• How would we have these conversations? (How do we want to feel during these conversations? Are there behaviors or words that would make the conversation feel unsafe or disrespectful?)

• How important is resolution to us?

A lot of times, conflict is an invitation to deepen, to learn more about each other. How do we best learn?

Possibilities:

• I learn best from reading/watching stuff and reflecting together.

• I learn best from conversation (Calm conversation? Heated conversation?).

• I learn best by being given something to reflect on, and adequate time to reflect on it.

• Other.

Finally, pay attention to what’s already in motion in your pairing or group—there is a pattern in place already in most cases, understanding it will give you more agency in shifting it. Ask yourselves: What do we notice as our patterns right now?