From Tension to Agreements: How HR Can Standardize How Teams Disagree

Most teams have a set of operating guidelines.

They know their goals, deadlines, priorities, and metrics, but when tensions rise, teams struggle to stick to them. That’s because conflict rarely shows up in explicit ways.

It shows up like this:

• A sharp tone in a meeting

• Avoidance after a disagreement

• Side conversations that turn into gossip

• Decisions that get revisited again and again

• A manager trying to “keep the peace” by lowering expectations

If you’re an HR leader, you’ve probably seen this pattern. You know teams don’t fail because they lack talent. They struggle, because they lack a shared way to navigate disagreement, especially when things get messy.

That’s why I help teams build a simple, repeatable process for collaboration:

• Team Agreement - A clear understanding of “how we work together”

• Conflict Protocol - A clear understanding of “how we disagree when conflict happens”

These two tools create an organizational standard teams can actually use, not just a nice document that gets forgotten.

Why This Matters to HR

In most organizations, conflict itself isn’t the problem. Unclear expectations are.

When teams don’t have a shared approach, they default to instinct:

• Some avoid

• Some escalate

• Some pull others in rather than going direct

• Some keep reopening old issues

• Some shut down and “just do the work”

Standardizing how we disagree doesn’t mean forcing everyone into the same personality or communication style. It means giving teams shared, co-created expectations through a consistent, teachable, and sustainable process, so they can manage tension more effectively.

Two Tools: Team Agreements and Conflict Protocols

Tool #1: Team agreements that hold under pressure

When I coach teams to build agreements, I start with a move that feels counterintuitive, but it’s essential.

Step 1: Identify the team’s agenda, and park it.

This lets the team name what’s urgent and set it aside briefly. This signals, “we’re not ignoring the work. We’re building the conditions to make that work possible.”

Step 2: Set context clearly.

As a team coach, I share the purpose and importance of the tool. This answers the questions, “why are we doing this?” and “what’s in it for me?” 

Step 3: Design the agreements using three practical prompts.

• What atmosphere/culture do we want together?

• How do we want to be together when things get difficult?

• What else would help our team thrive?

Genuine responses to these prompts create agreements that are usable and encourage team members to lean into behaviors.

Step 4: Build co-responsibility.

Agreements fail when they become “rules HR gave us,” so it’s critical to anchor the agreements with team member ownership.

• How will each of us hold the team accountable to these agreements? What do we each want to be responsible for leaning into or steering the team away from?

This is where the team moves itself from compliance mode to real partnership. The goal is not to write a manifesto. It’s to create a short list of observable commitments the team can practice.

Step 5: Revisit the agreements regularly.

The true test is making the agreements stick. To do this, teams need to regularly revisit their agreements and discuss what’s working, what needs to change, and what needs to be added. This follow up gives the agreements life and makes them responsive to the team’s ever changing needs and dynamics.

Consider the best moment to reintroduce the agreements. Maybe it’s at a weekly team meeting or a daily stand up. Regardless of where and when you bake it in, make agreements revisitation a standard part of the team’s process.

Tool #2: A conflict protocol that makes disagreements safer

Team agreements answer “how we work.” A conflict protocol answers “what we do when conflict occurs.”

When I coach teams through a conflict protocol, I use some essential prompts:

• What behaviors do we want when conflict occurs?

• What behaviors do we not want when conflict occurs?

• How will we hold one another accountable?

• What will we do if someone breaks an agreement?

• What would our ideal team do here?

In each case, I ask teams to get specific, provide behavioral examples, and consider how to repair without punitive measures. The overall goal is to help the team define the standard they want to grow into when in conflict.

With both tools, it’s important to note that change is practiced, so teams should expect significant behavioral change to take 6 to 9 months. That’s why these tools are simple and repeatable. With a little help from a team conflict coach on the front end, teams learn to sustain this effort on their own.

Why Bring in a Coach?

You can run this internally. Many HR leaders try. The challenge is that internal facilitation often gets pulled into two common traps:

• The agreement becomes aspirational instead of behavioral. Teams write what sounds nice, not what they can practice.

• The protocol gets created, but not embedded. At the moment, it feels complete. Then, real conflict hits and people default to old habits.

As a team conflict coach, my role is to help teams:

• Name what’s unspoken but present

• Normalize conflict so people don’t get defensive

• Design agreements that are specific enough to use under stress 

• Practice the protocol in realistic scenarios

• Create co-responsibility so the team owns it (not HR)

In other words, I help teams move from “we wrote it down” to “we actually live it.”

For HR, that can mean:

• Fewer escalations that arrive “too late”

• Faster decision-making and fewer circular conversations

• Managers spending less time mediating and more time leading

• More trust and resilience during change, growth, or high workload sessions

• A repeatable standard HR can scale across teams without micromanaging them

Bottom line: This is one of the highest-leverage ways to protect culture and performance at the same time, all without launching a massive initiative.

Your Invitation: Pilot This With One Team

If you want to standardize how teams disagree across your organization, don’t start with an organization-wide policy mandate. Start with a pilot.

Pick the ideal team:

• A leadership team that feels stuck

• A cross-functional team with recurring friction points

• A team experiencing growth, change, or high workload pressure

Bring me in to help the team build, test, and refine their agreements and conflict protocols. 

That pilot can give you a proof point, internal language, and a model you can scale.

A practical next step is a short call where we’ll identify:

• Which team is the best for a pilot

• What success would look like in 30 to 60 days

• What supports will make the change stick

Don’t let disagreement get in the way of peak performance. Book a 30-minute discovery call today.