Conducive Managers Promote Healthy Conflict
My first few months managing a team were far from perfect. As an ecommerce platform category manager, one of the primary methods to grow sales is to expand assortment, which can be done by onboarding more sellers or getting existing sellers to sell additional product types. There was a team dedicated towards onboarding, which was hitting their target of onboarding X sellers per month. So, I decided to focus on getting existing sellers to expand their assortment. Large existing sellers are managed by an army of account managers. I would check progress on assortment twice a week, but often saw limited new item listings. In an environment with strong healthy conflict, my team would have mentioned that the task or timeline was not feasible either during the initial discussion or raised the issue after realizing the difficulties. However, neither of these happened in my first few months, because I had yet to create an environment that promotes healthy conflict.
Over time, I built an environment that is more conducive to healthy conflict, an environment where criticism and feedback, both upward and downward, are openly discussed. For a deeper look on how individuals should drive Healthy Conflict, you may refer to my previous article here. To promote healthy conflict, I admitted that I am imperfect, internalized feedback, made adjustments, and attributed outcomes to the received feedback.
Closed Manager
Before discussing conducive management, let us first explore the opposite end of the spectrum to establish a reference point. Closed managers only output projects, orders, decisions, but do not take any input. They do not believe they are imperfect or they at least they have not admitted as such, which does not welcome team members to criticize or provide feedback. Therefore, decisions are made, and the outcome is the outcome. There may be successes or failures, but the team will not feel connected to the final result. This will eventually lead to a demoralized team and sub-optimal results.
Conducive Manager
On the other end of the spectrum, conducive managers output projects, orders, and decisions, but they also take input from the team as well as the outcome. They recognize that each team member can contribute valuable ideas to further improve the existing status quo. They start by admitting they are imperfect, both internally and externally, which opens the door for the team to provide feedback. Once the team provides feedback, the conducive manager will internalize the feedback and make corresponding adjustments to warmly welcome the feedback. Genuinely absorbing and processing appropriate feedback will demonstrate that the team’s feedback matters and thereby welcome the team to walk through the door. Finally, the conducive manager will extract learnings from the outcome and attribute them to the received feedback, which will further promote healthy conflict and encourage it to stay in the house we built — a house established through a culture of healthy conflict.
Admit Imperfect
There are no perfect leaders, but there are those that believe they are perfect, those that strive towards perfection, and those that do not care. I will assume the individuals reading this do care about their team and becoming a better manager, so we can ignore the last option. My aim is to persuade you to acknowledge that you are striving towards perfection, but have not arrived. Without this step, the environment would not be set for teammates to freely create healthy conflict. In other words, not all team members will feel welcome to give feedback or criticisms. Understanding this importance, we need to admit our imperfections both within our own psyche as well as transparently to our team. Once we clearly conveyed our ideas can be improved, upward feedback will begin to freely flow.
Internally, we need to convince ourselves that our ideas are not the best possible, but rather can be improved upon. Our team members have their own specializations or know details we may not be familiar with, so we need to acknowledge that they can help optimize ideas. If we are not convinced (i.e., closed managers), it will be difficult for us to accept and internalize feedback and criticisms from others.
Externally, we should directly tell our team that our ideas can be improved upon. Some managers believe they have an open door when it comes to feedback. However, this may or may not be clear to each and every team member. Therefore, we should not only let them know the door is open, but we should roll out the red carpet. This means to not only be open for feedback and criticisms, but to actively seek them out.
Returning back to my original example, I was attempting to expand assortment, but saw limited new listings. I attempted to explain the importance and rationale of the task to my team, but this only generated a minor uplift in new listings. I began to suspect that there could be other issues at play without my knowledge. So, I decided to roll out the red carpet and said, “Sometimes, I may create a plan that is not feasible; for example: expanding assortment on the previous timeline. In such moments, let’s discuss the possibilities for improvement and bottlenecks before a timeline is set.” This demonstrated that I am imperfect and opened the floor for discussion on issues revolving around expanding assortment.
Internalize Feedback and Make Adjustments
After we admit our imperfections and the feedback begins to arrive, we then need to internalize this feedback to make proper adjustments. Internalizing adjustments means welcoming the feedback with open arms, genuinely processing it, and altering decisions based on helpful feedback. Or if the feedback was not helpful, we should explain why feedback was not helpful. If we do not internalize adjustments, but blanket accept, ignore, or reject without validation, team members will lose motivation to provide criticisms and feedback because their ideas are not genuinely considered.
A closed manager would shut down criticisms and feedback. A conducive manager would think about the validity of each criticism or feedback, implement the good ones, push the incomplete ones, and explain why the bad ones are bad. Incomplete ideas are those which require additional supporting details before we are able to deem them as good ideas or bad ideas. If we receive bad ideas, we should help the individual understand why and incite discovery so that they can continue to improve. After the criticisms or feedback are processed, we need to make adjustments from the approved ideas to drive towards a more positive outcome.
In my assortment growing scenario, I was able to open the door by admitting my ideas can be improved upon. Here are three recommendations I received:
1) extend deadline for assortment building due to team bandwidth concerns,
2) provide seller loans to aid sellers with cash flow issues,
3) increase platform exposure to sellers to help move new products.
For the first case, deadlines. I wanted to get the most assortment possible on a reasonable timeline to work against. So instead of extending the deadline, I suggested creating a short list of sellers to contact for sourcing, instead of all sellers, in order to reduce necessary bandwidth and to get the ball rolling. For the second case, providing seller loans could be beneficial by providing sellers with more capital to purchase more products, but would require much more investigation before execution, so we tabled it. The third case, increasing exposure to new items, was completely under our control and would be a beneficial to both platform and seller, so we moved forward with it. For all ideas, I internalized them to understand the rationale of the suggestion. For ideas I approved, I ensured they were executed. For ideas I tabled or declined, I ensured the team understood why.
Attribute Outcome
Admitting imperfections showed our team an open door to healthy conflict. Internalizing adjustments welcomes them inside by demonstrating genuine care about their ideas. Attributing outcomes will make them want to stay in the house we built, thereby building a culture of continuous feedback through reinforcing positive habits. Once an outcome, or preliminary results, are available, we need to learn from them and connect how the results were impacted by the feedback or lack thereof.
If any victory can be attributed to their feedback, even if the slightest bit helpful, they should be recognized. If the team member approves, I would push to make the recognition public, which would send a message to the entire team that healthy conflict is valued and should be continued.
On the contrary, if a loss can be attributed to a lack of healthy conflict, we should not place blame on a team member, yourself, nor anyone else. Rather, a discussion needs to occur with all relevant parties about how things that could have gone better, regardless of whose fault it was. This tough feedback situation necessitates high EQ. So phrasing should not be “you didn’t give me feedback”, but rather “Feedback in this area would help drive X result moving forward”. For a deeper take on the interplay of tough feedback and high EQ, check out my article Providing Tough Feedback with High EQ.
Early on in trying to grow my category, I faced more losses than wins. During this period, I did not point any fingers, but always sought to discuss the best path forward together. This best path forward explained where healthy conflict would be necessary for us to progress together. However over my three year tenure, a more positive result began to unfold. During this period, my category sales growth outpaced that of all other categories, which can be linked to cleanly executing the fundamentals of ecommerce — beginning with expanding assortment. This success, I attribute to the healthy conflicts and feedback from team members that have altered our day to day processes and made expanding assortment more attractive for sellers.
Closing Remarks
Managers build environments, houses. Closed managers build fortified palaces for themselves. Conducive managers build a welcoming home teeming with healthy conflict. Conducive managers start by admitting their imperfections, which opens the door for healthy conflict to enter. Afterwards, they internalize the feedback to make appropriate adjustments, which welcomes the healthy conflict. Finally, conducive managers attribute the outcomes, whether positive or negative, to this healthy conflict, which promotes the culture and encourages healthy conflict to stay.
Conducive managers make managing upwards easier for their team members. They openly receive feedback, so they can also give better feedback. To better understand how team members can do their part in maintaining this culture, check out my articles on Healthy Conflict and Managing Upwards.
Are there nuances that I missed? If you have any comments or questions, feel free to respond below or connect with me on LinkedIn. Follow me on medium.com/@dhuynh2979 for future articles on leadership and management.
