How to Make Confrontation Work for You

Most people avoid confrontation. Managers don’t give meaningful performance evaluations because they are afraid to say what they really think or fear an angry response. Coworkers ignore a problem or carry around destructive resentment rather than confront a difficult situation head on. Problems get worse, bad feelings run rampant, and employees and their companies both suffer.

At Intel, we have developed a direct approach to problem solving over the last 15 years that eliminates this destructive pattern. We call it “constructive confrontation.”

WHY HAVE CONSTRUCTIVE CONFRONTATION?

Everybody knows that problems are inevitable in business. Machines stop working properly. Orders are lost to the competition, coworkers don’t perform their task the way we think they should. Such problems often produce conflicts.

If an order was lost, was it because the salesperson goofed or because the product quality has slipped? Members of the sales force and quality control people will probably disagree on the cause. But if the company is to get the customer back, they have to find the right answer to the question and solve the problem.

Constructive confrontation accelerates problem solving. Participants must be direct and deal with people face-to-face, as soon as possible, to keep the problem from festering. And it encourages everyone to concentrate on the problem, not on the people caught up in it.

Many managers seem to think it is impolite to tackle anything or anyone head on, even in business. Actually, it is the essence of corporate health to bring a problem out into the open, right away, even if this entails a confrontation. Workplace politicking grows quietly in the dark. It is like a mushroom: neither can stand the light of day.

FIGHTING IT OUT SAVES TIME

I learned my lessen while I was a relatively young and inexperienced manager. I let myself get sucked into the middle of some unproductive political infighting. Two of my subordinates, one in charge of manufacturing and the other of quality assurance, came to dislike each other. The manufacturing manager would walk into my office and complain to me that the quality manager didn’t know what he was doing. Ten minutes later, the quality manager would tell me that his counterpart disregarded procedures, that he didn’t give a hoot about quality.

I found myself investigating first one small claim and then another, getting more and more anxious and angry. Finally, I decided I would not tolerate it anymore. The next time one of them began the routine, I raised my hand and stopped him. “Hold it,” I said. “Let’s get the other person in here.” When he appeared, I said to the first manager in my office: “Now tell me what you were going to say.” The confrontation between the two was tense and embarrassed – anything but constructive. But after a few such sessions, both managers discovered that dealing directly with each other was a lot less awkward and more productive than a scene in my office.

ATTACKING THE PROBLEM, NOT THE PERSON

Constructive confrontation does not mean being loud, unpleasant, or rude, and it is not designed to affix blame. It means attacking a problem by speaking up in a businesslike way. Say that you are in a meeting. The man across the table is droning on with a clearly unworkable idea. When you are sure you understand his point, interrupt him politely: “I disagree with your proposed solution. It won’t work because . . .” Attack the problem, not the individual.

If you find yourself saying, “You’re out of your mind to even suggest such a thing,” you’re doing it wrong. Indeed, as long as the focus of what you say is the individual, even the most delicate phrasing won’t help much. A remark like “With all due respect, I can’t help but wonder what you might have been thinking of when you came up with this plan,” while exquisite in its politeness, still misses the target. When you do focus correctly on the problem – never be rude. Saying, “The solution you propose is absurd,” isn’t constructive confrontation either.

Admittedly, this system is hard to practice. While a few people are natural “black belts” at the technique, most find it somewhat painful, at least initially, because they have been brought up to think that politeness excludes confrontation. People who have trouble picking up the technique should be comforted by the fact that they’re in good company. Consider the following from a column by Joseph Kraft: “Ronald Reagan enjoys a reputation as a fierce tiger in asserting American interests. But foreign leaders repeatedly come away from sessions with the President claiming he is a pussycat, too nice even to mention disagreeable subjects.”

DON’T BULLDOZE YOUR CLIENTS

The practice of constructive confrontation has to be managed, of course, particularly with people outside the company. At Intel, we have learned not to impose our style of direct problem solving on others unfamiliar with it – like customers. Once, I paid a sales call on one of our largest customers, a company known for its indirect and nonconfrontational internal style. Accompanied by a group of sales and marketing people, I participated in a fairly large meeting, which included some of the senior management of the other company.

We ran into a few problems and went to work on them. The discussion meandered around far too long compared with what I was accustomed to at Intel. Without even realizing what I was doing, I started to take over the meeting – asking questions, directing the discussion. Nobody objected, so I thought nothing of it until we left.

Once we were outside the customer’s building, the Intel salespeople gathered around and almost lynched me for behavior they considered totally inappropriate in the customer’s presence. They were correct. The story of that meeting reverberated through the other company. Our salespeople had to make a number of follow-up visits to smooth the feathers I had ruffled.

Sometimes, of course, a situation simply runs away from us. Rational arguments give way to a scene in which the participants need to win an argument much more than they need to resolve an issue. When that happens, it’s best to adjourn the confrontation. When things aren’t getting anywhere, raise your hand and say: “Hold it! Let’s take this up later when everybody is cooler.” When you reconvene, chances are that all present will be thinking more clearly. Then they will be ready for the kind of confrontation that works.