Focus on task performance, not social interactions. Despite the pain that members may feel while experiencing and trying to resolve interpersonal problems, they are not necessarily bad for a group or detrimental to its performance.

On the contrary, research shows that certain patterns of interaction that often are experienced as problematic by team members and coded the same way by outside observers actually can promote team performance and member learning. Task-based conflict is one such pattern, and the vocal presence of a member with “deviant” views is another. A skilled coach knows that it sometimes is best to leave things alone and let the tension remain high for a while, rather than to rush in and try to contain the problems or refocus their most negative manifestations... A large number of such studies have been conducted, and their findings are aptly summarized by the title of a review article by management scholar Robert E. Kaplan: “The Conspicuous Absence of Evidence That Process Consultation Enhances Task Performance.”

When we observe a team that is having performance problems, we often simultaneously see a group that is plagued with interpersonal difficulties—conflict among members, leadership struggles, communications breakdowns, and so on. It is natural to infer that these difficulties are causing the performance problems and, therefore, that the best way to improve team performance would be to fix them. As reasonable and as consistent with lay experience as this inference is, it is neither logical nor correct.

via J. Richard Hackman