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The Gallup Management Journal recently published an article entitled, “What Strong Teams Have In Common - The Five sure signs of an excellent team.”
Here is the summary:
1. Conflict doesn’t destroy strong teams because strong teams focus on results.
2. Strong teams prioritize what’s best for the organization, then move forward.
3. Members of strong teams are as committed to their personal lives as they are to their work.
4. Strong teams embrace diversity.
5. Strong teams are magnets for talent.
I’m still stuck on #1.
There seems to be a correlation between clarity around results and conflict. More specifically, the more clear and elevating the result, the less conflict there will be.
Lets replace a few words with a synonym and see how the sentence reads:
Conflict does not destroy churches because strong churches focus on the mission of God.
In a very real sense a Church is a community or team of people gathered together to experience, participate in, and extend the mission of God to others. Or, at least, that is why I hope many churches exist.
When the mission is clear, when it is compelling and inspiring, conflict decreases. The background noise goes away. Conflict decreases because any issue can be resolved by asking one clarifying question, “What decision best serves the mission?” Arguments over issues of preference (like what kind of music is played during worship), and personality (like which speaker makes you laugh) turn into conversations about how to best help people encounter God and how to actively demonstrate our faith to others.
A good friend once invited me to attend his church. I told him I would come if he could answer one question for me. I asked, “What justifies your gathering?” I really thought I was setting him up for success. I wanted to hear a great reason to attend his church. I wanted to be compelled towards how they were experiencing and extending the mission of God to others. He didn’t have a good answer. I didn’t go.
Maybe the reason why conflict is so damaging in the Church is because the stakes have become so low. Maybe we have forgotten why we came together in the first place.
Business teams are figuring out how to handle conflict in order to achieve their results. My sincere hope is that your church is too.
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May 20th, 2009 at 1:00 am
[...] mains had an excellent post on the fuller youth institute blog recently about conflict on teams, based on a gallup management journal article called What Strong [...]
May 27th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
[...] Full post here http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/2009/04/the-conflict-correlation/ [...]