When Goliaths Clash: Book Highlights
E-Conflict: The New Battleground E-mail as a Lethal Weapon.
E-mail has eight characteristics that sow the seeds of conflict and discourage people from dealing with it in a healthy, open manner. Let's examine one of these characteristics.
E-mail encourages disengagement. We know that most people shy away from confrontation. E-mail gives them a perfect out. Lois Huggins, vice president of organization development and diversity for Sara Lee Corporation, explains why this is so:
Conflict makes people feel so uncomfortable generally, and sending e-mails back and forth doesn't feel like engaging. If a conflict-averse person knows there is going to be an issue, using e-mail feels a lot easier than having to sit down and engage in a conflict because e-mail is a one-way tool. You don't have to listen to the response. Also, it's a lot harder to look a person the eye and say what's on your mind. There are a lot of physiological responses that occur in a face-to-face interaction. You might begin to perspire; you might blush; your facial expression might give away how you feel; your heartbeat might go up; your pulse rate might increase. Many of these reactions can be seen by others, and a lot of people don't want to be that vulnerable.E-mail lends itself to dealing in data points and deadlines, and it provides an easy escape for those unwilling to penetrate the emotional subtext of an issue. The art of face-to-face communication - and it is an art - takes a back seat to the terse presentation of bare facts, leaving recipients of e-mail messages feeling as though they are merely being given marching orders or are being manipulated, rather than receiving helpful suggestions or critiques. This is especially true when the sender is the person's immediate supervisor.
In one such case, the vice president for Southeast Asian operations of a midsize manufacturing organization sent an e-mail message to one of his employees in Thailand. The e-mail expressed disappointment in the results of an advertising campaign that the Thai manager had launched and suggested that an analysis be conducted to determine the cause of the failure. The Thai manager's response was tinged with sarcasm. It suggested, in effect, that before pointing an accusing finger elsewhere, the vice president should conduct a similar analysis in his own backyard, Singapore, where the campaign had been even less successful.
The vice president's e-mail reply was polite and noncommittal: "Thank you for your reply." The company paid a price for this disengagement. It never did discover why the advertising campaign went awry, nor was an examination ever conducted of the emotional dissonance that lay below the surface of the Thai manager's response.
We know an executive who rides the wings of e-mail detachment to an extreme. In his attempt to dodge engagement, he responds to e-mail messages in a "you said/my response" format. The "you said" refrain merely restates the sender's message, while the "my response" offers a literal reply, usually in bulleted format. Although this executive gets points for seeking clarity and precision, his colleagues bristle at the robotic-like responses they receive from him.
The other seven characteristics of e-mail discussed at length in When Goliaths Clash include:
- E-mail enables people to avoid accountability
- E-mail encourages subterfuge.
- E-mail fosters electronic triangulation.
- Electronic communication popularizes a new sport: tag-team e-mail.
- E-mail engenders bravado.
- E-mails cannot be taken back.
- E-mail neutralizes key conflict-management tools and technologies.
- Testing Your Conflict-Management I.Q.
- It's About Strategy, Stupid.
- The Dysfunctional Vs. High-Performance Teams: Study in Contrasts.
- Becoming a High Performance Organization.
- Using Conflict Management Skills
- E-Conflict: The New Battleground
- Conflict Management as a Leadership Sport