Facilitating Productive Conflict

People may resist engaging in respectful dialogue because they don’t know what to say. They haven’t had practice in “disagreeing without being disagreeable” noted Bernard Meltzer, longtime radio host of “What’s Your Problem?” The impact can be passive-aggressive behavior, reduced trust, and limited contribution to problem-solving efforts.

Steve Barkley offers these three strategies to support you in engaging your staff in productive conflict:

1. Focus on the outcome where you have consensus. If you don’t have consensus around the goal, return to your shared purpose. Barkley offers language you can use:
   1. “We all want students to make maximum growth during these remaining days of school.”
   2. “We are agreed that while we need to dedicate extra time for some students to master this concept, our plan needs to allow those who have mastered it to extend their learning.”
      
      
2. Rephrase any negatively phrased comments to positive ones. Barkley explains, “By phrasing don’t, won’t, and can’t as want to and [it’s important to], your facilitation can lead into a solution oriented/consensus direction.” He offers the following exchange as an example:

Participant: “There isn’t enough time to complete that process by the deadline.”

Facilitator: “You see value in the process if we can create the necessary time.”

Participant: “The students won’t invest the time to see the project through to completion.”

Facilitator: “You see it as a valuable learning project if students made the investment to complete it.”  …  “You believe it's important to gain commitment from the students before we decide to proceed.”

3. “Use supporting statements to respond to conflicting views: and if possible, teach team members to use the supporting statements with each other.” Following are examples of supporting statements:
   1. Listen for areas where you have agreement.
   2. Name the area of highest agreement-- “We are on the same page with X.” “I support X as well.” At the least, you can say, “I see your point.”
   3. Invite consideration of additional insight and information by building upon what you’ve heard. For example, “We are on the same page with wanting more support for our students struggling with behaviors; and XX strategy has worked effectively.” Avoid using “but” or “however.”

People in conversations want to be heard. Rephrasing and naming what you’re hearing communicates to someone you care about them and their opinion. People in this state of mind are more able to consider alternate points of view, which in turn can advance you toward a workable solution.

Read Steve Barkley’s full blog post, and access a scenario you might discuss in your mentoring partnership.