Why Good Sparring Needs Friction

When everyone in a company agrees, that may indicate clarity. It may also mean that the questions that matter are no longer being asked.

Employees stop challenging assumptions. Executives remain within familiar patterns of thought. Strategic decisions are deferred until operational pressure makes them unavoidable. Everything appears calm on the surface while risk, investment backlog and outdated assumptions continue to build underneath.

Conflict-resolution expert Priya Parker calls this “unhealthy peace”: a condition in which conflict is avoided and unresolved issues are pushed out of sight. In an interview with The New York Times, she describes how excessive politeness can prevent teams from having the conversations that products, customers and long-term competitiveness require.

That observation reflects what I have experienced over more than 30 years as an entrepreneur.

Sparring Is Not an Exercise in Agreement

A good sparring partner does not simply confirm what an owner or executive already believes. They respect the decision-maker’s responsibility – and are therefore prepared to ask the uncomfortable questions:

Is our business model still fit for the future – or are we defending what made us successful in the past?

Are we making a strategic decision – or merely reacting to daily pressure?

Which assumption do we treat as fact even though it should be challenged?

Which decision are we postponing because its consequences are uncomfortable?

These questions create friction. That is precisely where the value lies. Sparring is not intended to make a decision more comfortable. It is intended to improve its quality.

False Harmony Can Be Expensive

Successful companies are particularly susceptible to conflict avoidance over time. Employees know the owner’s convictions. Executives understand which arguments are likely to be welcomed. Critical voices become quieter – not necessarily through fear, but often through habit or loyalty.

That is human. From a business perspective, it can be dangerous.

Markets, technologies and customer expectations evolve faster than established structures. What was right yesterday may tie up capital, slow execution or undermine competitiveness tomorrow. The answer is not artificial confrontation, but a protected setting for productive dissent.

Parker uses the term “healthy heat” for the constructive tension between comfortable harmony and destructive conflict. She describes it as a force that creates clarity, enables growth and helps groups move forward.

An Outside Perspective Does Not Replace Accountability

Owners know their businesses better than any outsider. At the same time, they are part of the system they are assessing. They carry responsibility for employees, customers, investments, financing and often their own families. Complete distance is rarely possible.

A sparring partner does not take that responsibility away. They broaden the perspective, make contradictions visible and test alternatives for commercial viability. The final decision remains with the owner, executive team or board.

The quality of that decision improves when the strongest counterarguments – not only the preferred solution – have been examined seriously.

Productive Friction Requires Four Conditions

My Own Standard

I built a company, scaled it to more than 100 employees and sold it to Ed. Züblin AG, part of STRABAG SE, in 2020. I then spent three years helping lead the integration as managing director and division head before completing my personal exit at the end of 2023.

I therefore know both sides: the freedom and full risk of entrepreneurship, and the decision-making logic of a major corporate group. That experience shapes my work as a sparring partner today – not as a theoretical observer, but as someone who has made decisions, invested, built, integrated and let go.

The C-Level Test

One question reveals whether an executive team allows enough productive friction:

Which strategic assumption could be challenged openly today – without the person raising the question paying a price for it?

If there is no clear answer, the organization may not lack a strategy. It may lack the space to test it honestly.

Good sparring therefore does not always provide an immediate answer. Sometimes its greatest value lies in a question that continues to work after the conversation – and ultimately enables a better decision.

Facing a decision where agreement alone will not move you forward? Let us talk.

Sources and inspiration: David Marchese in conversation with Priya Parker, The New York Times, August 22, 2026 · Priya Parker on “healthy heat” · The Art of Fighting, Penguin Random House