Welcome to our Lytle Center blog series, Competency Classics, where we will be reviewing some of the top (classic) academic leadership articles on competencies that are fundamental to leading people and organizations well. For the past six months, Amen Mugisha, a junior at Abilene Christian University, and I have sat down each week to discuss these articles to think about the research and ideas behind them and reflect on how they might be relevant today. Amen is an international student from Rwanda and a 2020 alumnus of the Lytle Center’s Leadership Summit course. She is an excellent student and provides a unique and relevant perspective to our discussions. Each week, we hope to share the summary of the findings from each article and perhaps some reflections of our own. The first article up is, “How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight?”, by Eisenhardt and colleagues (1997) published in the Harvard Business Review. Hope you find some insights relevant to your leadership roles at work and beyond.
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight?
Authors: Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, and Bourgeois (1997)
Summarized by: Amen Mugisha
Is it possible for conflict to benefit your team?
Eisenhardt and colleagues (1997) have answers for institutions and leaders about the best practices for reaping the benefits of conflict while preventing its downsides.
- Focus on the Facts: Argue with a knowledge-based background. The team should look for all the information; in and out of the organization. Knowledge, in the long run, prevents guesses and saves time.
- Multiply the Alternative: Allow the team to present more than one solution or suggestion. These alternatives reduce black and white thinking and prevent interpersonal conflicts.
- Create Common Goals: While competition and collaboration can co-exist, teams should know the team’s shared vision and goal. The team’s goal should be the focus; the “we” and not the “I.”
- Use Humor: Tensions can arise; remember to bring in fun to create an optimistic and collaborative team.
- Balance the power structure: Allow all the ideas, especially from the people’s work areas, to be heard. Not every idea will indeed be the decision, but people want to participate.
- Seek Consensus with Qualification: While some decisions, in the end, need to be taken by the senior leader, the input of others can guide the decision. Consensus builds a sense of fairness.
- Linking Conflict, Speech, and Performance: Conflict is valuable to organizations. Teams with conflicts are related to performing better than those that do not.
Article Citation: Eisenhardt, K. M., Kahwajy, J. L., & Bourgeois (1997). How management teams can have a good fight. Harvard Business Review, 75(4), 77-86.