How to turn friction into creativity

Unlocking creativity in diverse teams may not require complex corporate restructuring—just simple, everyday actions that bridge workplace divides

Featured faculty: Dora Lau
Written by Pan Jingyi

Diversity in the workplace is widely celebrated as the engine of innovation. Bringing together people with different backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and sparks of creativity is bound to fly – or so the ideal scenario goes.

In reality, team managers and employees know that diversity can be a double-edged sword. When teams split along demographic lines—such as age, gender, race, or tenure—they often form invisible barriers known as demographic faultlines.

Left unmanaged, these faultlines can divide a team into distinct subgroups. Instead of sparking innovative ideas, diversity can devolve into “us versus them” dynamics, personal friction, and interpersonal conflict that paralyse team creativity.

So, how can organisations harness the undeniable benefits of a diverse workforce while preventing demographic divisions from turning into destructive conflict? A new study titled Team iungens practice: A behavioural perspective to bridge demographic faultlines and relationship conflicts for team creativity offers a practical answer.

The study was conducted by Dora Lau, Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, in collaboration with Su Qin of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Lynn Shore of Colorado State University, Cai Yahua of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Li Ran of Beijing Normal University.

“Compared to similar concepts like social integration focusing on results, TIP emphasises specific, actionable behaviours to achieve those outcomes.”

Professor Dora Lau

The team proposes a new approach called team iungens practice (TIP) to bridge these workplace divides. Derived from the Latin word iungens, TIP refers to purposeful actions taken by leaders and team members to build ties, such as seeking cross-team collaboration or highlighting shared goals.

“An easier way to understand TIP is to think of it as ways to ‘connect and build good relationships’ among team members,” says Professor Lau. “Compared to similar concepts like social integration focusing on results, TIP emphasises specific, actionable behaviours to achieve those outcomes.”

Measuring connecting behaviours

Through a series of experiments, the researchers first developed a list of nine behaviours that help team members connect, such as involving everyone in important decisions and actively listening to diverse ideas.

They then surveyed more than 300 employees from three companies in Chinese Mainland to test whether these behaviours reduce interpersonal conflict and increase team creativity in demographically divided teams. In this step, team members describe any interpersonal conflicts they experienced internally and rate how well their leaders promote the nine behaviours, while team leaders also rate their members. Two months later, the leaders assess team creativity.

The results show that, teams with stronger demographic faultlines are more likely to experience interpersonal conflicts. When team members split into cliques or subgroups, they stop exchanging ideas, which crushes creativity. This negative result is particularly pronounced among teams that score low on these nine behaviours.

However, when both team members and leaders engaged more in these nine behaviours, the negative impacts of faultlines and conflict nearly disappeared. This confirms that these behaviours can connect team members across demographic divides, smooth out conflicts, and boost creativity, further validating them as effective behaviours.

Nine TIP Behaviours

• Seeing opportunities for collaboration within the group
• Pointing out common grounds among members with different perspectives
• Forging connections within the team when dealing with a particular issue
• Involving all members in important decision-making, even if it may delay the decision
• Able to work successfully even when someone’s ideas are not retained by the group
• Staying connected to accomplish group goals, even under time constraints
• Synthesising ideas and contributions from different members
• Carefully keeping strong ties among members to facilitate work
• Listening to and appreciating all members’ ideas

Leader’s vs. team member’s TIP

While TIP involves actions that anyone on a team can practice, a key distinction persists between the leader and the team members. Leader’s TIP is effective at preventing interpersonal conflict from emerging in the first place. When leaders actively practice connecting behaviours, they can successfully dismantle the adverse effects of demographic faultlines before friction turns into tension.

Interestingly, while leaders are great at preventing conflicts, they are less effective at salvaging creativity once conflict has broken out. When conflicts arise, team members’ TIP turns out to be more effective at safeguarding creativity. Being closer to the day-to-day operations, team members’ immediate efforts to bridge differences effectively neutralised the damaging effect of conflict on idea generation.

“When members engage in more TIP behaviours, they are more likely to resolve disputes with colleagues immediately, thereby focusing on information processing and preventing them from escalating into relational friction,” says Professor Lau.

“In general, TIPs can create opportunities for subgroups to meet and strengthen connections with each other. It also helps teams build a culture where feedback is accepted gracefully and less time is wasted on personal frictions.”

Building bridges in the workplace

TIP is effective because it focuses on concrete practices that can be observed, measured, and trained. Companies can incorporate it into leadership development programmes, team coaching sessions, and even performance reviews. For example, the human resource department can design training programmes for all staff to learn the core ideas of TIPs and train them on how to engage in these behaviours through different scenarios.

Leaders and managers should act as connectors, actively bridging diverse colleagues across demographic boundaries and highlighting common ground during disagreements.

“Team members, especially those who are previously disconnected, will feel more likely to connect when they find similarities,” Professor Lau says. “Team members also usually treat the leader as a role model and expect the leader to help them resolve their problems. If leaders engage in TIPs, members are more likely to learn and mimic.”

Anyone can build a bridge

Crucially, building bridges isn’t just a management responsibility. Team members who actively forge connections across subgroups, such as pulling colleagues from different camps into collaborative projects, can be as effective as managers in protecting team creativity.

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“Anyone can be a bridge-builder,” Professor Lau emphasises, adding that if members can learn and engage in TIPs spontaneously, they will be able to self-manage whenever needed.

As modern workplaces become increasingly diverse, converting diverse perspectives into creative output has become a strategic priority. “Companies don’t always need to restructure teams to fix relationship dynamics. Cultivating a culture where team members regularly seek out collaborations and synthesise diverse ideas can also be effective,” she adds.