Last updated on Jun 29, 2024

Your team is divided on market strategy. How do you navigate conflicting viewpoints for success?

When your team is divided on market strategy, it's like navigating a ship through stormy seas. Diverse opinions can either spark innovation or lead to gridlock. As a leader in business services, your role is to harness these differing viewpoints and chart a course towards success. It's about finding common ground, fostering an environment of respectful debate, and ultimately, making decisions that drive your business forward. But how exactly do you do that? Let's dive into some strategies that can help you turn conflict into collaboration.

1 Listen Actively

Active listening is crucial when your team presents varied market strategies. It's not just about hearing words; it's about understanding the underlying concerns and motivations. Encourage your team to share their thoughts fully, without interruption. This can reveal the strengths and weaknesses in each viewpoint. By validating each team member's contribution, you create a foundation of trust that is essential for collaborative problem-solving.

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Mark Sims

CEO & Founder of Fikes | Business Growth Leader | Investor | Network Connector
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First focus and align on outcomes related to growth goals. Once aligned then have team do a SWOT analysis on varying approaches and stack rank the choices accordingly. Once the decision seeks more clear ensure that definitive ownership is assigned along with set deadlines to measure along the way to what was deemed as the winning condition.

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Aaina K.

Founder at The Aaina Khan Label
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Talk it out openly and respectfully. Understand everyone's reasons. Base decisions on data and insights. Aim for consensus, not just majority. Test ideas on a small scale first. Review and adjust as needed.

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2 Assess Objectively

Once all viewpoints are on the table, it's important to assess them objectively. Remove personal biases and evaluate each strategy based on its merits and alignment with the company's goals. Use a consistent framework for assessment, considering factors such as potential market impact, feasibility, and resource requirements. This structured approach can help depersonalize the debate and focus discussion on the business outcomes.

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3 Encourage Debate

Healthy debate is a sign of a dynamic and engaged team. Encouraging respectful confrontation of ideas can lead to a deeper understanding of the market and innovative strategies. Set ground rules for these discussions to ensure they remain constructive. Remind your team that the goal is not to 'win' the argument but to find the best path forward for the company.

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4 Build Consensus

Building consensus doesn't mean seeking unanimous agreement on every detail. Rather, it's about reaching a level of agreement where all team members can support the decision, even if it wasn't their preferred option. Use techniques like 'straw polls' or 'ranked choice voting' to gauge the collective preference of the team. This can help identify a strategy that has broad support and can be refined further.

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Curtis Bragg

Chief Strategy Officer at TurnPoint Services
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Working to get consensus requires ample opportunity for team members to express their opinions and ideas. Facilitating such an approach starts with getting all ideas on the table and from there, categorizing them. This helps team members elevate thinking and some natural alignment will occur. Drive towards the categorical priorities before the ideas within them. From there, get consensus to support the final decision(s) when the team exits the meeting!

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Mark Frazer

Co-Founder/EVP @ One Health Group | MBA, Medical Technology Innovation
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Let's not make the mistake of trying to include too many people in deciding strategic plans. A corporation is not a democracy and cannot be run as such. However, having said that, there is a big difference between Decision Makers and Thought Leaders. These are two groups I'll talk about but there are others. Thought Leaders. They reside throughout the organization and their views on strategic direction is carefully elicited. This will result in large amounts of data and AI-supported analysis of this data (plus other groups) needs to be summarized. Consensus is avoided. The Decision Makers are a small group, led by a strategy professional who will come to consensus on the strategic plan through debate and use of internal and external data.

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5 Make Decisions

At some point, you must move from discussion to action. Making a decision might involve making tough calls when consensus is elusive. Explain the rationale behind your decision clearly, highlighting how it incorporates elements from the various strategies proposed. This transparency can mitigate disappointment from those whose ideas were not fully adopted and can encourage buy-in for the chosen strategy.

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Mark Frazer

Co-Founder/EVP @ One Health Group | MBA, Medical Technology Innovation
(edited)
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Firstly, once decisions are made, the right depth and breadth of communications must follow immediately. Digital Decision-Making. This is the component that utilizes data in an algorithmic way. Putting aside the impact to AI for now, this utilizes many often disparate data sources to give you a decision recommendation. Statistical analysis techniques mitigate lower value data. Analog Decision-Making. While your synthesis of the data you have seen comes into play, this is mostly subjective. This is a critical since your best algorithms can be wildly misleading due to many chaotic decision-scenario's. But you will often have a strong instinct based on your brain's amazing abilities to make good decisions. Always use Digital AND Analog.

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6 Execute and Review

Finally, once a decision is made, focus on execution. Develop a detailed action plan with clear responsibilities and timelines. Monitor progress closely and be open to making adjustments as needed. Regularly review the strategy's performance against key metrics and be prepared to iterate based on what you learn. This continuous loop of execution and review is key to navigating market strategy successfully.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Your team is divided on market strategy. How do you navigate conflicting viewpoints for success?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Listen Actively

2 Assess Objectively

3 Encourage Debate

4 Build Consensus

5 Make Decisions

6 Execute and Review

7 Here’s what else to consider

Business Services

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Your team is divided on market strategy. How do you navigate conflicting viewpoints for success?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Listen Actively

2 Assess Objectively

3 Encourage Debate

4 Build Consensus

5 Make Decisions

6 Execute and Review

7 Here’s what else to consider

Business Services

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