When You Say Yes but Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies... and What You Can Do About It

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Overview
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
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Meet the Author
Read an Excerpt
Table of Contents
First Chapter
Introduction

Overview

We live in a culture -- especially at work -- that prefers harmony over discord, agreement over dissent, speed over deliberation. We often smile and nod to each other even though deep down we could not disagree more. Whether with colleagues, friends, or family members, the tendency to paper over differences rather than confront them is extremely common. We believe that the best thing to do to preserve our relationships and to ensure that our work gets done as expeditiously as possible is to silence conflict. Let's face it, most bosses don't encourage us to share our differences. Indeed, many people are taught that loyal employees accept corporate values, policies, and decisions -- never challenging or questioning them. If we want to hold on to our jobs and move up in our organizations, stifling conflict is the safest way to do it -- or so we believe. And it is not just with our bosses that we fear raising a dissenting opinion. We worry about what our peers and even our subordinates may think of us. We don't want to embarrass ourselves or create a bad impression. We don't want to lose others' respect or risk rejection. We often associate conflict with its negative form -- petty bickering, heated arguing, a bloody fight. But conflict can also be a source of creative energy; when handled constructively by both parties, differences can lead to a healthy and fruitful collaboration, creation, or construction of new knowledge or solutions. When we silence conflict, we avoid the possibility of negative conflict, but we also miss the potential for constructive conflict.

Worse yet, as Leslie Perlow documents, the act of silencing conflict may create the consequences we most dread. Tasks frequently take longer or never get done successfully, and silencing conflict over important issues with people for whom we care deeply can result in disrespect for, and devaluing of, those same people. Each time we silence conflict, we create an environment in which we're all the more likely to be silent next time. We get caught in a vicious "silent spiral," making the relationship progressively less safe, less satisfying, and less productive. Differences get glossed over, patched over, and suppressed ... until disaster happens. "Saying yes when you really mean no" is a problem that haunts organizations from start-ups to multinationals. It exists across industries, levels, and functions. And it's exacerbated by a down economy, when the fear of losing one's job is on everybody's mind and the idea of allowing conflict to surface or disagreeing with others seems particularly risky. All too often, the conversation at work bespeaks harmony and togetherness, even though passionate diagreements exist beneath the surface. Leslie A. Perlow is a corporate ethnographer, an anthropologist of corporate culture. Anthropologists like Margaret Mead spend years in the field studying exotic cultures. Perlow does the same, although the field for her is the office and the exotic people are us -- those who work in the world of organizations. But the end result is no less surprising or rich in insight. Whether it's a Fortune 500 firm, small business, or government bureaucracy, Perlow provides a keen understanding of the hidden issues behind what people say (and don't say). And more important, she shows how to create relationships where individuals feel empowered to express their genuine thoughts and feelings and to harness the power of positive conflict.

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Editorial Reviews

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Companies
Within a corporate meeting where everyone seems to agree can lurk an underlying shadow of dissent and disagreement. But, because corporate work culture prefers harmony over discord, many people often nod their heads in agreement when they should be shaking their heads in disapproval. This ever-present problem, which can result in small frustrations and giant business debacles, is a result of an atmosphere where losing one's job is a risk, and initiating conflict seems to undermine important business relationships.

Leslie Perlow, a cultural anthropologist and associate professor at Harvard Business School, explores the hidden issues behind what people say and don't say, and reveals a new perspective on relationships and the power of positive conflict. The results of her fieldwork and hundreds of interviews provide fresh insights into the destructive nature of silenced conflict on business partnerships and personal relationships.

The Silent Spiral
Perlow writes that each act of silencing makes us more likely to silence the next time, and the next. When we get caught in this "silent spiral," she writes, we are silencing ourselves at the high cost of ourselves, our relationships, and the work we do.

Silencing a difference, managing an emotion, and feigning agreement do not get rid of unresolved differences. They merely cause internal discomfort that will cause us to blame someone for the negative emotion or deny it exists. Instead of going away, the negative emotion festers and, according to Perlow, causes us "to become self-protective in our relationship, and the climate in the relationship quickly disintegrates to one characterized by distrust and fear," perpetuating the silencing. Keeping part of ourselves out of a relationship and holding our thoughts inside cause frustration, anxiety and even anger.

When You Say Yes but Mean No delves into the ways silencing affects work and organizations, and offers ways we can avoid the detrimental effects of silencing that prevent the achievement of mutual understanding.

Some of the reasons why stifling divergent points of view can be harmful include:

Fewer new ideas emerge and alternative courses of action are not explored.
Unexpressed negative emotions fester and build to destroy interactions, teamwork and relationships.
Managers and executives do not get the useful information they need to make the best decisions.
Productivity and creativity suffer while cynicism runs rampant.

Pent up feelings that cannot be expressed in a mutual dialogue can result in withdrawal, which can kill motivation and engagement. When we feel like our thoughts don't matter, we feel undervalued and disengage from our work and our organization. This can lead to low job satisfaction for individuals and high turnover costs for firms.

Stop Blaming Others.
Perlow offers solutions for people who are stuck in the silent spiral, whether they are managers or their subordinates. Solutions include:

Stop blaming others and take responsibility for dealing with divergent points of view.
Recognize that subordinates have power, too.
Act deviant and realize that deviance is a way to search out and invent new approaches to doing things.
Build coalitions and gain the advantage of more legitimacy and resources.

Why We Like This Book
When You Say Yes but Mean No offers numerous case studies that characterize the concepts Perlow explores and reveal the underlying issues that should be explored but often go unrecognized, leading to even more, larger difficulties. By looking deeply into motivation, productivity and creativity in the light of a pervasive underlying problem that plagues almost every organization, Perlow offers a better way to make business and personal relationships stronger while promoting teamwork and open communication. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

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Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781400046003
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Publication date: 5/20/2003
Edition description: 1st.
Pages: 254
Product dimensions: 5.78 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 0.98 (d)

Meet the Author

LESLIE A. PERLOW is an associate professor at Harvard Business School. She received her Ph.D. from MIT

and is the author of Finding Time, published by Cornell University Press.

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Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE
The Many Forms of Silence
Eager to protect important relationships and to ensure that our work gets done as efficiently as possible, we often silence conflict on core issues. We believe that this is the best way to preserve our ability to work together. Yet we wind up achieving the exact opposite of what we want.
When Peter joined Versity as its new chief executive officer (CEO), he quickly started to worry about all the help he needed. He could not possibly focus on all the external problems while also overseeing the company's day-to-day operations. The company had no financial plan, no health plan, and nothing in place that resembled infrastructure. Peter was convinced that if he was going to address all the company's marketing, public relations, and financial issues, he needed to hire managers to help with these internal organizational shortcomings.
However, Peter told the founders only that there was an urgency to fill all of the open slots--chief financial officer (CFO), chief operating officer (COO), vice president (VP) of business development, VP of marketing, VP of engineering, VP of human resources, and executive assistant. He did not explain why he needed to hire all of these people. Anytime Peter told the founders about the problems he was observing with the company, they got upset. So, instead of focusing on the problems that he needed to hire people to solve, he focused on the people that he needed to hire.
Privately, though, Peter worried greatly, not just about all the problems the company had but about the fact that he had to work with a group of young founders who did not understand the magnitude of the problems they faced. Still, he saidnothing, keeping his concerns to himself.
To complicate matters further, the founders didn't like most of Peter's hires, perceiving that they lacked technical savvy and any understanding of the college market. But the founders, too, were very cautious about what they said to Peter. They had brought Peter into the company because he was supposed to know more than they did about decisions like whom to hire and when to do it. They respected Peter. Still, they wondered why he was hiring so many people so quickly, especially when none of them seemed well qualified for the job. To the founders, Peter's sense of urgency about bringing in professional managers raised questions about his ability to truly understand and lead their type of company. Instead of sharing their concerns, however, they just watched, worried, and hoped for the best.
As a result of all this silencing, the founders were left unaware of all the shortcomings Peter saw in their organization, and Peter was left unaware of the founders' doubts about his new hires. Worse yet, Peter felt resentment toward the founders for not understanding his concerns about the company, and the founders started to question Peter's ability to run their company.
SILENCING SELF
By definition, when we silence ourselves, we have a perceived difference with another person; we don't, however, explain ourselves so that the other person understands our perspective. Silencing self is a choice we make--consciously or unconsciously--to not fully express our perspective. Silencing self can take place in both directions in the hierarchy: Subordinates may silence themselves with their bosses, and bosses may silence themselves with their subordinates. Peers, too, may silence themselves with one another.
The Subordinate Sits Silently
Sam was an associate at a preeminent investment bank. He did not think his boss, a managing director (MD) at the bank, was advising their client well. The client was the CEO of a chain of fast-food restaurants who was in the process of acquiring a second chain of restaurants. Sam was one of ten associates working on the deal. The associates were responsible for collecting and analyzing the data that the MD had used to approve the proposed acquisition price. Sam, however, was convinced that the price was not fair; in fact, he thought it was a terrible price. The numbers showed that the CEO was overpaying significantly for the acquisition. But Sam and the other associates would never tell this to their boss. Questioning their boss would only cause him to have a negative perception of them. As Sam explained, "It may sound totally egotistical, but if you differ from the MD you will be perceived as less intelligent."
Since Sam never said anything to his boss about what he thought was best for their client, his boss never knew that Sam's opinion differed from his own. In other situations, a boss may question something a subordinate has said or disparage the work produced. In response, if the subordinate chooses to silence himself, he again implies to his boss that he has come to agree.
Maria was a project manager at a well-respected management consulting firm, where she had worked for more than five years. Late one afternoon, Max, the partner in charge of Maria's current project, told her that he had just looked over the presentation she had spent the past month preparing for the client. "The presentation does not communicate the right message," he sternly informed her, with disappointment in his voice. Maria knew that the presentation still needed some final touches, but she certainly did not think it was totally wrong. However, she did not share her reaction with her boss. She just sat quietly, listening to his perspective, and agreed to rework the entire presentation according to his specifications. He was the partner, and she believed she was supposed to do as he said, voicing no resistance. That was the way she perceived things were to be at her consulting firm.
The Boss Bites His Tongue
Bosses, too, silence themselves with their subordinates. Bosses have power inasmuch as they can punish uncooperative subordinates. But using this power often undermines trusting and effective work relationships. In some cases, exerting formal authority may actually cause matters to get worse, not better.
Morris, a faculty member at a midwestern university, was assigned a new secretary, Debbie. Early on, Morris asked Debbie to type up a set of notes he had written. The document, only a couple of pages long, came back full of typos. Later, Morris asked Debbie to scan a document and then proofread it for accuracy. This document also came back full of mistakes. When Morris asked Debbie to be more careful, she took the document back, corrected a few of the many errors, and returned it to him. Morris did not bother to give it to her again; it was clear to him that it would be faster to do it himself.
Morris quickly concluded the same thing about buying airline tickets. Several times he handed Debbie a printed itinerary, and each time she managed to get something wrong. Once it was his destination, another time the dates, and most recently the fare. In each case, she had an excuse.
Morris feared that criticizing Debbie's performance would only make matters worse. He suspected that saying something would make her resentful and therefore make her work deteriorate even more. So he said nothing. He did not want to alienate her, and he did not have the authority to fire her.
When it came time for Morris to give Debbie feedback for her annual performance review, he still said nothing about her errors. Instead he gave her mildly positive feedback. Why? Because he feared that if he did otherwise, she might become even less helpful. By not saying anything, however, he lost the opportunity to help her to improve.
Performance appraisals are meant to provide information to employees about how well they are doing and about how they can improve their performance. Such critiques cannot, however, fulfill their purpose unless they provide clear and honest feedback. Yet, like Morris, many managers feel uncomfortable giving negative feedback. As a result, the feedback is often distorted and less helpful than it could be, thus undermining the review process and the employee's potential contribution.1
Keeping the Peace with Peers
People also silence themselves with their peers--those who have no formal authority over them and whom they have no authority over. Ted and John, two colleagues working for a publishing house, were focused on the upcoming launch of a new book. Ted, the creative designer, and John, the marketing representative, met with the rest of their team to decide the design for the book jacket. Ted had been deeply engrossed in designing the jacket. He was clearly excited about the jacket he'd created and was convinced that it suited the book perfectly. Enthusiasm was written all over his face as he presented his design to the rest of the group.
On seeing the design, John forced a smile, but underneath he cringed. He was convinced that the jacket would never sell any books. Uncertain as to what to say or how to say it, John opted to say nothing.
As the publishing season progressed, the book's jacket was printed in the catalog. It was also posted on Amazon.com. Then, as the book was about to be printed, there was a major sales conference to present the book to the sales representatives responsible for selling it. When John presented the book jacket, as he feared, the sales representatives echoed his concern--they felt they could never sell the book with its current jacket.
Having to change the jacket at this late stage created endless problems for the publisher and for Ted. The catalog had the wrong jacket in it--and it was too late to change that. Moreover, a new jacket needed to be designed immediately. All of these last-minute crises did not reflect well on Ted. Because John had hidden his early aversion to the book jacket, Ted ended up suffering, and so did the book's marketing campaign.
SILENCED BY ANOTHER
Often silencing occurs because we decide that it's best not to express a difference. However, when a person we perceive to have power over us, such as a boss, says or does something that puts pressure on us to be silent--for example, when we ask a question or voice an opinion, and in response the other person signals that we should say no more--we are being silenced by another. The signals sent can be explicit or more subtle and indirect. Being silenced by another comes in two forms--suppressing and glossing.
Suppressing
In suppressing, people convey that someone else's suggestion, recommendation, advice, or perspective is not welcome.2 Although suppressing can happen among peers, it most commonly occurs when managers pressure employees to do something. In response, employees silence themselves, making it seem as if they agree with their managers when, in reality, they don't.
Amar was a product development manager overseeing a team of software engineers who had committed to deliver a certain output to their boss's boss within a month. However, Amar's boss, Brian, had just okayed a change in the development process that would slow them down substantially. Amar was convinced that the change made absolutely no sense if they cared about meeting their deadline. However, when Amar told Brian exactly that, Brian dismissed his concern. Moreover, Brian told Amar in no uncertain terms that the change was not open for discussion and that Amar was never again to say anything to anyone about it. At this point, Amar lost much respect for Brian, doubting Brian's ability to manage his own boss as well as Brian's understanding of the technical issues underlying the project he was supposed to be managing. However, fully aware that Brian would write his performance appraisal and therefore influence his annual raise and potential promotion, Amar said nothing more.
Amar received explicit direction from his manager about how to handle their difference of opinion. Sometimes, however, the person in power can be less direct and yet still send a clear message as to what is expected. Rachel was the director of the counseling center at a small liberal arts college. For the past five months, she had been treating Ed, a senior in the biology department, for depression. For the past five months, he had been doing well in school and was deeply engaged in his senior thesis when suddenly his symptoms increased to the point that he needed to be hospitalized. Aware of how detrimental lost time in the lab would be to Ed's senior thesis, and aware that despite his severe depression he could still function productively enough to continue his lab work, Rachel agreed to take responsibility for Ed's well-being a few hours each day so he could come out of the hospital to work in the lab.
When the provost of the school learned of this arrangement, he expressed great concern to Rachel about the school's legal liability if Ed harmed himself while out of the hospital. Rachel, who was concerned most of all about Ed's well-being, felt that Ed would be in much greater danger of doing harm to himself if he were prohibited from going on with his lab work, which was crucial to his graduation and acceptance into medical school. She outlined for the provost all the precautions she was taking to ensure Ed's safety and well-being. Nothing further was said about the issue.
In subsequent staff meetings, however, the provost ignored Rachel's comments. When she spoke as a student advocate, he wouldn't look at her, and he would proceed as if she hadn't spoken. Although the provost never said anything directly to her, Rachel got the clear message that her views as a student advocate were not valued or wanted, and so she stopped sharing them.
In Amar's case, his boss made clear his desire for Amar to say no more. In Rachel's case, the provost was less explicit; his behavior, however, clearly suggested that he did not want her to advocate for the students. In neither case did the person being silenced understand the reason behind the suppressor's preferences.
From the Hardcover edition.

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	Introduction: Covering Up Rather Than Confronting Difference	1
Part I	The Unacknowledged Costs of Silencing Conflict
Chapter 1	The Many Forms of Silence	13
Chapter 2	Why the Rules of the Game Favor Silence	25
Chapter 3	How the Silent Spiral Works	35
Chapter 4	The Costs of Saying Yes When You Mean No	42
Chapter 5	The Speed Trap	52
Part II	The Silent Spiral in Motion
Chapter 6	What Clyde and Howie Wouldn't Say	67
Chapter 7	The Founders and the New CEO Mask Their Differences	94
Chapter 8	No One's Explaining, No One's Asking	120
Chapter 9	Bad Endings	141
Part III	Escaping the Silent Spiral
Chapter 10	Effectively Expressing Difference	159
Chapter 11	Finding Support and Supporting Others	180
	Epilogue: What Might Have Been...	193
	Endnotes	201
	Acknowledgments	239
	Index	243

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First Chapter

INTRODUCTION

Covering Up Rather Than Confronting Difference

The members of Versity's top management team seemed of one mind and ready to tackle the challenges facing their business. After a long day of team-building exercises and animated discussions about the company's future, they remained in their seats around a horseshoe-shaped table in a nondescript hotel conference room in Redwood City, California. Nine hours earlier, Peter, the company's soft-spoken chief executive officer, alluding to the crisis that the company faced about its strategy, had stated: "Our goal today is to all end up on the same page. We are currently moving in an unclear direction, and we need to be more clear."

Two months earlier, Peter had joined Versity and had hired a team of professional managers to help the four young founders to continue to expand their company. Now Jill, the self-assured head of public relations, having volunteered to lead the day's events, handed each of them a hotdog-shaped balloon, the kind that clowns give out at the circus. She asked them to take turns expressing their reactions to the day's events, including whether their expectations had been met and how they felt at the moment. After people spoke, they were to attach their balloon to the previous speakers' balloons, thus gradually creating a sculpture. Hal, the newly hired acting head of marketing, went first. "My expectations were met," he said. "Jill, you did a great job. We made some great progress today. . . . It feels great. I am excited . . . passionate . . . committed to the future." Dave, the newly hired head of product development, continued: "The consistency of vision and purpose isgood to hear. We are pretty similar in what we are thinking. We are not automatons, but consistency is good." Jim, the new chief financial officer, boasted: "I am happy. I thought today was going to be a lot uglier. I expected battles. Yet things were remarkably consistent." Peter added: "It was a good starting point. Jill did a good job keeping us moving. I enjoyed today." The company's founders also expressed relief at the consistency they had heard. Clyde, the business brains behind the company, sounded pleased: "After today I am more comfortable that we are all on the same page." And Howie, the technical guru, shared: "It was neat to have everyone in the same room together. I was quiet because I wanted to hear what others had to say. I wanted to hear from the new people, with new ideas and new perspectives. It seems we all pretty much agree on what is going on. Thank you."

Peter ended the day's events by suggesting that everyone go downstairs to the hotel bar and have a beer to celebrate. The meeting broke up, but before heading to the bar and then out for dinner, most people gathered to admire their balloon sculpture, with its bright colors and all its contortions, twists, and turns.

Everyone had gone into the day's events deeply worried about a lack of consensus. They were particularly concerned that a schism was developing between the founders and the new professional managers over the company's purpose. Yet, at the end of the meeting, they all expressed joy about their level of agreement.

Privately, though, many despaired. When the four founders gathered the next night to reflect on the "vision meeting," as they called it, Howie snickered, "What a waste. Nothing was accomplished." He paused, took a deep breath, and continued, "We are directionless. We used to know what was going on. But we lost our goal. Now we have no focus. We are bobbing in water. We have no momentum. We should be reacting and changing, yet nothing is happening." The other three nodded in agreement.

The professional managers also had outwardly expressed pleasure about the consensus everyone voiced. However, they too felt that nothing had been accomplished. They weren't as surprised by this result, though, since they had been through this kind of meeting many times before. While Peter didn't mention it to anyone on his management team, he was convinced they would need to meet again to reach closure on their goals.

After the meeting the professional managers continued to question whether the core market for their educational product should remain college students or should instead become professors. Indeed, no attempt had been made to answer this fundamental question at the meeting. And deep down, they all knew they still disagreed. No one, however, dared raise the issue. The founders continued to focus on college students, the company's target market since its start. The professional managers, including Peter, shifted their focus toward professors–the market they had come to believe had to be the company's future focus. No one said anything about the divide. They all just forged ahead, pursuing the goal they perceived to matter most. The company, however, sorely lacked the human and financial resources to pursue these two paths simultaneously.

Still, no one wanted to confront this reality and force a choice. Rather, they wanted to preserve their relationships and their business. Both Peter and his new hires, as well as the company's four founders, deeply appreciated how much they needed one another to make the company a success. They also recognized that speed was of the essence and that they had no time to waste. Not wanting to put their relationships or their business in jeopardy, no one spoke up. Within nine months, the company was bankrupt.

Whether between colleagues, friends, or family members, the tendency to cover over differences rather than confront them is all too common. In important relationships–from the boardroom to the bedroom–we often find ourselves smiling and nodding when deep down we couldn't disagree more. We believe that the best thing to do to preserve our relationships and to ensure that our work gets done as expeditiously as possible is to remain quiet. What we are doing is silencing conflict.

SILENCING CONFLICT

Conflict is not by nature good or bad. Conflict simply means difference–difference of opinion or interests. Throughout this book, I use the words conflict and difference interchangeably. And I use the term silencing conflict to refer to anytime people do not fully confront their differences. Often people speak openly about their differences but do so in the hallway, or around the water cooler, or behind closed doors–out of earshot of the person with whom they differ. Sometimes people do mention their differences to one another but fail to do so in a way that they are understood.

Silencing conflict encompasses a range of behaviors, from never speaking differences aloud to ending a discussion of differences before they are fully understood. We are silencing conflict if we become quiet despite perceiving that the other party does not understand why we think, feel, or believe as we do. We are also silencing conflict if we end a discussion before we've done our best to understand the "why" behind the other party's thoughts, feelings, or behavior.

THE COSTS OF SILENCE

We often associate conflict with its negative forms–petty bickering, a bloody fight, physical violence, even war. But conflict can also be a source of creative energy; when handled constructively by both parties, differences can lead to a healthy and fruitful collaboration, a co-creation or co-construction of new knowledge or solutions. With constructive conflict, the end result is different from and better than any of the initial, individual perspectives; opposing parties come together to realize their respective goals and work together toward a win-win outcome. When we silence conflict, we avoid the possibility of negative conflict, but we also miss the potential for constructive conflict.

When differences are kept quiet, we limit creativity, learning, and effective decision making. Creativity and learning require novel ideas–seeing and doing things in new ways–but when differences are considered unacceptable, novel ideas are less likely to emerge. When we don't feel comfortable expressing our differences, we are also less likely to disclose errors and take risks, both of which are necessary for learning to occur. And when we do not share perspectives and information, decision making can suffer, because we are less apt to explore the pros and cons of various solutions.

Silencing conflict also affects individual performance. When we feel we can't share our differences, we may lose interest in and disengage from our work. The result can be increased stress, lack of motivation, high job turnover, and sometimes even sabotage.

Even worse, although we often silence conflict because we believe it is the right thing to do, the best thing to do, the only way to preserve important relationships and get on with the task at hand, acting on this belief may create the consequences we most dread. Silencing conflict about important issues with people for whom we care deeply can result in disrespect for, and devaluing of, those same people. It can create a whole underworld in which differences become an increasingly destructive force. Each time we silence conflict, we create an environment in which we're all the more likely to silence next time. Silencing conflict creates resentment, anger, and frustration in a person. These negative emotions turn into a powerful and harmful agent, making one feel increasingly self-protective in the relationship and therefore all the more fearful about speaking up. As a result, more acts of silence follow. We get caught spinning in a vicious "silent spiral," making the relationship progressively less safe, less satisfying, and less productive.

In addition, when there is pressure to go fast, people are all the more likely to silence their differences to keep things moving as quickly as possible. And, the act of silencing, in turn, creates negative consequences that often result in problems that take time and attention to resolve. With the mounting work from these additional problems, the sense of urgency intensifies, and so too does the pressure to silence. Ultimately, the pressure to go fast feeds on itself, further intensifying the destructive nature of the silent spiral.

Had the management team at Versity–both the founders and the new professional hires–recognized the costs of silence and instead spoken up about their differences at the offsite vision meeting, the future of their company might have been different. Instead of pursuing two independent paths, the team might have found a shared purpose that built on their different perspectives and goals. But all this potential was lost when the members failed to discuss their differences.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

For me this book began its life one January afternoon in 1999, when Clyde stopped by my office at the University of Michigan. Clyde had been one of 160 undergraduate business majors in my organizational behavior class the previous year. Now, he explained, he needed one course to remain an active student during the semester. Would I supervise an independent study for him? He told me he was planning to spend the semester working with three other students who had founded an online education company called Versity.com, short for "university." I agreed to oversee Clyde's independent study, and before the conversation was over, I asked if I could see the company for myself.

I'm an organizational ethnographer. This means that, like an anthropologist, I spend large amounts of time in the field observing a culture–the only difference being that the field is the office and the culture is the corporate environment. My previous ethnographies had covered a range of workplaces, from major American corporations to European and Asian businesses.

However, when, a week later, I drove to Versity's office in Ypsilanti, a blue-collar suburb on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, I had no intention of embarking on another research project. I visited only because I wanted to meet these young entrepreneurs and see a dot-com in action. Many were already making millions of dollars in Silicon Valley, but in my college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, dot-coms were still a novelty.

During my first visit, I was impressed by the dedication, maturity, and accomplishments of the four young founders. After that initial visit, I found myself returning on several more occasions. Each time, I intended to stop by for only a few hours, but I ended up staying late into the night, filling notebook after notebook with observations. A couple of visits eventually turned into a nineteen-month obsession.

One of the surprises from my early visits was that the organizational dynamics inside this dot-com were not so different from those in the larger, more traditional, bricks-and-mortar businesses I'd previously studied. The big difference was the speed and intensity of the office. Everything happened at an accelerated pace–from business development to product release–and everything seemed to have higher stakes. These factors, I quickly realized, brought otherwise hidden issues into sharp relief, revealing aspects of work relationships that are often difficult to discern in the typical one- to two-year study of an ethnography. Thus, Versity provided a way for me to gain insight into the fundamentals of my field–organizational behavior–by giving me a richer understanding of how people interact, and with what consequences. It was the equivalent of an epidemiologist studying a disease during a major epidemic. The conditions were optimal to observe patterns or trends that might otherwise be latent.

Studying Versity further provided an opportunity to explore how speed itself affects our interaction patterns and ultimately our relationships and our work output. In a society in which the goal so often is to find ways to do more in less time, studying Versity provided a rare opportunity to glimpse where we may well be headed. I have always been a student of time, trying to understand how we use time at work, why we use it in the ways that we do, and what consequences our patterns of time usage have for ourselves, our co-workers, and the organizations in which we work. Studying Versity enabled me to further explore what happens when our interactions suddenly increase in pace.

By the time I completed the fieldwork, I'd taken approximately ten thousand pages of notes and had conducted hundreds of interviews with everyone involved with the company. I had observed everything from top-level management meetings to hallway gossip to late-night beers at local bars. During the months I spent at Versity, I observed people's actions and listened to their public conversations, but I also developed relationships that made people comfortable in sharing private thoughts and feelings with me. I therefore had the privilege of listening to people speak to each other, and of knowing what they were not saying. I noticed early on that colleagues weren't being completely frank with one another. They didn't want to endanger the success of their venture, so they shied away from differences. They smiled when they were seething; they nodded when deep down they couldn't have disagreed more. They pretended to accept differences for the sake of preserving their relationships and their business. And, the more people silenced themselves, the more pressure they felt to silence themselves again next time.

Observing the tendency to silence conflict at Versity stirred my curiosity about the existence of such a phenomenon in other domains. How much of what I had observed was simply due to the pervasive sense of urgency in the dot-com world? I conducted interviews with a range of different people to explore that question. I interviewed friends, family members, students, and strangers. I was not looking for a random sample. I was just seeking to better understand where silencing conflict might occur and at what cost. I spoke to doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and consultants. I spoke to officers in the military and directors of nonprofits. I spoke to those who ran companies and to those who reported to them. I spoke to people just out of college and to others ready to retire. I talked to people about their work lives and about their home lives.

When I began telling people about the idea behind this book–namely, the silencing of conflict and its unacknowledged costs–they would invariably respond, "That's the story of my company," or, "You are writing about my marriage." One of my business school students, who had previously been an investment banker, told me, "You could be writing my biography."

In the four years since Clyde came to my office to ask for course credit, I have learned about the destructive effects of silencing conflict, on everything from business partnerships to personal relationships. I have seen how these acts of silencing build on each other, creating the dangerous syndrome I call the "silent spiral." And I have come to appreciate how the need for speed fuels the silent spiral. But I have learned as well that we can free ourselves from this syndrome. And more than that, if we can effectively express our differences, we can instead create a constructive spiral of speaking up.

In order to share the stories I've heard and the lessons I've learned, I have divided the book into three parts. Part I uses "episodes," or single snapshots, of silencing conflict to elaborate the concept–to show where it occurs, how it gets perpetuated, and at what costs. The story of the rise and fall of Versity, detailed in Part II, illustrates how episodes of silencing build on each other to create the silent spiral, inflicting cumulative damage on relationships and performance at work. The story of Versity further shows how the need for speed makes the silent spiral all the more vicious. Part III then focuses on the pressing need to express our differences–and how to do so most effectively. At the end of the book, I return to the Versity story to explore one final question: What might have been the outcome had the members of Versity effectively expressed their differences?

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Introduction

Covering Up Rather Than Confronting Difference

The members of Versity's top management team seemed of one mind and ready to tackle the challenges facing their business. After a long day of team-building exercises and animated discussions about the company's future, they remained in their seats around a horseshoe-shaped table in a nondescript hotel conference room in Redwood City, California. Nine hours earlier, Peter, the company's soft-spoken chief executive officer, alluding to the crisis that the company faced about its strategy, had stated: "Our goal today is to all end up on the same page. We are currently moving in an unclear direction, and we need to be more clear."

Two months earlier, Peter had joined Versity and had hired a team of professional managers to help the four young founders to continue to expand their company. Now Jill, the self-assured head of public relations, having volunteered to lead the day's events, handed each of them a hotdog-shaped balloon, the kind that clowns give out at the circus. She asked them to take turns expressing their reactions to the day's events, including whether their expectations had been met and how they felt at the moment. After people spoke, they were to attach their balloon to the previous speakers' balloons, thus gradually creating a sculpture. Hal, the newly hired acting head of marketing, went first. "My expectations were met," he said. "Jill, you did a great job. We made some great progress today. . . . It feels great. I am excited . . . passionate . . . committed to the future." Dave, the newly hired head of product development, continued: "The consistency of vision and purpose is good to hear. We are pretty similar in what we are thinking. We are not automatons, but consistency is good." Jim, the new chief financial officer, boasted: "I am happy. I thought today was going to be a lot uglier. I expected battles. Yet things were remarkably consistent." Peter added: "It was a good starting point. Jill did a good job keeping us moving. I enjoyed today." The company's founders also expressed relief at the consistency they had heard. Clyde, the business brains behind the company, sounded pleased: "After today I am more comfortable that we are all on the same page." And Howie, the technical guru, shared: "It was neat to have everyone in the same room together. I was quiet because I wanted to hear what others had to say. I wanted to hear from the new people, with new ideas and new perspectives. It seems we all pretty much agree on what is going on. Thank you."

Peter ended the day's events by suggesting that everyone go downstairs to the hotel bar and have a beer to celebrate. The meeting broke up, but before heading to the bar and then out for dinner, most people gathered to admire their balloon sculpture, with its bright colors and all its contortions, twists, and turns.

Everyone had gone into the day's events deeply worried about a lack of consensus. They were particularly concerned that a schism was developing between the founders and the new professional managers over the company's purpose. Yet, at the end of the meeting, they all expressed joy about their level of agreement.

Privately, though, many despaired. When the four founders gathered the next night to reflect on the "vision meeting," as they called it, Howie snickered, "What a waste. Nothing was accomplished." He paused, took a deep breath, and continued, "We are directionless. We used to know what was going on. But we lost our goal. Now we have no focus. We are bobbing in water. We have no momentum. We should be reacting and changing, yet nothing is happening." The other three nodded in agreement.

The professional managers also had outwardly expressed pleasure about the consensus everyone voiced. However, they too felt that nothing had been accomplished. They weren't as surprised by this result, though, since they had been through this kind of meeting many times before. While Peter didn't mention it to anyone on his management team, he was convinced they would need to meet again to reach closure on their goals.

After the meeting the professional managers continued to question whether the core market for their educational product should remain college students or should instead become professors. Indeed, no attempt had been made to answer this fundamental question at the meeting. And deep down, they all knew they still disagreed. No one, however, dared raise the issue. The founders continued to focus on college students, the company's target market since its start. The professional managers, including Peter, shifted their focus toward professors-the market they had come to believe had to be the company's future focus. No one said anything about the divide. They all just forged ahead, pursuing the goal they perceived to matter most. The company, however, sorely lacked the human and financial resources to pursue these two paths simultaneously.

Still, no one wanted to confront this reality and force a choice. Rather, they wanted to preserve their relationships and their business. Both Peter and his new hires, as well as the company's four founders, deeply appreciated how much they needed one another to make the company a success. They also recognized that speed was of the essence and that they had no time to waste. Not wanting to put their relationships or their business in jeopardy, no one spoke up. Within nine months, the company was bankrupt.

Whether between colleagues, friends, or family members, the tendency to cover over differences rather than confront them is all too common. In important relationships-from the boardroom to the bedroom-we often find ourselves smiling and nodding when deep down we couldn't disagree more. We believe that the best thing to do to preserve our relationships and to ensure that our work gets done as expeditiously as possible is to remain quiet. What we are doing is silencing conflict.

SILENCING CONFLICT

Conflict is not by nature good or bad. Conflict simply means difference-difference of opinion or interests. Throughout this book, I use the words conflict and difference interchangeably. And I use the term silencing conflict to refer to anytime people do not fully confront their differences. Often people speak openly about their differences but do so in the hallway, or around the water cooler, or behind closed doors-out of earshot of the person with whom they differ. Sometimes people do mention their differences to one another but fail to do so in a way that they are understood.

Silencing conflict encompasses a range of behaviors, from never speaking differences aloud to ending a discussion of differences before they are fully understood. We are silencing conflict if we become quiet despite perceiving that the other party does not understand why we think, feel, or believe as we do. We are also silencing conflict if we end a discussion before we've done our best to understand the "why" behind the other party's thoughts, feelings, or behavior.

THE COSTS OF SILENCE

We often associate conflict with its negative forms-petty bickering, a bloody fight, physical violence, even war. But conflict can also be a source of creative energy; when handled constructively by both parties, differences can lead to a healthy and fruitful collaboration, a co-creation or co-construction of new knowledge or solutions. With constructive conflict, the end result is different from and better than any of the initial, individual perspectives; opposing parties come together to realize their respective goals and work together toward a win-win outcome. When we silence conflict, we avoid the possibility of negative conflict, but we also miss the potential for constructive conflict.

When differences are kept quiet, we limit creativity, learning, and effective decision making. Creativity and learning require novel ideas-seeing and doing things in new ways-but when differences are considered unacceptable, novel ideas are less likely to emerge. When we don't feel comfortable expressing our differences, we are also less likely to disclose errors and take risks, both of which are necessary for learning to occur. And when we do not share perspectives and information, decision making can suffer, because we are less apt to explore the pros and cons of various solutions.

Silencing conflict also affects individual performance. When we feel we can't share our differences, we may lose interest in and disengage from our work. The result can be increased stress, lack of motivation, high job turnover, and sometimes even sabotage.

Even worse, although we often silence conflict because we believe it is the right thing to do, the best thing to do, the only way to preserve important relationships and get on with the task at hand, acting on this belief may create the consequences we most dread. Silencing conflict about important issues with people for whom we care deeply can result in disrespect for, and devaluing of, those same people. It can create a whole underworld in which differences become an increasingly destructive force. Each time we silence conflict, we create an environment in which we're all the more likely to silence next time. Silencing conflict creates resentment, anger, and frustration in a person. These negative emotions turn into a powerful and harmful agent, making one feel increasingly self-protective in the relationship and therefore all the more fearful about speaking up. As a result, more acts of silence follow. We get caught spinning in a vicious "silent spiral," making the relationship progressively less safe, less satisfying, and less productive.

In addition, when there is pressure to go fast, people are all the more likely to silence their differences to keep things moving as quickly as possible. And, the act of silencing, in turn, creates negative consequences that often result in problems that take time and attention to resolve. With the mounting work from these additional problems, the sense of urgency intensifies, and so too does the pressure to silence. Ultimately, the pressure to go fast feeds on itself, further intensifying the destructive nature of the silent spiral.

Had the management team at Versity-both the founders and the new professional hires-recognized the costs of silence and instead spoken up about their differences at the offsite vision meeting, the future of their company might have been different. Instead of pursuing two independent paths, the team might have found a shared purpose that built on their different perspectives and goals. But all this potential was lost when the members failed to discuss their differences.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

For me this book began its life one January afternoon in 1999, when Clyde stopped by my office at the University of Michigan. Clyde had been one of 160 undergraduate business majors in my organizational behavior class the previous year. Now, he explained, he needed one course to remain an active student during the semester. Would I supervise an independent study for him? He told me he was planning to spend the semester working with three other students who had founded an online education company called Versity.com, short for "university." I agreed to oversee Clyde's independent study, and before the conversation was over, I asked if I could see the company for myself.

I'm an organizational ethnographer. This means that, like an anthropologist, I spend large amounts of time in the field observing a culture-the only difference being that the field is the office and the culture is the corporate environment. My previous ethnographies had covered a range of workplaces, from major American corporations to European and Asian businesses.

However, when, a week later, I drove to Versity's office in Ypsilanti, a blue-collar suburb on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, I had no intention of embarking on another research project. I visited only because I wanted to meet these young entrepreneurs and see a dot-com in action. Many were already making millions of dollars in Silicon Valley, but in my college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, dot-coms were still a novelty.

During my first visit, I was impressed by the dedication, maturity, and accomplishments of the four young founders. After that initial visit, I found myself returning on several more occasions. Each time, I intended to stop by for only a few hours, but I ended up staying late into the night, filling notebook after notebook with observations. A couple of visits eventually turned into a nineteen-month obsession.

One of the surprises from my early visits was that the organizational dynamics inside this dot-com were not so different from those in the larger, more traditional, bricks-and-mortar businesses I'd previously studied. The big difference was the speed and intensity of the office. Everything happened at an accelerated pace-from business development to product release-and everything seemed to have higher stakes. These factors, I quickly realized, brought otherwise hidden issues into sharp relief, revealing aspects of work relationships that are often difficult to discern in the typical one- to two-year study of an ethnography. Thus, Versity provided a way for me to gain insight into the fundamentals of my field-organizational behavior-by giving me a richer understanding of how people interact, and with what consequences. It was the equivalent of an epidemiologist studying a disease during a major epidemic. The conditions were optimal to observe patterns or trends that might otherwise be latent.

Studying Versity further provided an opportunity to explore how speed itself affects our interaction patterns and ultimately our relationships and our work output. In a society in which the goal so often is to find ways to do more in less time, studying Versity provided a rare opportunity to glimpse where we may well be headed. I have always been a student of time, trying to understand how we use time at work, why we use it in the ways that we do, and what consequences our patterns of time usage have for ourselves, our co-workers, and the organizations in which we work. Studying Versity enabled me to further explore what happens when our interactions suddenly increase in pace.

By the time I completed the fieldwork, I'd taken approximately ten thousand pages of notes and had conducted hundreds of interviews with everyone involved with the company. I had observed everything from top-level management meetings to hallway gossip to late-night beers at local bars. During the months I spent at Versity, I observed people's actions and listened to their public conversations, but I also developed relationships that made people comfortable in sharing private thoughts and feelings with me. I therefore had the privilege of listening to people speak to each other, and of knowing what they were not saying. I noticed early on that colleagues weren't being completely frank with one another. They didn't want to endanger the success of their venture, so they shied away from differences. They smiled when they were seething; they nodded when deep down they couldn't have disagreed more. They pretended to accept differences for the sake of preserving their relationships and their business. And, the more people silenced themselves, the more pressure they felt to silence themselves again next time.

Observing the tendency to silence conflict at Versity stirred my curiosity about the existence of such a phenomenon in other domains. How much of what I had observed was simply due to the pervasive sense of urgency in the dot-com world? I conducted interviews with a range of different people to explore that question. I interviewed friends, family members, students, and strangers. I was not looking for a random sample. I was just seeking to better understand where silencing conflict might occur and at what cost. I spoke to doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and consultants. I spoke to officers in the military and directors of nonprofits. I spoke to those who ran companies and to those who reported to them. I spoke to people just out of college and to others ready to retire. I talked to people about their work lives and about their home lives.

When I began telling people about the idea behind this book-namely, the silencing of conflict and its unacknowledged costs-they would invariably respond, "That's the story of my company," or, "You are writing about my marriage." One of my business school students, who had previously been an investment banker, told me, "You could be writing my biography."

In the four years since Clyde came to my office to ask for course credit, I have learned about the destructive effects of silencing conflict, on everything from business partnerships to personal relationships. I have seen how these acts of silencing build on each other, creating the dangerous syndrome I call the "silent spiral." And I have come to appreciate how the need for speed fuels the silent spiral. But I have learned as well that we can free ourselves from this syndrome. And more than that, if we can effectively express our differences, we can instead create a constructive spiral of speaking up.

In order to share the stories I've heard and the lessons I've learned, I have divided the book into three parts. Part I uses "episodes," or single snapshots, of silencing conflict to elaborate the concept-to show where it occurs, how it gets perpetuated, and at what costs. The story of the rise and fall of Versity, detailed in Part II, illustrates how episodes of silencing build on each other to create the silent spiral, inflicting cumulative damage on relationships and performance at work. The story of Versity further shows how the need for speed makes the silent spiral all the more vicious. Part III then focuses on the pressing need to express our differences-and how to do so most effectively. At the end of the book, I return to the Versity story to explore one final question: What might have been the outcome had the members of Versity effectively expressed their differences?

Read More Show Less

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When You Say Yes but Mean No: How Silencing Conflict Wrecks Relationships and Companies... and What You Can Do About It

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