Last Summer the Harvard Business Review published the article "Why Diversity Programs Fail."

The authors contend that top-down "control tactics" of mandatory diversity training classes don't have the desired long-term effects. In contrast, they recommend engaging employees in addressing diversity challenges, increasing on-the-job contacts and promoting social accountability to encourage employees to work together as equals toward common goals.

This echoes the classic Muzafer Sherif 1950s study of competing groups at a Summer boys' camp. The camp's two groups were in conflict. It was only when Sherif introduced crisis problems that to resolve required boys from the two groups to work together did their hostility disappear.

An important tactic in conflict management is to introduce what are now called "superordinate goals"-- goals that can only be achieved if competing groups agree to cooperate.

A former colleague recently recommended Adam Grant’s book "Give and Take."

In the volume Grant identifies three work traits: Giving, Taking and Matching. Givers are guided by values of helpfulness, responsibility, social justice, compassion and contribute to others while not expecting anything in return. Takers, on the other hand, are guided by values of wealth, power, pleasure, winning and strive to get as much as possible from others. Matchers refers to those that attempt to trade evenly.

As a graduate student Grant conducted a study to change the culture of the fund raising call center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The practice had been to use cash prizes and competitive games to motivate the student workers. He brought in a student who had benefited from fund raising to talk for just ten minutes on how much the scholarship from fundraising had changed his life and helped prepare him to be a teacher with "Teach for America." A month later the workers were working 142% more time on the telephone and bringing in 171% more donations. Grant repeated the study five times with equal or better results. Interestingly, in debriefings after the studies, the student workers denied that the visit from the scholarship recipient made any difference. The student workers were motivated to succeed but were not aware of the cause.

Grant concludes that successful Givers score high in concern for others and high in concern for self. Successful Givers are strategic by giving to other Givers and Matchers to achieve objectives and reinforce their social relationships.

It’s surprising that Grant doesn’t relate his work to the long established styles of conflict—avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising and collaboration. Those of us working in that field have long taught the advantages of collaboration or resolving conflicts in creative ways so that each party can achieve their objectives. It is true, though, that in workshops I conduct when given a hypothetical conflict situation, almost all workshop participants select the compromise style.  As I point out, while compromise may be easy and may reduce the conflict, it doesn’t have the same optimal outcomes that collaboration can have. And as I say, collaboration may not be easy, but it is usually possible if both parties work towards it.