The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organ

Conflict used in a positive way is a great thing. Agitate for the future needs you to agitate. Therefore we need to pick the right times to have positive conflict. Davey teaches us how to do this in a compelling and useful way!

Pragmatic in approach and fun to read, this book will be shared with many leaders and friends. Who can’t get better at handling conflict? Who doesn’t want to? Buy the Good Fight: you’ll be “binge watching” chapter after chapter.Like a great Netflix series, Liane hooks you with fresh and relatable stories. True tales that have you nodding with recognition and thinking of people you know like that—or when you have been that person. Learning summaries and questions at the end of each chapter like, “Can I help this person avoid more adverse situations in the future?” or “Is a tough call now better in the long run?” help you with your gut check.Liane’s premise of fighting well so that no one loses makes sense. She’s got practical tips to avoid getting into “Conflict Debt” in the first place and she’s all about systematizing conflict management so that it decreases its drag on you and your team/spouse/family. This is a book I’ll be referencing and sharing for a long time--before I finished reading Chapter 4, I had 5 more copies shipped to my house.

I discovered Liane Davey in May 2019 when she was the guest on Preet Banerjee’s Mostly Money podcast. As a business professor (spouse, and father of teenagers), the concept of “conflict debt” and how it compounds until it becomes a crisis struck a chord. It resonated so strongly that I immediately pre-ordered “The Good Fight”, the first time I’ve ever pre-ordered a book and I’m glad I did.The book is divided into three parts:1. “Case for Conflict” covers why we avoid conflict and builds the case for the reader to develop a new mindset2. “The Conflict Code” teaches how to prevent most conflicts when they are small and make the rest more productive3. “Codifying Conflict” is about systematizing conflict in organizations into a culture of excellenceThis semester I am teaching a capstone entrepreneurship course where conflict is abundant, as 95% of the grades are based on group work. I’ll be using Davey's strategies with my students and will update this review at the end of the school year.

The research on conflict is often dispiriting: It's rare for teams to be able to clash on the ideas, rigorously consider the data, and disagree passionately -- but still get along personally.Two ideas from Liane Davey's 'The Good Fight' stand out to me: The first is the idea of managing the accumulation of what she calls 'conflict debt'. The second is a tool for helping to normalize disagreements by mapping the unique values and priorities of each role, the stakeholders whose voices they bring to the table, and the natural, built-in tensions that are inherent to these roles.'The Good Fight' is simple without being simplistic, and it's practical without losing the nuance that makes conflict challenging to manage.

Excellent book. I read it in one sitting. I laughed out loud and shouted "EXACTLY", several times. I already have a list of co-workers who are borrowing and discussing it.The title may sound like it is an edgy take on corporate behaviour, or encourages you to, "come on, get scrappy" to get ahead or advocate for your position. Good. We got your attention. But the author, in no way, encourages combative attitudes. That is not it at all. It embeds a lot of wisdom from the sciences of organizational psychology (even from therapeutic models like psychodynamic therapy) to help people actually understand each other, so you can work together for the benefit of the organization. The author didn't use the expression, but the advice resonates with the meme "don't judge your neighbour 'til you've walked 100km in their shoes". People in organizations have, often, complementary (rather than opposing, needs, perspectives and skills. After reading the book, you should be better prepared to pause and remember that, make authentic inquiry into how the needs of different people and parts of the organization can work together better.