Health and Unhealthy Tension
Over the years coaching teams and product leaders all around the world, I’ve seen a wide range of different teams.
Teams who weren’t teams at all. More like groups of individuals.
Dysfunctional teams caught ‘spinning their wheels.’
And what you might call high-performing teams where they flow and effortlessly work off each other.
The latter, cohesive teams would run circles around teams twice their size - even whole departments in some cases!
But it’s easy to look at them and think; “Wouldn’t that be great to work in that team. Everyone gets along, there’s no tension or dysfunction” - but I can tell you there’s more going on below the surface.
What it means to be part of a team
(it’s not as simple as you might think)
I want to paint a picture of two (real) teams to make this tangible.
I’m sure elements will resonate with you.
Team A
Imagine a team discussing whether they should proceed down two equally good paths.
They have several complexities in their space, and things aren’t as clear as they would like.
They invested in discovery and learning, but there’s still a “fog of war.” They need to make a decision to get past this crossroad.
Some team members suggest path A would be ideal based on what we know.
The rest are advocating for path B.
Through discussion and debate, the team comes up with a third path - path C.
Path C combines components of A and B and seems like a nice compromise.
5 out of the 6 team members are relatively satisfied with this direction, but one team member isn’t - we’ll call them Team Member X.
Team Member X stresses the importance of including a specific elements of path B that weren't included in path C.
The problem is that would dramatically increase the complexity of path C and make in near indistinguishable from path B.
The team agree with Team Member X that they should be doing that, but given the constraints and increased complexity, it wouldn’t make sense right now.
But Team Member X wasn't having it.
They dig their heels in and won’t budge.
The conversation stalls.
The team goes in circles.
They try to resolve it by returning to their outcome, purpose, and data… all ground that they covered before.
But it doesn’t work.
Team Member X still isn’t satisfied.
It’s not too long before some of the team members get frustrated.
They feel like they’re repeating themselves. Having the same conversation over and over again.
Eventually, one of the team members break.
They say, “fine. Well add it.”
But the rest still resist.
More time going in circles.
And another 2 team members buckle this time.
“Fine. Fine!”
Now, there’s critical mass for what Team Member X wants.
Soon the remaining team members begundingly agree.
But the team has lost precious time.
It’s taken days for them to come to an agreement.
Worse. The team has suffered.
They’re not a cohesive unit anymore. It’s one person vs the rest.
Now, repeat this over several months with a dozen other examples.
Where there was once lots of discussion, collaboration and a healthy level of noise in the team, it’s now quiet.
There’s no more tension. They make decisions quickly.
But not all is well below the surface.
Tension has dropped because of attrition.
They’re sick of arguing with Team Member X and getting nowhere.
They make timely decisions because they default to what Team Member X wants, not what's best.
I think we can all agree that this is far from what a healthy team looks like.
Team B
Now, let’s look at a different team.
Who face the same scenario.
However, whilst Team Member X isn’t happy with path C. They’re comfortable with proceeding and seeing what happens.
Team Member X knows that the team has already been workshopping this problem for several days now, and doing something is better than nothing - even if it’s to tell us we went in the wrong direction.
“Perfection is the enemy of progress.”
Team Member X is willing to put their ego and needs aside to maintain team cohesion.
They know that one day their peers will do the same for them.
Some might call this “disagree and commit.”
But I’m not a fan of that phrasing for many reasons. I also believe it’s much more nuanced than that.
Instead, I prefer the alternative that John Cutler offered; “disagree and commit to learn.”
Healthy vs Unhealthy Tension
There’s no absence of tension in both scenarios.
In both cases, they’ve spent hours, even days, discussing, researching, and creating a shared understanding of the problem and challenging each other's perspectives.
This is what we often refer to as healthy tension.
It’s not like the team has come up with something, and all nodded their heads and proceeded.
In fact, as you can see in Team A, that behavior might eventually become the norm, but it’s coming from an unhealthy place—and it’s definitely not leading to better outcomes.
Team B, on the other hand, the tension creates a shared understanding and a better path forward.
Does this mean that everyone is happy and aligned?
Of course not.
That’s not how it works!
Here’s a powerful framing I came across the other day from Steven Bartlett talking about negotiation:
"[Negotiation is about] finding that middle ground, that compromise. Where we're both are a little bit unhappy with the agreement but we're both satisfied"
- Steven Bartlett, in a recent episode of Behind the Diary.
This is an excellent way of framing healthy tension in collaboration.
Yes, we hope that we are both happy and satisfied most of the time—and I’m not saying that’s not the case—but there will be moments when you must compromise.
The problem is when this tension becomes a blocker.
At this point, you need to be able to put aside personal agendas and find a path forward.
“alignment often yields mediocre compromises. The quest for understanding is much harder. We may need to agree to disagree, or commit to something we don’t agree with.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are moments where it’s one of those ‘hills to die on,’ so to speak - think something fundamentally unethical, and you should do everything in your power to stop it.
But that should be the exception, not the norm.
Steve Jobs frames the necessity for teamwork and healthy tension well in this clip from the famous ‘Lost Interview’ (it’s a worthy watch!).
“when I was a young kid there was a widowed man that lived up the street…and one day he said come on into my garage I want to show you something and he pulled out this dusty old rock tumblr.
…I came back the next day and we opened the can and we took out these amazingly beautiful polished rocks.
The same common stones that had gone in through rubbing against each other like this create a little bit of friction creating little bit of noise had come out these beautiful polished rocks.
And that's always been in my mind my metaphor for a team.
…it's through the team through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other having arguments having fights sometimes making some noise and working together they polish each other and they polish the ideas and what comes out are these really beautiful stones.”
- Steve Jobs
Getting Tangible
I’m going to start with Product Leaders (and leaders in general) here because we play a disproportionate role in leading by example and building an environment that encourages effective teamwork.
Leading by example:
Can you role model what great teamwork looks like?
Do we role model this as a product, engineering, and design leadership team? Do we work together, or are we individuals (read this)? A small thing you can do here is to start the week together with a lean coffee.
Reflect if you are Team Member X?
Are you the one digging your heels in? (watch the video below - a must watch for all leaders👇)
Building the right environment:
Don’t allow individual KPIs to conflict with team objectives
Move towards models like evenly split bonus distribution or team bonus pools
Make collaboration and teamwork core criteria for performance and promotion.
Implement 360 feedback (i.e., feedback not just from their managers but peers, direct reports, etc.).
For those who aren’t in leadership positions some considerations:
How long have we been working on this idea?
If you’re still in the early stages, we want to spend a bit more time discussing and making your case. Digging in your heels here is okay as long as you’re not forcing the team to converge prematurely. But spinning wheels isn’t going to help, either.
Why are you so adamant about this option? Are you putting the team first here?
Are you advocating for perfection at the expense of progress?
Are you willing to (as John Cutler puts it) “disagree and commit to learning”
Will there be opportunities to refine, pivot, and adjust? If so, are you willing to try until the first pivot point and see?
What’s the risk?
If the risk is high, are there ways you can lower the risk? (something you probably should be doing anyway)
What assumptions are sitting between these options? Do we have time to get a little bit more data to test that assumption?
Final thoughts
My final thoughts as I hit my timebox are to remember that “perfection is the enemy of progress.”
I also recognize how hard it is to put the team first, especially in certain environments.
I get that there are cases where your pay, performance, promotion, and career may be on the line, and it’s super hard to do this in these environments.
This is why I started with the role of leaders here - because a core part of a leader’s role is creating the conditions for great teamwork.
Lastly, great teams flow.
I was catching up with John Cutler the other day, and he described it like a band making music.
There’s just a natural flow going on.
I like the analogy, and to extend it, that flow can also be destroyed by one team member going a different direction and behaving like it’s “my way or the highway.”
Plenty of bands over the years have broken up because of this.
And what generally happens to that band?
Either a complete fallout, or they try to replace members - but let’s be honest, they’re never the same.
Here’s to all my favorite bands that broke up over the years 💔
