If you haven’t figured this out by now (either through knowing me or just by reading my blog), I would describe myself as “intuitive.” I have nothing against “hard” data, and I’ve been known to do some data analysis from time to time (my nickname in my bicycling community is “stats”). But I am a big fan of intuitive sources of data, particularly when it comes to the facilitation and consulting I do. I gather data through conversation and by watching people, and I like to act on data before it has been proven “objectively.” I do it this way because it is natural to me, and it gets results. But I will admit there are people out there who wonder if what I am doing will work.

Which is why I love it when I find researchers who study the very type of work I do. It’s relatively rare, but I was recently thrilled to be pointed to a research-based article that hits right at the heart of what I do. Amy Edmondson and Diana McLain Smith wrote an article in the California Management Review titled “Too Hot to Handle? How to Manage Relationship Conflict” (Fall 2006 issue; there isn’t free web access to it, sorry).

Two people pointed me to this article. The first is my extremely well-read colleague and business partner, Jeff De Cagna (he subscribes to CBR of course). And the second was Michael Roberto, author of the article on ambiguous threats that I blogged about a while back. Roberto actually reached out to me based on that post and in our discussion he said that he knew of this article and thought I might like it (and he was right!). Thanks to you both.

The article provides a very elegant and rich understanding of conflict in organizations. First, it distinguishes between “hot” and “cool” topics. In cool topics, goals are shared, the ability to be “certain” is relatively high, and data are easily accessible and conducive to testing. The stakes of these conversations tend to be low or moderate. In these cases, conflict is often seen as a good thing. We can have a nice, fact-based discussion of something important and come to an agreement. The authors refer to this as “task conflict.”

In “hot” topics, on the other hand, the data may be objective, but the interpretations are varied and often hard to test. These topics often focus on the future, where there are too many unknowns to be certain. Stakes are high, and goals differ, often due to deeply held beliefs or interests (see my post on interests v. positions). Conflict here, they point out, becomes “personal,” where participants often end up shocked by the “other” party’s inability to be rational. They term these “relationship” conflicts.

There are two typical responses to relationship conflict in organizations:

1.    Avoid it
2.    Handle it poorly

They both produce the same result: misery.

What I love about the article, though, is they point to psychological research about cognition that helps explain this. For instance, they derived their “hot” and “cool” topic language from research about hot and cool cognitive systems in humans:

According to Janet Metcalfe and Walter Mischel, human beings process events through two distinct cognitive systems: a hot system and a cool system. While the former triggers us to respond to events emotionally and quickly (“to go”), the latter allows us to slow down and to think first (“to know”). The cool system is the basis for self-regulation and self-control. In contrast, the hot system is emotional and impulsive, triggered by stimuli that lead to instant reactions rather than reflection and reason.

Both hot and cool topics, of course, require the cool system. In fact, the hot topics need the cool system even more, but that is where we are triggered into our hot system. The rest of the article does provide ways for getting around this, and I’ll talk about that in future posts.