Dissonance seeks harmony. It is the contrast of the transition from falling out-of-tune to being in-tune that settles the soul. Stability feels best after an experience of instability. Whether generated with intention or triggered by some random environmental event, the resolution of differences advances and evolves relationships.
Are the birds in this photo preparing for a fight or engaging in a pre-love-making dance? The answer is yes. This journey led to a destination. The aggressive foreplay served a function for the eventual consummation. Mother Nature provides countless examples of this pain/pleasure dichotomy.
Consider the application for your team. How does respectful debate and openness to different perspectives strengthen your group? If you build the expectation for conflict management into your cultural norms, you get to harness the power of diversity when problem-solving requires innovation. It’s the fight before your love-making dance.
Teams, like nature, like music, evolve in cycles that require periods of instability. Seeing the value of the disruption helps to weather the uncomfortable phases, since you know the change that comes next will bring relief. We all wish there was a way to get the gain without the pain but, fortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
