Cost of conflict on team trust and performance

One of the most common challenges I see when facilitating executive offsites: The team doesn't know how to have conflict. The team says they’re aligned. But in the room, people avoid eye contact. Or they side eye glance to somebody they know agrees with them. Then they don't speak up. After the meeting, the real conversations begin. Venting to peers. Looping in their teams to complain about decisions made inside the room... but not the people they're actually clashing with. Honestly, these are good leaders. They care about their co-workers, doing great work, and leading the company to success. But without a shared model for handling conflict, they default to avoidance. And that avoidance is expensive. Take a 10-person executive team. According to the CPP Global Human Capital Report, the average employee loses 2.8 hours per week to unproductive conflict. That’s 28 hours a week across the team. Or 1,400 hours a year. With the average US exec salary around $213,000, that’s over $143,000 a year lost in side conversations, meetings-after-the-meeting, and unresolved tension. And that’s just the beginning. It doesn’t include: - Missed strategic alignment and/or execution - Downward miscommunication - Turnover costs when a leader silently opts out - Cultural confusion that trickles through the org - Opportunity cost of ideas left unsaid What I often draw at these off-sites is simple: At the top: a web of isolated leaders and unresolved tension. At the bottom: a team choosing to move through the mess together. Same conflict. Very different outcome. The difference? A co-created, practiced model for conflict that gives the team language, structure, and permission. Because unresolved conflict doesn’t stay quiet forever. It just gets more expensive. What do you think? What does healthy, productive conflict look like? 📸: What I draw is inspired by a graphic I saw at one point by Liz Fosslien. One of the best work psychology illustrators of our time!

Team conflicts are costing you more than you think. Not in the ways you imagine. Last month, a senior leader pulled me aside: "I have two directors who can't be in the same room. How do I fix that?" I asked: "What about the seven other team members who've gone quiet?" He looked stunned. After 15 years facilitating leadership teams, I've learned: The loudest conflicts aren't your biggest problem. The silent ones are draining your potential. 3 invisible costs of team friction I see derailing teams: 1/ The Decision Drag ↳ Teams with tension take twice as long to reach consensus. ↳ That project delay? It's costing you market opportunities. ↳ I've watched brilliant strategies die because teams couldn't align. 2/ The Innovation Graveyard ↳ People don't share breakthrough ideas in unsafe environments. ↳ Your quieter team members are sitting on solutions you'll never hear. ↳ Your competitors aren't smarter. They just have less friction. 3/ The Talent Countdown ↳ Your high performers are planning their exit. ↳ They rarely cite "team dynamics" in exit interviews. They say "opportunity." ↳ By the time you notice, they're developing talent for someone else. Conflict itself isn't toxic. Poorly channeled conflict is. 3 ways emotionally intelligent leaders transform friction into results: 1/ Build conflict containers ↳ Create space for disagreement with clear boundaries. ↳ One rule: Challenge ideas vigorously, treat people respectfully. ↳ Close with specific actions. 2/ Interrupt invisible patterns ↳ Notice who speaks, who gets interrupted, whose ideas get adopted. ↳ Pull insight from your "silent experts" before deciding. ↳ Recognise contributions: "That builds on Fiona's earlier point..." 3/ Lead with vulnerability ↳ Share your own mistakes openly. ↳ When challenged, respond with "Tell me more." ↳ Ask questions you don't have answers to. The strongest teams aren't conflict-free. They're conflict-intelligent. What invisible friction is muting your team's potential? ♻️ Repost to help your network transform team dynamics ➕ Follow ☀️ Florence Divet for more leadership insights 📌 Get my newsletter for deeper strategies: https://lnkd.in/ePitBSZv

'My executives are all A-players. They just don't trust each other.' That's what a $60M CEO told me over coffee this morning. His revenue was up 40%, but his leadership team was falling apart. Sound familiar? Here's the counterintuitive truth I've learned after working with dozens of scaling companies: High performers often create low trust. Not because they're untrustworthy, but because they're too capable. Think about it. When you stack your leadership team with ambitious, competent executives, each one is used to being 'the person with the answers.' They've built careers on being right. But scaling a business isn't about being right. It's about being aligned. Last month, I watched a Chief Revenue Officer and COO nearly sink a $100M deal. Not because either was wrong - both had valid concerns. But their inability to trust each other's judgment created decision paralysis. The real cost of low trust: - 3x longer decision cycles - Duplicated efforts across departments - Missed market opportunities - Rising stress, falling margins Your smartest executives are often your biggest trust barriers because: - They have the strongest opinions - They're used to being proven right - They've succeeded through individual excellence - They struggle with shared vulnerability Want to build trust between high performers? Start here: ✅ Create shared defeats, not just shared victories. Nothing builds trust like failing together and recovering stronger. ✅ Stop celebrating individual heroes. Start rewarding collaborative wins. ✅ Make decisions visible. Trust grows in transparency and dies in darkness. ✅ Build accountability around team outcomes, not departmental metrics. Remember: You don't have a trust problem. You have an alignment challenge. Your executives don't need trust falls. They need a compelling reason to depend on each other. Curious: Have you ever had a high-performing team that struggled with trust? What turned it around? #Leadership #OrganizationalDevelopment #ExecutiveTeam

After facilitating a lot of team offsites, I've learned the most crucial moment isn't the conflict, it's what happens next. Even the best teams fall apart sometimes. But it’s what happens after the fallout that separates good culture from toxicity. 📉 Harvard researchers found that trust violations reduce team performance by up to 40%. That’s almost half of your team’s performance out the window because of poor trust! Fortunately, trust can be rebuilt. You just need to know how. Here's the repair roadmap I've seen work: 1. Name the rupture, don't bypass it ➝ Avoiding conflict might keep things polite. But it doesn’t keep teams connected. When leaders acknowledge the impact, psychological safety grows. ✨ Brené Brown says: "Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind." 2. Normalise feedback as care, not criticism ➝ Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the #1 predictor of high-performing teams. This happens when feedback flows without fear: "When you interrupted me in the client meeting, I felt undervalued." "Can I offer a perspective on how our decision-making process went yesterday?" 3. Create rituals for reconnection ➝ Shared meals, silent walks, or intentional listening circles can regulate the collective nervous system and rebuild cohesion when words alone aren't enough. 💭 Great teams are defined by how they repair and reconnect after something goes wrong. What's one trust-building ritual you could implement with your team this week?

Avoiding conflict is the #1 silent killer of growth. Not market conditions. Not competition. Not bad hires... It’s the conversations that never happen. I’ve worked with founders, CEOs, and executive teams across industries... From scrappy startups to billion-dollar enterprises. And I’ve seen the same issue stall growth more times than I can count: A key leader isn’t performing… But no one says anything. A partner dynamic is off… But it’s easier to “keep the peace.” The team feels misaligned… But no one wants to rock the boat. From the outside, the business looks fine. But internally? Resentment builds. Trust erodes. Accountability disappears. And execution starts to crack, quietly at first, then all at once. Conflict isn’t the problem. Unspoken conflict is. We tell ourselves stories to justify avoidance: “Now’s not the right time.” “They’re a good person, they’ll figure it out.” “I don’t want to create more stress.” “It’ll blow over.” But those stories come at a cost. They cost us clarity. They cost us performance. They cost us culture. And ultimately, they cost us momentum. The best leaders I’ve worked with aren’t fearless... They’re honest. They’re willing to say the hard thing with respect. To call it out, not in a way that shames, but in a way that sharpens. To lead with both backbone and heart. And every time they do, the organization gets stronger. Because truth builds trust. And trust fuels performance. So let me ask you: What’s one conversation you avoided… but once you finally had it, things actually got better? #Leadership #FounderWisdom #ConflictResolution #TeamPerformance