Team conflict is costly; here’s the price my company paid

Tom Harper Aug. 5, 2024

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The right kind of "positive" conflict can sometimes lead to better results in business (and even church).

But how much of this kind of good conflict have you really experienced?

Even if you're driving for the right idea or best solution, conflict has a cost.

I was in management meetings over many years where vitriol flew, and verbal steam blistered the paint on the walls.

But then we would literally walk out of the meeting laughing as if nothing had happened. We were supposedly thankful to have solved the problem we argued about.

Though problems got solved, we created deeper, relational rifts. After years of this, our relationships became surface-only. Office politics ran rampant.

Then the company hit a wall.

Soon after, some of our management team left, some were fired.

Before you allow conflict as a leader, believing it generates the best thinking, ponder the potential long-term cost.

Tom Harper
Founder, BiblicalLeadership.com
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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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