Book review: Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength
by Miki SaxonMore than 30 years ago I noticed that people seemed to have two sides of their brain—personal and professional—and they rarely utilized the knowledge from one side to address situations on the other. One way that the two areas were kept separate was with language—different terms for what were essentially the same thing. This was especially true about their human interactions.
Many people attended “relationship workshops” on the weekend, but rarely thought to take what they learned to work on Monday because those were colleagues—not relationships.
But that was then and this is now.
These days relationships are recognized as business lifeblood and everyone works to improve them, so Diana McLain Smith’s Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength
Smith says that all teams “rise or fall on the strength of their relationships,” but instead of the typical discussion of team relationships, strengths, etc., she draws on her 25 years of experience and analyzes a number of high profile relationships to graphically illustrate her points.
She shows us why our belief that the problem is the other guy’s attitude/action and focusing on getting him to change boomerangs convincing the team that the source of the problem is actually us.
Smith says that what must change is how we interact, i.e., change the old patterns and create new ones, explaining how to build work relationships that are flexible and strong—the kind that can survive the tough challenges found in today’s global economy.
She takes you behind the media stories of relationships that made headlines, such as the recruitment and eventual meltdown of Steve Jobs and John Sculley, to illustrate how a broken relationship can cause severe damage not just to the people, but to the company and the brand.
Relationships happen, but great relationships take thought and effort. They’ll never be easy, but Divide or Conquer provides the tools and insights to make them easiER.
What did you think of the book?
June 9th, 2008 at 5:38 am
I would agree, especially in a fragile economy – relationships are what keep us going in such times. The company I work at is currently having an internal conflict between some of its employees and owners and this conflict is tearing apart the company, bringing in all sorts of bad energy. If we don’t resolve our relationship issues, we may not be around next year.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Tragically, those kind of conflicts do kill companies and are always “the other guy’s fault.” Perhaps you could give copies of the book to those involved or email reviews to them. Who knows, they might get the hint.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am
[…] Book review of Divide or Conquer… These days relationships are recognized as business lifeblood and everyone works to improve them, so Diana McLain Smith’s Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength is right on the money. […]
June 11th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Very interesting review. Its quite ironic, from a student’s point of view, conflict is what churns out great pieces of work. For example, when two members of one team are in a conflict with one another, it creates competition. When the competition reaches a pivotal point, both members focus so much on creating the best possible work. This is because they want to look “better” than the other person, so they put 110% of their effort into the task on hand. If we could harness this dedication on a regular basis…school would be much more different!
Just something to think about.
-Ram
June 11th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Hi Ram, good to see you. You make a good point about the positive side of competition, but I think that kind of competition is very different from what tears a relationship to pieces as happened with Jobs and Sculley. I was living in San Francisco then and it wasn’t just the two combatants who were bloodied, but everyone around them, even customers.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
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February 13th, 2009 at 5:30 am
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