I'm, a director of support at gitlab and I wanted to talk to you today about healthy conflict. So it's a truism in the tech world that diverse teams produce better outcomes. Lots of research is backing this up coming out of Google and other places. I'm sure you've heard of it, but diverse teams focus more on facts. They process those facts more carefully and then they propose more novel Solutions.

These are Nifty top lines, but they hide the reality because between those lines is conflict. So if you're familiar with lensione's five dysfunctions of a team, you already know that fear of conflict is right. There is a key reason why your team isn't performing well. So what do you do? Diverse teams means conflict, fear of complex bad for teams. So the only path forward is to embrace and Foster an environment of healthy conflict. Where disagreement doesn't mean disengagement.

The tmops operating model helps team members understand each other. They understand how to engage and encourage decision making uh in at a speed that your team needs to thrive. So how well the center of Team Ops is a prerequisite for starting and having a shared set of values.

So I had a truly diverse team, you're going to have individuals from a variety of cultural backgrounds, representatives from different points of under on a neurodiverse spectrum and without exception, you're going to have people who've, had different experiences and getting to the point where they're on your team, a shared set of values, is a documented social contract that lets everyone bring their experiences into a neutral third cultural space where everyone is both an Insider and an outsider, an expert and a learner.

This third culture has to be backed up, though, by an underpinning of inclusivity, strong opinions, weekly held short toes and really an operating attitude of humility, curiosity and mutual respect. If you have, those you'll have a much better time navigating conflict.

Finally, teams that want to have healthy conflict have to write down what conflict looks like collaboration guidelines like those shared values, are documented Norms that help align expectations and things like how decisions are going to be made. So rehashing healthy conflict can be fostered through shared values. Norms of curiosity, mutual respect and coming back together when things don't go well and then writing it all down in a place where everyone can see it and iterate on it when something isn't working.

Thank you for uh listening to me for these couple of minutes. If you want to know more, please check out the team Ops page on github.com.