When Goliaths Clash: Managing Executive Conflict to Build a More Dynamic Organization.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief Article - Book Review

By Howard M. Guttman. Amacom, 250 pages. $27.95.

It's hard to argue that conflict is at the root of many organizational problems, and that employees, and managers, generally resist confrontation. But author Howard Guttman believes that unless conflict can be addressed clearly and forthrightly, and action plans created to work through it, little that is productive can happen.

He writes about the four stages of team development, from stage one (testing), in which team members maintain a facade and deny conflict; stage two (infighting), where issues are personalized and tensions escalate; stage 3, (getting organized), where roles and goals are discussed, procedures created and issues, not people, get confronted; and stage four (high performance), where there are clear team goals and responsibilities, team decision-making, an esprit de corps and...