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Executive Interviews: Interview with Jonathan Hughes on Collaboration
March 2008
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By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
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You have observed, "clashes between
parties are the crucibles in
which creative solutions are developed
and wise trade-offs among
competing objectives are made. So
instead of trying simply to reduce
disagreements, senior executives
need to embrace conflict and, just as
important, institutionalize mechanisms
for managing it." What is the
role of conflict in making collaboration
efforts successful?
Fundamentally, collaboration is the
process by which two or more parties,
whether colleagues within a
company, a customer and a supplier,
or partners in a joint venture, come
together and achieve results that
would be difficult, if not impossible,
to achieve on their own.
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Inevitably,
the value that is created through collaboration
is a function of the fact that
the parties involved have different
knowledge, different skills, different
ideas, and often different needs as
well. Without such differences, there
is notmuch benefit to collaboration in
the first place. So the value of collaboration
stands or falls on whether or
not parties can engage their differences
constructively. This means being
willing to disagree and able to
learn from disagreement and use
those new insights to come up with
creative, innovate solutions. -
What are the potential areas of
conflict in any collaboration initiative?
Where do disagreements stem
from? From your research have you
observed any specific patterns may
be to do with age of executives, nationality
of executives, specific industry,
depth of talent pool in any company,
sharing of corporate vision,
etc?
As I've noted, any differences in national
culture, between large and
small companies, between engineers
and salespeople, between customers
and suppliers, and so on create, on
the one hand, the potential for learning
and innovation. At the same
time, those very same differences create
the potential for misunderstanding,
conflict which may be poorly
handled and lead to mistrust, and ultimately
an inability to work together. A basic framework for spotting
and analyzing conflict in a collaborative
initiative is to determine whether
those involved are in conflict over
goals, or inmeans for achieving goals,
or whether conflict is a function of interpersonal
issues for example, as a
result of one or more parties feeling
mistreated or disrespected by others.
More often than not, significant conflicts
involve all three of these dimensions,
and effective resolution requires
clarifying and understanding
what is driving conflict along each dimension, and addressing each of
those root causes. -
What are the differences between
strategies for managing disagreements
at the point of conflict and
strategies for managing conflict upon
escalation up the management
chain? Are there any, according to
you, untouchables in the sense, in
any disagreement management strategy,
are there any sacrosanct principles
in managing disagreements?
On the one hand, I would say that
effective collaboration depends upon
a willingness and ability to engage in
disagreement about anything. That
said, at some point, decisions need to
be made and executed. So, within
teams, or between corporate partners,
my basic advice is: create space for
disagreement, have open debate, and
then make the best choice you can
based on a full airing of the information
and ideas of all those involved.
Once that decision is made, part of
collaboration means that everyone
lines up behind the decision, even if
they would have preferred a different
outcome, and does their best to
implement it successfully. Now, if
circumstances change, or new information
comes to light, it may indeed
be appropriate and useful to reconsider
the decision. As to sacrosanct
principles, I would say "Disagree, but
without being disagreeable" a concept
articulated by my partner Bruce
Patton and his co-authors in Getting
to Yes. Thismeans being able to argue,
passionately but respectfully, and
without attacking the integrity, competence,
or fundamental worth of
those with whom you disagree. It requires
having confidence that your
own ideas have merits and are worth
advancing, while being both humble
and self-confident enough to realize
you could be missing something, and
that the ideas of those with whom
you disagree likely have some merit
as well.
1.
From Competition to Collaboration Case Study
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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