But it rarely works.

When CEOs Step Back, Conflict Goes Underground

What happens when executives are told to “act like adults,” and they can’t resolve the conflict?  They bury it. They form an armed truce– no bullets flying, but no alignment either.

And once it’s unsafe to surface tension (“Let’s not go back to the boss; we got our hands slapped last time.”), you are the last to know the fire is still smoldering.

If your executives knew how to resolve the issue, they would.

I’ve never met a leader who actually prefers dysfunction. If we assume good faith– that everyone is doing the best they can with what they know– then they need your help.

An Injection of CEO Energy

Assuming their collaboration is critical to the organization’s mission, you have three options:

1. 1. Help them figure it out, to arrive at an acceptable (or better) level of trust and collaboration
   2. Remove one (or both) of them from their role(s).
   3. Tolerate the dysfunction.  Decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, and just leave it alone.

If you don’t choose 1 or 2, you’re defaulting to 3.  And that may be good enough.  But if it isn’t tolerable, then you’ll have to take action:

The key is to engage in a way that invites reconciliation without eroding the executives’ agency and personal accountability. This requires the three of you to get together and work on the problem.

If the issue is a tactical or technical disagreement, then usually what is lacking is clear ownership. Cross-functional issues (with overlapping areas of responsibility) are frequent hot spots.  Who owns the deliverable, decision, initiative, or process that’s at the center of the disagreement?  Even if (especially if) the issue cuts across multiple silos, you can still name one of the affected execs as the owner (Accountable in the RACI framework) and ensure the owner knows he or she is on the hook to not just make a decision that protects his or her interests, but one that balances competing interests and is an all-win solution.

The need for clear ownership becomes even more important as you scale.  In small organizations, executives wear many hats and develop some expertise (or at least basic familiarity and competence) in multiple functional areas.  When you start building a larger team, greater specialization is required, and leaders still maintain strong opinions about how things should be done in their “old” swim lanes.  Friction is inevitable.

But if there is bad blood, then what’s most often lacking is the will and skill to restore damaged trust.

According to Steven M. R. Covey, trust is “confidence in the character and competence of another, based on past experience.”  Trust is built in teaspoonfuls, and lost in bucketfuls.  Invariably, trust breaks down because somebody got hurt.  Often, that hurt leads to some reciprocal hurt, in which both parties feel aggrieved.  And, in my experience, you can’t just decide to “move past it, like adults.”  Because the damaged trust (and the imagined stories about how it happened) lingers, it affects every other interaction between the two leaders.  Until they have confidence they won’t get hurt again, they’ll stay armored up.

These situations often freak CEOs out, because they don’t know how to help.  In most cases, with some wise guidance and facilitation, even badly damaged trust can be restored.  But it requires all leaders involved (including you as CEO) to mature and build additional leadership capacity.

Here are five milestones to reconciliation between two individuals.  They can’t skip any milestones— there is no direct flight from “That hurt.” to “We’re good now.”  The five steps:

1. 1. Say ouch.  Each individual needs to learn which of their behaviors isn’t working for the other.
   2. Soften hearts.  Each individual needs to access their compassion for the other, to increase their desire to reconcile and their willingness to discover the other side of the story.
   3. Apologize and Forgive.  Each individual takes responsibility for their part of the mess (which shows they have contrition and desire not to hurt the other again) and lets go of their resentment.
   4. Commit to new behaviors. Each individual makes offers and requests to discover what new behaviors are likely to restore trust.  Offer:  “If I did X, would it restore your trust in me?”  Request:  “Would you consider doing Y?  That would help restore my trust in you.”
   5. Fulfill commitments. Each individual consistently engages in the new behaviors that rebuild trust, over time.

What’s your role as CEO?

To facilitate the process with your two execs who need help.  Coach them.  Guide them.  Help them self-locate on this journey and invite them to keep taking the next step.

At Kairos, we’ve found it helpful to separate out complex situations into 4 different domains: Reality, Impact, Intention, and Alternative.  We’ve built these 4 domains into a Trust Repair Template.  Note it has 2 sides.  Page 1 is “What you’re doing that isn’t working for me” and page 2 is “What I’m doing that likely isn’t working for you.”  It is designed to stimulate some self-reflection and compassion.  If two individuals are dealing with broken trust, each can fill out a template, compare notes, and use it to guide a helpful discussion.

Following this approach, I guarantee you’ll get greater clarity.  But I can’t guarantee that the endpoint is a reconciled relationship.  That requires both parties to want to reconcile, and it takes two to tango.

Sometimes it becomes clear that the execs won’t be able to reconcile and align in a timeframe that is acceptable to you.  Perhaps you need to be more patient.  But if unavoidable time pressure is forcing your hand, then the decision becomes more difficult.  It’s likely time to either live with the dysfunction, or gracefully part ways with one (or both) of the execs.

When to Bring In a Professional?

Yes, this can be frustrating and challenging work.  And nobody told you this was in the CEO job description.  But you didn’t get this far in your career without the ability to do uncomfortable things, including trying out new approaches that make you feel like an incompetent newbie.  If you give this a shot, you’ll make progress even if you don’t do it perfectly.

If you’re feeling stuck, or believe it isn’t going as well or as fast as you’d like, engage a coach or consultant who has a proven approach and track record of success in navigating conflict.

Even more important:  find a partner who will build your capacity to restore damaged trust, not just solve the current issue.  In any team that is energetically pursuing important objectives, balls will continue to be dropped and toes will continue to get stepped on, eroding trust.  You’ll never get to the point where trust between all execs is at an optimal level.  But the teams who know how to repair trust quickly after a rupture will have a cultural competitive advantage.

The CEO’s Role Is Not Neutrality—It’s Stewardship

It’s so tempting to stay on the sidelines and refuse to be sucked into executive team drama.  But remember:  you can delegate authority and decisions, but not organizational health. When your executives lock into dysfunction, you are the only one with the authority to reset the system.

Not by choosing sides. Not by demanding that they act like adults. But by facilitating repair.

Stop expecting them to figure it out.

Start equipping them to work it out.

Chip Neidigh is Founder and CEO at Kairos, where he and his colleagues help CEOs build high-trust, high-performance executive teams.  Want to be notified when we post articles that invite a journey into more courageous and selfless leadership? Sign up for The Kairos Moment, our monthly(ish) email alert.