How to tell the difference between tensions to manage and problems to solve
I was well into my leadership journey before I realized that a leader’s goal should not be to make sure everyone gets along 100% of the time.
When I think about the times in my journey when I felt most defeated, it was always when there was tension involved. Any time I felt tension between me and another person or between other people on the team, I couldn’t rest until I had helped resolve it. If I ever sensed that people weren’t on the same page or in agreement, I felt like I’d failed as a leader. I defined success by how smoothly things went and how easy things felt on our team, in our culture, and in our relationships.
What I didn’t know then is that the absence of tension does not equal success. In striving for “easy” and “tension-free,” I wasn’t creating a space where people felt safe to express their perspectives, to disagree, to give feedback, to do things differently, to challenge one another, or to make one another better.
Over time, I’ve learned that certain kinds of tension on a team can be good—healthy, even. And when you can understand, manage, and nurture these healthy tensions, it can make your organization and your team even better.
That being said, there are some tensions that shouldn’t exist. These aren’t tensions to manage; these are tensions to remove. In other words, they are problems to solve. And it’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two.
Healthy tensions are challenging in a good way. For example, in my experience, there is often tension between the people who are constantly working to bring in new business (sales) and those working to manage the business (operations). The sales process can sometimes move at a much faster pace than operations because that’s the nature of the role: It’s relationship-driven, so it can move quickly and might not have as many steps. On the other hand, operations is an extremely detail- and process-oriented role that has many important steps—not the least of which is making sure that all these new clients feel taken care of. So, inevitably, the team may hit a roadblock: There will likely come a time when those in sales feel bogged down by processes and those in operations feel that sales are moving too quickly. But the point isn’t to remove the tension between sales and operations. That’s a good tension. We need salespeople to sell, and we need operations people to create systems and processes that give our business a strong foundation. One is not better than the other; we need both! But we do need to manage this tension. That might look like focusing on communication between these roles to make sure everyone has realistic expectations of each other or constantly evaluating processes to make sure that they are as efficient as possible for both parties.
Another healthy tension could exist between you and someone who sees the world differently or has different strengths than you do. Maybe you typically have different perspectives when looking at an issue. So long as you have the same values—like integrity, for example—these relationships can be really healthy. They can help us think more intentionally about issues; cause us to consider perspectives that we may have otherwise dismissed; and help us get to better solutions. Without differing perspectives, we can end up in a groupthink situation.
These kinds of tensions are natural, normal, and ever-present. They have no solution, and that’s okay: They don’t need one. When I finally realized that, it was so freeing for me as a leader. It helped me shift my mindset from, “All tension is bad, and I have to spend all of my energy getting rid of it,” to, “Tension doesn’t always indicate that the business or our team is in trouble. Some kinds of tension are healthy and good. My role is to help people manage these tensions a bit better, but not to eliminate them completely.”
Now, let’s talk about unhealthy tension. Unhealthy tension brings people down and makes it harder for them to do their jobs. Here’s an example: Let’s say your team has been using the same onboarding system for years. A new person joins the team, and they speak up about how inefficient and complicated the onboarding process felt to them. The new person’s remark is met with a shrug and a “this how we’ve always done it” kind of reaction—and boom: tension. This kind of tension is unhealthy because it shows that there is a problem that needs to be fixed: The ripple effect of the new person feeling like they had a poor onboarding experience can affect the way they see their role and the company for the rest of their time there.
So how do leaders go about resolving unhealthy tension like this? And how do we go about determining the difference between problems to solve and tensions to manage? It starts by getting curious.
I recently led a session with a team that wanted to take their collaboration to the next level. Having worked with this team before, I knew they already had a strong level of trust and psychological safety, which was foundational for this exercise.
The team’s leader and I decided to call the session “Curious Collaboration” because the first step in determining how to collaborate better is to step outside of your role to learn about the experiences and perspectives of others. We put people in groups of three and asked them to discuss the following questions:
Walk me through a day in your role/department. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What are your most frustrating days/moments? What are your best days/moments?
Where do you wish others collaborated with you more? Less?
What department/role “challenges” you, but in a good way? From your perspective, what are the healthy tensions in the business?
We called it an “empathy talk.” We didn’t ask anyone to come up with solutions just yet; we wanted them to start by sharing their own experiences and learning about the experiences of others.
After that, we split into larger groups and made sure that several departments were represented in each one. We challenged each group to work together to identify problems to solve in the business—a.k.a. the unhealthy tensions on their team—and the solutions that might alleviate those problems. We also asked them to identify the healthy tensions that are supposed to exist and talk about how to manage them a bit better. Instead of using the discussion to talk about one-on-one relationships, we explored the tensions that exist between roles and departments. We gave them these prompts to guide the conversation:
What assumptions do you think others might make about your role/department, and what is the reality? What do you wish others knew about your role?
What biases might you have about other roles/departments that make it harder for you to collaborate to the best of your ability?
What are some of your greatest frustrations in your role, and how can the team help? What do you need from your teammates in order for you to do your job more efficiently and effectively?
What can you do to be a better team player/support others in roles that are different from yours? How do you personally balance being self-serving while also serving others on the team? Where—if anywhere—do you think you can improve?
After three hours, the team had a lot more empathy for each other and awareness of what goes on in other parts of the organization. They were able to talk freely and openly about frustrations and areas of collaboration that felt hard and come up with solutions to solve those issues. They felt relieved to know that there were some things (healthy tensions) that they no longer needed to try to resolve.
As leaders, we have to change our mindset around tension. Though it might feel uncomfortable, not all tension is bad. But it’s crucial for leaders to be able to identify the different kinds of tension and understand what’s good for a team and what’s not. My suggestion is to start by getting curious. Where are the tensions? Which ones are healthy/unhealthy? The only way to know is to talk about it . . . together. Could you do a version of this exercise with those you work alongside? How might that change the way you collaborate?
I want to end with my favorite quote from Ted Lasso (which is actually a quote by Walt Whitman): “Be curious, not judgmental.”
The first step in wanting to do anything better or differently is to become curious about it. To ask questions. To listen. To seek to understand where people are coming from and what’s frustrating. It’s when we do that that we can create the best version of our teams and cultures yet.
Big hugs,
