Insight
“Fisticuffs at Dawn” – Making sense of disagreements in the workplace
15 September 2025
The title of this insight is a little playful, reminiscent of historical duels at dawn with the aim “may the best person win”. However, despite the playful tone, navigating challenging organisational dynamics can feel unpleasant and stressful. It can feel as if colleagues, teams or different parts of an organisation are in a fight with each other, battling to hold their ground or hold their position, each side refusing to back down.
However professionally the disagreement may be communicated, it can feel very hard to be part of an organisational dynamic in which there are entrenched views, and individuals may feel as if they’re invited to take one side or another, or to disengage entirely and potentially leave the organisation. Working across the system and understanding these dynamics is crucial.
How can we make sense of these workplace battles?
Listen with your mind and your body
Often only the words are heard and considered in such situations. Listening both with our minds and our bodies can give us more information to understand what may be happening. Listening with our bodies helps us to notice what is happening to us in that moment, what are we being invited to feel? We might notice feeling suddenly switched off and tired and not taking the information in, we might notice a tightness in parts of our bodies, or a different energy. All of this is information we can be curious about (are these familiar feelings, or something new and unknown?) alongside hearing the words from different parties.
Consider perspectives from the position of role and organisational function
Differences in opinion within a team or organisation can become entrenched and whilst leaders may feel compelled to listen to a louder voice or make a decision that may appear to “take a side” to bring the issue to an end, it’s important that differences of opinion or arguments are carefully understood.
Consider, in what way might each individual or team, holding their different perspective, be right? How can their views be understood from a perspective of their role or function within the organisation? How might the disagreement relate to organisational vision or mission?
For example –
- Tavistock Consulting were commissioned to work with Co-Directors in a national charity following ongoing tensions in their relationship with each other. One Director held responsibility for Service delivery and safeguarding, whilst the other Director held responsibility for Business Development, Communications and Campaigning. The dynamic appeared primarily competitive, with the Director responsible for Services feeling as if they were treated as an anxious individual and not as celebrated as the Director responsible for Business Development, who would be celebrated following a public campaign or success with funding. In addition, the organisation had a dual mission to both provide services and campaigning in their key area.
By noticing and understanding how the organisation had split these two leadership roles across the functions and mission of the organisation, it was possible for both Directors to hear each other differently. The Director responsible for Business Development was able to voice their anxiety about responsibility for income generation and organisational survival, enabling the Director for Services to not feel that they were holding all the organisational anxiety. The Director responsible for Services was also able to voice feelings of success in service development and growth and equally the Director responsible for Business Development could voice fears of failure in income generation. Both were able to hear each other from their role within the organisational system, understand their anxiety from that position, which enabled them to develop their working relationship and crucially improve organisational functioning as a result.
Consider the challenging communications as related to the organisational purpose
It is not unusual to think that if a difficult individual or a team left the organisation, everything would be better. An idea that Obholtzer and Roberts (1994) suggest may be hard to resist. And yet, when one so-called difficult individual does leave, it often becomes apparent that another previously not difficult individual, then takes up this more challenging position. How might we understand this dynamic?
For example –
- Tavistock Consulting delivered an awayday for an organisation that worked with people who had experienced violence and abuse. In the preparation, the leaders (CEO and Directors) referred frequently to their fear that a manager might disrupt the harmony of the day together. At the awayday this manager, was pointedly aggressive towards the CEO, either making sly comments or faces when the CEO spoke, or during smaller breakout groups continually reiterating that they felt unsafe in role and thought the CEO was a bad leader. This manager encouraged colleagues to follow their view, as if they were the leader of a mutiny. The consultants engaged the team in a creative exercise to encourage reflections on the connection between staff behaviour “at their worst” and the behaviour of their clients when they were distressed, notably the extremes of behaviour related to fear, vulnerability, shame and rage. This was a lightbulb moment for many in the team, allowing them to pause and reflect before getting caught up in battle, to ground themselves back in being connected to their client work and the purpose. This also allowed the staff team to be aware of the need for a boundary, for ongoing reflective spaces outside of formal supervision, to understand that these dynamics will be inside the organisation coming from their clients, that they may inadvertently be invited to act these out on behalf of their clients.
Summary thoughts
When faced with a disagreement in a meeting or an ongoing battle within an organisation, it is important to stay curious about the meaning of this dynamic, for the individual in role, the team or function and the overall organisational system.
Notice when a reoccurring topic of disagreement may become stirred up, for example how it may be reintroduced into a meeting, taking meeting off task, and consider what function this anti task behaviour might be holding; and what may be being defended against or avoided?
Holding this position of curiosity in our listening and feeling can give us data to understand the possible meaning of these communications more fully, allowing space to process more deeply. Disagreements are often the airing of differences, and we encourage this diversity of thought in organisations in order to encourage creativity and liveliness in our work.
Reference
Obholzer, A Roberts, V (1994) The troublesome Individual and troubled institution. In: The unconscious at work. Individual and organizational stress in the human services. London, Routledge.
Image by Олег Мороз on Unsplash