Jani’s Journal Issue 45: Curiosity Over Conflict
6/17/2025
These days, it seems we have forgotten how to disagree without vilifying each other. Then I remember that we humans have always struggled with conflict. Too often, we dance around the elephant in the room or get stuck in the middle of its messiness. Some of us dive heart-first into the deep end, and others sit on our peaceful beach watching others wade into it. And still others pretend it’s not there at all, with our eyes clenched shut, fingers in our ears, singing a happy song to preserve our denial. The good news is that whatever your current relationship with it, engaging in conflict effectively and healthfully is a skill we can practice and improve upon over time.
This month, Jani’s Journal spotlights practical conflict-management strategies drawn from leading business thought—crucial tools for nonprofits navigating internal tensions, board–staff disagreements, stakeholder friction, and cross-functional clashes.
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🔗 Beyond Assumptions: How Curiosity Can Heal Divides 🔗
When this TedxTalk landed in my inbox, I was reminded of a wise coach’s mantra, “calm, curious, and appreciative.” While curiosity seems like a feel-good, emotionally intelligent approach, Danielle Marshall, CEO of Culture Principles, is quick to point out it’s also a strong strategy that can make all the difference.
“As leaders, colleagues, and humans navigating complexity, we’re often expected to have answers. But sometimes, the most powerful move we can make is to pause and ask a better question. This talk is my offering to anyone who’s ever wondered how to keep showing up when the divide feels too wide, the conversation too hard, or the stakes too high. Curiosity is not a soft skill; it’s a strategic one. It opens doors, disarms defensiveness, and creates space for truth and transformation.”—Danielle Marshall, CEO, Culture Principles
Leadership & Culture
🔗 The Conflict‑Intelligent Leader 🔗
This Harvard Business Review article explores how growing social and political polarization has led to rising incivility at work—costing billions and jeopardizing employee retention. It underscores that leaders today must be conflict-intelligent, nurturing psychological safety and constructive engagement. These four core competencies form the foundation of what the authors call a high conflict-intelligence quotient (CIQ):
Self-awareness,
Social-conflict skills,
Situational adaptivity, and
Systemic wisdom
In mission-driven settings, where staff wear many hats and power dynamics shift, building conflict intelligence is critical. Nonprofits that embed CIQ practices—like listening circles, adaptive response frameworks, and shared decision-making—will better handle interpersonal and mission-related tensions. Key strategies of high CIQ Leaders include:
Lay the Groundwork – Proactively build trust, communication channels, and conflict-resolution infrastructure before disputes escalate.
Grow Rapport – Foster positive relationships and shared experiences to create a buffer against future conflicts.
Balance Discipline with Creativity – Combine firm boundaries with flexible, innovative solutions to reach durable, inclusive agreements.
Master Adaptivity – Tailor conflict strategies to the situation, audience, and cultural context, avoiding one-size-fits-all responses.
Leverage the Broader Context – Understand the systemic and environmental forces behind conflict to craft solutions that address root causes.
Aim for Generational Peace – Invest in long-term cultural and structural changes that promote enduring harmony and resilience.
Be Opportunistic – Stay alert to unexpected moments or common ground that can turn conflict into breakthrough opportunities.
🔗 Into All Problem‑Solving, a Little Dissent Must Fall 🔗
This McKinsey & Company article champions “contributory dissent”—a spirited but respectful way of raising challenges and perspectives that enrich decision-making. It argues that in our volatile, complex landscape, teams need a culture where dissent is taught, embraced, and modeled—not tolerated as an afterthought. Leaders must actively invite and engage dissenters, creating the psychological safety and choreography that turns disagreement into opportunity. For nonprofits grappling with limited resources, complex stakeholder dynamics, or mission-driven tension, dissent isn’t a luxury—it’s essential strategy. Key behaviors to encourage contributory dissent include:
Model open behavior: Leaders hold back their assumptions, listen deeply, and visibly consider dissenting viewpoints.
Explicitly demand dissent: Encourage team members to speak up by creating norms (e.g., “I want to hear why you think I’m wrong”). To work, this must be followed with…
Establish psychological safety: Design group norms and structures (e.g., speaking order, bias awareness) that make it safe to dissent.
Actively engage with naysayers: Seek out critics and use structured techniques like red-teaming or premortems to surface hidden risks.
Manage debate dynamics: Let junior voices lead and curiosity shine, respecting cultural differences in communication styles.
Choreograph debate: Set clear protocols—who speaks when, how decisions are captured, and acceptable ways to dissent.
Equip individuals to dissent: Teach contributors to dissent with humility—by iterating, building on others’ ideas, or (rarely) respectfully withholding assent.
Teams
🔗 The Conflict Continuum: Where Is Your Team? 🔗
This discprofile.com blog article draws from Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Behaviors® model to illustrate how teams can develop healthy conflict practices that drive better decisions, deeper trust, and stronger commitment. Nonprofits, where mission alignment and limited resources often heighten tensions, benefit from learning to move beyond artificial harmony toward productive, idea-focused debates.
Key takeaways include:
Most teams avoid conflict and settle into artificial harmony, leading to stagnation, disengagement, and unresolved issues.
Healthy conflict lives in the middle of the “conflict continuum,” where ideas—not people—are debated with honesty and respect.
Warning signs of artificial harmony include passive communication, boring meetings, and private back-channel frustrations.
Teams must build trust first, then practice conflict through guided exercises, clear norms, and real-time feedback.
Teams that engage in healthy conflict ultimately achieve greater commitment to shared decisions, even when there’s disagreement.
🔗 How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker 🔗
This Harvard Business Review article outlines practical, research-backed strategies for navigating difficult workplace relationships while staying grounded in your values. Particularly relevant for nonprofit professionals who often work under pressure with lean teams, strong personalities, and passion for a mission, the article emphasizes that managing conflict constructively is key to personal resilience and team effectiveness. Instead of giving in to gossip, frustration, or avoidance, the author encourages thoughtful reflection, experimentation, and curiosity to shift interpersonal dynamics. The following strategies can improve collaboration, preserve mission-driven focus, and reduce the emotional toll of workplace tension:
Remember your perspective is just one among many by recognizing that your version of the story isn’t the only valid one; be open to other interpretations.
Watch for hidden biases by checking your assumptions and considering how your past experiences or unconscious preferences might be influencing how you see a colleague.
Shift from “me vs. them” to “us vs. the problem” by focusing on solving the shared issue rather than trying to fix or win against the person.
Get clear on your goal by identifying what you want out of the interaction—whether it’s a better working relationship, less frustration, or simply progress on a project.
Use venting sparingly and wisely by choosing confidants who will challenge your thinking, not just validate your frustrations or fuel gossip.
Test and tweak new approaches by trying small changes in how you engage with a colleague and seeing what works, instead of repeating what hasn’t.
Stay curious by asking yourself what else might be going on and what you can learn—especially when you’re tempted to write someone off.
Board Conflicts
🔗 5 Ways Executives Can Manage Conflict with the Board 🔗
Board relationships are complex in both corporate and nonprofit settings—high-stakes decisions, strong personalities, and limited resources create a natural environment for conflict. This Harvard Business Review article outlines five strategies executive leaders can use to navigate conflict with their boards, encouraging proactive communication and trust-building. For nonprofit leaders, where boards may be more diverse in perspective and less available day-to-day, these strategies are especially critical for preserving mission alignment, maintaining morale, and avoiding decision paralysis. Key strategies for navigating board conflict include:
Be the thermostat. Set the tone by modeling openness, naming tensions early, and fostering safe space for debate.
Share early by being transparent before problems escalate—no one likes surprises, especially board members.
Break it down by engaging individual members to surface concerns and build understanding. Don’t assume the board is unified.
Expand the conversation from immediate crises to include long-term implications and broader perspectives.
“And” It by avoiding false either/or debates by embracing “both/and” thinking—quality and cost, short-term and long-term.
🔗 20 Solutions for Navigating Nonprofit Board Member Conflicts 🔗
When passionate people work together on purpose-driven missions, conflict is inevitable. But handled wisely, tension at the board table can spark creativity, strengthen governance, and bring clarity to the path forward. This Forbes Nonprofit Council article offers a toolbox of 20 strategies for managing board conflict. I’ve highlighted my 10 favorites:
Refocus on the mission: when tensions rise, bring everyone back to the shared cause. A mission-centered lens shifts the conversation from personal preferences to collective impact.
Remember shared organizational values: most conflict is about how to get there—not why. Reaffirming shared organizational values helps board members reconnect and collaborate more effectively.
Provide a forum for all points of view: don’t let silence signal agreement. Encourage open discussion so every voice is heard and valued—diverse perspectives lead to stronger decisions.
Use an unbiased outside consultant: a neutral facilitator can help guide conversations, diffuse power struggles, and align governance practices with nonprofit best standards. Full disclosure: I am a consultant, so I’m biased about this one, but I still find it to be on point anyway!
Encourage disagreements: conflict isn’t a sign of dysfunction—it’s often a sign of diversity and ambition. Boards that avoid tension may also be avoiding innovation.
Put systems in place ahead of time: clear rules of engagement, decision rights, and communication protocols are your safety net when conflict gets personal or political.
Have a strong board chair relationship: a trusted partnership between the Executive Director/CEO and Board Chair is the front line of conflict resolution and strategic alignment.
Pivot your language: reframing “conflict” as “curiosity” shifts energy from defensiveness to dialogue and invites thoughtful questions instead of positional standoffs.
Facilitate communication with a mediator: when needed, bring in a skilled facilitator to create space for honest discussion and rebuild trust without public fallout.
Exercise due diligence and transparency: don’t let silent frustrations grow in the shadows. Transparent, inclusive dialogue builds long-term trust and keeps your organization moving forward.
Communities
🔗 To Navigate Conflict, Prioritize Dignity 🔗
When conflict gets personal, productive dialogue often gets lost. But restoring a sense of dignity—everyone’s need to feel valued, heard, and respected—can pave the way for deeper trust and better problem-solving. This MIT Sloan Management Review article outlines a framework for navigating high-stakes conflict through human-centered leadership, especially useful in nonprofit settings where community, culture, and power dynamics often intersect. The AARC Framework that preserves dignity in conflict:
Deepen Acknowledgment by listening, validating concerns, and naming tensions clearly and respectfully. Move beyond superficial empathy to true engagement with all interested or impacted parties.
Strengthen Agency by helping all parties understand their role and influence in shaping outcomes, especially in power-imbalanced situations.
Build Reciprocity by creating space for mutual give-and-take through active listening, shared learning, and visible curiosity, even when views clash.
Ensure Clarity of path by co-creating clear next steps, shared expectations, and timelines to reduce uncertainty and rebuild trust over time.
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