The Right Fight

At a time when unity is presented as the Holy Grail of corporate success, this book supports an unusual hypothesis, namely, “Long live conflict!” - or more precisely, certain types of conflict that can potentially create value for the company by encouraging those concerned to discuss their respective ideas and build solutions they would not have devised on their own.

These constructive conflicts do not occur spontaneously, underline the authors, because they have little to do with the unproductive rivalry that disturbs the day-to-day existence of companies. When managed carefully by adept leaders who know how to make opportune tradeoffs and decisions, conflicts can be real management tools. For this to happen, however, the right battles must be identified, the participants placed into an optimal setting and the confrontation organized to avoid the outbreak of war, despite the inevitable violence involved in this type of “sport” (a word the authors prefer, as opposed to the “wars” generated by unmanaged conflict). A specific chapter is dedicated to each of these topics, illustrated by numerous examples such as that of Campbell’s Soup and Dove.

Can every manager really afford to organize this type of confrontation within their teams? Maybe not. But by virtue of its capacity to advance ideas that run counter to traditional assumptions and to underline the positive potential of a phenomenon generally perceived to be destructive, this book offers interesting ideas for those who must deal with discord—and that’s a lot of people!