Power to Encourage Creativity in Constructive Discontent

Imagine a highly experienced senior executive team in a manufacturing organization reaching an impasse on an issue of strategic importance.  The tension is so thick you feel the pressure in your chest.  The decision facing them involves a billion dollar bet. There are multiple, deeply felt and argued for perspectives that are completely at odds.  All arguments are equally robust; the depth of feeling about the perspective to take on the choices at hand are equally compelling. 

They are facing a complex challenge, not simply a complicated one.  With complicated issues you can bring forth enough expertise and analysis to find the best path forward; with complex issues there are so many dynamic, paradoxical, ambiguous, and multi-factor elements that all the expertise and experience does not reveal a best path.  The path can only emerge by acknowledging and honoring the perspectives and discontent in the room among fully committed and hard working colleagues and by finding a constructive strategy to work through the difficulties.

Working together for many years, the members of the team have argued, agreed, and slugged through tough issues before.  They have never faced this kind of complexity.  I’ve assisted their awareness of various cognitive biases that are playing into the situation such as the sunk-cost fallacy, the loss aversion ideations, anchoring and salient biases that have elevated their difficulties.  Now I am trying to get them to realize that the discontent may be a source of productive, innovative, and creative energy.  

Of all the skills they need at this moment in managing the situation are the behaviors associated with constructive discontent.  Certainly there are other key skills and competencies at play, but if they can’t create a psychological safe container to allow for constructive discontent the costs will be enormous.

My colleagues and I defined constructive discontent as follows: Acknowledging restlessness, dissatisfaction or displeasure (“the elephant in the room”) in ways that move people to talk about, understand and resolve or accept it.”   To achieve this, individuals will need to:

• Articulate in non-judgmental ways the assumptions, needs, and desired outcomes of all sides in a conflict
• Create a discussion arena through facilitative questions which invite exploration of possible solutions
• Initiate with all parties involved to share feelings, aspirations, and expectations in a conflict related situation
• Demonstrate a patience and calm with discontent 
• Trust that if inquiry is encouraged, discontent will be contained

Unfortunately, in most of these kinds of challenges at hinted at above, the tension is so great that individuals typically resort to:

• Expressing loaded with judgmental and emotional terms
• Failing to facilitate a discussion, especially where emotions are running “hot”
• Communicating that conflict is inevitable so “just live with it”
• Behaving in ways that trigger more emotional reactions
• Ignoring or failing to respond to what people need

Learning about active, passive, constructive, and destructive aspects of conflict behavior (of self and others) is fundamental to using conflict and discontent for constructive purposes.  Some conflicts are not resolvable---only manageable as levels of discontent may exist from time to time.  Ignoring discontent will lead to no end of relationship troubles so it is best to reach out and seek to build a bridge by talking about the sources of discontent and conflict and ways to work constructively together.  Discontent—unlike conflict—persists like “background noise” in relationships and can set up the conditions for conflict.  

And if properly managed, the tension in discontent can become a source of motivated creativity and innovation.  If there is constructive discontent, individuals involved activate their problem solving capabilities and look for a more innovative solution.

We’ve found these there tips to be most useful when coaching leaders to be more effective in this kind of situation:

1. Know the difference between judgmental and non-judgmental terms?  In conflict situations emotions generally run high, even if not immediately displayed by all parties in a conflict situation.  Judgmental statements such as “you are…” or “you did…” accelerate emotional reactions.  By positioning statements as observations such as “when I was asking you about ____, I sensed that you were very irritated.”  Another example is “I’m trying to understand your position and a couple of things are unclear to me.  Please explore……”.   Anytime an individual feels judged and feels that he or she has no recourse, they will come out fighting.  By positioning observations as a “sense” or “seems to me” or “I’m confused about…” you reduce the emotional heat. 

2. Know how to facilitate discussions in conflict situations?  Often in conflict situations individuals will stop offering productive solutions, especially if they feel there isn’t much use in further discussions.  Your goal is to keep the discussions open with open-ended questions.  A “Yes/NO” question is a dead-end—especially in conflict conversations as these questions often sound adversarial.  Turn “Yes/No” questions into facilitative questions by asking, “Tell me more about…” or “I’d like to understand about those assumptions or the information you are using..”  These kinds of questions are designed to facilitate exploring information, perspectives, and possible solutions.   

3. Effective at taking perspective in conflict? You need to begin by asking, “what is the desired outcome of this interaction?”  If you are not clear that you want the other individual to feel as satisfied as you, then a solution is unlikely to be found.  In short, you have to begin with the end in mind. And as you think about the end, be mindful that the individuals involved have positive intent—they want a satisfactory solution as well as you do.

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