Some internal conflict is good.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: Marketing Solutions

When it comes to organization conflict and differences, there are just two problems: too much and not enough. We all seem pretty well versed on the challenge of "too much." The bruises and scars that come from boneheaded conflict have resulted in more blunders than we care to recount. The folks down the hall won't talk with the folks in the field, or the folks up the hall wont share information with folks down the hall because they disagree so heartily on ... (please just fill in the blank here--so many examples, so little space). Can't we just all get along?

Isn't it interesting how unresolved or poorly managed conflict drains energy and creates fatigue. We get worn out just dealing with the drama of parties that don't get along. And yet sameness and blandness lead to a different low-energy condition--boredom. Ironically, many of us pay significant time and money to be spectators to scheduled, organized conflicts. March Madness, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, currently in process is a good example. Sixty-four teams wage a massive set of conflicts and struggles to determine who wins. Millions of people will be engaged via television, Internet, office pools and water cooler discussions over these conflicts. Most great art--theater, movies, fiction, painting, music--have conflicts that capture our attention. Whether it is the Phantom and Raul's conflict over Christi in Phantom of the Opera or the conflict that ensues in the Final Four--we do dearly love a good conflict and we are disappointed when we pay good money to see a conflict not sufficiently competitive--one dominates the other, thus ending the "conflict" too early.

Yet as dysfunctional as unresolved or poorly managed conflict can be, there are in many organizations an even larger problem: the absence of conflict. Especially as organizations grow larger and more mature, they become very adept at establishing a level of control that precludes and suppresses conflict. A certain feigned or real homogeneity grows like a bad fungus. In the short run, this absence of differences and conflict eases the toll on management. On the surface, like the Stepford wives, this synthetic tranquility can look very attractive.

However, what the research seems to be indicating is that when real differences are weeded out of the organization, something rather perverse happens. It is less vibrant and alive. A Danish colleague of mine used to tell of Nordic fishermen who needed to keep the flounder catch...