How Did Workplace Confrontation Get Such a Bad Rap?

confront: vt 1. To face, especially in challenge. 2. to cause to meet, bring face-to-face.

Somewhere along the line, it was decided that teams should necessarily get along if they are to be productive. Around this time, it must have also been decided that the word confrontation should therefore be a pejorative.

Indeed, if you do a quick search on confrontation and workplace, you will find myriad pages counseling you on how to avoid confrontation in the workplace. Tips include being consistent and predictable when dealing with employees, conducting team building exercises, or avoiding people with whom you clash. But does this kind of predictable workplace seem like the environment that would produce different thinking and innovation?

In fact, if you ask any given team where they fall short, straightforward and effective communication is near the top of the list. In fact, a recent Harris Interactive poll shows that 18 percent of teams say their leadership didn't deal effectively with conflict, and the top complaint named in the survey, by 37 percent of respondents, was that other team members weren't accepting of new ideas, opinions or solutions. Also, a full 14 percent of teams complain that they don't have enough face-to-face interaction. When this is the predictable norm in so many workplaces, why shouldn't we steer the ship into more unpredictable waters?

Several management experts have published papers and books on how confrontation can be a boon to effective collaboration and innovation. These publications sell precisely because the idea seems counterintuitive. But if so many teams have problems with too few face-to-face interactions and too many viewpoints overlooked, shouldn't the definition of confront shown above directly address this problem?

One of the most well-read books on the subject, titled Constructive Confrontation, comes from management experts Roger diSilvestro and Dr. John Hoover. The authors have a website of the same name, where you can find a helpful and entertaining article called "The Top 10 Myths about Workplace Confrontation." Also, top management minds Rick Delbridge, Lynda Gratton and Gerry Johnson tackle the issue of workplace conflict in their book The Exceptional Manager, which is browseable here. Why not give these a quick read and use them as the spoon with which you begin stir the pot in your office?