The Bad News

By now it must be obvious that creating and sustaining a complementary team abounds with pitfalls: We need each other, but can we stand each other’s differences? Differing styles, though they are both complementary and essential, aren’t necessarily compatible. Fundamentally, working together means accepting variations in style and opinion; acknowledging that those variations will lead to conflict; and recognizing that conflict is an inevitable and even desirable facet of managing.

But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Consider your spouse, for example: I bet his or her style is very different from yours. If you are creative and excitable, you’ve probably chosen a partner who pours cold water on your head from time to time and cools you off; someone who thinks the details through. And it drives you crazy, doesn’t it? The reasons you married him or her might be the same reasons you sometimes contemplate divorce.

The typical couple is incompatible in a hundred ways. Peter Blumenthal, once listed the ways in which he and his wife, Laura, see and do things differently. Peter is quiet; Laura is talkative. He is undemonstrative; she is effusive. He hates to talk problems out; she likes to shout her way through them. He prefers a quiet night at home; she likes a big party. He is thorough and meticulous; she hates details. He likes to plan things in advance; she is spontaneous and impulsive. He tends to be indecisive, but when he makes a decision it is after thorough review of the facts, and then he sticks to it. She is quick to decide, but may change her mind tomorrow. When purchasing a new car or determining a color for their home décor, he prefers the staid and conservative; she wants color and pizzazz. When they collaborate on a project around the house, he works at a slow, consistent pace; she is quick but erratic. His spending is governed by a carefully constructed budget and savings plan; she is more of an impulse buyer. He tends to be severe and consistent with their children; she is spontaneous and warm, gives them lots of freedom, and often does clandestine favors.

Here is another example – from my own family. On a trip to the Far East, we bought a new camera, a digital type that none of us knew how to operate.

The (P) in the family, my wife, tried right away to operate it by using trial and error. The (A), one of my sons, immediately got upset. “Read the manual!” he shouted at her.

The (E) – that would be me, ladies and gentleman – was totally uninterested in the manual or even in taking the picture. I, the big (E), wanted to decide on the appropriate angle, direct who would stand where, and choose which person would shoot the photo. And I wanted to make absolutely sure I was in the picture.

Why is this peculiar phenomenon, also known as “Opposites attract,” so common? The answer is that it only seems peculiar; in fact, it is natural and necessary.

Why are we instinctively attracted to just the kind of person we will have conflict with? Because a family, in order to raise children, requires both the “feminine” and “masculine” (the “yin” and the “yang”) energies. The child needs you both. Even in same-sex partnerships, there is a difference in styles between the partners; despite the conventional wisdom, such differences are not gender-specific.

That is why it’s so difficult to raise a child as a single parent, whether you are a man or a woman. No matter how these energies are actually determined, both are necessary for raising healthy children – and equally necessary for building a company or an organization.

When you have a problem, whether it’s business-related or personal, you will find somebody who is different from you to consult with, won’t you? You want somebody who’s going to see the holes in your argument, who’s going to make you think about what you’re saying. We always look for complementarity.

In the Bible, “the perfect spouse” is defined as ezer keneged, which literally means “helpful against.” Rabbis have argued about this phrase for centuries: How can she be helpful if she is against? If she is against, then she’s not helpful; if she’s helpful, she’s not against. My explanation is that she is helpful precisely by being against. That’s exactly what we’re looking for, because we cannot embrace the total argument all by ourselves. It’s too difficult to do. In order to feel secure and comfortable, we need someone who’s going to complement us. In fact, the bigger our (E) is, the bigger the (A) we are looking for.

The inevitability of conflict

We behave as if we expect peace and harmony to be normal, and conflict to be abnormal. Actually, the opposite is true. Organizational conflict emerges naturally from the diverse styles of its members and thus is inevitable.

In a real complementary team, each member is strong at something and weak at something else, which means they are human. But because they are human and different from each other – and especially because one is strong just where the other is weak – they are also going to have difficulty communicating and reaching agreement.

Now, obviously, this is true of mismanagers. We know that unmanageable conflict will develop when the managerial group is composed of people who lack the ability to perform all four roles– who are “blind” to one or more roles. Why? Because such managers will be unable to perceive the value of what the other managers contribute to the joint effort.

However, even an excellent managerial mix, perfectly suited to its tasks, whose individual team members are mature and capable of handling differences, cannot run an organization without experiencing some conflict. In fact, there will be conflict even if the goal, the information, and the reward system are clearly defined and understood– the three factors that the Nobel prize winner in economics, Herbert Simon, believed to be the causes of conflict.

Think about it: Let’s say one member of your team is a great extrovert, charismatic and visionary; and another is careful, conservative, slow, and needs to think things through. These two people are naturally going to get into conflict when they try to decide something together, right?

And there’s the rub: If a decision is to be fully analyzed and implemented, it must reflect all four roles. In other words, there must be conflict.

When will an organization operate totally without conflict? It will operate without conflict if it is composed of one individual who makes all the decisions himself and implements them alone. But in that case, there is no organization. (But even here, I am not so sure because he will be in conflict with himself. The four roles still need to be performed, and the roles are still incompatible even if they are in one head.)

An organization composed of Deadwood can also operate without conflict. All of the decisions would be programmed and predetermined, and no one member would want to change anything. No one would complain, but no one would care, either.

Finally, conflict can be avoided in an organization in which all the members of the managerial team have the same style: They are all are (A)s or all (P)’s. Such managers would have the same outlook and play the same role, and thus have no conflict.

But in both of the above cases, the organizations would experience significant problems meeting their goals in a changing environment. They would become stale.

So part of our new paradigm should include the notion that conflict is a necessary and indispensable component of good management, and, like any other component, must be understood and legitimized.

If you are a manager and don’t like to mediate between people, if you are upset by friction and differences of opinion, then you’re in the wrong profession. It’s the same thing as saying, “I want to be a doctor, but I can’t stand the sight of blood, and I don’t like sick people.” As President Truman said: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

In the next chapter, let us study how the different styles miscommunicate before they are so different. Once we understand the difference, we can proceed to deal with, how to make those differences work well together.

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