Weiss Jeff, Hughes Jonathan
Vantage Partners, Boston, USA.
Harv Bus Rev. 2005 Mar;83(3):92-101, 149.
Companies try all kinds of ways to improve collaboration among different parts of the organization: cross-unit incentive systems, organizational restructuring, teamwork training. While these initiatives produce occasional success stories, most have only limited impact in dismantling organizational silos and fostering collaboration. The problem? Most companies focus on the symptoms ("Sales and delivery do not work together as closely as they should") rather than on the root cause of failures in cooperation: conflict. The fact is, you can't improve collaboration until you've addressed the issue of conflict. The authors offer six strategies for effectively managing conflict: Devise and implement a common method for resolving conflict. Provide people with criteria for making trade-offs. Use the escalation of conflict as an opportunity for coaching. Establish and enforce a requirement of joint escalation. Ensure that managers resolve escalated conflicts directly with their counterparts. Make the process for escalated conflict-resolution transparent. The first three strategies focus on the point of conflict; the second three focus on escalation of conflict up the management chain. Together they constitute a framework for effectively managing discord, one that integrates conflict resolution into day-to-day decision-making processes, thereby removing a barrier to cross-organizational collaboration.
跨部门激励系统、组织架构重组、团队合作培训。虽然这些举措偶尔会带来成功案例，但大多数在打破组织壁垒和促进协作方面的影响有限。问题出在哪里？大多数公司关注的是症状（“销售和交付部门的合作没有达到应有的紧密程度”），而不是合作失败的根本原因：冲突。事实上，在解决冲突问题之前，无法改善协作。作者提供了六种有效管理冲突的策略：设计并实施一种解决冲突的通用方法。为人们提供进行权衡的标准。将冲突升级视为指导的机会。建立并执行联合升级的要求。确保经理们直接与对方解决升级后的冲突。使升级后的冲突解决过程透明化。前三种策略关注冲突点；后三种策略关注冲突在管理链中的升级。它们共同构成了一个有效管理分歧的框架，将冲突解决融入日常决策过程，从而消除跨组织协作的障碍。
