In episode four of my podcast, Manage with Confidence, I was lucky enough to interview organisational psychologist and New York Times bestselling author, Liane Davey. Liane has a new book out – Thoughtload: Manage the madness and free your team to do great work – but we spent most of the episode focusing on her previous book, The Good Fight: Use productive conflict to get your organization and team back on track.
The whole episode is full of rich insight and helpful advice but if I had to pick some of the standout moments, they are:
7m54s – the difference between productive and unproductive conflict. Think about stretching in yoga. It can be slightly painful but it’s a good pain. You’re being proactive and you know it’s helping you be more supple and limber. That’s like productive conflict. Then think about when you get cramp because you’re not stretching after exercise or, if like me, you haven’t drunk enough water during particularly strenuous exercise. That tension in your calf can be so painful, and you try desperately to release the tension and relieve the pain. The aftereffects and pain can last for hours afterward and sometimes days. That’s like unproductive conflict, it’s reactive and comes because of not attending to things.
10m36s – learning to see conflict as a habit, not making it an event. The metaphor Liane uses here is flossing your teeth daily (habit) versus having to have root canal (major event) because you haven’t been caring for your teeth sufficiently.
18m47s – what to do to de-escalate the conflict. We all have things that matter to us. Liane asks us to imagine the other person is a dragon protecting their treasure. What’s the treasure they’re protecting? And while we’re thinking about, what’s the treasure you’re protecting? If we take the time to understand this, we can approach things in a careful and constructive way.
28m30s – great coaching questions to help the conversation “the capsule wardrobe”. The big question Liane asks is “What’s at stake here?” She references Michael Bungay Stanier – one of the world’s top coaches who wrote The Coaching Habit – and his question, “What are we pretending isn’t true?” In Coaching: What really works? Jenny Rogers suggests these questions when coaching through crisis:
- What is your immediate concern?
- What is it that angers you most?
- What are you most worried about?
- What are your assumptions here?
34m40s – what not to do if using the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ approach to discuss gnarly issues. I’m a big fan of the Devil’s Advocate approach in teams who are learning how to have disagree constructively and have productive conflict. I loved Liane’s dive into the historical origins of the Devil’s Advocate and a reminder to us that playing Devil’s Advocate doesn’t mean being difficult or rude just because you can.
Have you listened to the episode? Tell me what your favourite moments were. What were the a-ha moments for you?
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Post author: Dr Hayley Lewis. First published on the HALO Psychology website 6 July 2026.
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