EXALTING FREEDOM
THROUGH ETHICAL CAPITALISM
SUSTAINOVATION By Jeff Piersall and Eric Wright
How Constructive Conflict Stirs Innovation Jeff Piersall
Eric Wright
52 | APRIL 2019 | i4Biz.com
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Door #1, #2 or #3
The song was the first major hit, if you could call it that, by two brothers, Robert and Richard Sherman. They would go on to have Robert craft the lyrics and Richard compose the music for such musical film classics as Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and many others.
To have innovative teamwork, you must have what could only be described as “constructive conflict,” not some vanilla mix of personalities. A constructive conflict approach doesn’t allow discussions to become personal. Everything is on the table, with everyone participating, without a prescribed outcome. Aristotle described this quality as an “educated mind,” saying, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Interestingly, the brothers couldn’t have been more different. Robert was described as having the “slow precision of a brooding poet,” while his brother spontaneously combusted his buoyant melodies. Eventually the clash between the two personalities ended the collaboration.
The alternative is a conflict avoidance strategy, where candor is discouraged, because certain people may get offended. Then you have, as one writer put it, “the meeting before the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, but no meeting at the meeting.”
This same tension existed between one of the most famous and playful NBA big men, Shaquille O’Neal, and the fast, yet cerebral Kobe Bryant. It took the coaching genius of Phil Jackson to blend their skills and their personalities into
The other equally pointless approach is “destructive conflict.” We have all been there, where everything is personal and emotional. Instead of listening, the goal is to win the point or bully others into reluctant agreement.
f you visited a Disney park as a child or took your younger children or grandchildren there, you have probably experienced the It’s a Small World attraction. At one time there was a version of the animatronic ride at every Disney park in the world. The famous song, by the same title, is said to have been played over 50 million times, beating out any single from Bruno Mars to the Beatles.
three championships (adding to the five Jackson won in Chicago).
