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Change Signal

Your Change Team Needs More Conflict, Not Less: Liane Davey

Apr 30, 2025
20:06

Tension drives innovation, productive conflict is essential for change, and effective listening helps you understand what truly matters to people.

Dr. Liane Davey reveals how to use conflict as a catalyst for positive change in organizations where most teams have too little productive tension, not too much.

As a change leader, it turns out that your job isn't to avoid conflict but to create the right kind of "yoga uncomfortable" stretch that makes everyone stronger. Davey's tent metaphor brilliantly illustrates how teams should balance multiple tensions to achieve optimal solutions where "everyone sleeps dry tonight."

I particularly love her advice on giving people an obligation to disagree rather than permission, transforming resistance into purposeful contribution. She shows us how to ask "open drawbridge questions" that help us understand the treasure people are protecting when they breathe fire.

This conversation will fundamentally change how you approach resistance in your next change initiative. The skills Davey shares will help you create the forums where good fights happen and better solutions emerge.

Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management.

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