tribute to those who cared enough to confront them.
Sometimes controversial and always irreverent organizational
leadership author, lecturer, and consultant, John Hoover, PhD (How to
Work for an Idiot, Career Press 2003 & Unleashing Leadership, Career
Press 2005), has teamed up with Athlon Sports Publishing CEO, Roger
DiSilvestro, a 30-year veteran of the corporate battlefield and leading
expert in process leadership, to issue the toughest in your face
challenge to executives in years:
“Do you have what it takes to hold people accountable
for the performance they’re paid to deliver?”
If they’re not held accountable Hoover and DiSilvestro say that
leadership is failing every member of the team and the organizational
mothership that takes care of everyone. The good news is that courage
has nothing to do with it. “People cower at the thought of
confrontation,” Hoover says, “because they believe effective leaders
must be strong like bulls and as courageous as lions.” The notion that
effective leadership requires unbridled boldness is the first of many
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myths Hoover and DiSilvestro explode in their new book, The Art of
Constructive Confrontation: How to Increase Accountability and
Decrease Conflict (John Wiley and Sons 2005).
According to DiSilvestro and Hoover, most supervisors, managers, and
executives have been instructed or taught by example that chewing out
a subordinate after a missed deadline or failed project is an act of
courage. The authors say not. “Chewing people out is an act of
cowardice,” DiSilvestro explains. “It means that the supervisor,
manager, or executive is afraid to accept responsibility for not
effectively confronting issues and team members early and often
enough to have positively affected the outcome.”
“People might comply with policy and/or step up production for fear of
their livelihoods,” adds Hoover. “But the increases will be temporary
and the cost and consequences of forcing compliance with threats and
intimidation increase with each negative experience.”
Although using confrontation as a constructive building block in
workplace accountability and performance doesn’t require the courage
of a lion, holding people accountable for what they are paid to do and
decreasing conflict in the process does require the resolve to faithfully
follow a specific procedure such as the “circle of confrontation” the
authors outline in their book. “Acts that appear to be courageous might
be theatrical,” says Hoover, “and may appear to save the day in
dramatic moments. But, the success of an enterprise and the internal
and external people the enterprise serves is measured in performance
over time. For that, consistent process trumps drama.”
In addition to resolve, the consistent process that is constructive
confrontation also requires surrender to systematic behaviors that
bring about successful outcomes. It’s not about beating direct reports
into submission to the leader’s will, regardless of how vaguely he or she
expresses his or her will. It’s about securing commitment to the entire
circle of confrontation.
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Confrontation’s Bad Reputation
Calling confrontation, “the weakest link in executive leadership,” the
authors explain that confrontation is not synonymous with conflict,
although it is frequently mistaken for the tantrums of supervisors,
managers, and executives who reach the end of their ropes and blow up
at those around or below them on the organizational food
chain—pointing fingers, making accusations, and assigning blame. In
stark contrast to this pejorative definition of confrontation,
constructive confrontation is the intentional, deliberate, and systematic
use of confrontation as:
A facilitated dialogue that establishes a specific course
A guidance system to maintain that course
A monitoring method to make course corrections as necessary
The notion that confrontation can be constructive is news to many
leaders and their direct reports who, based on extensive experience,
equate confrontation with conflict. According to DiSilvestro and
Hoover, conflict is confused with confrontation when the latter is used
reactively instead of proactively to assign guilt rather than to recognize
and reward responsibility. When expectations are made clear and
continuously reinforced, people are more likely to stay on task.
Correspondingly, confusion and ambiguity become less likely to
contaminate team leader/team member relationships.
Action is the Key
DiSilvestro and Hoover insist that the pro-active, constructive approach
to confrontation they teach prevents the aforementioned tantrums
from ever happening in the first place by exposing and eliminating the
assumptions and ambiguities that act like landmines hidden beneath
the workplace landscape. The “weakest link” accusation further
exposes confrontation for what it is; a misunderstood and thereby
mostly ignored business concept that is not studied or properly taught
in business school curriculums or management seminars.
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The authors operate under the premise that action accomplishes more
than thinking alone. The circle of confrontation (or cycle of success as
the authors sometimes refer to it) is anchored in the fact that the right
actions drive right thinking, not the other way around. “Constructive
confrontation is an easy-to-follow, three-step cycle that takes the
guesswork out of leadership,” DiSilvestro contends, “and it’s all based
on action.”
Dr. Hoover cites experience dating back to Deming proving that
consistently doing the right things improves personal productivity,
organizational performance, and produces positive attitudes more than
sitting in the Yoga position and contemplating positive thoughts. “Just
thinking positively,” he laments, “won’t make things happen. In most
organizations, leadership success is measured in the ability to get
results.” Like the old saying goes, there’s a big difference between just
doing things and getting things done.
Confront or Suffer the Consequences
The case the authors make for constructive confrontation as an
intentional and deliberate leadership technique is partially based on
the inevitability of some kind of confrontation. Leaders will either
constructively confront their people about expectations at the
beginning of and throughout a project or they’ll be compelled to
confront them in a negative manner later when expectations are not
met. Like fire and water, which can save life or kill, confrontation will
improve morale and organizational performance or drive both into the
ground—depending on how it is applied. Applying confrontation
constructively is a willful act.
The lack of attention paid to confrontation during conventional
leadership development is surprising given that avoiding confrontation
inevitably leads to conflict that is manifest as outward hostility or
repressed-but-deadly resentment—neither one of which are healthy
for the people who build businesses or those whose quality of life
depends upon healthy providers of goods and services.
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DiSilvestro and Hoover’s constructive confrontation is a structured,
systematic approach that they claim decreases conflict and increases
accountability by connecting the dots between what people want and
what organizations need. They call it, “emotional purpose.”
Constructive confrontation is an example of displacement theory at
work. It reduces conflict in the same way it increases accountability
through clear and well-articulated expectations, follow-up, and
recognition. These qualities force the alternatives—confused and
ambiguous expectations, lack of follow up, and unrecognized
accomplishments—out of the organization along with their negative
consequences.
Circle of Confrontation
The circle of confrontation continuous cycle begins with a conversation
between a team leader and team member that leads to a mutual
commitment, including a written covenant. The covenant is then
constructively confronted on a predetermined, regular basis, in a
specific manner as agreed to in the commitment stage. The third stage
of the circle of confrontation is celebration. Everything positive that
happens is celebrated, from a mere thumbs up for compliance with the
plan to a vacation in the Bahamas as reward for executing a wildly
successful (and profitable) project. Celebration, like commitment and
confrontation, needs to be appropriate to the accomplishment. Because
expectations need to be developed realistically and kept realistic,
because conversation needs to be continuous, and confrontation needs
to be consistent and constructive…the circle of confrontation never
ends.
Constructive confrontation, as the cornerstone of a leadership system,
is an individual and organizational guidance system. Without it, proper
course corrections will be coincidental at best. Together with
commitment and celebration, constructive confrontation is a
premeditated, methodical, and systematic approach to leveling the
leadership playing field.
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Constructive confrontation could be called leadership engineering. It’s a
process that can be easily learned and applied across the organization.
When targets are not hit and goals are not reached, the leader and the
team member suffer, although not necessarily in that order.
Constructive confrontation is a well-engineered process that breaks
down what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and how often it
needs to be done in order to produce higher-profile results.
Commitment
The Conversation
Leadership is a two-way street. Long gone are the days when leaders
could merely invoke their institutional authority to command
obedience out of their direct reports. Compliance can be commanded
through intimidation, threats, and bribery. But the compliance only
lasts as long as the last threat or bribe and the quality of the work will
always be suspect. Despite the shift toward a kinder, gentler
management style, the conversation between the career-building
leader and the person whose career is being built isn’t apologetic. The
dialogue merely shifts to the most essential issue in professional
development: the emotional purpose that drives work.
Nothing engenders a sense of ownership and propriety more than a
personal and professional commitment to the cycle of success, based
upon a sense of purpose. The sense of purpose revealed in the team
leader/team member conversation is not couched in terms of material
possessions, but in achievements that bring meaning to the achiever’s
life. Material possessions are, nonetheless, important rewards that are
strengthened when considered in the context of the joy and happiness
they will bring to the achiever’s family and significant others.
On a higher level, commitment involves recognition of and submission
to the guiding principles of the organization and its mission. Surrender
is a term that most people in Western Civilization are socialized to
avoid. It implies loss of freedom. However, career success that results
from surrender to a successful process of achievement provides the
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greatest opportunity for personal and professional satisfaction and
fulfillment.
The conversation follows a simple who, what, when, where, why, and
how script to establish the context and conditions for commitment
from the team member to the organization and the organization to the
team member. The team leader is the conduit for the organization’s end
of the bargain.
If the commitment to action isn’t cleansed of all ambiguity, the entire
agenda is likely to be derailed. Objectives must be specific, concrete
components individual team members can complete in a measurable
manner. Using the cycle of success, each team member commits to the
required actions, in real time, to achieve real results. The commitment
between team member and team leader must be realistic, complete,
and meaningful before it can be enforceable.
The Covenant
It’s the leader’s responsibility to identify and engineer the connection
between the individual’s emotional purpose and the resources,
rewards, and realities of the job. Each team member’s wants and needs
need to be merged with the organization’s wants and needs. Once that
merger is defined and agreed to, it needs to be written down in a
covenant and signed off on by the team member and the leader on
behalf of the organization.
This is much more than a goal-setting session. The covenant is used to
translate principles into practice. The covenant is the basis for the meat
of the process to follow. Goals are broken down into tasks, and tasks
are plotted on a time-line. The covenant covers what is to be
accomplished, and when—all in the context of the team member’s
emotional purpose and the organization’s overriding mission and
strategic agenda. Purposeful goals are broken down into the habits,
skills, and activities necessary to complete the cycle of success and
bring it back to the point where the cycle starts anew.
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The who, what, when, where, why, and how script is straight forward.
But, simple doesn’t always mean easy. It’s simple to talk a good game
and then begin losing pieces of the covenant as time passes and
circumstances change. Constructive confrontation is a dynamic process.
The who, what, when, where, why, and how are discussed and then
written down, hopefully in an online format that can be sent back and
forth between the team leader and the team member. That way the
document can be revisited and revised as often as necessary to keep the
team member firing on all cylinders and operating at maximum
efficiency and effectiveness.
Confrontation
If enterprise leadership lacks a spine about anything, it’s the resolve to
confront. A well-crafted covenant between team leaders and team
members is only as good as the team leader’s commitment to support
each team member through consistent and constructive confrontation.
To give executives, managers, and supervisors the benefit of the doubt,
no one probably taught them how badly they are cheating themselves,
their direct reports, and their organizations as a whole, when they fail
to confront in a thoughtful, methodical, systematic, and strategic
manner.
The craft of constructive confrontation is so rare that few have seen
enough of it to adopt it through imitation. Typically, once goals and
objectives are set in most organizations, team members and team
leaders fly off in different directions, aware at some level that there will
be no follow through. Constructive confrontation is the consistent
revisiting of the skills, habits, and activities agreed to in the
commitment stage. If team leaders fail to shoulder this responsibility,
team members not only have the opportunity to disconnect from their
commitments, they have a person to blame—the leader.
Consistent and constructive confrontation is not a burden to be
endured by the leader or the team member. It’s an obligation each has
to the other. It’s also an opportunity to propel things forward and build
enthusiasm. The leader owes it to the team member to make daily,
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weekly, monthly, and quarterly assessments of the team member’s
performance, just as the team member is obligated to exert the daily,
weekly, monthly, and quarterly efforts set forth in the covenant.
Constructive confrontation is about holding team members accountable
for the habits, skills, and activities they need to engage in to fulfill their
covenant. The who, what, when, where, why, and how covenant needs
to be confronted frequently so that the conversation and commitment it
is based on remain clearly defined and free of ambiguity. When the time
comes to deal with adherence, and that time comes at regular, pre-
defined intervals, there’s no reason not to couch the confrontation in
positive terms of staying on track to fulfill the emotional purpose
agreed to in the beginning.
Once-per-year performance reviews aren’t nearly enough. Daily,
weekly, and monthly constructive, confrontation is a team leader’s
most fundamental responsibility to him- or herself, team members, and
the well-being of the entire organization. Confrontation, in the form of
coaching, encouragement, and accountability is an essential tool in a
team leader’s skill set.
A crack in the leader’s commitment can cause a dam break on the part
of the team member’s commitment, and rightly so. It’s as important for
the leader to be consistent as it is important for the leader to stay
positive. The bond between team members and the team leader is
cemented by trust. Nothing builds and sustains trust more than
consistent behavior over time. A major element of the initial
conversation, commitment, and covenant is the promise made by the
leader, on behalf of the organization, to each team member. Placing a
high priority on following through on that promise is imperative to
build and sustain trust.
Celebration
One common mistake made in business is taking small
accomplishments for granted. Another mistake is celebrating only
extraordinary achievements. The commitment, confrontation,
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celebration process involves celebrating the devotion to daily effort as
quantified in the covenant. When loyalty and adherence to the process
are sufficiently encouraged, the major results will happen. If the
deliberate, daily activities required to achieve larger results are not
encouraged, and dwindle as a result, the larger outcomes will not be
realized, except by coincidence.
Celebrations, large and small, must be meaningful if they’re to support
and encourage ongoing loyalty to the cycle of success. As previously
mentioned, the rewards must be appropriate and resonate with the
emotional purpose upon which the team member’s personal and
professional agendas are based. Cycles of success vary, depending on
the depth and scope of the achievements being sought. Daily, weekly,
monthly, quarterly, and annual celebrations are based on successful
adherence to the disciplines required to remain consistent with the
covenant.
Without celebration, commitment and confrontation are meaningless.
But, what should be celebrated? The cycle of success is predicated on
the achievement and acquisition of the things team members have
identified as the possessions, moments, and memories they seek most
in their lives. Yet, celebration starts with the smallest achievements
upon which the larger accomplishments are built. If commitment and
constructive confrontation result in successful completion of the
covenant, celebration is essential to renew the cycle.
For all but the rarest individual, completely meeting a challenge is a
new experience for which he or she is not fully prepared. Armed with
recognition for the team members’ successes, the team leader
consistently and constructively confronts each team member as she or
he guides the team member’s personal and professional growth—all of
which were included in the original covenant with an eye toward
reaching and exceeding personal and organizational objectives.
From celebration comes increased confidence and renewed
commitment as the cycle begins anew. Each new cycle of success begins
with a newly energized person as a result of how well the team leader
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facilitated the team member’s growth and development through the
celebration stage. The ultimate cycle is fulfilled when the team member
is able to step up and lead another person through the process of
commitment, confrontation, and celebration.
Celebration, with its resonant rewards and recognitions, brings the
cycle of success full circle and begins the cycle anew. The place and
time to determine which rewards are most appropriate for the team
member’s success are the same time and place to determine cycle
schedules—the initial conversation, commitment, covenant stage.
Summarizing the Enterprise-Wide Solution
Constructive confrontation is not a practice reserved for leaders to
apply to subordinates. Anyone, at any level, can and should be
encouraged to engage in constructive confrontation. The conditions are
simple: (1) A commitment covenant between the parties outlines
expectations, methods, and measures. (2) All parties to the covenant
regularly confront one another in a constructive way to ensure
progress and performance are what they should be. This means peer-
to-peer confrontation as well as team member-to-team leader
confrontation. The rules and principles are the same for everybody; the
only difference being range of institutional responsibility. (3) All parties
to the covenant must celebrate the successful completion of each
designated step in the process.
One of the core concepts supervisors, managers, and executives need to
learn is that appropriate action drives right thinking, not the other way
around. Training, education, hype, and/or fear-mongering won’t
produce high-performance over time. Even when eliminating hype,
false promises, and fear-mongering in favor of positive practices like
training and education, the active follow-through of constructive
confrontation is still vital to genuine performance enhancement.
Once the three-steps of constructive confrontation are understood, the
necessary instruction and encouragement can be applied and measured
evenly across the organization.
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The commitment, confrontation, celebration process is also the training
ground for succession. The greatest fulfillment in the cycle of success is
to pass on the learning to others, and prepare them to move up. When
the team member begins to mentor other team members, the way he or
she has been mentored, the cycle of success becomes and upward
spiral. If the leader keeps his or her promise to confront team members
in a positive, constructive, and consistent manner, more skilled leaders
will emerge. Not new leaders with natural charisma, but leaders who
know, understand, and respect the system that made them successful.
That’s a legacy an organization can build on. Constructive confrontation
is the gospel of growing the organization throu