Joe Kelly

Make conflict work for you

Realistic behavioral approach recognizes the importance of aggression as a creative force in our industrial soeiety
Foreword
In our turbulent environment, where conflict is the order of the day, it is small wonder that many corporate executives arc bewildered hy the forces of organizational change. Old concepts of human relations. Including the notion that conflict per sc is harmful and should be avoided at all cost, do not square witb the facts any longer. Indeed, tbe new approacb is tbat conflict, if properly bandied, can lead to more effective and appropriate arrangements. Here, the author argues tbat "the way conflict is maaaged-rather than suppressed, ignored, or avoidedcontributes significantly to a company's effectiveness." Mr. Kelly is Chairman of the Management Department, Faculty of Commerce, and Professor of Management at Sir George Williams University, Montreal. His researcb interests are In tbe field of comparative organizational hebavior, and he is currently doing a study on Canadian, American, and British executives.

'ontrary to conventional wisdom, tbe most important single thing about conflict is that it is good for you. While tbis is not a scientific statement of fact, it reflects a basic and unprecedented shift of emphasisa move away from the old human relations point of view wbere all conflict was basically seen as bad. The modern organizational revolution has heen characterized by an acceleration of healthy subversive tendencies which gathered force and speed in tbe 1960's in protest against the brittle iron law of corporate oligarchy; a protest against the presumption that, in organizations, policies and instructions flow down the hierarchy and reports flow up. It is a protest against the cozy paternalistic world of classical management theory wbere top management carries total responsibility. It is a protest exemplified by tbe success of The

Peter Principle ' which was on the best seller lists for many months. It is increasingly a middle-class protest by executives and professionals, and decreasingly a protest from a diminishing shop floor. It is a protest with its own particular diabolism; some of the games played in executive suites make Edward Albee's "Get the Guests" and "Bring up the Baby," as portrayed in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" seem like nursery pastimes. In brief, in our new frontier environment, conflict is the order of the day. The new look is so radical that many top managers wonder just how this change came
.4iit/ior',t note; This article Is adapicd frtmi a chapter on conflict whjtli .ippcars in my book, Organizationti! Itehoviniir (Hotncwdoi!, llliiioi-., Rifltard D. Irwiti. Int., 1969]. 1. Laurence J. I'eter and Raynmnii Hull (New Yotk, William Miirrow & Comjiany, Inc., lyS^].

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about. Not that most knowing managers have not adopted a different posture to conflict management; most have mastered tbe new argot tbat includes such choice phrases as "structure me a meeting," "let's go for confrontation," "they're definitely going to escalate tbis one," "minimize our maximum losses," "let's introduce a little uncertainty into the .situation," and so on. Most experienced executives recognize the script, know tbey have learned new parts, but are curious to discover how it all came about. But tbis is not only intellectual curiosity as to wbat bappened in tbe past; it also conceals a deep and pervasive need to try to guess the practical implications of "conflict nouveau." In this article, I shall argue tbat the old concept or human relations view of conflict fails to acknowledge its importance as a creative force in today's society. What is needed, in my judgment, is a new look or realistic reassessment of conflict tbat, if properly bandied, can make confhct work for you in your role as a business manager.

ment, such as the level of illumination. An entire .school of management grew up around the then advanced notion that if people were well treated, they would produce. Conflict, hy definition, was harmful and should be avoided. Those who generated conflict were troublemakers and were bad for the organization. It is easy to take a somewhat superior if not jaundiced view of buman relations as a management philosophy, but this is to pluck it out of its historical context. In its time, it was quite apposite, essentially part of tbe New Deal of the 1930's. It might be appropriate to regard human relations as the infrastructure cbange in the primary work group to correspond with Roosevelt's, "We bave nothing to fear, but fear itself," which helped to get America's depressionridden economy going again. The philosophy of human relations helped to ease Western society into a post-Marxian era in wbicb tbe robber barons and tbe sweatshop capitalists have all but disappeared. But the old concept of human relations does not fit today's facts. It no longer describes the managerial thinking of those men who run enterprises which are a mixture of public and private investment, and wbo have learned that while they must strive for private profit, they must defer to public welfare. Tbese epoch-making organizational cbanges have come so quickly and pervasively tbat the entrepreneurs who bave managed through the actual phases of human change are somewhat bewildered by it all. In brief, the human relations sebool fails ultimately because it does not have a proper frame of reference; it fails bth to acknowledge the importance of sociological forces and also to recognize the importance of conflict as a creative force in society. In particular, tbe idea that eonflict is always bad warrants closer examination. Perfect organizational health is not freedom from conflict, n the contrary, if properly handled, conflict can lead to more effective and appropriate adjustments.

Realistic reassessment
The emerging new view of conflict, as shown in Exhibit /, reverses many of the cozy nostrums of human relations management, which had its intellectual origins in the famous Hawthorne studies of the 1920's. These studies "proved" tbe tben startling proposition that interpersonal relations counted more for productivity than tbe quality of the physical environExhihit!. Human rehitinns and

models of conflict
01J view
New limk

Conflict is hy definition avoidable. Conflict is caused liy troublemakers, boat rockers, and prima donnas.

Conflict is inevitable. Conflict is determined by structural factors such as the physical shape of a building, the design of a Ciueer structure, or the nature uf a class system. Conflict is integral to the nature of change.

Optimal anxiety
There is a curious link between conflict management and anxiety. At one time, psychologists believed rather naively that anxiety, in any form or level, must by its nature be bad. But studies of both soldiers in combat and patients after surgery strongly suggest that a moderate level of anxiety may be adaptive and facilitate survival.

Legalistic forms of authority such as "soing through channels" or "sticking to the book" are emphasized. Scapegoats are accepted as inevitahle.

A minimal level of conflict is optimal.

Make conflict work

Other researchers reinforce this point by arguing that an environment devoid of novelty can be unbearable to buman subjects. In other words, there seems to be an optimal level of uncertainty for effective functioning. Anxiety {in small quantities) facilitates adjustment; people need some uncertainty. Ethologists like Konrad Lorenz are bringing forward persuasive evidence that controlled aggression has survival value; that although dominance ultimately depends on force, it leads to law and order.- Lorenz has argued that aggression is a function of normal selection and produces an increased expectation of survival; further aggression brings about a dispersal of individuals. Lorenz, who has observed aniin;ils in their natural habitats, believes tbat figbting may generate a stable "pecking order." Much the same discussjon can be repeated about our own society, which is learning to allow dissent but not unlimited dissent. Aggression, apparently an essential characteristic of executives, makes many managers miserahle with guilt. Adopting an "attack ethos" usually stands an executive in good stead, but it is aggression moderated by a need to maintain social acceptability. Conflict management recognizes that executives have aggressions to expend, can withstand a fair amount of anxiety, and welcome uncertainty as an opportunity to restructure their environment. Hence the way conflict is iU[inay,ed rather than suppressed, ignored, or avoided contributes significantly to a company's effectiveness.

the language of game theory, such as zero-sum or mini-max strategy, easy to incorporate into their argot. Other executives blame the cold war and quote Thomas C. Schelling, who has pointed out: "The precarious strategy of cold war and nuclear stalemate has often heen expressed in game-type analogies: two enemies within reach of each other's poison arrows on opposite sides of a canyon, the poison so slow that eitber could shoot the other before he died; a shepherd who has chased a wolf into a corner where it has no choice but to fight, tbe shepherd unwilling to turn his back on the beast; a pursuer armed only with a hand grenade who inadvertently gets too close to his victim and dares not use his weapon; two neighbors, each controlling dynamite in the other's basement, trying to find mutual security through some arrangement of electric switches and detonators." ' A more fundamental reason has been the demise of human relations as a management philosophy and the emergence of the task approach to conflict management where the emphasis has been on developing the optimal organization by considering both the task to be done and the resources available. In the task approach, the exploitation of crisis becomes a major avenue of development. For example: In the Apollo Project, the capsule fire which took the lives of three astronauts was seized as an opportunity to change relations between NASA officials and executives of contracting companies. Wbereas before the fire two parties bad met in a negotiating context, after the fire they got together to solve problems. The result was not only increased efl^eetiveness, but the beginning of a change in the role of the liaison executives; their companies began to question to whom they owed their allegianceNASA or the contractors.

Dissensus e*) consensus

In this section, let us turn our attention to the intellectual origins of this new approach to conflict management. Some executives, perhaps jaundiced by the distressing skill that social psychologists have shown in managing and eventually dissipating conflict in lahoratory situations, have blamed the behavioral scientists. But the more mathematically oriented executive might be tempted to tbink it all began with game theory that refers to a mathematical technique which finds an optimal strategy for a player, taking into consideration all options open to an opponent. Reflection suggests, however, that its mathematical assumptions are too abstruse and abstract to have much organizational relevance. Nevertheless, many executives have found

Crisis: use e? misuse

In the creative use of crisis, the effective executive welcomes uncertainty and plans for its exploitation, if not its creation. An example of tbis is provided by the experience of a British manufacturing company which reacted to the government's introduction of a payroll tax by
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Harvard Business Review: |uIy-August 1970

grasping the chance to reorganize and rationalize its product lines, so that each factory was charged with the making of one component instead of two. What is significant ahout this case is not only that the company subsequently had the tax and a bit more refunded to it, hut also that the chief executive grabbed the chance to make dramatic organizational changes which he had heen mulling over for some time. In other more tranquil circumstances, such changes would have heen subject to considerahle and sustained negotiations both in the front office and in the work councils.

Crentive tension
In the turbulent environment of contemporary husiness suffused with ambiguity, the hardheaded executive with strong nerves and a feel for the moment of drama that a crisis affords has the chance to restructure the organizational scene in a way which at once may well meet his needs for self-fulfillment as well as the interests of the institution. Moreover, the social science "angels" would be on the side of this hardheaded hut imaginative executive. Research evidence suggests that tension needs to be reappraised and that the exploitation of healthy tension can (a) stimulate learning, (b) serve to "internalize" the prohlems of other managers, (c) increase critical vigilance and self-appraisal, and (d) induce decision makers to examine conflicting values more discerningly [including their own] when they are making decisions.' There is also considerahle and growing research evidence from the study of creative tension and scientific performance that research scientists, if they are going to function effectively and achieve excellence, require an intellectual and social environment made up of two sets of apparently inconsistent factors: one .set related to stability, confidence, or security; and the other pertained to an optimal level of disruption, intellectual conflict, or "challenge." To illustrate, the most effective researchers are those who control their product mix of personal interaction in such a. way that they get sufficient critical feedhack from competitive colleagues; they also have a steady supply of "generally supportive" human backup which they can use as a form of "psychic heavy water" to keep the fissions and fusions of intellectual ferment from hecoming critical and detonating.

In brief, at the risk of oversimplification, what the social scientists are saying is that there is an optimal level of anxiety, arousal, and conflict for man to function effectively. Fortunately, this intelligence is coming to husiness leaders at an appropriate moment because, both at home and abroad, conflict is manifesting itself In ways which challenge conventional wisdom in management theory. To make this point of theory meaningful, it is necessary to distinguish hetween structure and process. The structure, in terms of organization shapes, definitions, and roles, we seem to know a lot about; but ahout the process, in terms of what actually happens within or without the structure, we seem to know very little. The student revolution, with its emphasis on confrontation, conflict, and crisis, is hut one vivid example of the organizational process bursting the conventionai structure of bureaucracy.

Or}i,anizationa} attrition
Conflict is endemic, inevitahle, and necessary to organizational life and always involves some testing of the power situation.'' A typical example of organizational conflict is revealed in this case hased on an actual hut disguised corporate situation: D Bill lones, a department manager, was sent to a management course and on his return found that his auxiliary hut highly valued position of assistant general manager was apparently up for grabs. Before his departure, his name had appeared on the organization chart set aside for assistant general manager (see Exhibit //). On his return, he found that a new organization chart had heen issued, hut that this particular hox had been left empty. Jones was thus faced with a dilemma: Had it heen done deliberately? The decision which he had to make at this stage was whether he ought to keep silent and hide his time, or to raise this matter with the general manager, John Fulton, to try to have his name put hack in this hox. As it was, he decided to follow a policy of "wait and see." But when he returned from his annual vacation, he discovered that the name of a rival department manager, Ned Carter, was in the assistant general manager's box. Taken with other signs, Jones realized he was
4, Si'c, for example, David W. EwinR, "Tfii>i(in Can Be an As-.et." HHR SL-pii;nibcf-Oci(ibor 19^4, p. 71. !i. SLC Abraham Zulc^nik, "Power and Politits in Organization.il Life," HBR May-June [!)70, p. 47-

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Maite conflict work

Exhibit U. Typical exampie of organizational attrition

John Fulton Cfneral managez

(Bill lones) A.\sistanl general

Ned Carter Department manazei

Bill Jones
DepiiTtment monaj[.eT

Ned Carter Department manager

Fred Leonard Department manager

George Craig Dtpitrtment nuinager

Bill [ones Department manager

John Fulton General

Ned Carter Assistant manager

Fred Leonard l'>cpiirtment manager

George Dcpurtment manager

Bill lones Department manager

getting the treatment. His hoss was using the technique of "nonlosing hazard" which put lones at a considerable disadvantage, and descrihes a strategy that can produce a win hut not a loss for the general manager. In other words. If lones had reacted to the first move of "leaving the box empty," then the general manager might have acquiesced but accused him of being paranoiae and generally oversensitive. In fact, Fulton continued the squeezing process, circumscribing Jones's role by establishing very close standards of performance for his department and leaving him without much organizational slack. Fulton, in his inspection tours freely criticized the department's performance.

lones experienced a good deal of stress and anxiety, and he had to exercise considerable restraint to ensure that he did not transmit his anxiety to his subordinates, who were already under enough pressure from the more exacting performanee standards required by the general manager. In view of this level of conflict, Jones had understandably begun the search for a more secure niche elsewhere in the corporation.

Dilemma et? defense

The type of organizational conflict we have just seen starts in a very low key. The first move of

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"omitting the name" faces the department manager with alternate choicesneither of which is particularly attractiveto accept or protest. With the latter strategy, it might be possible to go over the general manager's head to the divisional vice president. Most department managers would likely regard this move as a strategy of last resort. If [ones had protested to the general manager, Fulton might well, with bad grace, have acquiesced and allowed the name to be reinserted; or, alternatively, "suggested" a postponement of decision, say, for three months, when a new organization chart would be issued in any case. Once this first strike had been successfully launched, the way was open for the general manager gradually to escalate the conflict. The ensuing anxiety and vagaries of organizational life make it difficult for the target victim to function effectively. In such circumstances, various defensive postures are usually invokedfrom depersonalization ("try to imagine it's happening to somebody else"), adaptive segregation {"keep out of direct contact"!, or rationalization ("man is made to surfer"), to the formation of new coalitions, placatory behavior, and so forth. One of the most depressing features of this type of organizational conflict is the fact that it may well be incomprehensible to non-organizational members, sueh as the wife of the victim, who may well wonder about his anxiety when matters of pay are not involved. But let us look at the problem from the viewpoint of the general manager. The sophisticated manager has a great interest both in breaking traditional modes which are no longer appropriateand which bind the business to conditions no longer existentand also in establishing a new consensus defined by the emerging legitimacy.

Committee consensus
Perhaps the most misunderstood word in executive parlance is "consensus." However, before attempting to define such an elusive yet serviceable concept as consensus, it might be useful to review changes emerging from research on executive meetings. In my opinion, the most brilliant research on what happens in discussion groups was conducted by R.F. Bales, Professor of Social Relations at Harvard, wbo made two extremely telling points one regarding process ("What actually happens

at meetings?") and the other about structure ("Who does what in meetings?").*' Briefly, on the first point, groups work through three phases: clarification ("What is it?"), evaluation ("How do we feel about it?"), and decision ("What are we going to do about it?"). Second, to work through this process, the group selects two people to fill two rolesthe task specialist who talks in terms of, "Let's zero in on the problem," and the human relations specialist who is usually warm and receptive, and acts as a "first-aid" man to help alleviate group tension without diverting it too much from its primary taskThe response of an executive who has done his homework on group dynamics might be that there is nothing excitingly new in all this; it has presumably been going on for some time. But executive meetings have not stood still. A dramatic change in tone and content has become more obvious in the last five years. The signiBeant diiTerenee is the emergence of naked conflict in managerial meetings, conflict which is so common and visible that executives have heen compelled to find both a rationale and a ritual for it. One such ritual is the "Hawks versus Doves syndrome" which gained considerable currency after its creation during the ty62 Cuban missile crisis. One of the most curious conclusions suggested by a careful reading of Robert F. Kennedy's account of this confrontation is that the dialectic of the situation had to be polarized in this way. Thus, even if the Hawks had no( existed, they would have had to be invented (a) to give the Kennedy-McNamara axis an opposition and perspective to test and present their ideas against, and (b) to give President John F. Kennedy an alternative whieh he might need. Sueh are the complexities and complications of the new-style executive meetings. Within the foregoing context, it is possible to define consensus. No longer are chief executives prepared to be guided by simple majorities; nor for that matter are they prepared to wait for unanimity. They shoot for the consensus which implies two conditionsone positive and the other negative. On the positive side, the presumption is that the significant authorities endorse, or at least tolerate, the proposed solution. On the negative side, sufficient feedback is available to indicate that a vociferous minority will not emerge which will make the solution inoperable.
6. Sec "In Conference," HBR Mareh-April 19S4, p. 44.

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Such is the nature of the modern management process; risks are high, stakes are high, and the risks must be syndicated among the executives.

Macdonald: Well, Murray, isn't it valid? You keep coming back to me, then botching it? Mvrray. Sir, could I ask you to cast your mind hack to when you invited me to become your personnel manager. Your very words were, "As general manager, I shall retain the executive function, whether it is programming, technical, or personnel. You are merely the personnel extension of my role." I accepted the job on those terms. With all due respect, in firing me, you are really firing yourself. MacdonaJd: What are you driving at? Murray: I'm merely saying that as the "personnel executive," you are unjustifiably blaming me for living up to your own prescribed terms. Macdonald: Wait a minute. Bill. I'll get the sherry hottle from my liquor cahinet.. . . What is significant about this incident is the exploitation by Bill Murray, the acting personnel manager, and perhaps more important, the general manager's acceptance of a line of argument that ten years ago would have been unthinkable. What I am arguing in more general terms is that conflict is always moral confiict. Where there is a dispute, values, norms, roles, and statuses will be involved. What this means for the hard-pressed executive is that he must dig beneath sueh cliches as, "It's a problem in communication." Searching behind such gadget words for their value orientation makes the latter-day executive a thoughtful man who understands semantics. NcW An excellent test of a graduate business administration student's understanding of the new behavioral approach to management would be to ask that he "reconcile the psychologically distant, task-oriented executive of the 1960's with the human relations directed, democratic manager of the 1940's." It would be impossible for him to respond properly without getting involved in a discussion of the new morality. Traditional morality is dead. It is a victim of the new technology exemplified hy the "pill," organ transplants, instant communication, and zero privaey (generated hy electronic bugging devices). In addition, it is aided and ahetted by

Role interdependence
The principle invoked in this section of the article is one of deadly simplicity, capahle of wide application, but difficult to understand and even more difficult to apply. It is the proposition that in an organization executive action must take cognizance of interdependence of roles. If this statement seems simplistic, invite someone in your peer group to define his role. The answer usually involves a list of functions and decisions emphasizing responsibility to the person's superior. Such a "worm's eye" response reveals an underlying organizational philosophy where the emphasis is on the exclusively vertical dimension of bureaucracy and where a person ean be held "totally responsible" for something. A more intelligent answer, emphasizing the concept of interdependence, would be, "You define your role and then I shall try to define mine." More briefiy a role can only be delineated by defining a set of roles. Consider this illustrative scene: D The time is late Friday afternoon and the locus is the general manager's office of a medium-sized engineering firm which makes components for the aerospace industry. The general manager, G.B. Macdonald, is in the process of firing his personnel manager, Bill Murray. Macdonald: You're all washed up, Murray. You're through. Murray: I'm sorry, but I didn't quite catch that. Mocdonald: Look, I'm telling you that you've done your last job around here. The way you really botched up that negotiation with the shop stewards on the new contract is unforgivable. Besides, I'm sick of the way you keep coming back to me for policy decisions. If I heard you say, "Could I have your policy input?" once more, I'd go right out of my skull. The one-sided tirade continues for some minutes with Murray, his hack to the wall, silently waiting for his chance. Abruptly and unexpectedly, the general manager begins to fumble for feedback.

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a new organizational logic which somehow resolves the dilemma of trying to integrate selffulfillment and loyalty to the traditional institution, whether it be the corporation, the church, or the craek combat unit. The mobicentric manager has considered the permissiveness of Freud, worried with Sartre about the futility of "choosing to act unfree," knows something about game theory, and feels a diminishing loyalty to traditional forms of organization. In his view, "Everything is up for grabs; the next move is yours."

Starting at a lower level, the director decided he was going to transfer the marketing function to the "computer science group." He began his strategic ploy at a private meeting in his office with the department head of the behavioral science group. After some general discussion of the group's performance, the director began his attack on the specific situation. Director: I am going to initiate a major change of policy; in fact, a large reorganization of our existing structure. I am going to move marketing from your behavioral science group. I want this out in the open. I am not going behind your back in this. I want the discussion to be all above board. Department head: I have no strong views on this either way, but I would like to consult with my group. Director: Marketing is not functioning well at the moment because we can't get the people we need who can do forecasting using mathematical models; that type of person would be more at home in the computer science group. Ten days after this meeting, at which no decision had been made, the director launched his second strike at the situation at the weekly meeting of the department heads; he invited the head of the behavioral science group to raise the question of the location of marketing in his department. This the department head did. Opinions among his subordinates had varied, he reported, but the majority had agreed that for political purposes they wished to hang on to marketing. The director made his move. He first asked for the documentation of the decision and then asked for and received permission to attend the next meeting of the department. At that subsequent meeting, the director presented his plans for how the marketing function would have to be developed and challenged the department to reveal its plans (if anyl for marketing. Considerable uncertainty had been aroused that had focused on how the company got research contracts in the first place and, second, on how they were proeessed. But still no agreement was reached to release marketing. The director then decided to change direction. At the next meeting of the department heads, he put forward the proposal that an organizational analyst spend sufficient time with the

A case example
Now let us turn to a case illustration of how confiiet technology can be used as a means of improving corporate effectiveness. This will serve to set up the ground rules for the several roles the executive may have to play in a eonfiict situation: n In the past, an independent social science research institution had achieved considerable success and growth by creating a democratic work atmosphere in which some of the best social scientists in North America had done research, mainly for the government but also for large corporations. All major decisions were agreed on by the heads of the various departments, and this executive consensus was then pumped through a corporate research council which met every month. The director, who was younger than any of his department heads, and who had managed the institution to its present dynamic position by a combination of aggressiveness, political acumen, and administrative know-how rather than research excellence, was dissatisfied with the institution's present performance. He had made up his mind to do something about it, and he planned his moves most carefully. In the evolution of this research institution, three large departments had evolved, each of which was run by a department head who was distinguished in his own field. One of the many anomalies in the institutional structure was that the "behavioral science group" handled marketing projects. The rationale for this was never fully explicated. One view was that when the company got into marketing, much of the work had been eoncerned with exploring consumer attitudes to new products; thus a psychologist had been nominated for this funetion and located in the behavioral science group.

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company to thoroughly assess the entire situation. This was agreed on, and some six weeks later, the analyst came up with this proposition: "The company is a 'gourmet' organization which specializes in finding interesting problems and then solving them. In sueh a context, the conventional form of organization is quite inappropriate and an organic rather than mechanistic model is needed. "In a task-oriented business, R&D can be defined and therefore managed; objectives are specified; programs are produced and policed. Research standards are of necessity less detailed, but botb modern behavioral science investigation and executive experience confirm that so* eial scientists are able and willing to work within such constraints. "The conventional departments should be abolished and the task-force concept usedwith interdisciplinary task groups set up to handle the specific problems which arise; further, these groups should be headed by the person most expert in that prohlem." A special weekend meeting of the corporate research council was called, and over a period of three days the researchers debated their future and presented position papers. The proposal to dissolve the departments and replace them with task forces was regarded as too radical; but it was acceptable that task forces would be created from department members who would still be part of their respective departments for "pay and rations." What does examination of this case tell us about conflict management: The most significant point to emerge is that it is not always necessary to have a clearly stated set of operational objectives in mind before you initiate change. It is necessary, of course, to have a set of criteria to judge the efficiency of the change (e.g., return on investment, share of the market, and so on). The director started from a vague but strong huneh that performance could be improved. Instead of issuing an order to move marketing from the behavioral group to the computing group (which he legitimately could have done), he opted for a more general revision which led to a major change in policythat is, the use of the concept of task forces. This was a concept not imposed by fiat, but one that the whole organization had a chance to look at and debate. In brief, what the director did was to work systematically through a well-conceived plan

for achieving change by initiating confiict. Because he understood the inevitable process of conflict, he was able to maintain a balance between (a) creating uncertainty and maintaining a data base, and (b) getting people to participate and keeping direction.

Ground rules ...

To this point in the discussion, we have heen looking at theories of confiict. Next, let us turn our attention to specific guidelines whieh may help the hard-pressed executive to apply these theories in such a way that confiict can be meaningfully exploited. The important thing is that the objective must be to achieve, at all times, a creative, acceptable, and realistic resolution of confiict. One of the most effective means of formulating ground rules for executive confiict is to consider the three roles which an executive might play in a confiict situation. He can be: (a) the initiator, (b) the defendant, or (c) the conciliator. At one time or another, most executives are called on to play each of these roles.

.. .for the initiator

O Start at a low level and advance on a narrow front on one or two related issues, following a well-documented route. O Maintain second-strike capability. O Pick the terrain wjth care; where and when the ease is heard is vital. O Be prepared to escalate, either to a higher level in the organization or to a meeting of peers. O Make it ohjective, private, and routine; above all, keep it formal. O Search for reaction; remember that you may have to settle for token conformity in the first instance. O Reinforce success and abandon failure.

.. .for the defendant

O Do not overreact; keep your cool; let the initiator state his case; listen carefully and neutrally. 9 Ascertain scale of the strike; try to build a decision tree with "go/no go" decision rules. O Ask for the name of the game (e.g.. Is it a courtroom? If yes, ask for the counsel of the defense).

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O Ask not only for an exact definition of the charge, but also for the evidence with, if possible, identification of the sources. O If it is a "minor crime/' be prepared to plead guilty. O Ascertain the various lines of appeal. O Consider the option "Waiting Brief" and be prepared to reserve your defense; take notes; above all, let the initiator score somewhere and then try for informality.

.. .for the conciliator

O Get the parties of the dispute to realize that conflict is not only universal but a necessary requisite of change. O Break down the attitudinal eonsistency of each disputant (belief that his attitudes do not contain contradictory elements). O After breaking down frozen but antithetical attitudes of the disputants, minimize their individual "loss of face." O Break the conflict into fractional workable components. O Consider common enemy, high interaction, shared subordinate goal strategies. O Remember, nobody loves a go-between.

Conclusion
For the contemporary manager, one of the most exciting organizational developments may well be in the efforts of behavioral scientists to approach conflict as a subject whose structure and process can be properly exploited as a means of promoting effective change. Guided by a realistic model that recognizes the importance of conflict as a creative force, scientists are now searching for hypotheses about conflict to test both in the laboratory and in the executive suite. Even sueh subjects as ethology (the study of animal behavior) have been relevant. The new attitude toward aggression, while admitting that it may be triggered by environmental stimuli, also recognizes its hereditary basis. Further, it is now recognized that men, like all other animals, have some kind of pool of aggression that, when properly mobilized, facilitates the emergence of stable social structures. The works of Konrad Lorenz,' of Robert Ardrey,** and of Desmond Morris" fascinate many managers who recognize the truth of linking conflict and social space and who derive some satisfaction from the proposition that "zoos

drives apes psycho." But these same managers appear to forget that "the corporate zoo drives man anomic." When applied in an organizational context, the social space (i.e., "elbow room") and the territorial imperatives of the ethologists refer not only to physical things but, more importantly, also relate to matters of rules, roles, and relations. An organization consists of a network of roles, structured in a particular way to achieve a particular purpose. What the systems concept of management teaches the contemporary manager is that if one of the interlocking elements in this network is changed, then some or all of the other elements will be affected. Inevitably change will be resisted and conflict generated. The modern theory of eonfliet emphasizes the importance of structural factors in predetermining how conflict will develop; the structure ot an organization is largely determined by how authority and power are distributed. What causes eonflict is the fact that the organization exists in a social environment whieh may be thought of as a turbulent environment. In a state of turbulence, the rate of change in the environment inevitably outstrips the rate of change in the organization, thus leaving the organization in a maladapted state. Change is endemic to any organization due to the fact that the less powerful members in it have a vested interest in recognizing that the organization is a phase behind its environment, while the more powerful members have a vested interest in denying this phase lag. This introduces an element of inevitability into organizational conflict and change. Of course, sometimes the conflict may be the unintended result of poor coordination. In a positive sense, conflict may be deliberately created to compel the organization to define goals, change processes, and reallocate resources. But conflict is only likely to produce constructive change when there is a rough balance of power between the parties of the dispute.

Predictable pattern
Conflict usually follows a particular pattern and is frequently quite predictable. For example, the pattern of wage negotiations is well established, although a change in economic conditions, such
7. On AuRtes.iion. op. eit. 8. Afiican Ci-nexls (New Yiuk, AihL'nk.-iim rulilishcrs. igSi|. 9. The Niike.d Ape |Ncw York, Dell I'uhlishing Company, 1969I.

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as the government's fiscal policy defining its reaction to inflation, can affect the ritual. Most organizations have evolved procedures that deal with such contingencies, but not all. The university administrators in the late 1960's discovered to their horror that they had no procedures for dealing with conflict, and no properly constituted lines of appeal. In fact, even a cursory examination of the student revolution emphasizes that the pattern is predictable: (i) crisis [the establishment commits a "crime"), [i] escalation (occupation of administrative offices), (3) confrontation (showdown with officials), and (4} further crisis (challenging of the legitimacy of the committee appointed to investigate original charge). And when the immediate fight is over, the organization is left to build not only a new hierarchy of an appeals system, but also a new code of ethics. None of these processes will work, however, unless executives fully understand the concept of good faith. Good faith demands that in communication one party does not deliberately control the fiow of information in such a way as to manipulate the interests of the other party. In the new approach to organizational behavior, which is based on information science concepts, authority is defined in terms of three factors:

location, function, and reference. Location refers to a particular node in the matrix of information processes; function describes the requirement the manager has to search, collect, process, and disseminate particular kinds of information; and reference defines the constituency which he represents. To the information scientist, a measure of the amount of information that a message contains is the degree of surprise it induces, but the breach of good faith also produces a surprise. The offended party invariably presumes that he has the necessary information to participate in the exchange. Even the way the information is sequenced may well induce this feeling of bad faith. A great number of managers have experienced this sensation, whieh they usually describe as a manipulation. Knowledge of the management of conflict may give one party in a dispute a significant advantage over his opponent, and his use of such knowledge may in itself be seen as an act of bad faith. Thus the need for more managers to familiarize themselves with the structures and processes of conflict becomes more pressing. How to make conflict work for you is going to be an increasingly crucial management issue in our rapidly changing industrial society.

"In the modern social order, the person is sacrificed to the individua!. The individual is given universal suffrage, equality of rights, freedom of opinion; while the person, isolated, naked, with no social armor to sustain and protect him, is left to the mercy of all the devouring forces which threaten the life of the soul, exposed to relentless actions and reactions of conflicting interests and appetites It is a homicidal civilization." Jacques Maritain, 1882Tbrec Reformers

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