Letters.

Conflict Considerations

Kudos for running an article on conflict in the April 2003 issue of ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT ("Facing Up to Board Conflict," page 56). While most of what Robert S. Adams suggests can be useful, consider a few cautions:

1. Conflict resolution should not

be the primary goal. Conflict management is a much more reasonable, and more likely to be achieved, objective. Not all conflict can be resolved, but most can certainly be managed if all parties involved are willing to have it managed. However, if the culture thrives on conflict, the odds against success escalate.

2. The suggested self-assessment quiz is problematic, both in its simplicity and in its 10 questions. No useful insights can be gained from this particular vehicle for the following reasons:

* The fundamental flaw is that when conflict is rife, or even sub rosa, in any organization, everyone knows it exists even if no one says so out loud. You don't need to take a quiz to find that out.

* Officers and directors who serve on boards, whether effectively or in a grossly dysfunctional way, generally know what the right answers should be to the first two questions about the role of the board and why one elects to serve on one. And quiz takers tend to give the expected answer even when that answer is an ever so slight departure from the truth.

* The third question asks if communications are adequate. Few people on this earth think communications to them are adequate (there are either too few or too many; they are either too sophisticated or too elementary, etc.) and almost all of us think that communications from us are just about perfect. So why ask that question?

* As to whether board meetings are "sometimes unproductive"...that depends on who sets the bar for productivity. If I am serving on the board because I am politically ambitious, every board meeting at which I can meet, greet, and be brilliant is absolutely productive.

If I am the chief staff officer, and have been waiting to move a major initiative, and the same deflectors keep postponing start-up, that meeting is unproductive. Questions four and five just don't cut it.

* As for devoting questions six, seven, and eight to mission and vision, what positive could result even if all answers are right on target?