This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Why Is This So Difficult?
Why is managing conflict and building consensus so challenging? The roots of the problem may reside in one’s style of leadership. Often, however, the difficulty reflects persistent patterns of dysfunction within groups and organizations. Let’s try to understand a few sources of difficulty that leaders must overcome as they shape and direct decision processes.
Leadership Style
Leaders may have certain personal preferences and attributes that make it difficult to cultivate constructive conflict and/or build consensus within their organizations. For instance, some executives may be uncomfortable with confrontation, and therefore, they tend to avoid vigorous debates at all costs. They shy away from cognitive conflict because loud voices and sharp criticism simply make them uneasy. Others may be highly introverted, and consequently, they may discover that their employees find it difficult to discern their intentions as well as the rationale that they have employed to make decisions.
Some executives prefer to manage by fear and intimidation, and they enjoy imposing their will on organizations. That leadership style also squelches dissenting voices, and it can leave employees feeling unenthusiastic about a proposed plan of action that they did not help to formulate. Of course, a few extraordinary leaders foster enormous levels of commitment while employing this approach. Consider, for instance, the management style of Bill Parcells, the famous professional football coach. He has dramatically turned around four very unsuccessful franchises over the past two decades, and his teams have won two world championships. He thrives on confrontation, instills a great deal of fear in his players, and makes decisions in a highly autocratic fashion. Yet, players put forth an incredible effort for Parcells, and they frequently express an intense desire to please him, despite the fact that he makes their lives difficult at times. In general, however, success often proves difficult to sustain over the long haul for those who employ this leadership pattern. Perhaps that explains why Parcells has chosen to shift frequently from one team to another during his coaching career.53
Cognitive Biases
A few mental traps also stand in the way as leaders try to manage conflict and consensus. For instance, most individuals search for information in a biased manner. They tend to downplay data that contradicts their existing views and beliefs, while emphasizing the information that supports their original conclusions. This confirmation bias explains why leaders may not aggressively seek to surface dissenting views, or why they may not listen carefully to those voices. Naturally, managers become frustrated if they perceive that leaders are processing information in a biased manner, and that disappointment can diminish buy-in.54 Overconfidence bias becomes a factor in many situations as well. Most of us tend to overestimate our own capabilities. Consequently, we may not recognize when we need to solicit input and advice from others, or we downplay the doubts that others display regarding our judgments and decisions.55
Threat Rigidity
In many cases, strategic decision making occurs in the context of a threatening situation—the organization must deal with poor financial performance, deteriorating competitive position, and/or a dramatic shift in customer requirements. When faced with a threatening context, the psychological stress and anxiety may induce a rigid cognitive response on the part of individuals. People tend to draw upon deeply ingrained mental models of the environment that served them well in the past. Individuals also constrict their information gathering efforts, and they revert to the comfort of well-learned practices and routines. This cognitive rigidity impairs a leader’s ability to surface and discuss a wide range of dissenting views. To make matters worse, factors at the group and organizational level complement and reinforce this inflexible and dysfunctional response to threatening problems. Consequently, organizational decision processes become characterized by restricted information processing, a constrained search for solutions, a reduction in the breadth of participants, and increased reliance on formal communication procedures.56
In-Groups Versus Out-Groups
As people work together in the decision process, they have a natural tendency to categorize other members of the groups in which they interact. They classify some people as similar to them (the in-group) and others as quite different, based on a few salient demographic characteristics or professional attributes (the out-group). For instance, an engineer may distinguish those group members with similar functional backgrounds from individuals who have spent their careers working in finance or marketing. In general, people tend to perceive in-group members in a positive light and out-group members in a negative light. These perceptions shape the way that individuals interact with one another. Highly divisive categorization processes—those circumstances in which people draw sharp distinctions between in-groups and out-groups—can diminish social interaction among group members, impede information flows, and foster interpersonal tensions.
Individuals also appraise other group members in terms of personal attributes such as intelligence, integrity, and conscientiousness. Unfortunately, a person’s self-appraisal often does not match the view that others have. An individual may see himself as highly trustworthy, whereas others have serious doubts about whether he is reliable and dependable. When individuals tend to see themselves in a manner consistent with others’ views and perceptions, groups perform more effectively. If many perceptual disconnects exist within a group, people find it difficult to interact constructively. It becomes difficult to manage disputes and lead deliberations smoothly.57
Organizational Defensive Routines
Organizations often develop mechanisms to bypass or minimize the embarrassment or threat that individuals might experience. Managers employ these “defensive routines” to preserve morale, make “bad news” a bit more palatable, and soften the impact of negative feedback. They want people to remain upbeat and positive about the organization’s mission as well as their own situation. For instance, in many firms, we witness the existence of an implicit understanding of the need to employ a routine for helping employees to “save face” when they have failed. Unfortunately, such behaviors depress the level of candor within the organization, and they make certain issues “undiscussable.” Over time, these defensive practices become deeply ingrained in the organizational culture. They do not occur because a specific individual wants to avoid embarrassing a colleague, but rather because all managers understand that this is “the way things are done around here.” Leaders often find it extremely difficult to dismantle these deeply embedded barriers to open and honest dialogue.58