|
Introduction
Many businesspeople manage to avoid the conflict
they perceive as being detrimental to their business. They often remark
that they hate conflict and want to get rid of it and usually anyone who
is causing it. This is a common belief among managers and requires some
discussion to better understand what conflict is and why conflict is a
necessary part of management.
Necessary? Some level of conflict is
necessary if you want your company to prosper.
Let me clarify what I mean before I loose your attention. The word
conflict generally represents anything from a difference of opinions to a
state of open warfare between countries. This wide definition of a single
word creates confusion on its own. For the purpose of this discussion, I
define conflict in business as people who have conflicting opinions about
an issue, plan, or policy. It is unfortunate that many people manage so as
to avoid any differences of opinion, which often results in much greater
long-term problem known as Groupthink.
Let’s take a look at Groupthink and see how destructive it can be
to an organization. Groupthink begins to develop when a manager attempts
to avoid conflict or what is perceived as problems within the
organization. This may be as simple as discouraging employees from
questioning management decisions to attempting to handle serious problems
within the organization. Regardless of the scope of issues in the
organization, the mere attempt to reduce or eliminate employee concerns
can trigger the process. Employees will eventually, or quickly, begin to
withdraw their opposition or questioning of things they do not understand.
This is the first step in the elimination of questions and the first step
in the elimination of good ideas or suggestions.
Many people feel it would be better to simply run their businesses
and not have to deal with the conflicting opinions of employees or
partners. This attitude is fine if the employees truly have nothing to
contribute, but it discards many fine ideas that might be imbedded within
the many instances of communications. Many great ideas for business
improvement have come from sessions where an idea or policy was being
questioned or challenged. A side effect is that employees may not work as
effectively if they feel their opinions or concerns are not valued. This
is often the case when I look at companies with employees who are
ineffective when the boss is not around.
Cutting off the communications medium between employer and employee
is just the first step in a declining situation. The following symptoms
apply to the members of a work team. It must be considered that any group
of employees are actually a team regardless of the size. It should also be
noted that conflict coming from customers may create similar symptom and
side-effects. Consider how many of these can occur between the owner of a
business and the customers.
Symptoms of Groupthink
Invulnerability: One serious side effect of managing to avoid conflict is
the false sense of being invulnerable. This comes from decisions not being
challenged and is reinforced by the artificial politeness that often
occurs when employees or customers do not feel they should question or
challenge the businessperson. This sense of invulnerability can lead to
poor decisions and the assumption of very high risks.
Rationale: As we begin to think that many do not challenge
our decisions because they are good decisions, and we start to discount
the remaining challenges or questions to our judgment by developing
interesting rationalizations to discredit those who are question-ing or
challenging the management of the company. Discounting the views of others
al-lows us to ignore them as not being worthy of consideration and is part
of the process of ignoring issues that need to be addressed.
Morality: With the ability to discount dissenters, the group
or leader may develop a higher sense of morality that is attached to the
group or leader. This aids in the process of allowing the group or leader
to more effectively discredit those who question or chal-lenge the
authority of the leader or group. The pursuit of a higher cause can be
very powerful when it comes to handling subordinates.
Stereotypes: The use of stereotypes or labels makes it
easy for the group or leader to no longer view people as people. It allows
the team or leader to quickly label a person as being enemy-like to
further discredit them. This is often found when managers use stereotyping
terms like “Young Turk” or “disgruntled.” Applying stereotype labels
al-lows other employees or customers to quickly discount the stereotyped
person and is dangerous.
Pressure: Pressure is placed on those who question
authority to either conform or face punishment. These pressures may come
from the leader or from other people who are part of the group; including
customers. Although this is usually found among members of a work group, I
have seen cases where customers apply pressure on other customers to
abandon their complaint or issue. This pressure can be effective against
employees or customers who are not confident with their own position.
Self-censorship: With pressure being applied to dissenting
employees or customers, the people stop expressing their concerns in order
to avoid conflict. Employees may have concerns about the direction of
management, but they keep these concerns to themselves, because expressing
them results in a worse situation. Customers who might have offered
suggestions or constructive criticism say nothing and give only positive
feedback that may not be truthful.
Unanimity: The absence of questions or expressed concerns by
employees or customers allows the manager or leader to believe there are
no challenges. This creates a false sense of unanimity that reinforces the
decisions of the leader and allows the leader to rational-ize that no
opposition or challenges to an idea verifies the righteous nature of the
idea or action. The leader adopts new policies, products, or decisions
believing that everyone is in agreement because there is no disagreement.
Conflicting opinions are avoided in the daily operation of the business,
but fundamental management principles are being lost.
Mindguards: As groupthink takes effect, some people begin to
appoint themselves as protectors of the leader; known as mindguards. They
begin to influence people to not express an opinion or challenge
authority. They allow people to conform without having to experience any
of the discomfort of learning for themselves that their opinions or
questions are unappreciated. This is evidenced by such expressions as,
“kept your opinion to yourself and everyone will get along just fine.”
This tends to further discourage people from helping the leader.
 |
|
The
effects of Groupthink are often discounted by managers as not being a
major concern in the business world or the effects are not considered to
be significant. This is a false position as Groupthink has been identified
in most cases of flawed decision-making in such historical events as the
entry to the war in Viet Nam, the marketing of Thalidomide, and the loss
of the Challenger Space Shuttle and crew. Groupthink dynamics were in
effect at the time of the flawed decision-making and were later identified
by the participants as the major cause of the events.
The net effect of these traits is that the leader or business owner
is prevented from receiving quality feedback for managing the business.
Without this important information, the leader will make bad decisions.
Think of it as trying to drive from one place to another by following a
handwritten map. The leader is holding the map upside down and going in
the wrong direction, but everyone avoids conflict by not saying anything
about the mistake. Regardless of the driving in the wrong direction, the
leader is not aware of the problem and continues to drive in the wrong
direction.
It is important to note that the people who have become victims of
groupthink cannot see these effects and it requires an outsider to
objectively analyze, diagnose, and develop a cure. A regular
organizational checkup is necessary to assure that managers or owners are
making decisions using effective and accurate information. I have found
that the higher in an organization one goes, the more difficult it is to
get accurate and reliable in-formation from subordinates, because they
avoid conflict.
As mentioned on many occasions, the same dynamics can be found with
customers. It is important to make business decisions with good feedback
from our customers on the goods and services they need. When the customers
feel their opinions are not being heard, they will stop providing accurate
feedback to help manage the business. I have seen occasions where dismal
looking stores drew compliments from customers who were just waiting for
the new competitor to open. They had made suggestions to management, but
the manager gave excuses for the situation. People don’t continue
providing valuable feedback to those who treat them as being wrong.
That means we must recognize that differing opinions are common,
necessary, and should be regarded as a sign of a healthy business
environment where people may con-tribute ideas that are different from
others. Remember that conflict is evidence of conflicting opinions or
perceptions that need to be explored carefully to determine the viability
of the assumptions we make when making decisions. Always remember that a
decision based on flawed information will be less effective than one made
with good information.
The symptoms that many people perceive as conflict are what I
prefer to call turbulence. Turbulence is the arguing, fighting, game
playing, and otherwise unwanted side effect of unmanaged conflict. By
using separate words for the two effects, we can separate the positive
aspects of conflict from the negative aspects of turbulence. Let us
examine a simple case.
Turbulence Resolution Strategies
There are three basic strategies for dealing with turbulence in the
workplace: The issues can be addressed by using avoidance, diffusion,
power intervention, or confrontation. These are often called conflict
resolution strategies and each has appropriate times for use, but only one
of the strategies can address the issue. Let’s look at each.
Avoidance: This is a relatively good short-term strategy for
allowing turbulence situations to resolve themselves on their own. Some
organizational problems correct them-selves and there is no need to
intervene. If the problem does not correct itself on its own in a timely
manner, then the avoidance strategy may cause the problem to appear to go
away, but actually converts the turbulent energy into another form that
will be more diffi-cult to recognize and address.
Diffusion: A diffusion strategy is intended to allow time
for the issue to go away on its own or to chip away at the minor details
of the issue. The two most common methods of using diffusion are to either
smooth the issue over between the parties or to push a com-promise. This
must be done carefully, because there is the risk that turbulent energy
will surface as another issue more difficult to identify or address.
Power Intervention: The power intervention strategy tends to
take on one of two forms. The first form is the power override where the
person with authority over the parties simply tells them to behave and to
discontinue their turbulent behavior. This tends to cause the issue to go
away for a short time, but it usually surfaces again in another form.
The other power intervention occurs when a person involved in the
conflict attempts to enlist the aid of a person in authority to influence
the other parties in the conflict. This kind of power intervention often
causes the parties to be overpowered and change their behaviors, but the
turbulent energy usually surfaces in a different, and usually more
problematic, form of turbulence.
Confrontation: Many people dislike the idea of being
confrontational, but this is the only resolution strategy that addresses
the object of the turbulence. It really means to confront the issue
directly and in an adult manner. Instead of playing power games and
politics, the confrontational approach brings the parties together in a
professional manner to discuss the differences and work toward an
acceptable resolution.
Many managers and business owners will establish and communicate a
policy or direction for their company or team. An employee views the
situation differently and offers an alternative direction or policy. This
represents a conflict situation that needs to be man-aged appropriately. I
call it conflict because we see two opinions that conflict, but does not
need to represent a problem to the organization or lead to turbulence. In
fact, it represents an opportunity for management to view the same
situation from two different perspectives. The manager may view the
situation in many ways, but here are a few.
-
The manager can accept the idea as a better alternative
and adopt it.
-
The manager can accept the idea as an inferior
alternative and reject it.
-
The manager can reject the alternative without
consideration.
Whether or not the idea is adopted,
acceptance of the idea as an alternative gives the employee a feeling that
his/her viewpoint and contribution has been considered. This can be good
if the manager discusses the option with the employee and recognizes its
validity. The temptation is to discuss the alternative recommendation, but
the most effective method is to discuss the differences in the
perspectives. |
The worst option would be to reject the
alternative idea without giving it any consideration. Rejection of a
rejection of the employee and is unnecessary. At the very least, rejection
of the idea will result in future reluctance to offer suggestions or
alternatives and re-duce future contributions from employees. It is more
likely to result in an injury to the ego of the employee who might
generate turbulence over the situation.
Let's use an example that a manager adopts the policy that
employees must call customers and explain why their order is late. The
manager's perspective is that customers have a right to know when their
order will be late and by requiring the employee to call, the employee may
be motivated to work harder to fill the orders instead of having to call
the customer to convey bad news. An employee perceives the situation as
placing more work in those who are working hard trying to fill the orders
and this represents an additional burden on people who are trying to
complete the orders. The employees recommend that a customer service clerk
make the calls. Both sides are valid and represent a conflict in opinions
and perspectives.
Even the most tactful rejection of the alternative suggestion might
result in a future reluctance to offer suggestions. This is not good in a
world where employees may hold the secret to reducing costs or increasing
production. A tactless rejection of the alternative might result in rumors
being spread about the manager having no understanding of the business and
the potential that employees start loosing respect and their willingness
to follow. Tension and turbulence rises and effort must be expended to
control the turbulence.
A better method is to recognize that employees are intelligent and
offer good options to the perceived problem. When the alternate
recommendation is received, ask the employee to offer his reasoning behind
the suggestion before giving the logic behind your own suggestion. Seek to
understand the other person's perspective of the situation before seeking
to be understood by the other person. Find out what the other person is
thinking before making a decision on the alternative. If the manager still
feels it necessary to go with the original idea, explain the logic and the
circumstances that lead to the decision in a respectful manner. Explore
the differences of perspective and not the differences in the
recommendation. Avoid being hooked by any lack of tact on the part of
employees who have difficulty communicating.
When employees feel powerless and have no allegiance to the
company, they may leave to work for a competitor, they may seek more
competitive salaries, or seek to gain small amounts of power by playing
the turbulence game. They look for little things to frustrate managers.
This is the only way they can feel a sense of control so they seek
unproductive tactics. This is not unlike the child who screams out in the
store to get attention from a parent. This creates a downward spiral with
management having to enforce rules that may not make sense to the
employees and employees raising the ante in the turbulence game.
Why do managers try to reduce conflict if it is good for the
company? The answer is that it requires a different set of skills to
manage conflict instead of managing turbulence. Turbulent behavior can be
demonized and easily punished, but conflicting viewpoints require more
understanding of human behavior and respect for employees. Most managers
have been trained to take an authority position and are afraid that
working with the employees will make it more difficult to discipline an
employee when the time comes.
This is an unfounded concern because the process of working with
employees to solve a business problem will make much of the turbulence go
away and be replaced by mutual respect for the skills and viewpoints of
each other. Employees are less likely to need disciplinary corrections
when they respect their managers and appreciate the problems from the
manager's perspective. If disciplinary action is necessary, the employee
is more likely to accept that action when it comes from a respected
manager.
I went to work for a company to oversee a team that was in revolt.
I was told that the team cannot be managed and they are incapable of
understanding the needs of the company. They had recently threatened to
walk off the job and leave the company stranded. I started asking them for
opinions on how to fix things and followed most of their suggestions. That
group came together as one of the best teams I have managed and completely
rebuilt their part of the business. Within a year, they were devising and
proposing new company products that were very successful. It was all a
matter of respect and managing their conflicting opinions and positions.
I have worked with several companies to help set up a continuous
improvement program. In most continuous improvement programs, the people
work together as a team to develop a list of alternate approaches to
issues in the company. This is a variation of the Quality Circles
approach, but allows management to have more control over the work of the
team. In these programs, management defines the problems with employees
offering their perspective of the problem. By including everyone's
perspective of the problem definition, a clearer picture forms about the
issue and everyone offers alternatives from their frame of reference.
Including alternatives from different sides of the issues helps to let
everyone better understand the problem and leads to much better solutions.
Allowing all stakeholders in the issue to formulate the solution prevents
the "them verses us" attitude that often generates the turbulence that
follows unpopular decisions by management. Employees are much more likely
to want to follow their own procedures.
We live in a very competitive business environment and successful
companies have learned to recognize the talents of their production
workers who are the closest to most production problems. Conflicting
viewpoints are the only way to get several brains work-ing to solve
problems with good alternatives. The companies utilizing the talents of
all their workers are becoming more competitive in the marketplace while
those who continue believing a single manager's perspective is best are
declining.
In closing, I would like to recommend that managers consider that they
are not the ultimate authority on every job in the company. Take a lesson
from top managers and recognize that employees and usually know their jobs
better than the manager, and they can be motivated to contribute good
alternatives if they are properly rewarded for their effort. It does not
take cash, but simply the appreciation of their contribution.
|
