How Your Management Team Can Have A Good Fight

Think "conflict" is a dirty word for top-management teams? It's actuallyvaluable for team members to spar (figuratively, of course!). Handledconstructively, conflict helps teams make high-stakes decisions underuncertainty and move quickly despite intense pressure.
But the key to managing conflict is preventing it from taking a personal turn.Tactics for doing this include multiplying the alternatives under discussion. Asyour team weighs a decision, consider four or five options simultaneously --even some you don't support. This diffuses conflict by preventing teams frompolarizing around just two possibilities. For example, executives at onestruggling company brainstormed alternative solutions that included entering anew market
and even selling the company.