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Stop Running from Conflict, It’s Where All the New Lives

When was the last time you had a major work-related disagreement with someone on your team or someone you work with? If you had to think about it, it was too long ago.

Lack of conflict is present on teams where 1) someone isn’t speaking up, 2) the culture/structure doesn’t permit dissension or dialogue, or 3) everyone is in near persistent agreement. All three of these are detrimental to innovation on their own, and absolutely deadly in combination.

Get irreverent, get open, and get diverse.

Or get used to never accomplishing anything extraordinary.

Thu 01.08.09

Tagged: An Entry, Management, Office Culture, Work

There are 13 comments on this post. Add your own comment.

    So true! When’s the book coming out?

    said DK

    at 11:45am on Thursday

    Awesome post and so true. Let’s all take a note from Festivus and begin with the “Airing of Grievances”.

    Seriously, great post.

    said Phil

    at 12:16pm on Thursday

    Thanks Blankenship. Just sent this to my boss and his boss.

    said Jer.

    at 12:27pm on Thursday

    Been thinking about this so more. Shared it with some people, some agree, some disagree. I read the below quote a year ago and thought it was worth sharing.

    “Real creativity, the kind that is responsible for breakthrough changes in our society, always violates the rules. That is why it is so unmanageable and that is why, in most organizations, when we say we desire creativity we really mean manageable creativity. We don’t mean raw, dramatic, radical creativity that requires us to change.

    — Richard Farson, from his book Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership

    said Jer.

    at 1:57pm on Thursday

    Shared it with some people, some agree, some disagree.

    The fact that you agree and others around you don’t makes a compelling argument for its validity, don’t you think?

    said Joshua

    I disagree. And would also like to fight about it …

    said Paul

    at 2:58pm on Thursday

    Yes, I do think.

    Thanks again.

    said Jer.

    at 3:02pm on Thursday

    Totally agree. Passivity is poison.

    said Casey

    at 3:17pm on Thursday

    Get irreverent…get open…get diverse….

    or GET OUT before you forget you ever had the creative thought to innovate in the first place…or even what it looked or felt like

    The conflict ITSELF may be the beginning of the extraordinary things to come….take the risk

    said Mom

    at 5:24pm on Thursday

    What if you’re all just equally awesome? Cause I think that might be my case.

    said Anthony

    at 8:51pm on Thursday

    FYI, your page takes ages to load because it’s waiting for adn.fusionads.com before it can display anything.

    said Ozh

    at 2:23am on Friday

    Ozh, my slow load times have more to do with media content and my absurdly poorly coded bloated CSS files than with external JS calls. I’m guessing you hit it on a random off time.

    said Joshua

    I love this. Thanks.

    said blaine

    at 5:10pm on Friday

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