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Tsugitoshi, Tug-of-war between monkeys and farmer with his son, late 19th century,Minneapolis Institute of Art, 96.147.59, Gift of Leo A. and Doris Hodroff. |
Context
At
the American Alliance of
Museums annual meeting in May 2019, I was honored to take part in a panel with
colleagues Kristin Prestegaard, Katie Ross, and Bryon Thornburgh. We titled our session “Museum Marketing and
Technology: The Power Partnership”. Together, we riffed on how a
partnership between marketing and technology empowers both to work together for
the sustained success of the entire organization, especially when driven by a
shared vision that includes ongoing and dynamic collaboration. We had fun, and
I think we ended up learning a lot from each other while providing some
interesting and provocative content for the attendees. One topic that came up
was dynamic tension, as applied to workplace culture. In following up,
I’m going to explore the concept of dynamic tension as a potential contributor
to organizational chemistry and overall success. But I’m getting ahead of
myself. Let’s set a little more context.
Our sector,
like many others, is situated within the knowledge economy. The nature of our work is
not only information-based, but also consistently nonlinear, only partially
predictable, networked, interdependent, and usually collaborative - it takes
teamwork to succeed. These are some of the characteristics of a complex adaptive system. In a complex adaptive
system, there are agents - individual units, in our case people - that are
connected through ongoing cooperative interactions determined by common goals
or needs. I’m not going to try to flesh out the full picture of complex
adaptive systems or that idea’s origins in complexity science - besides, I’m nowhere near
qualified to do so. I recommend that you dig into these topics though, they are
fascinating. A good place to begin is Uhl-Bien et. al (2007) - note that
references are listed at the end of this post. What I will explore here
is the nature of people working closely together, the inevitable tensions that
occur under those conditions, and how leaders can cultivate a positive
dynamic tension mindset that circumvents workplace conflict and contributes
to success.
A
productive business in the knowledge economy is dependent upon information as a
core commodity - that information could be data, or it could be stories &
content, and in order to thrive our organizations depend on the creation of
that knowledge and its role in finding paths to innovation. This stands in
stark contrast to the top-down and bureaucratic business
model
of organizations in the past, which focused on repeatable procedures and
controlled efficiency, and worked fairly well when applied to physical
production. Many authors have written about this difference and the need to
re-imagine leadership in the knowledge economy, arguing that the older model
that focused on control and risk-aversion can be maladaptive and even
potentially destructive for organizations today (e.g., Drucker, 1998; Manville
& Ober, 2003; Whitehurst, 2015). One big question results: how can we
actually lead a complex adaptive system, when we are facing unpredictable
challenges, uncertain competitive landscapes, and ever-evolving interpersonal
work relationships?
Enter
Complexity Leadership
Theory
- a “model of leadership grounded not in bureaucracy, but in complexity”.
Furthermore, “... the premise of complexity leadership is simple: Under
conditions of knowledge production, managers should enable, rather than suppress or align, informal network dynamics”
(Uhl-Bien et. al, 2007) - once again I encourage you to consult the source
material, as I am only able to offer a surface summary of the concepts. As it
applies to the issue of dynamic tension in the workplace, I’m struck by a
phrase found in the very same paper, in which leadership is best when it “ …
fosters complex networks by (1) fostering interaction, (2) fostering
interdependency, and (3) injecting
adaptive tension to help motivate and coordinate the interactive dynamic”
[emphasis is mine]. As you can see, in order to maximize the effectiveness of a
knowledge-based working culture, a leader not only must support the inherent
networks and connections, but in fact must nurture an environment in which tension is allowed to occur. But haven’t we
all be taught that tension is a bad thing?
Challenge: Tension and disagreement
Inevitably,
smart people with different skill sets and job roles who work together in
dynamic collaboration are going to
disagree, whether it happens sooner or later.
How
do we approach that, both as leaders and as participants?
Framing disagreement in the
workplace: Two mindsets
Let’s
look at two possible mindsets to understanding and utilizing dynamic tension in
the workplace.
In
the first mindset, disagreements are seen as natural phenomena. They should
occur. Debate is interesting, and disagreements can lead to creative and
innovative solutions. This represents a positive dynamic tension mindset.
For
example, Jim Whitehurst (2015) has noted “The best ideas happen when teams hash
things out … I love working, debating, and sometimes arguing with people to
solve hard, complex issues”
In
an alternative point of view, and the one that many of us have been raised to
adopt, disagreement is seen as an attack on one’s integrity. In other words,
when someone disagrees with me, it’s personal and aggressive. I feel defensive,
angry, spiteful, and I suspect that there is a subtext or hidden agenda at
work. Perhaps they are trying to make me look bad, or they believe that winning
is the only thing. I firmly believe that I can’t back down or show any
weakness, or I’ll get bulldozed. This describes a conflict mindset.
Origins of each mindset
A positive
dynamic tension mindset is born of mutual respect, shared goals, a
commitment to collaboration, and empathy. It also acknowledges the old adage
that two heads are better than one - so active participation by both “heads”
should inevitably lead to better outcomes.
A conflict
mindset is born of mutual distrust, ongoing territorial battles, power
politics, information hoarding, and simmering resentment over time. A conflict
mindset is a defensive mindset, and it colors one’s perceptions of every
workplace interaction so that one tends to see others as adversaries who are
likely to do harm.
Risk is present in both mindsets
I’m
sure it is not difficult to ascertain that I am an advocate for the positive
dynamic tension mindset, but I’m not so naive as to think that the adoption of
this mindset simply results in endless rainbows and unicorns. Even in an organization or
group that has a strong commitment to a positive dynamic tension mindset,
it is possible for disagreements to boil over into conflict - we are all human
after all, which means anyone of us at any given time is prone to
irrationality, emotionality, stoking up drama, and taking things personally.
Leadership is vital to ensure that this risk is minimized, more on that below.
In
an organization or group that holds a conflict mindset, most if not all
disagreements are taken personally, so that those disagreements produce hurt
and spite. This conflict-framed experience leads to staff dissatisfaction and
serves to undermine the business itself. In turn, that creates at least two
negative outcomes: (1) staff attrition - the highly-skilled folks feel the
stress and simply seek employment elsewhere, or (2) entrenched staff - who
either engage in active combat or shrink in depressed despair - but in either
case they are not contributing much of anything to the success of the
organization. This demonstrates the destructive power of a conflict mindset.
The role of Leadership
Leaders
who cultivate and practice a positive dynamic tension mindset will
maximize success when they:
● Help to ensure that goals and
outcomes are crystal clear and agreed upon. They will repeat the vision and
objectives of any initiative as often as necessary to ensure that all
collaborating staff are aligned and committed to the effort.
● Consistently encourage an
open discussion and show sincere appreciation for alternative points of view.
● Guide discussions as needed -
play the role of a confident moderator/facilitator, this will help nip any
potential conflict in the bud.
● Demonstrate the value of
dynamic tension in their own working style, by accepting input and criticism,
showing openness to others’ perspectives, encouraging everyone in the
organization - regardless of job title or seniority - to weigh in, make
suggestions, share pain points, etc. In addition - and perhaps most-importantly
- demonstrate the changes that they are going to make based on the feedback
they’ve received.
On
the other hand, there are leaders who have - whether intentionally or not -
cultivated a workplace that is operating with a conflict mindset. From
my perspective, such leaders have missed the mark on how a current day
workplace needs to function. In such a workplace, we will see the leaders
demonstrate the following behaviors consistently:
● Creating and perpetuating
conflicting goals across the organization - this fosters a kind of internal
competition for resources, recognition, and power.
● Fostering silos - separating
business units both physically and functionally, and often showing favoritism
for certain units over others.
● Defensiveness - this can be
personal (“I can’t be the problem here, so it must by you”) or territorial (“My
team is doing fine, it’s that other department that is the real problem”).
● Dismissing internal
communication and collaboration as wastes of time.
● Hoarding knowledge and power
- creating a permission-based workplace, with little transparency across any
job functions and little to no overlap in institutional knowledge (“Only
Mildred can approve that, you’ll have to wait for her to return to the office
next week”, or “Only Frank knows how to fix that, so don’t call me again”).
● Treating colleagues
disrespectfully or dismissively, especially demonstrated by higher-ranking
positions behavior toward lower-ranking staff.
Okay,
let’s not end on a negative note.
How this works: An example of
positive dynamic tension at work
I’m
going to circle back to that session I referenced at the very beginning.
Specifically, Kristing Prestegaard and I described a situation at Minneapolis Institute of Art where we work. At the risk
of over-simplication, it goes something like this: we deliver the best possible
online experience when our designers disagree with our software developers. You
might say, “Wait, what? You can’t have staff disagreeing! Sounds like a real
mess”. Nope. Not if you make sure that you are deploying a strong positive dynamic
tension mindset. When you use that state of mind as the overall framework,
you see the situation more like this:
● We have skilled designers.
Their vision is strong, on-brand, elegant and impressive. They know it, and
they should push to have their designs put into production on the website.
● We also have skilled software
developers. Their vision for an effective and efficient website is strong. They
ensure that style guides are followed, and the website runs smoothly using
industry-standard technologies that are easier to upgrade and allow us to hire
more readily because the skill sets needed are relatively common. They also
innovate and iterate as they go, keeping the technology up-to-date. They should
push hard to have their skills and knowledge drive decision-making.
● Disagreements between the two
areas are naturally going to occur. Designers want perfection and elegance,
software developers want effective code and sustainable product. Some designs
are really hard to code, will take a long time to develop, and will be very
difficult to maintain over time. There should be a healthy and ongoing debate,
with designer pushing developers on look and feel, and with developers pushing
designers on functionality, responsiveness, accessibility, and ease of use.
● That disagreement is NOT a
tug-of-war, with one side eventually relenting and thus losing. Instead, each
disagreement is an opportunity for the two areas to land upon innovative
solutions that might never have been found if not for the debate.
● Leaders of both areas tend to
the disagreements to ensure that team members are not personalizing or
attacking, but are instead actively listening and working together on solutions
- and never “keeping score”.
● When it’s working well, you
end up with successes in both areas, but more importantly: delighted customers.
The Lesson
Don’t
fear or avoid disagreement in the workplace, it’s actually an effective tool to
drive both efficiency and innovation within any organization, if
you have the right mindset. But like everything else that matters, you
need to tend to it and nurture it properly in order for it to remain healthy
and vital.
References
Drucker,
P.F., (1998) “Management’s new paradigms” (cover story), Forbes 162 (7), pp.
152–170.
Manville,
B., & Ober, J., (2003), “Beyond empowerment: Building a company of
citizens”, Harvard Business Review (Jan.), pp. 48–53.
Uhl-Bien,
M., Marion, R., and McKelvey, B., (2007), "Complexity Leadership Theory:
Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era".
Leadership Institute Faculty Publications. 18. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/leadershipfacpub/18
Whitehurst,
J., (2015), “The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance”. Harvard
Business Review Press.
This post also appears on LinkedIn.
