How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
Top-level managers know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Management teams that challenge one another’s thinking develop a more complete understanding of their choices, create a richer range of options, and make better decisions. But the challenge–familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team–is to keep constructive conflict over issues from degenerating into interpersonal conflict. From their research on the interplay of conflict, politics, and speed in the decision-making process of management teams, the authors have distilled a set of six tactics characteristic of high-performing teams:
These tactics work because they keep conflict focused on issues; foster collaborative, rather than competitive, relations among team members; and create a sense of fairness in the decision-making process. Without conflict, groups lose their effectiveness. Managers often become withdrawn and only superficially harmonious. The alternative to conflict is not usually agreement but rather apathy and disengagement, which open the doors to a primary cause of major corporate debacles: groupthink.
Think “conflict” is a dirty word, especially for top-management teams? It’s actually valuable for team members to roll up their sleeves and spar (figuratively, that is)—if they do it right. Constructive conflict helps teams make high-stakes decisions under considerable uncertainty and move quickly in the face of intense pressure—essential capacities in today’s fast-paced markets.
The key? Mitigate interpersonal conflict. Most conflicts take a personal turn all too soon. Here’s how your team can detach the personal from the professional—and dramatically improve its collective effectiveness.
The Idea in Practice
The best teams use these six tactics to separate substantive issues from personalities:
Example:
Star Electronics’* top team “measured everything”: bookings, backlogs, margins, engineering milestones, cash, scrap, work-in-process. They also tracked competitors’ moves, including product introductions, price changes, and ad campaigns.
Example:
To improve Triumph Computer’s* lackluster performance, managers gathered facts and then brainstormed a range of alternatives, including radically redirecting strategy with entry into a new market, and even selling the company. The team combined elements of several options to arrive at a creative, robust solution.
Example:
Star Electronic’s* rallying cry was the goal of creating “the computer firm of the decade.” Premier Technologies’ was to “build the best damn machine on the market.”
Example:
At Premier Technologies*, managers couldn’t agree on a response to a competitor’s new-product launch. Ultimately, the CEO and his marketing VP made the decision. Quipped the CEO: “The function heads do the talking; I pull the trigger.”
Top managers are often stymied by the difficulties of managing conflict. They know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Reasonable people, making decisions under conditions of uncertainty, are likely to have honest disagreements over the best path for their company’s future. Management teams whose members challenge one another’s thinking develop a more complete understanding of the choices, create a richer range of options, and ultimately make the kinds of effective decisions necessary in today’s competitive environments.
Kathleen M. Eisenhardt is the Stanford W. Ascherman M.D. Professor at Stanford University and a codirector of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
Jean L. Kahwajy is a management consultant with Strategic Decision Group in Menlo Park, California, and is pursuing research at Stanford University on organizational influences on decision making.
L.J. Bourgeois III is professor of business administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business in Charlottesville.
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
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