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For Argument's Sake: Why Conflict Cultures Matter

The Argument Sketch

The Argument Sketch  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Things take way too long,’ said a global business leader to me last week.  She was the third person I’d met in as many days who needed to make changes happen faster in their organization. All three people lamented the fact that, in their business, team members are reluctant to act until they reach close to total agreement. Instead of striking while the iron is hot, it takes weeks and weeks of polite discussion before anything happens at all.

These employees aren’t timid, inexperienced or lazy. They just work in a culture where collaboration is the norm. Research has revealed that organisations have distinct conflict cultures; specific approaches for how conflict is handled. Conflict cultures tend to fall into one of three categories: collaborative, where discussion and compromise is the norm; dominating, where competition, heated debates and confrontations are par for the course; or avoidant, where employees change the subject and dodge disagreements altogether. What’s even more interesting is that leaders’ own conflict handling style determines the conflict culture of their entire team.

Michelle Gelfand and colleagues looked into the conflict culture at 92 branches of a large US bank. Not only did branch leaders’ conflict handling style predict the conflict culture of their branch, but conflict culture affected branch performance. Avoidant cultures were negatively related to creativity. Presumably, a suppressive style limits the discussion and information sharing that’s so important for thinking differently. Dominating cultures were negatively related to customer service measures and team cohesion – no surprise given the lack of teamwork and poor interpersonal relationships that a heavily competitive, confrontational culture breeds. And collaborative cultures were positively related to team cohesion, branch potency (the extent to which employees believed the branch was productive and successful), and lower levels of burnout.

While collaborative cultures were associated with more positive outcomes in this study, there are downsides, as leaders who struggle to spur action realize  Even positive traits can become weaknesses if they are over-done. As organisations get bigger, habits get exaggerated and can become dysfunctional. The dominating style that allowed a start-up to win over its competitors could result in an overly aggressive team dynamic. The team who avoided conflict in order to move forward could find itself stalling under the weight of unspoken resentments. It’s up to leaders to break out of these dysfunctional habits, by being aware of their default approach and questioning whether it’s actually the best tact for what they’re trying to achieve.


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