Will Smith

I believe in the power of New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to be better than we are, to grow, and to improve.  They represent our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations.

No matter whether they are big goals like changing our life or career direction, or more focused objectives, like losing 5 pounds, New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to create change.  And just like all great change management, they require the ability to create a clear vision of the future and the desire to set out on a path to achieve it.  They require stretching beyond a comfort zone and dedicating ourselves, or our organizations, to continuous improvement.

So, for those of you who, like me, engage in the annual, if not ongoing process of creating personal and organizational change, I offer the above video as inspiration.

Will Smith shares his personal insights and suggests that greatness is much easier to achieve than it seems.  He talks about well-known, enduring, and yet often overlooked principles such as focus, hard work, dedication and above all, belief.  He shares his conviction that we have a spiritual responsibility to make everything we come into contact with better.

I especially like his example of spending 18 months with his brother rebuilding the wall on the front of his father’s business.  “You don’t set out to build a wall,” Smith states.  “You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. And you do that every single day and soon you have a wall.”

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins states, “Good is the enemy of great.  And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.”

Maybe if we thought a bit more like Will Smith and made the pursuit of one-brick-at-a-time greatness our spiritual responsibility, change would not be so hard to achieve.

Here’s to a great 2010!

But the very fuel that feeds these familiar mandates, however, inevitably produces conflict.  Individuals develop new ideas that clash with the tried and true.  Department innovators step on toes outside their functional domain.  Project teams bicker as they identify requirements and solutions.  And employees compete for control in the leadership vacuum left by right-sized organizations.

At best, theses conflicts provide improved results and opportunities to learn.  At worst, when conflicts are too high or become personalized, they destroy individual self-esteem, increase tension within work teams, and decrease participation and productivity.  Whether conflict affects everyone in the organization, or just one employee, how we manage its resolution is critical to maintaining a creative, collaborative culture.  Especially during change initiatives,  sustaining a atmosphere of constructive conflict is essential to moving beyond resistance to true problem-solving.

Psychologists long have known that the absence or removal of conflict creates conditions where there is much less urgency, complete indifference to find and consider alternative ways of doing things, and no real inclination for different groups or departments to pull together toward a common goal.  In contrast, researchers also have found that stimulating conflict when it is absent may increase cognitive flexibility as well as the ability to deal with complex and contradictory information.

This poses a difficult challenge for change leaders as they try to maintain the right balance and intensity of conflict.  Too often, project managers avoid or suppress conflict in the effort to drive toward results.  This arises from the mistaken belief that results are more likely if conflict and dissention are overlooked in favor the “more important,” team objectives. On the other hand, provoking conflict only for the sake of resolving it may backfire and cause employees to retreat further into rigid, positional behavior.

In order to increase creative thinking, however, resolving conflict may be potentially premature and counterproductive.  When project managers try to resolve conflict too fast, it may decrease the enthusiasm and energy needed for innovation as well as breed disaffection or even withdrawal among many project team members.  Often, quick resolution constrains decision quality, deepens personalized conflict, and even suppresses information that might significantly impact business results.

When conflict is allowed to escalate to ideal intensity, however, it produces many benefits.  Conflict makes underlying issues explicit and can provide the motivation and strength to deal with tough problems.  It enhances people’s understanding of real interests, goals, and needs and stimulates continued communication around those issues.  Most importantly, it prevents premature, and misdiagnosed resolution of problems.

Before learning how to resolve conflict, however, project managers must learn how to think about it.  Conflict is not bad or good, conflict simply is.  If forced to choose, however, all conflict is good.  Even the most destructive, personal, hair-raising conflict provides valuable information that can enhance decisions and build stronger consensus.  The complaints, whining, negativity, nitpicking, and bullying provide important data that will eventually increase flexibility, innovation, and improvement.

In order to achieve higher levels of performance, project leaders must create opportunities for conflict to occur.  A conflict culture must be anchored by managers who learn how to see through the haze of disaffected behavior, listen, and accept different points of view.  Creativity, innovation, and flexibility will thrive when managers model collaborative behavior and guide employee development through effective mediation.

Opening Channels of Communication

The first step to maintaining the right level of organization conflict is to model the behaviors that encourage constructive disagreement and collaborative solutions.  To establish this environment, managers must demonstrate the ability to listen, confront, and collaborate.

Whether in conflict with another party or mediating a dispute between two parties, the first step we often take toward resolution is to offer additional information intended to demonstrate the logic and reasoning that supports our view of a fair solution.  When the parties remain unconvinced, we typically try harder to convince them by persuading, arguing, manipulating, sulking, or withdrawing from the interaction.  Very often, this process proves time-consuming and frustrating, and the conflict ends without a satisfactory resolution.  Or the conflict ends when we use our managerial authority to arbitrate a decision.  In either case, all parties walk away from the interaction thinking, “Why don’t they listen to me?”

Exactly.  Listening is the key to maintaining a productive level of conflict and ultimately, to constructive and well-timed resolution.  The problem in conflict, however, is not whether the other party listens to us, but rather whether we listen to and understand the other party’s perspective.  Only after we have listened to the other party will that party want to listen to us.  Only after the other party feels understood will he or she want to understand and be influenced by us.

By seeking first to identify and understand the needs and interests of the other party, we create an environment that increases the chances of resolving the dispute in a way that is satisfactory to all parties involved.  Listening lets the conflict take its natural course by giving the other party permission to disagree, express strong opinions, and demonstrate a passion for their ideas.  It does not try to resolve conflict too soon, and often, does not try to resolve conflict at all.  It demonstrates a respect for individual differences and encourages an environment based understanding.  Listening also helps achieve a true “win-win” resolution by helping the other party identify the criteria that defines their “win.”  In addition, the trust and relationship bonding that occurs as a result of this process will prepare the other party to listen to our needs.

A second critical skill required to model the behaviors of constructive conflict is confrontation.  One of the more significant reasons conflicts become destructive is because we avoid them.  We are afraid of hurting feelings, injuring self-confidence, or being impolite, and sometimes we are not sure whether it is a problem of theirs or a problem of ours.

In order to receive the benefits of conflict, however, we must create opportunities for divergent interaction.  Confrontation allows us to keep problems on the table.  It forces issues to the surface and generates dialogue.  Constructive confrontation communicates the problem, but also demonstrates our continued desire to listen to the other party.  By engaging in face-to-face interaction, managers demonstrate mutual respect, the willingness to explore new ideas, and a commitment to agenda-free resolution.

Finally, collaboration is the process of ensuring that both parties in a conflict benefit from the interaction.  Project managers must model this win-win thinking by not rushing to a compromise solution just to move forward.  They must insist on agreements that all parties find satisfactory and are committed to implementing.  Collaboration is based on going beyond competitive positions to establish common needs and interests.  Collaboration recognizes that constructive resolution is not about your way or my way.  It is about a better way.

Project managers who model collaborative behavior communicate openly and refuse to see limitations that prevent individual needs from getting met.  Creativity and innovation flourish because these leaders help colleagues search for the underlying common goals that demonstrate how everyone is an important contributor and critical to final solutions.  Collaborative project managers also are adept at redefining problems in ways that compel employees to participate.  They tap into the individual motivators that make each employee feel understood and critical for success.  A collaborative focus establishes an atmosphere of trust and understanding because it considers both objective, business interests as well as the often overlooked emotional needs required for buy-in and commitment.

Mediating Conflict

Project leaders often are asked or compelled to intervene and facilitate the conflict resolution process.  As mediators, their role should not be to help the parties agree.  Instead, their objective is to enhance understanding and develop constructive conflict resolution skills within the team or across functional areas.

Mediation is not solving the problems presented by project colleagues because ultimately, that only creates additional dependence upon their leadership and a fear of risk taking.  Instead, mediation is the process of getting the competing factions on the same side of the table, focused on a common set of objectives and on creating their own solutions.  Mediators facilitate confrontation and help both parties listen to one another.

Project managers that model the principles of constructive conflict may apply different approaches that tap into the unique needs of their employees and organization.  However, they should incorporate a common set of objectives founded on the principles required to promote collaborative resolution.  These requirements will prevent destructive disputes, guide the collaborative process, and let creativity and innovation flourish.

By accepting and encouraging conflict, project managers will establish an environment prepared to navigate the challenges of change.  When listening is used as the means of guiding conflict from positional disagreement to an exchange of thoughts and ideas, organization leaders will create the right balance and intensity required to maintain energetic participation and enhance decision making.  As team members adopt a collaborative focus, they will learn to seek solutions that will satisfy the interests they represent while simultaneously satisfying the interest of others, and conflict will become a chance to learn, innovate, and grow.

BMW Oracle America’s Cup

As a sailor, I can’t help but draw parallels between the teams of America’s Cup racing and the project teams of major change initiatives.  Although as a change manager, I wish project leadership managed with the same integrated understanding of the factors influencing project performance.

I encourage you to check out this series from TheSailingChannel highlighting roles of the BMW Oracle team to get a sense of what I mean.  For those of you who find yourselves in change or project management roles, the videos describing the jobs of the afterguard will be of particular interest.

The afterguard are the decision-making members of a racing team stationed on the after part of the boat (the rear, for those of you who aren’t boaters).  The team typically includes the skipper, helmsman, navigator, strategist, and tactician.  The actual number and duties may vary from crew to crew, but the objective remains the same:  control the balance and course of the boat.

The video I’ve included in this post is of the strategist.  I thought the activities were most similar to those required for good change management.

Hardcore racers know I’m oversimplifying, but racing can be broken down into two sets of activities.  There are those activities that help you manage inside the boat, such as steering and trimming the sails, and those activities that help you adapt to what’s outside the boat, such as checking the wind and assessing the position of competitors.

The strategist spends most of his or her time focused outside the boat–evaluating weather, wind, and water—to determine the extent to which those factors will require adapting what’s happening inside the boat.  The job is to gather information about the context in which the boat is sailing and share it with project leadership and the rest of the team so they, and ultimately the helmsman or skipper, can decide what adjustments must be made to keep the boat on course.

So, too, with change management.  No matter whether you are tasked with leading the change work stream or you are a project manager or technical work stream leader, attending to what’s happening “outside the boat” is essential to managing any transition effectively.  If you only attend to what’s going on “inside the boat,” in the technical part of your projects, you miss important information that will help keep your sails full and your boat running at top speed.

I had to smile when the Strategist for BMW Oracle, Eric Doyle, climbs the mast to check for shifts in the wind.  It reminded me of those times during the course of an especially challenging project when I’ve been tasked with conducting a status check with employees and executives only to get an earful of objections.  Much like climbing the mast, those moments can leave you twisting in the wind!  Either you find it exhilarating or you fear it.  I’m one of those crazy ones who likes climbing the mast AND facing a potentially unhappy audience.  In both cases you get great information that helps you progress.

Good project leadership looks much like an afterguard.  They assign specific tasks for each member of the team and communicate constantly.  As a result, they are able to have the facts they need, both inside and outside the boat, to make informed decisions for top project performance.

Not that you can hold me to this, but I’ll write about change and transformation, leadership, management, organizations, culture, conflict management and resolution, listening, human resources, food, music, or other topics that may seem related, if only momentarily, to what it takes to build the capacity to lead change.

From time to time, I also might discuss things that I do not “know,” but I’ve never let ignorance get in the way of jumping verbally into uncharted territory.

So, for now, thanks for joining me!  Read, comment, collaborate, challenge.  I’m looking forward to the fun!

All the Best,

Erik Van Slyke

Solleva Group