Storming: name the conflict without taking sides
Surface the tension that’s already there rather than managing it away.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Surface the tension that’s already there rather than managing it away.
- Why it works: Storming is the stage where competing agendas, leadership challenges, and unspoken frustrations break the surface. Suppressing conflict here freezes the team in Storming indefinitely — the tension doesn’t disappear, it goes underground. Making the conflict discussable reduces its emotional charge and creates the conditions for genuine norming.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Taking the role of referee and trying to declare a winning position, which signals that conflict is resolved by authority rather than by the team — it resurfaces.
Why it works
Storming is the stage where competing agendas, leadership challenges, and unspoken frustrations break the surface. Suppressing conflict here freezes the team in Storming indefinitely — the tension doesn’t disappear, it goes underground. Making the conflict discussable reduces its emotional charge and creates the conditions for genuine norming.
How to do it
- 1Name the dynamic without attribution: "I’m noticing disagreement about how we make decisions — let’s surface that."
- 2Create a structured forum (retro, working session) where the real tensions can be voiced safely.
- 3Facilitate toward shared working agreements, not toward declaring a winner.
What the evidence says
ObservationalResearch on team conflict distinguishes task conflict (often useful) from relationship conflict (almost always harmful). The leadership move in Storming is to convert relationship conflict into manageable task conflict through structured dialogue.
Honest caveat: Conflict research has been mixed on when task conflict helps; the clearest finding is that relationship conflict almost uniformly hurts performance.
- — Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(2), 256–282.
Common mistake
Taking the role of referee and trying to declare a winning position, which signals that conflict is resolved by authority rather than by the team — it resurfaces.
IX Coach helps you prepare language for surfacing team tensions constructively, and coaches you through what to do when the conversation gets heated.
Practice this with IX Coach →