Harmony. It’s usually an idea that companies strive for. Harmony is the “gold standard” of doing business when all your employees are working together. But is harmony really achievable for organizations? Or are we just looking the other way–working on other things–pretending that everything is alright…even though it’s not alright. Hoping that one day, things will get better?
Too often aspects of a business are left to their own devices under the pretense of fostering harmony, and these unspoken issues build up one after another, growing in intensity, without really getting better – “festering”. The primary reason issues fester is because leaders allow them to fester. In some cultures, festering is actually a false sense of harmony.
Without question, the concept we use most in our coaching is this: Harmony is the enemy of high performance. Striving for harmony allows issues to grow. Instead, the secret is to create a team of leaders who really care about one another–both personally and professionally–who thrive on Healthy Tension.
What is healthy tension? In business, it means building a culture where anyone can bring up any subject, at any time without fear of a negative consequence. Healthy tension eliminates festering.
Final Thought
Where do you need to turn up the healthy tension in your team? How might you uncover things that are festering? We all have things festering – the question is: who needs to initiate the tension to make sure things are fixed?
Good Leadership excels at creating healthy tension. If you want to experience healthy tension in action, email info@goodleadership to talk to learn more.