The Homa Files

Takeaway: A healthy dose of discord may be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to promoting innovation and achieving profitability within an organization.

Companies recruit employees for the diversity of their backgrounds, so why do these recruits so often transform into bobble-head yes-men?

Let’s face it, we all love a good round of Kumbaya, but effective MBAs should aim to be selectively disruptive in order to deliver real value to their employers.

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Excerpt from Harvard Business Review, “How to Pick a Good Fight,” by Saj-nicole A. Joni and Damon Beyer, December 1, 2009.

The effort to eliminate discord at the firm had backfired. Lehman’s board of directors and management team became too agreeable—and too loyal, content to follow even when they knew better. In 2007 and 2008, numerous signals indicated that the firm was heading into a crisis, but insiders who paid attention to them were afraid to point out the elephant in the room. Nobody wanted to disrupt the peace.

The problem is that a peaceful, harmonious workplace can be the worst possible thing for a business, according to consultancy eePulse, which conducts in-depth surveys that measure employee engagement. Complacency, in fact, is the single greatest predictor of poor company performance. The second greatest predictor is an environment in which employees are overwhelmed. In the first case, employees are reluctant to rock the boat. In the second, the level of employee satisfaction is low and the amount of dysfunctional fighting is high. In both situations, low energy levels and fear of political fallout curb action that might address any looming crisis. At Lehman, many alums told us, raising difficult questions could kill your career.

Most leadership experts argue that the best way to manage change is to create alignment, but our research indicates that for large-scale change or innovation initiatives, a healthy dose of dissent is usually just as important. Within an acceptable range of competition and tension, science shows, dissent will fire up more of an individual’s brain, stimulating more pathways and engaging more creative centers. In short, more of what makes people unique, innovative, and passionate is available for use.

Many successful companies are known for their stressful work environments. Microsoft, in its early days, had one of the most contentious, high-strung, and fast-paced corporate cultures in the United States. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were famous for yelling at people. Food distributor Sysco, an unusually successful company built on roll-ups and acquisitions, dismisses district managers who don’t meet annual productivity targets—a pretty tough standard for an operating company with thin margins. Market leaders Goldman Sachs and McKinsey are notoriously competitive, hard-driving places to work. Not places you’d go if you were looking for polite and equal regard for all voices.

So it’s time to stop candy-coating what’s taught to executives and their direct reports. It’s time to stop pretending that conflict-free teamwork is the be-all and end-all of organizational life. It’s time to own up to the truth that the right balance of alignment and competition is what pushes individuals and groups to do their best. It’s time to push employees into the right fights.

Let’s be clear—alignment is important. But the purpose of alignment is not harmonious agreement. It is to sustain an organization’s ability to fight for what really matters, and to pull everyone together again once the fight is resolved.

Edit by BHC

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Full Article
http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/12/how-to-pick-a-good-fight/ar/1

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This entry was posted on December 16, 2009 at 7:17 am and is filed under Mktg - Product & Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.