I want to talk about another way to look at these terms which might give you some additional insight. This is  to see conflict as a process, I would argue an inevitable one in human interaction, whereas a dispute is one of the many possible products of this process. Taking a practical example, lets say you want to buy a certain model car and after some back and forth it turns out the first seller you approach is not willing to drop the price to a level you find acceptable. You go onto talk to other sellers and you eventually find one who offers you a lower price and you end up buying that car. An impartial observer might say something like “…oh they had a conflict over the sale price” but here it didn’t end up in an active dispute. You had a difference of opinion on price and you simply let it rest at that.

In this sense we can see two things, first, not all conflict is bad or unhealthy and second, unresolved conflict may only sometimes manifest itself in a fully blown dispute. This is particularly important in a workplace context as what you might find manifesting in a situation of unhealthy ongoing conflict is not a dispute but other damaging behaviours. It could be an increase in staff turnover, employees withholding their discretionary effort, low scores in employee satisfaction surveys or maybe negative messages being passed to clients impacting on sales.

From an intervention perspective, it’s important to realise that where a dispute has arisen, there may be other underlying causes of conflict that you need to identify and tease out to really address the nub of the problem.

In a recent New Yorker article, “Groupthink, The brainstorming myth” Jonah Lehrer examined some of the empirical testing of  the brainstorming process and found that again and again, rather than unleashing creativity, brainstorming generates far fewer ideas than the same number of people working on their own and later pooling their ideas. Studies seem to show that debate and criticism actually stimulate creativity not stifle it.

Drawing from a range of sources including a study of teams putting together Broadway musicals, Harvard Medical School research on the impact of physical proximity in research groups and the experiences of  those having worked at Building 20 at MIT, Lehrer concludes that the key to unleashing creativity rests on getting the group composition right then enabling the interaction of different perspectives.

Why then is Brainstorming still so popular? I would argue that part of it is certainly the “feel good” factor that people get from inhabiting a “criticism free zone”.  As a tool, used carefully, it may still serve as a useful technique for a range of reasons not articulated in the article.

Employees who feel good are more likely to contribute discretionary effort. When group dynamics or power structures don’t allow the ventilation of particular viewpoints it might act as a circuit breaker to free up communication. It could be useful in team building, perhaps to empower marginalised employees?

What are your thoughts and experiences?

Is it turning up to work before (and leaving after) your boss?  Maybe it’s the results from that psychometric tool some very engaging and clever sales guy foisted onto the HR Director?  Perhaps it’s a decision based purely on your outstanding last 2 performance reviews?

Last year Penn Schoen Berland published the results of interviews they conducted with 303 senior business executives in U.S. companies with at least 1,000 employees on this very topic.

The good news is that excellence in your current position, leadership potential, interpersonal and job related skills as well as strong performance reviews were the top 5 factors in most recent promotion decisions. However the same study showed that favoritism was seen to play a key role with 84% of executives reporting that such favoritism took place within their own organisations!

Is this favoritism simply perception or reality and what does this mean for Career Coaches advising their clients on structuring their internal career plans?

While there a lot of very competent career coaches out there who can work with you to create an impressive resume, give you some killer interview tips and gee you up on building your network… an excellent career coach should also work with you to build a personal brand, help you develop a positive and resilient mindset and assist you navigate the shoals of corporate politics with integrity.

It’s not my intention to explore different planning processes here or to look at all the topics related in some way to planning (e.g. goal setting, prioritizing, implementation, time management etc). If you are interested in looking at a specific approach to planning, one popular system is the GTD method laid out by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done. In fact if you’re interested in finding out more about this approach (but don’t want to buy the whole book) you might want to check out this very useful summary.

What I am interested in exploring is how much formal planning is actually necessary or indeed useful? Can too much planning be a hindrance rather than a help in getting you to your goals or in leading a fulfilling life?

Late last year I came across a Latin proverb “amat victoria curam” which translates into English as “victory loves careful preparation”. Digging a little deeper I recently discovered that in Latin, the word “Cura” actually has a double meaning. In a positive sense it means taking care or being diligent but in a negative sense, it can mean trouble or anxiety! (see here for more details).

This dual meanings really captures the dilemma a lot of people face when it comes to planning how to achieve what they define as success whether its in their careers or personal lives.

It’s pretty obvious that when you decide where you want to go, you have to work out how you are going to get there. However, in creating these plans, and trying to implement them, we can generate a lot of stress and anxiety for ourselves. Some people find they are so busy planning every aspect of their day that they have lost any sense of spontaneity in their lives.

In one of the blogs I follow, The Art of Non-Conformity, the author asked his readers whether they felt goals were necessary. Some argued that you need to plan to set direction and measure success. There was also strong support for the view that too much planning stops us “living in the present”. For a powerful advocate of this latter view you might like to check out achieving without goals on the blog ZenHabits.

In reality, the disagreement here is really one of degrees. Sure there are people who plan ever aspect of their lives but even mentally making a note of what you need to buy at the shop on the way home from work is itself a form of planning.

My experience has shown me that people’s attitude to planning can come down to questions of personal preference and the experiences they have had with particular processes.  If you have ever had to sit in a room for two days with a group of people creating a detailed strategic plan that then sat in a draw for a year (until the process was then repeated) you would have a good reason to be turned off that type of planning for life.

To me the main issues to consider in approaching planning on an organisational level (as opposed to a personal one) are as follows:

• How relevant is the planning process you are undertaking?  Planning processes need to be honest, easy to follow and appropriate to the situation at hand

• Have you involved the right people in the planing process? This seems obvious but there may be other parties that need to be involved. Are there other plans being used by other stakeholders that might impact the one you are doing now?

• What level of detail do you need? OK if you are designing the next moon lander there may be all sorts of incredibly detailed engineering, mechanical and costing dimensions that need to be considered but it’s actually possible to create a strategic plan for a business that can be captured on one page!

• Are the planning outcomes easily understood, reality tested and how often will they be reviewed?

Do you think there are any major issues when considering planning that should be added to this list?