Strategy conflicts reflect conflicted goals. But that's not always true. Sometimes, strategy conflicts are just strategy conflicts.
For example, to make more profit, a sales team plans to sell more products by pushing the marketing team to develop an aggressive marketing plan that leads to more expenses. At the same time, to make more profit, the financial team proposes to cut back on costs and scale back on marketing plans.
In the school system, teachers care about students' critical thinking skills because they believe this is how to help students process and analyze complex information, form reasonable arguments, and improve problem-solving capabilities. These skills lead to curiosity, lifelong learning, and resilience in the rapidly changing working environment. At the same time, the standard testing requirements push towards teaching to test - no resilience but rote memorization and repetition.
With a shared goal and willingness to work together, it's possible to resolve strategy conflicts through innovative solutions. However, with conflicted goals, seeing the conflict helps us make a decision.
