Conflict in teams is unavoidable. However, it does not have to result in decreased productivity. Managed effectively, conflict can be key to leveraging differences of interest to arrive at creative solutions. However, many people intuitively respond to conflict in a defensive fashion, and this emotional type of conflict can threaten productivity. To the greatest extent possible, team members should depersonalize conflict. The most effective teams share several common practices when it comes to conflict and conflict management. They realize that conflict is an inevitable aspect of high-performance teamwork. Second, they deal with conflict proactively, meaning that they develop procedures and practices to deal with it before it emerges. And, they focus on behaviors rather than traits. Groups that improve or maintain top performance over time share three conflict resolution best practices: (1) they focus on the content of their interactions, rather than the delivery style (i.e., tone); (2) they explicitly discuss reasons behind work assignment decisions; and (3) they assign work to members who have the task expertise rather than by other means, such as volunteerism or convenience.93