ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICTMANAGEMENTKen.docx

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT
MANAGEMENT
Kenan Spaho
Received: 22. 2. 2013. Professional paper
Accepted: 7.3.2013. . UDC: 65.01:316.65
No mistakes will be made by saying that without good internal
communication
there is no good external communication, which will then result
in inadequate
performance. In addition, it is not possible to imagine
organizational
communication without conflict. Conflicts are something
normal in any
organization because people have different opinions and among
them, there are
people who cannot accept other people's different opinions. It
was first believed
that conflicts were something that might destroy manager's
authority but studies in
the 1970s showed that conflicts could have a positive, as well as
a negative side.
There is a common agreement that it is very dangerous for an
organization to have
both too many conflicts, as well as not to have any conflicts.
For the purpose of
this paper, conflict management is analyzed as a contemporary
fleld of

management, while managers are analyzed in terms of their role
in conflict
management.
1. INTRODUCTION
In business world, communication is necessary for conducting
business in
an efficient manner. Any business involves two types of
communication:
external communication that is directed to the actors in the
business
environment, and internal communication or organizational
communication that
is directed to employees.
In addition, it is not possible to imagine organizational
communication
without conflicts. Conflicts are normal in any organization,
because people have
different opinions, while some individuals cannot accept other
people's
' Kenan Spaho, MSc, Energoinvest d.d. Sarajevo, Hamdije
Cemerlica 2, 71000, Sarajevo, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
103
Management, Vol. 18, 2013,1, pp. 103-118
K. Spaho: Organizational communication and conflict
management
different opinions. It is dangerous for an organization to have
too many

conflicts, as well as not to have any confiicts at all. For the
purpose of this
paper, we will focus on conñict management as a field, as well
on managers
and their role in the conflict management.
1.1. Organizational communication and conflict management-
literature review
It is not possible to have good human relations without
communication. An
effective communication is required, not only for maintaining
human relations,
but also for achieving good business performance. In addition,
practical
experience shows that there is no communication without
confiicts. Sometimes,
conflicts can be useful, as they help to make correct decision,
although they
might represent a huge obstacle to an organization and its
business. Firstly,
some theoretical aspects of organizational communication will
be presented,
which is followed by discussion of selected theoretical aspects
of conflicts and
conflict management.
1.2. Organizational communication
Communication is transfer of information fi"om sender to
receiver,
implying that the receiver understands the message.
Communication is also
sending and receiving of messages by means of symbols. In this
context,
organizational communication is a key element of

organizational climate
(Drenth et al, 1998). Finally, organizational communication is
the process by
which individuals stimulate meaning in the minds of other
individuals by means
of verbal or nonverbal messages (Richmond et al, 2005).
For efficient communication, it is necessary that the receiver
understands
the meaning of the message and indicates it to the sender
through some
expected reactions (Ivancevich, Matteson, 2002). Each
organization must
enable communication in several directions: downward
communication,
upward communication, horizontal communication, and
diagonal
communication, as illustrated by Figure 1 (Miljkovic, Rijavec,
2008).
Downward communication flows from top management to
employees.
This type of communication is characteristic for companies with
an
authoritative style of management.
Upward communication flows from employees to top
management. The
main task of this communication is to inform top management
of the situation
104

management
on the lower levels. It is the best way for top management to
analyze the
efficiency of downward communication and organizational
communication in
general (Miljkovic, Rijavec, 2008).
Figure 1. Types of organizational communication
Downward communication
, / ^ ^ ^ ^
managers , Upward communication
Middle
managers
First-line managers

Diagonal communication
Research & Sales & Production Accounting Finance
development marketing
Horizontal
communication
Source: Author
Horizontal communication fiows between employees and

departments,
which are on the same organizational level. It enables
coordination and
integration of activities of departments, engaged in relatively
independent tasks
(Miljkovic, Rijavec, 2008).
Diagonal communication fiows between people, which are not
on the
same organizational level and are not in a direct relationship in
the
organizational hierarchy. This type of communication is rarely
used - usually in
situations when it supplements other types of communication
(Miljkovic,
105
management
Rijavec, 2008). Diagonal cotnmunication is used, e.g. as labor
unions organize
direct meetings between employees and top management,
avoiding the first line
and middle level managers.
1.3. Definition of conflict in an organization
Many factors prevent employees from direct and open
communication - the
result is a high risk of confiict situations. If the managers apply
direct

communication on time, the confiict can be avoided, or its
impact can be
tninimized. Conflicts happen each day and their successful
management is a key
element of organizational and managerial success. Finally,
confiict is a fact of
our lives and if we are able to understand it and its impact on
work
effectiveness, we can make confiict useful and use them to
achieve better
results.
There are several definitions of confiict. Confiict is a process of
social
interaction and a social situation, where interests and activities
of participants
(individuals or groups) actually, or apparently, confront, block
and disable the
realization of one party's objectives (Jambrek, Penic, 2008,
1199). In addition,
confiict is a process where person A deliberately makes an
effort to prevent
efforts of person B with an opposing action, which will result in
fmstrating
Person B to achieve his goals or satisfy his interests (Robbins,
1995).
Organizational confiict occurs, as actors engage in activities
that are
incompatible with those of colleagues within their network,
members of other
organizations, or unaffiliated individuals who utilize the
services or products of
the organization (Rahim, 2002). The same author conceptualizes
confiict as an
interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement,
or dissonance

within or between social entities (individual groups,
organizations, etc). There
are several approaches to types of organizational conflicts but
for our analysis
we will take a look at the following types (Hener, 2010):
• Vertical conflicts occur because the supervisor is always
telling an
employee what to do and tries to 'micro-manage',
while/although
he/she should let the employee to do his/her job. This type of
confiict
exists in organizations where the organizational stmcture has a
high
degree of formality;
• Horizontal conflicts occur between employees within the same
department, i.e. on the same hierarchical level. These conflicts
can
manifest themselves for many reasons, such as the different
interests/ideas related to distribution of resources;
• Line Staff conflicts occur between support staff and line
employees,
within a department or an organization;
106
management
• Role conflicts can stem from an incomplete or otherwise
fallacious

understanding of the assignment given to an employee at a
specific
moment in time.
There are two types of confiict cases: personal and
organizational
(Petkovic et al, 2008). Personal causes come from personal
characters when
people interact. Personal causes can be summarized in the next
four groups
(Petkovic et al, 2008):
• Bad estimation of a person. Confiicts often happen because of
bad
perception of the other side. The sides in confiict are not
objective and
understand the behavior of opposite side, as they wish to hurt
the other
side and its interests.
• Errors in communication. These errors come from people's
inability
to listen to each other. In addition, errors come from
information lost in
upward and downward communication, due to inadequate
understanding, or from one's emotional status in the moment of
communication.
• Distrust among people in the organization. Tmst is the
foundation of
good interpersonal relations, as it develops and consolidates the
system
of values and confidence to each other. Five dimensions are
important
for developing tmst in an organization: integrity, competence,
consistency, loyalty, and openness. Distmst and suspiciousness

create a
good foundation for a potential confiict.
• Personal characteristics. Some people start confiict, because
of their
personal disliking. When people with completely different
personalities
need to work together, confiict cannot be avoided.
Organizational causes of confiict are consequence of the
characteristics of
organizational design, limited resources and characteristics of
organizational
systems, such as: compensations, decision-making, planning and
budgeting
(Petkovic et al, 2008). Some aspects of organizational causes of
confiict are
(Petkovic et al, 2008):
• Dependence in work activities. When a member of an
organization
cannot start his/her job, since another member has not finished
his/her
job, or if an individual significantly infiuences a colleague's
job, then
this might cause confiict.
• Differentiation of organizational units and incompatibility of
operating goals. The specialization of organizational units
(manufacturing, purchasing, finance, sales, etc.) manifests in
everyday
work as differences in working manners, goals and culture.
These
107

management
differences, as well as difference in their operative goals create
a
potential for emergence of horizontal conflict.
• Sharing limited resources. Resources in an organization are
related to
of power and influence, with each department trying to obtain a
larger
share. These resources are not only fmancial, but are also
related to
information technology, human resources, redistribution of
employees,
etc. The insufficiency of resources can also be a foundation for
a
potential conflict.
• Compensation system. The compensation system has a direct
influence on people's behavior, their satisfaction and feeling for
justice
and equality. In this situation, conflict can start because of
inconsistencies, which means that the employees in different
departments might be rewarded by using different criteria.
Salaries of
employees will always be a cause of dissatisfaction of
individuals,
because it is difficult to be objective and measure all the
employees'
achievements and contributions at their workplaces. However, it
is
possible to standardize the criteria for awarding compensation,

in order
to make the differences rational and acceptable.
• Organizational indistinctness and neglect. Unclear
organization of
work or delegation of authority can cause conflict. If
obligations and
responsibilities of employees are not clearly determined,
conflicts are
unavoidable. Low level of formalization stimulates conflicts,
especially
in small and mid-sized enterprises, where there is no
specialization of
employees, or delegation of authority among managers.
Conflict can have positive and negative effects on the
organization
(Bahtijarevic, 1993, 57):
• Positive effects initiate necessary social changes, developing
of
creative ideas and innovations, presenting important problems,
making
quality decisions and solving problems, organization re-
engineering,
developing solidarity and group cohesion.
• Negative effects are similar to bad cooperation, as they waste
time that
can be used in a more productive manner.
2.3. Understanding conflict process as a prerequisite for conflict
management
Conflict is a dynamic process that does not appear suddenly, but
takes

some time to develop and passes through several stages. There
are several
approaches to the conflict stages, but, for the purpose of this
paper, we will
108
management
focus on Louis R. Pondy's approach, who discems five stages of
the conflict
process, as illustrated by Figure 2. (Gonan Bozac et al, 2008):
• Latent conflict stage. In this stage, conflict is hidden, although
there
are conditions for starting it. The causes of these conflicts are:
competing for insufficient resources, differences in goals and
orientation toward organizational independence.
• Conflict perception stage. In this stage, all parties become
aware of
the latent conflict. There are several situations in conflict
perception.
Sometimes, conflict is perceived, although it does not exist (for
example, actors did not understand each other well, but later
solved the
problem), or latent conflict exists, but actors do not recognize
it. The
latter can be explained by focusing on other conflicts in
organization,
while some conflicts remain unnoticed. Since there are many
conflicts,

it is normal that managers are focused on those which can be
solved in
short time and by routine methods.
• Stage in which conflict is personalized. Here, a
'personalization' of
conflict happens. In this stage, both sides in the conflict feel
tensions
and experience anxiety and other uncomfortable feelings.
• Manifested conflict stage. In this stage, low spirits between
actors in
conflict are recognized. The conflict behavior is represented in
several
ways - from complete apathy to open aggression, which is often
contrary to organizational mies.
• Consequence stage. In this stage, we have the result of
obvious
conflict. It is either solved, or there is no satisfactory solution
and the
conflict goes back to the latent conflict stage.
Figure 2. Conflict process according to Pondy's model
LATENT
CONFLICT — •
PERCEIVED
CONFLICT
TANGIBLE
CONFLICT
MANIFESTED
CONFLICT

CONSEQUENCE
CONFLICT
SOLUTION
Source: Adapted from Gonan Bozae et al, 2008
109
management
Another model, developed by Kenneth W. Thomas, is often
quoted in
conflict management theory. Thomas thinks that the conflict
process occurs
through frustration stage, conceptualization stage, behavior
stage, stage of
reaction from the opposite side and consequence stage (Gonan
Bozac et al,
2008). Processes taking place in different stages are almost the
same as those in
Pondy's model. The essence of this model is a dynamical loop,
as demonstrated
by Figure 3.
In this loop, the sides in conflict change their behavior and the
sfyle of
solving conflict as a response to the strategic choice and
opposite side's
behavior (Gonan Bozac et al, 2008). This loop can be repeated
until conflict is

solved.
Figure 3. Conflict process according to Thomas's model
FRUSTRATION
1
REACTION OF THE
OPPOSITE SIDE
CONCEPTUALIZATION BEHAVIOR CONSEQUENCE
Source: Adapted from Gonan Bozac et al, 2008
These models are most quoted in literature and represent the
foundation for
fiirther models of conflict management. However, all the
mentioned stages do
not always have to take place, which depends on the
environment in which the
conflict occurs (Gonan Bozac et al, 2008). In order to describe a
situation as a
conflict, four elements must be present (Janicijevic, 2008):
• previous conditions for conflict appearance - lack of
resources, wrong
organizational policy, wrong rewarding system, wrong
perception of
groups;
• affective state of individuals and groups: stress, tension,
hostilify,
anxiefy;
• cognitive state of individuals and groups: belief,

consciousness,
knowledge that the conflict exists, that another side could
endanger, or
has already endangered the subject's interest;
• conflict behavior - from passive resistance to aggression
towards the
other side.
Approaches to solving conflict situations are presented in the
following
sections of the paper.
110
management
2.4. Managing conflict process
Conflict management suggests solving conflicts, instead of
reducing,
eliminating or limiting their duration. This means that each
organization should
have a macro strategy, reducing the negative consequences of
conflicts (Gonan
Bozac et al, 2008). In modem business, conflict management
needs some
changes in its approach. Modem organization needs a macro
organization
strategy that completely reduces negative effects of conflicts,
makes use of their
constructive dimension and contributes to organizational

learning and success
(Gonan Bozac et al, 2008). The conflict management process,
completely
compatible with the macro organizational approach is shown by
Figure 4
(Rahim, 2002).
Figure 4. Conflict management process
Diagnosis
• Measurement
• Analysis
Intervention
• Leadership
• Culture
• Design
Conflict
• Amount of
conflict
• Conflict style
Feedback
Learning &
effectiveness
• Indi

• Gro
• Org
vidual
lip
inization
Source: (Rahim, 2002)
Diagnosis. The most important element of conflict management
is problem
recognition. Only in the case of recognizing the right problem,
it is possible to
make an effective intervention. In this stage, it is necessary to
find out the
number of conflicts in the organization, as well as to explore
the relationship
between affective and substantive conflicts and explore
strategies which are
used by managers and employees in solving these conflicts. The
most important
issue is to flnd out the cause of conflicts.
Intervention. After proper diagnosis, it is easy to find out, if
any
intervention (and what type of it) is necessary. The intervention
is especially
needed in case of too many affective conflicts and too little
substantive
conflicts. There are two types of intervention: the process
approach and the
structural approach.

I l l
Management, Vol. 18,2013,1, pp. 103-118
management
Process approach. This approach assumes changing the intensity
of
confiicts and the style of handling confiicts (these styles will be
presented later).
In other words, by using this approach, managers try to match
the styles of
handling confiicts to different situations.
Structural approach. This approach assumes improving
organizational
effectiveness and changing organizational design. It attempts to
manage confiiet
by altering the perceptions of the intensity of confiict at various
levels.
Conflict. Conflicts have two dimensions, one consisting of
disagreements
relating to task issues and the other, consisting of emotional and
interpersonal
issues which lead to confiict. In recent years, several studies
have empirically
investigated these two dimensions of confiict and concluded
that these types of
confiict have different effects in the workplace.
Learning and effectiveness. One of the major objectives of
managing

confiict in a contemporary organization is to enhance
organizational learning
that involves knowledge acquisition, knowledge distribution,
information
interpretation and preserving organizational memory. Individual
learning is a
necessary, but it does not represent an adequate condition for
organizational
leaming. There must be processes and stmctures for transferring
what is leamed
by individuals to the collective.
2.5. Conflict management strategies and styles
Having defined causes, importance and effects of confiicts, one
is expected
to start solving them. In order to do so, managers must have a
clearly defined
sfrategy. Since confiicts can have a positive side, there should
be, also, a clearly
defined strategy for stimulating confiicts. In addition, strategy
must be followed
by an adequate confiict management style. Managers can follow
three sfrategies
for solving confiicts (Petkovic, 2008):
Strategy of negotiation. This is the most common strategy of
solving
confiicts and it is successful when the interests of opposite
sides are partly
common and partly different. The negotiation is a process, in
which different
tactics can be applied. Those include:
• Face-to-face tactic. Mutual confidence as a foundation for
negotiation

can be established by using this tactic.
• Persuading tactic. This tactic assumes using different methods
and
manners to win over partners and to reach a better negotiating
position.
112
management
• Deceitfulness tactic. This tactic assumes presenting false data
and
arguments. Its success depends on how well the negotiating
sides know
each other and if deceitfiilness is successful.
• Threat tactic. This tactic is based on deterrence from the side
which
holds a better position, or has more power. The stronger side
presents
consequences to the weaker, if it does not accept the proposed
solution.
• Promise tactic. This tactic is also based on having a better
position and
more power, with the stronger side persuading the weaker that it
will
keep its promises.
• Concession tactic. This is the most important tactic in the
negotiation

strategy. The point is to make concession but in a normal way,
not to
make too many concessions. By this tactic, it is possible to
create an
atmosphere of good will and readiness for solving the problem.
All
actors in the conflict count on both sides making a concession.
Strategy of a superior goal. One of the best ways for solving
conflict
situation is to deflne a superior goal. The point of this strategy
is to define a
goal above the individual goals, causing the conflict.
Strategy of the third-party intervention. If a negotiation strategy
does
not show results, it is recommended to apply the strategy of the
third-party
intervention. In this situation, management hires an external
consultant to solve
the problem. The consultant can be a mediator, whose task is to
give instruction
to sides in conflict on how to solve the problem, or an
arbitrator, whose task is
to impose a solution.
Practical experience shows that the last strategy is least used.
On the other
hand, the other two strategies must be under control of first line
managers,
because it is their task to solve conflicts. If they cannot, or do
not want to solve
the conflict, this must be done by upper-level managers.
Depending on conflict
intensity and care for other people, managers can use five styles
of conflict

management, illustrated by Figure 5 (Fox, 2006):
• Integrating. This style assumes confrontation of attitudes,
joint
identification of the problem and proposing a potential solution.
This
style is appropriate for complex problems, which are not always
clearly
understood. In the long run, this style is effective. However, it
is not
appropriate for conflicts emerging from different values.
Despite the
positive sides of this style, managers should know that it takes a
lot of
time.
• Obliging. This style assumes reduction of differences and
focusing on
common interests. Its advantage is encouragement of
cooperation, but it
113
management
does not solve the cause of the problem. This style is not
appropriate for
escalating problems.
• Dominating. This style is common for people who are more
focused on
personal, than on common interests. By using this style,

managers force
employees to obey. This style is appropriate when unpopular
working
solutions must be applied, when the deadline is tight, as well as
in case
of small issues. It does not take a lot of time to be implemented,
but it is
associated with disapproval and resistance of employees.
• Avoiding. This is passive style, characterized by distancing
from
problems and hiding them. It is appropriate for trivial problems,
rather
than for difficult and escalating problems, as it cannot solve the
essence
of the problem.
• Compromising. This style requires achieving of balance
between
personal and common interests. All participants must change
some
attitudes through interventions, negotiations and voting. This
style is
appropriate, when a balance of forces exists, but it should be
avoided, if
it results in something negative such as a delay in production,
etc. It
leads to democratic solution, but may prevent arriving to a
creative
solution of the problem.
Figure 5: Styles of confiict management
INTESRATING
DOMINATING

HIGH
CX»ICERN FOR SEXF
Source: Munduate et al, 1997
In Table 1, summary of previously described styles is presented,
along with
situations, in which they are appropriate for implementation (or
not).
114
management
Table 1. Conflict management styles and the situations where
they are (in)appropriate
Conflict
management style
Integrating
Obliging
Dominating
Situations where
appropriate
1. Issues are complex

2. Synthesis of ideas is
needed to come up with
better solutions
3. Commitment is needed
from other parties for
successful implementation
4. Time is available for
problem solving
5. One party alone cannot
solve the problem
6. Resources possessed by
different parties are
needed to solve their
common problems
1. You believe you may be
wrong
2. Issue is more important to
the other party
3. You are willing to give up
something in exchange for
something from the other
party in the future
4. You are dealing from a
position of weakness
5. Preserving relationship is
important

1. Issue is frivial
2. Speedy decision is needed
3. Unpopular course of
action is implemented
4. Necessary to overcome
assertive subordinates
5. Unfavorable decision by
the other party may be
costly to you
6. Subordinates lack
expertise to make
technical decisions
7. Issue is important to you
Situations where
inappropriate
1. Task or problem is
simple
2. Immediate decision is
required
3. Other parties are
unconcerned about the
outcome
4. Other parties do not
have the problem-
solving skills

1. Issue is important to you
2. You believe you are
right
3. The other party is wrong
or imethical
1. Issue is complex
2. Issue is not important to
you
3. Both parties are equally
powerful
4. Decision does not have
to be made quickly
5. Subordinates possess
high degree of
competence
115
management
Avoiding
Compromising

1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Issue is trivial
Potential dysfunctional
effect of confronting the
other party outweighs
benefits of resolution
Cooling off period is
needed
Goals of parties are
mutually exclusive
Parties are equally
powerful
Consensus carmot be
reached
Integrating or dominating
style is not successful
Temporary solution to a
complex problem is
needed
1.

2.
3.
4.
1.
2.
Issue is important to you
It is your responsibility
to make decision
Parties are unwilling to
defer, issue must be
resolved
Prompt attention is
needed
One party is more
powerful
Problem is complex
enough needing a
problem-solving
approach
Source: Buddhodev, 2011
Finally, the most important criterion for choosing the conflict
management
style is the nature of the objective, i.e. beating the opposite
side, or finding a
solution which will be useful for all (Fox, 2006). For managers,
the choice
depends on the objective, i.e. demonstrating authority, creating
a compromise,
or developing a good image. The practical experience shows

that all situations
are realistic.
In order to reduce conflicts in an organization in the long run, it
is
necessary to define all previous conflicts, their causes and the
way they were
solved. In accordance to those conclusions, managers undertake
stmctural
changes, modify goals, redefine relations between authority and
responsibility
and, if necessary, change the entire organizational stmcture
(Kiss, 2007).
3. CONCLUSION
The paper analyzes the importance of conflict management in
organizational communication by looking into the basics of
organizational
communication (as an introduction into conflict management)
and, later, by
focusing to conflict management strategies and styles. All
managerial levels
have a responsibility for good organizational communication
and conflict
management. Practical experiences have shown that managers
cannot be left out
116
management

of confiicts, but must take active part in it. Conflicts should be
solved by first-
line managers, or, if the confiict is significant, on the middle
level of
management. It is not appropriate to leave confiict solving to
top management,
as it shows that managers at lower levels are not capable to deal
with confiicts
and employees in general. Experience has also shown that
solving conflicts on
higher levels negatively influences organizational effectiveness,
since top
managers have other important business tasks.
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12. Munduate, L., Luque, P., Baron, M., (1997): Styles of
handling
interpersonal conflict: an observational study, Psicothema, 9(1),
pp. 145-
153.

Petkovic, M., (2008): Organizaciono ponasanje, Ekonomski
fakultet Beograd,
Beograd
117
management
13. Petkovic, M., Janicijevic, N., Bogicevic-Milikic, B., (2008):
Organizacija,
Ekonomski fakultet Beograd, Beograd
14. Rahim, A, (2002): Toward theory of managing
organizational conflict. The
International Journal ofConfiict Management, 13 (3), pp. 206-
235.
15. Richmond, V. P., McCroskey J. C , McCroskey L. L.,
(2005),
Organizational Communication for Survival: Making Work,
Work, Allyn
and Bacon, Needham Heights MA
16. Robbins, S. P., (1995), Bitni elementi organizacijskog
ponasanja. Mate,
Zagreb
ORGANIZACIJSKA KOMUNIKACIJAI UPRAVLJANJE
KONFLIKTIMA
Sazetak

Zasigumo se nece pogrijesiti, ako se ustvrdi da bez dobre
interne, nema ni kvalitetne
eksteme komunikacije, sto ce se iskazati i u losim poslovnim
rezultatima. Nadalje, nije
moguce niti zamisliti organizacijsku komunikaciju bez
konflücta. Konflikti su normalna
pojava u svakoj organizaciji, s obzirom da ljudi imaju razlicita
misljenja, a sto pojedinci
ne mogu prihvatiti. Prvo se vjerovalo da konflikti mogu unistiti
menadzerski autoritet,
ali studije iz 1970-ih su pokazale da konflikt moze imati
pozitivnu, kao i negativnu
ulogu. Stoga je opceprihvaceno miSljenje da u organizaciji ne
smije biti previSe, ali ni
premalo konflikta. U okvini ovog rada, upravljanje konfliktima
se tretira kao suvremeno
podrucje menadzmenta, pri ôemu se analiziraju menadzeri i
njihova uloga u provedbi
upravljanja konfliktima.
118
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Diego Rivera and His Mexico
Author(s): Alfred Werner
Source: The Antioch Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1960), pp.
88-100
Published by: Antioch Review Inc.
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Diego Rivera and His ZVexico
By ALFRED WERNER
U "Wer den Dichter will verstehen, Muss in Dichters Lande
gehen,"
wrote Goethe, to advise those who wished to understand a poet
to
become acquainted with the poet's native land. If this is sound
advice,
it is even more applicable to the realm of art. For the artist is,
by
necessity, an "Augenmensch" (this, too, from Goethe), a
creative
human being depending more than anyone else on sensations
re-
ceived by the eye. Not before setting foot in Mexico last
summer did
I feel that I had arrived at a real understanding of Diego
Rivera's
work, not before experiencing the country's semi-tropical
colors,
seeing the palm, cactus, and agave that so often surround his
figures,
and, of course, not before watching the natives at work and
play.
To appreciate the sources of Rivera's art, one must not only
have
seen the plump Indian women stoically flattening the maize
dough
for the tortillas, the silent farmers toiling in the fields, the
fiestas in
the small towns and villages, but also the treasures of pre-
Columbian
art nowhere as abundant and magnificently displayed as in
Mexico

City's Museo Nacional de Antropologia.
Mexico City and its environs hold the bulk of Rivera's work.
Even though one can get a fair idea of the character and scope
of
his oeuvre by studying the frescoes he made for buildings in
Detroit
and San Francisco and the rich collection of watercolors,
drawings,
and prints in New York's Museum of Modern Art, only a visit
to
ALFRED WERNER is a contributing editor of Arts and U.S.
correspondent of
Pantheon, Munich, an international magazine of art that folded
during the
Nazi period and is now being revived. His articles on art have
appeared widely.
his last appearance on our pages being "The Dilemma of
American Art" in
the Summer, 1958, issue.
88
16:30:49 UTC
DIEGO RIVERA AND HIS MEXICO 89
Mexico's capital will illuminate the social implications of his
life and
work. For Mexico City is a slumbering volcano of sharp and

even
brutal contrasts and contradictions. On the Paseo de la
Reforma, a
New World Champs-Elysees and certainly one of the widest
and
most elegant boulevards in the world, can be seen cosmopolitan
sophisticates descending from shining new Cadillacs to enter
luxuri-
ous hotels, restaurants, and shops equal to the best in New
York or
Paris-as well as barefooted Indian mothers, babies strapped to
their
backs, desperately trying to sell National Lottery tickets to the
"gringos." In downtown Mexico City, street vendors, their
pitiful
wares spread out before them, squat impassively in the shade of
once magnificent, but now slowly disintegrating, Baroque
palaces
or glass-fronted skyscrapers which are rapidly replacing older,
more
modest office buildings.
I came too late to meet the master (he had died in Mexico City
on November 25, 1957) yet the artists, writers, dealers,
collectors I
met were talking about him as though he were still alive-but
not
quite so (for while he was still around, the prudent would not
dare
to say anything critical about him to a stranger who might,
after all,
report "blasphemous" remarks to the easily aroused and rather
vengeful God of Mexican Art). His physical presence could
still be
felt-an obese giant who looked like a huge frog, and who,

despite
the "ugliness" of a bloated face with protruding ironic eyes,
was an
irresistible charmer.
There was less agreement about his character. Without doubt he
was eloquent, witty, well-informed, but many remembered him
as
an ogre who considered any fellow artist looking for wall space
to
paint on as his mortal enemy. The Rivera who never passed a
beggar
without pressing some pesos into the upturned palm was cruel
to-
wards anyone with views on politics, religion, or art that did
not
match his own and was not above destroying his "adversary,"
al-
though more subtle in his methods of assassination than using
the
gun that he had worn for years in a cartridge belt.
He was a rogue like Benvenuto Cellini, a rake like Casanova,
and many children have been attributed to him. Yet, despite all
his
affairs, he seems to have cherished his wife, Frida. They were
mar-
ried from 1928 until her death in 1954. Never, it appears, did
in-
dividuals so dissimilar live together in marital union. Frida
Kahlo
16:30:49 UTC

go THE ANTIOCH REVIEW
was small and frail and introverted. Whereas Rivera was hale
and
vigorous until his very last years, Frida, who, at sixteen, had
been
injured severely in a traffic accident, spent her life in a series
of only
half-successful surgical operations, valiantly enduring
insufferable
pain. Rivera, adhering to a somewhat stylized brand of harsh
real-
ism, chose his subject matter from the hard and often brutal
political
and social life of his nation. Frida Kahlo, an insufficiently
recognized
Surrealist painter, was inspired by another kind of tragedy-her
own.
For her themes are illness, surgery, child-birth, death-treated in
a
spirit closer to the Pre-Raphaelites than to the mannerisms of
Dali.
Mrs. Rivera's existence is often ignored by those who have
written about Rivera, and she is one of several "mysteries" in
the life
of this ingenious mountebank. His autobiography, dictated over
a
period of ten years to an American journalist, but still
unpublished,
probably will not offer irrefutable information on Rivera's
mixed
ancestry, on his complicated political gyrations, on his

friendships
and enmities, though it will, by implication, shed light on the
author's ambiguous character.
There are, however, a few verifiable facts, the most important
being the date of his birth-December 8, i886. Rivera was a
native
of the mining city of Guanajuato but as early as I892 moved
with
his family to the capital city. He thus saw it when, apart from
the
already crumbling Colonial buildings, it consisted of the
sumptuous
Second Empire villas built by the mestizo cronies of dictator
Porfirio
Diaz, and the unmentionable, and seldom mentioned, little slum
habitations of the Indio servants and workers. Rivera lived long
enough to witness the city's fantastic growth and
transformation
from "a charming little Paris into a large Houston, Texas" (as
the
painter Siqueiros expressed to me his distaste for Mexico City's
modernization). Yet whatever physical changes occurred within
a
few decades, in the city-in whose suburb, Coyoacan, he resided
with his wife-all sensitive visitors have agreed upon one
apparently
unchanged aspect: the gap between the fabulously rich and the
abysmally poor, between the white or mestizo managerial class,
and
the illiterate Indian proletariat.
One must bear in mind these sociological and racial facts to
understand the basic differences between the two most famous
Com-

munist painters of our time-the one, Rivera, the other, of
course,
16:30:49 UTC
DIEGO RIVERA AND HIS MEXICO 9I
Pablo Picasso. Most articles devoted to Rivera stress his
indebtedness
to the Spaniard, and Rivera has, indeed, been quoted as saying
that,
while he never believed in God, he did believe in Picasso. The
simi-
larities between these two men, in background and character,
are
striking enough: both came from intellectual middle-class
families,
achieved wealth through their art, yet became enthusiastic
sponsors
of Communism. Both made headlines a hundred times more fre-
quently than such equally important, but much less eccentric
and
extroverted, contemporaries as Braque or-in Mexico-Orozco.
Both
have challenged the old established values in art: Picasso by
intro-
ducing Cubism, Rivera by his large compositions simplified in
form
and color that have ushered in a truly Mexican art and
supplanted
the sentimental imitation of French academic art and Zuloaga
and

Sorolla.
But there is a marked difference in their attitudes regarding the
function of art. Picasso, who was sixty-three when he officially
joined
the Communist Party, never cared whether or not his work
might
be understood by the masses, and in his famous interview with
Chris-
tian Zervos even poked fun at people overly eager to
"understand"
art. Rivera, however, along with Siqueiros and, to a lesser
degree,
perhaps, Orozco, deliberately went out to "socialize artistic
expres-
sion." He, who was a Communist-though not always a follower
of
Moscow's party-line-for the last half of his life, insisted upon
the
role of art as a social instrument.
He once explained why he loved such abstract painters as
Kandinsky and Klee, yet himself produced nothing that, in his
opinion, might be beyond the ken of the average man.
Connoisseurs,
he explained, love canard faisande'-duck that has been hung
until
it has become "high"-but the ordinary French worker would
throw
it out. Just as the cuisine of the sophisticated bourgeois makes
the
proletarian queasy, so will he react violently against bourgeois
paint-
ing. He, Rivera, was fortunate enough to have an "educated
nose,*
but he,, himself part Indian, could never forget or ignore the

simpler
tastes of the millions, never paint anything that was not clear,
firm,
and plainly to be understood by everyone.
Both Picasso and Rivera arrived in Paris in a period when the
arts were in ferment and the idols of Renaissance tradition
broken
or discarded forever. But Picasso was never to leave France,
except
16:30:49 UTC
92 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW
for brief journeys, and developed an art that is as tortuous to
the
uninitiated ones as canard faisande is unappetizing to the non-
gourmet. By contrast, Rivera returned to a Mexico whose
population
consisted mainly of poor, uneducated peons, and which had
pro-
duced no genuine, indigenous art since the fall of Montezuma.
Picasso no longer had any use for Spain; Rivera, on the other
hand,
needed Mexico as much as Mexico needed him. He might not
have
discovered and developed his vigor of originality had he not
come
back to his native land. One is reminded of the story of
Antaeus, the
giant of Greek mythology who proved invincible as a wrestler,

for,
whenever his strength began to wane, he derived fresh strength
from renewed contacts with his mother earth. Hercules,
however,
discovered the source of his strength and, lifting him away
from
the earth, was able to crush him to death.
Artistically, Rivera might have been "crushed to death" by his
friend Picasso, for Rivera's early cubistic paintings are utterly
deriva-
tive; the still lifes, musicians, and card players painted by
Picasso
around I914 were imitated by this "Mexican cowboy" (as the
Parisians called him) with little conviction, and less success.
Thus,
it was his good fortune to have known the source of his own
strength
and to have returned to Mexico in I92I. His biographer,
Bertram
Wolfe, relates that Rivera had become homesick "as an artist
even
more than as man," and adds:
The merest hints of Mexico, a softness in the air, or a solitary
plant, was
sufficient to set his nostalgic mood to work. . . . For thirteen
years now he
had struggled to be a European and had not succeeded. . . . On
his in-
numerable works . . . there were legible the traces of a
desperate conflict:
the struggle between disoriented imitativeness striving to learn
and acquir-
ing great skill and virtuosity in the process, and a personality
seeking to

express itself in terms of its own heritage and views, which
were other
than the heritage and view of his masters.
In the Mexico of the Twenties, Rivera became a Communist,
not
because he had read Das Kapital or Lenin's theoretical writings
and
found himself to be in agreement with them, but because the
Com-
munists in this backward, demoralized, and impoverished
country
appeared to him to be the only ones anxious and able to fulfill
the
vast promises made by the national revolution of I9IO. Even in
I959,
any American crossing the Rio Grande quickly notices that he
has
16:30:49 UTC
entered another world, picturesque, no doubt, but also sadly
lacking
in the material comforts offered even by the less prosperous
parts of
the United States. Nearly four decades ago, Rivera, returning
from
France to a country where illiteracy was high and where a
dozen
rabble-rousers had filled their pockets and those of their

lieutenants
at the expense of the unorganized, politically naive masses,
must
have felt that the machinery of democratic reform that he had
seen
at work in Western Europe was much too slow for his country.
He
feared that it might not work at all, and that the only means
with
which to combat reactionary force was counter-force.
Picasso is more of an Anarchist than a Communist, and, world-
famous and independent, he has repeatedly defied the Party in
matters of aesthetic principles. Rivera became a Communist as
early
as 1922 and within a year was elected to the party's Executive
Com-
mittee, but his comrades were justified in suspecting him of
being a
Zapatist rather than a true Leninist or Stalinist. (Emiliano
Zapata
was the primitive leader whose major aim was an agrarian
revolu-
tion that would oust estate owners, land sharks, venal judges,
and
other oppressors of landless peasants.)
It is difficult to say whether his politics influenced his art or
whether his aesthetic principles made it easier for him to join a
party
claiming to be of and for the masses. One ought to remember
that
in the nineteenth century the artist became the isolated and eco-
nomically insecure figure that he has remained to this day. To
combat this state of affairs, artists wanted to become a "mass,
they

banded together in a variety of groups. Camille Pissarro even
wanted
the Impressionists to be a co-operative modeled on a
professional
bakers' association whose set-up he had studied. He dreamed of
ways of making art accessible to the masses through
inexpensive
reproductions and was active in a Club de L'AMrt Social which
had
among its objectives the encouragement of popular art and the
establishing of contacts between literary, artistic, and political
groups.
These and similar efforts were premature and therefore in vain,
or European artists were too unruly to join anything resembling
a
trade union (vide Modigliani, or Picasso!). But Diego Rivera
and
his colleagues, in the Twenties, succeeded in organizing the
"Revolu-
tionary Union of Technical Workers, Painters, Sculptors, and
Allied
Trades." Believing in "Mexicanidad," they were determined to
create
16:30:49 UTC
an art that would be national (based on the traditions of pre-
Co-
lumbian architecture and sculpture) and social (clear, simple,

direct,
so that everyone would understand it)-an art that would take its
motifs from historic events close to the hearts of the common
people.
These aims were, perhaps, admirable-but they were too self-
conscious, too rigid, to permit the free flow of creative
imagination.
Rivera, well versed in the history of art, ought to have realized
that
strict programs and regulations are a hindrance rather than a
help
in the realm of art and that creativity thrives on freedom. The
art of
Byzantium was limited by the dictatorial regime the Eastern
Churchl
exerted upon all its members, including craftsmen and
architects.
Art developed in the Renaissance period to the height we
admire in
Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael mainly because the
Patron
Church permitted its artists liberties that no medieval pope or
bishop
would have allowed. Art suffered in the seventeenth century
when
the French Academy demanded that its practitioners should
treat
only important and noble subjects, preferably from classical
an-
tiquity, and there was again a decline when Jacques Louis
David, as
the art dictator of the French Revolution, ushered in an era of
grandiosity, with many a frigid, pretentious, and declamatory
composition.

Rivera was far too clever a man to think that his fellow-Mexi-
cans, especially those who were not even able to read or write,
were
the most reliable arbiters of good taste, himself having
observed that
"the workman, ever burdened with his daily labor, could
cultivate
his taste only in contact with the worst and vilest portions of
bour-
geois art which reached him in cheap chromos and the
illustrated
papers." But he was sufficiently optimistic to believe that he
and his
friends might be able to uplift the "man in the street" by giving
him the proper food for his eyes: wholesome, yet also well
cooked,
of a good quality, while also easy to digest.
The triumvirate of Mexican muralists-Rivera, Orozco, and
Siqueiros-concentrated on the importance of public buildings:
the
ordinary worker, they argued, never enters a museum but often
finds
his way into government offices-hence, their wall space must
be
utilized. At the same time, knowing that people who hurriedly
walk
through such buildings on their everyday errands will not stop
for a
careful inspection, they planned and executed the picture so
that it
16:30:49 UTC

could be taken in even by a passing glance. Finally, the subject
matter was chosen to be of the most immediate interest to the
man,
woman, or child casually looking at the work.
With all these interesting ideas and ideals, Rivera and his
friends soon ran into trouble. They were content to tell
anecdotes,
they drew their inspiration from Aztec folklore, they spread
naked
political propaganda, yet, being intrinsically and basically
artists,
they used artistic means. But did the Indio, looking at the huge
superhuman nude figures spread out, tapestry-like, in rhythmic
organization, really recognize himself and his fellow-
Mexicans?
Were not the emotion-fraught colors rather different from those
which the peon noticed upon and around himself? Even at the
height of their political enthusiasm, these artists were not able
to
forget completely the maxim that had been formulated by the
French painter, Maurice Denis: "Remember that a picture-
before
being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote-is
essentially
a plane surface covered with colors assembled in a certain
order."
This, then, was their dilemma: if they remained artists above
anything else, they were liable to produce murals emulating
(though

perhaps not achieving) the grand scale of a Michelangelo,
provided
they would neglect the limitations of the "patron's" perceptive
faculty. On the other hand, if they stooped to lower their
artistic
standards sufficiently to make themselves understood by
everyone,
they were squandering their tremendous technical skills on
propa-
ganda sheets blown up to huge dimensions.*
As for Rivera, too often did he cram too many figures and
episodes into a panel with an exaggerated realism that leaves
no
room for flights of imagination and in flat, shrill color devoid
of all
*ln the United States, during the years of the Works Progress
Administration
(1933-I941), artists faced a similar dilemma, though to a much
smaller degree.
Akmerican artists were given themes when commissioned to
decorate the walls
of federal courthouses, hospitals, post offices, and housing
projects. No political
pressure was exerted upon them by the administration, and if
radical thought
was expressed in some of the murals, this was the painter's own
affair. If many
of the nearly one thousand murals look terribly dated to us
after only twenty
years (whereas Giotto's frescoes are still exciting six centuries
after their incep-
tion), our disappointment is due to the fact that the artists too
often were

mediocre painters, though ardent social dreamers.
16:30:49 UTC
sophistication. Where is the joy that we derive from the subtle
chromatic combinations in Klee's paintings? Where is the equi-
librium of Mondrian's design? Where the unceasing inner flame
that moves Picasso to proceed from one experiment to another?
Had Mr. Rockefeller permitted Rivera's mural to stay (in the
New York center that bear's the financier's name) rather than to
insist upon its destruction (Rockefeller was annoyed by Lenin's
portrait within the picture), Rivera would not have derived the
satisfaction of being saluted as a martyr to capitalist
oppression.
Today, few people would have paid much attention to them,
except
for tourists to whom certain details might have been pointed
out
for their worth as sheer curiosities. I was struck by his work's
artistic
inadequacy after seeing, last summer, a very slightly altered
version
in Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes. (There Trotzky and
Marx
are added to Lenin, and a portrait of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. is
included in the night-club scene, in an understandable stroke of
vengeance.)
But he could do much better-for instance, the frescoes he made

for the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts. I believe they are superior
because, coming to Detroit, he for the first time came into
contact
with factories, machine shops, and laboratories of a kind he had
never seen in Europe, and certainly not in a country as
undeveloped
as Mexico. The poet in him was awakened by what he saw, and
the
naive joy of fresh discovery proved to be stronger, at that
point, than
the abhorrence of the indubitably ugly aspects existing in the
laborers' life and work. All that he had learned about the
inevita-
bilitv of a classless society, to be achieved through the
dictatorship
of the proletariat, sank into oblivion for the moment while he
was
fascinated by the city's "marvellous plastic material which
years and
years of work could not exhaust," by "bridges, dams, factories,
locomotives, ships, industrial machinery, scientific
instruments, auto-
mobiles, and airplanes." Since these were relatively new to
him-at
least as they presented themselves to him within the framework
of
the world's most advanced center of engineering,
manufacturing,
and building-his usual overstating of familiar facts was not
possible.
With an architect's keen eye for solid construction, he divided
the
entire available wall space of the inner court into twenty-seven
panels
to show through them how an abundant life might be created

16:30:49 UTC
through the fusion of the earth's mighty resources with the
superior
intelligence of man.
In lieu of the crude naturalism that we find so annoyingly
boring in some of Rivera's propaganda pieces, the artist had to
resort
to symbolism, aided by geometric patterns provided by moving
conveyor-belts and other machinery in motion. "As basic plan
for
the mural decoration," Rivera wrote, "I chose the plastic
expression
of the wave-like movement which one finds in water currents,
elec-
tric waves, stratifications of different layers under the surface
of the
earth, and, in a general way, throughout the continuous
develop-
ment of life."
The Detroit murals were produced in I932-33. About six years
earlier Rivera painted what is considered his best work: the
murals
in the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura of Chapingo, some
miles
east of the capital city. In a barrel-vaulted rectangular room
that
had once served as a chapel, he made man's social development

and
the fertilization of the earth his double theme. Being Rivera, he
could not help introducing here, too, the class struggle, with
satirical
exposes of capitalist, militarist, and churchman. But these
scenes,
fortunately, do not dominate. Still lingering in my fond
memory of
the recent excursion to Chapingo are the pictures of earthy
female
nudes, symbolizing fructification, fecundity, and germination,
and
of men and women at work in the fields. In these scenes he is
gentle
and lyrical, fascinated by the sinuous curves of the female body
and
by the quiet grandeur of simple people who have the same
dignity
that Gauguin immortalized in the Tahitians. Luckily for the
artist,
space limitations ruled out the painting of mass scenes, so that,
in-
stead, he had to make do with single figures or small groups
and
could devote to them his inherent poetry, embodied in the
convinc-
ing simplicity of sure yet tender drawing, in pure yet restrained
color, and in an unlabored play of movement.
Though the man Rivera, the lover and dreamer, reveals himself
as nakedly as nowhere else, and though aestlhetic
considerations gain
control over outspoken anti-capitalistic and anti-clerical
propaganda,
the hall became something like a "Sainte-Chapelle of the
Mexican

Revolution." Even those Mexicans who are not admirers of
Rivera,
and even rejoice that this art dictator has gone, concede that
the
Chapingo frescoes constituted the peak of the painter's work,
never
16:30:49 UTC
matched during the thirty years of activity that were to follow.
Foreigners take the trouble to make the one-hour trip to
Chapingo
just to visit the chapel. One of them, a French critic, has
summed up
these murals enthusiastically:
The emotion overflows, an irresistible seduction sweeps
criticism off its
feet; on that drawing, which overwhelms you, an admirable
rainbow of
colors, a play of all violets, oranges, tender greens, rose of fire,
unfolds its
cargo of delights, all the voluptuous gamut of the light of
Mexico.
Ironically, the same Mexicans who take the art-loving tourist to
Chapingo, or to what is now the Museo Frida Kahlo (a two-
house
establishment, connected by a bridge, the "little house" having
been

for Frida, the "big house" for her husband), are likely to tell
you
(unless they are unreconstructed Communists) that Rivera's
death
removed, not only an important artist, but also a ruthless
egotist
who considered every available wall space to be destined for
his use.
They will also tell you, with relief, that Siqueiros, the only
survivor
of the trio, while vociferous and eager to play the role of
dictator, is
not powerful enough to turn the clock back. Indeed, current
exhibi-
tions at the Palacio de Bellas Artes (or at the private galleries
in the
elegant international quarter off the Paseo de la Reforma)
indicate
that many of the younger Mexican painters can produce
significant
forms without resorting to pigtails and sombreros, battle scenes
and
revolutionary anecdotes. With the demise of Orozco and
Rivera, and
the waning of Siqueiros, two younger (although not young)
painters
have come to the fore as exponents of an art closer to the
aesthetic
concepts of New York and Paris. They are Rufino Tamayo and
a
fellow-Indian, Carlos Merida. Tamayo's stylized renderings of
wild
dogs and of lush watermelons and his more recent, almost
mono-
chromatic, semi-abstractions, have become world famous in the
past

decade, but Merida's fame has not yet reached international
propor-
tions. In his work (amoeba-like figures and geometric forms in
pri-
mary colors) "Mexicanidad," as it was understood thirty years
ago,
is not noticeable at all, but those who have read The Plumed
Serpent
will, indubitably, feel the mysterious atmophere of Mexico that
was
felt by the sensitive D. H. Lawrence.
Tamayo and Merida are at least aware of Rivera's importance
in the history of Mexican art, but their younger colleagues have
not
the slightest respect for the late master. Several told me, quite
16:30:49 UTC
belligerently, that the soul of Mexico could be expressed
without
clinging to quaint images of outmoded customs and social
images.
They would agree with another cosmopolite rebel, young Jose
Luis
Cuevas, who recently wrote: "What I want in my country's art
are
broad highways leading out to the rest of the world rather than
narrow trails connecting one adobe village with another."

Nevertheless, quite a few people in Mexico (and, for that
matter,
in the United States as well) insist that Rivera's attitude to art
and
to people was right. They argue that, although the masses now
enjoy
greater liberty than they did in the era of dictator Porfirio Diaz,
and
though the literacy rate is much higher today than it was when
the
new Mexican art arose, there are still many millions who are
ill-fed,
ill-clothed, ill-housed, ill-informed, and who, could they be
made to
look at pictures, would get something out of Rivera's frescoes
but
would be only baffled by abstractions.
But the harsh truth is that these people do not bother to look at
Rivera's work. For the serape vendor who, after a day's work, is
unable to fill his belly or his family's with any but the
cheapest, least
nourishing, food; for the Indio woman who, after bearing a
dozen
children, is depleted and aged at thirty; for the ragged boy who
sup-
ports three younger brothers and a sick mother by shining
shoes-
Rivera does not exist.
The gigantic mural Rivera did for the lobby of the strikingly
modern Hospital de la Raza, "The People's Demand for Better
Health," shows, in numerous brightly hued episodes, the
develop-
ment of medicine in Mexico from the pre-Columbian period to

the
present day. It is one of his very last works, yet it recaptures
the
classic flavor and the rhythmic vitality that characterize his
earlier,
better work, and, unlike other works of his old age, it shows no
trace
of improvisation or hurry. Unfortunately, not one of the
hundreds of
passers-by (including serape vendors, Indian mothers, shoe-
shine
boys) seems to notice this luminous, dynamic fresco-nobody,
that
is, except for some grin-gos who may have read about it in
Artes de
Mexico.
But the gringos, having grown up in a climate of Abstraction
and Abstract-Expressionism, are likely to be prejudiced against
"Social Realism" even in its most valid manifestations. Time is
work-
ing against Rivera even in the sense that chemical changes are
ruin-
16:30:49 UTC
ing his frescoes, some of which have aged more rapidly than
Da
Vinci's Last Supper, due to careless application of pigment on
poorly

prepared surfaces. I can foresee a time when of these big
murals
little will be left that was made by the hand, or, at least, under
the
supervision of, Rivera, for some of these works have been
allowed
to deteriorate to such a degree in the past twenty to forty years
that
even if restoration were to begin right now, one-third to four-
fifths of
the pigmented space would have to be repainted completely.
But even if the generation to come should be deprived of much
of Rivera's basic work, the surviving murals would give some
idea
of the man and his soul-for excellent passages can be found,
here
and there, even amidst some altogether unsatisfactory work.
And
future art lovers may also discover what I wish to call the "un-
known" Rivera, the maker of numerous small pieces, such as
sensi-
tive pencil drawings of women, oil portraits of friends,
watercolor
sketches of landscapes, works that have been neglected-
unfairly we
hasten to add-over certain big anecdotal murals that created
con-
troversies and made good newspaper copy. These small,
unambitious
works provide good insight into the man Rivera. They indicate
that,
despite all the bragging and self-advertising and shouting, he
must
have been a rather lovable monster, this Gargantua who was

able
to retain the love of many a woman, the friendship of such
gentle
individuals as Modigliani, Lipchitz, and Elie Faure, and the
respect
of critics, including some who, while not sharing his political
ideas,
could not help admiring the zest and versatility of his genius.
16:30:49 UTC
Contents888990919293949596979899100Issue Table of
ContentsThe Antioch Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1960), pp.
1-128Volume InformationFront Matter [pp. 1-2]Editor's Shop
Talk [pp. 3-4]Where Are the Disciples? [pp. 5-14]PoemThe
Match [pp. 15-17]When Men [p. 17]Memory [p. 18]A Passage
to Relationship [pp. 19-30]StoryExplaining a Peninsula [pp. 31-
40]The Current Crisis: A Challenge to Organized Labor [pp. 41-
50]PoemsWidow's Song [p. 50]A Way of Traveling [p. 51]Six
Anglo-Saxon RiddlesA Horn: Riddle #14 [p. 52]Wine: Riddle
#11 [p. 53]A Jay's Spring Song: Riddle #8 [p. 53]The Moon and
the Sun: Riddle #29 [p. 53]A Ship: Riddle #32 [p. 54]The Reed:
Riddle #60: (Probably a Love Message Carved into a Reed) [p.
54]StoryYours Very Truly, (Miss) Leona Freemantle [pp. 55-
64]Historians, the Constitution, and Objectivity: A Case Study
[pp. 65-78]PoemHeft [p. 78]The Closed Door Policy [pp. 79-
84]PoemsConference of Heads [p. 84]The Destructive Element:
(On Teaching My Daughter How to Float) [p. 85]A Child's
Bestiary [pp. 86-87]Diego Rivera and His Mexico [pp. 88-
100]BooksReview: The Soviet Subject Viewed as Citizen [pp.
101-111]Review: Portrait of the Artist as a Man [pp. 111-
117]Review: More Literary Biography [pp. 118-123]Review:
Hollywood, Japan [pp. 123-128]

Conflicts In The Boardroom
by James South and Alexey Volynets
A board that always agrees is a board that is not
governing. However, boardroom disputes are
often destructive, p oin tless, and m ishandled,
w eakening fiduciary oversight. In the study
detailed below, the authors found that board-
room b attles are very com m on, com pany size
and board gender m ix are crucial factors in
how they are handled, and many boards would
love som e training on dispute resolution.
In the boardroom, disagreements are often unavoid-
able— especially when the board is composed of
independent-minded, skilled, and outspoken direc-
tors. This is not a bad thing. There should be debate
in the boardroom, and decisions should come from
a process in which directors consider all reasonably
available information. A board that never argues or
disagrees is most likely to be an inactive, passive,
or inattentive— in other words, an ineffective board
that is neither fulfilling its oversight function nor
carrying out its duty o f care.
Yet, if boardroom disagreements and/or share-
holder conflicts are not dealt with properly, they
can devolve into acrimonious disputes that under-
mine a com pany’s operation and performance. Left
unchecked and unattended, these disputes escalate
quickly into public matters that can have severe,
long-term consequences for the company and its key
stakeholders. Disputes can lead to poor performance,
scare investors, produce waste, divert resources,
cause share values to decline and, in some cases,

paralyze a company.
A joint project o f the Centre for Effective Dispute
Resolution (CEDR) and the Corporate Governance
Group of the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) explores the causes, nature, and methods of
resolving corporate governance disputes. As part
of this project, CEDR and IFC carried out a global
survey o f 191 directors on their experiences with
and attitudes toward boardroom disputes.
Corporate governance disputes involve corporate
authority and its exercise and involve the board’s
powers and actions— or its failure or refusal to act.
These conflicts may arise between the board and
its shareholders or between directors and executive
management. They may also concern issues among
the directors themselves or between the board and
other stakeholders.
In them selves, disputes are not necessarily
a problem for a board. It is when they are
m ism anaged or becom e insurm ountable that
problem s occur.
A governance dispute implicates the board in one
way or another, as a party or as an active participant,
and requires the directors’ engagement to resolve
the conflict. Our survey results show the significant
effects that boardroom disputes can have on an
organization, and the challenges that members of
those boards encounter in attempting to resolve a
dispute at this level.
In themselves, disputes are not necessarily a prob-

lem for a board. It is when they are mismanaged or
become insurmountable that problems occur. Con-
sidering the impact o f these disputes on business
priorities, it is important to tackle them effectively,
to ensure that the negative outcomes are minimized.
How do directors deal with disputes? Forty-eight
percent of respondents stated that when they encoun-
tered board disputes, they commonly attempted to
mediate the dispute. Another 34 percent admitted
that they were frequently or very frequently an active
party to the dispute; 25 percent said they commonly
are not the active party, but take a side in the dispute;
James South is director o f training at the Center fo r Effec-
tive Dispute Resolution, London, [www.cedr.com] Alexey
Volynets is confict resolution project lead at IFC Corporate
Governance Group. The authors want to thank multiple
people in both organizations that have contributed to this
survey and its analysis. See the complete survey report at
[www. ifc. org/corporategovernance ]
22 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 THE CORPORATE BOARD
CONFLICTS IN THE BOARDROOM
Why We Fight_________________________
Most Common Topics Of Boardroom Disputes
Topic o f Dispute Frequent*
Financial, structural or procedural workings of the organization
40.3%
Personal behavior and attitudes of directors 38.4%

Strategy development, including mergers and acquisitions
37.2%
Risk appetite and risk management 31.3%
Change and crisis management 30.6%
Audit findings 29.9%
Board process issues, such as structure of meetings, schedules,
etc. 29.4%
Management oversight 28.4%
Composition of board and senior management 24.7%
Involvement of shareholder/owner’s family in business 21.7%
* P ercen tage sta tin g the item w a s a “fr e q u e n t” o r “v
e r y fr e q u e n t” to p ic o f dispute.
and 27 percent reported that they frequently or very
frequently were neutral. These figures show that,
although board members may think they would try to
resolve a dispute, in reality a small majority generally
do not adopt this position. Rather they take a stance
that is either openly on one side o f the dispute or is
noncombative (a “fight-or-flight” response).
The significance o f the positions people adopt in
relation to conflict can be seen in their choice o f how
to deal with it. The most common mechanisms for
resolving a dispute remained internal to the board.
Therefore, it is important for board members to be
trained in, maintain, and apply skills in mediation

and negotiation (the most common methods of re-
solving disputes).
Almost 30 percent of respondents had expe-
rienced a boardroom dispute that affected
the survival of the company, with 64 percent
citing personal issues as the major factor.
Extremely few respondents indicated a willingness
to resort to court action (indeed, 80 percent said they
never resolved their boardroom disputes in this w ay).
We also found that the more internal the dispute
is, the more willing respondents are to resolve it.
Some 59 percent o f respondents were happy to
resolve intra-board disputes most or all of the time,
compared to just 24 percent for disputes between
the board and external stakeholders. Similarly, a
majority o f respondents (58 percent) felt confident
resolving board-management disputes most or all
of the time, and 32 percent felt confident resolving
board-shareholder disputes.
A significant percentage (16 percent) o f respon-
dents reported that their boardroom disputes fre-
quently are not resolved, with 67 percent saying they
have some experience o f unresolved issues.
More strikingly, 30 percent indicated that they had
experienced a boardroom dispute that affected the
survival o f an organization they had been involved
with. O f those who reported such disputes, 64 percent
cited personal issues connected with the dispute as
being a major factor in threatening the com pany’s
demise.

Complications in the way a dispute is presented
are often as important as the subject matter o f the
THE CORPORATE BOARD JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 23
James South and Alexey Volynets
The Damage Done
Impact Of Boardroom Disputes On Business
Negative Outcom e o f Disputes Significant*
Wasting management time 49.3%
Distracting from core business priorities 44.9%
Reducing trust among board members 42.8%
Affecting the functioning of the board 42.1%
Affecting the efficiency of the organization 38.3%
Negatively affecting relationships within the organization
32.4%
Costing the company money 29.5%
Damaging long-term business performance/profitability 26.8%
Affecting the reputation of the organization 23.7%
* Percentage stating the item was a “significant” or “very
significant" impact.

dispute itself. These factors can make handling a
dispute more difficult.
Our responding board members found that personal
issues were both difficult and frequent complicating
factors in disputes. The most difficult factor was “is
sues over competing factions on the boards,” with
53 percent describing it as difficult or very difficult,
although it occurred less frequently.
In practice, the concept o f competing factions is
likely to involve the many different types o f directors
(independent, executive, non-executive), each with
its own particular interests. There may also be com-
peting factions between management and the board.
In handling disputes between competing factions,
it is important to deal sensitively with the people
involved. It can be helpful to consider some soft
skills, such as the ability to understand and work
with the personalities of those involved.
This difficulty o f competing factions is closely
connected to the second most difficult complicating
factor— handling the emotions of those involved.
Nearly half o f respondents found handling emotions
to be difficult, and 29 percent said they encountered
this issue in board disputes, making it the most fre-
quently encountered factor. Handling the emotions
o f those involved requires many of the same skills
as dealing with competing factions. Both entail
recognizing the need and working with the affected
parties rather than avoiding the issue.

Other complicating factors, often prevalent and
difficult to deal with, also reflect the challenge of
the human side of disputes. For example, handling
conflicts of personal/family interests versus inter-
ests o f the company was the second most frequent
complicating factor (with 27 percent reporting that
it occurred frequently or very frequently). This was
the third most difficult factor to deal (49 percent
described it as difficult or very difficult).
The third most common (26 percent) factor was
avoidance of the dispute/conflict from those affected,
although it came in fifth in difficulty (38 percent).
On its own, avoidance of a dispute is rarely an ef-
fective strategy and can be a crippling factor for a
board that fails to tackle the conflict appropriately.
Ignoring a problem rather than facing it often just
exacerbates it.
Given these trends, it is not a surprise that board
members want training in how to deal with these
personal issues and the human beings behind the
dispute. Overall, the most requested training was
C O N F L IC T S IN T H E B O A R D R O O M
for the ability to deal with different personalities
(75 percent described it as very useful), the ability
to give and receive constructive feedback (very use-
ful to 73 percent), and the“ability to have difficult
conversations (70 percent described as very useful).

The directors’ focus on soft skills contrasts with
the training they generally have already received
(which is notably extensive). Although the majority
of respondents had no internal training in conflict
management, negotiation skills, or chairing meet-
ings, a slim majority have had some form of external
training in these skills.
The exception is training in corporate governance,
in which the majority have had training both inter-
nally (58 percent) and externally (83 percent). This
suggests potential for additional training in dealing
with personal factors as well as in understanding
broader board issues.
There is a notable skills gap between men and
women in negotiation and handling emotions
in a boardroom setting.
Notably, while training is comparable for men and
women in the other skills, we found a gender dif-
ference in the amount o f training that respondents
have received in negotiation skills. For example, 39
percent o f men have received internal training and
63 percent have received external training; but just
11 percent o f women have received internal train-
ing and 46 percent have received external training.
There is also a notable difference between the
answers o f men and women on how they view the
difficulty o f dealing with emotions. Both men and
women considered handling the emotions of those
involved in the dispute to be something that occurred
frequently. However, women considered the issue to
be far less difficult to deal with than men did.

Only 44 percent of women considered emotions to
be difficult or very difficult to deal with— less dif-
ficult than competing factions, conflicts of personal
versus private issues, and avoidance. On the other
hand, 52 percent o f men found emotions difficult or
very difficult to deal with, second only to dealing
Avoidance Of Dispute Is The
Biggest Problem
Comments On Boardroom Battles
“ In ray experience the avoidance o f the dispute is the b ig
gest problem, especially in a com pany with a dominant
shareholder and two minority shareholders, where the
minority shareholders are suffering m ost from results o f
avoidance but are hardly part o f the conflict m anagement,
as the conflict is played outside the board/board m eetings
“ There are many [issues], but they all boil down to per-
sonality crisis. M ost o f the people I have been on boards
with fee l overqualified and find it difficult to accept view s
o f other m em bers.”
“ The chairman insisted on his idea o f an IPO, and the
organization collapsed.”
“ The C EO ’s abrasive style, with zero appetite for ‘changes,’
has pushed the com pany to a stage w herein the com pany is
under attack from the stakeholders, including the creditors.”
“ I f w e [the board members] are not goin g to act as per
their instructions, our job security w ill be questionable.
Generally speaking, w e are hostages.”
“ In the first board m eeting with a new board w hich was
less friendly to him, [the CEO] quit and put several m illion

dollars in his pocket.”
“ The current conflict over succession planning for the
founder/chair/CEO o f the NG O is threatening the survival
o f the organization. A pattern o f conflict avoidance on the
part o f the chair/CEO, a stagnant flow o f information, and
the board’s passivity make it hard to discuss next steps.”
“ In one board, there was a significant difference o f opinion
betw een the chairman/CEO and the board about the w ay
he had treated relations with personnel. That m ight have
paralyzed the company. The board obliged the CEO to quit.”
with competing factions.
This skills gap between men and women in ne-
gotiation and handling emotions is reflected in the
distinction between the skills desired by men and
women. For women, negotiation skills were the sec-
ond most commonly desired skill (with 71 percent
THE CORPORATE BOARD JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 25
James South and Alexey Volvnets
describing the skills training as very useful), just
behind the ability to have difficult conversations (76
percent). For men in the boardroom, though, it was
only the eighth most highly valued skills training
(62 percent).
The skills men most desired training in were ability
to deal with different personalities (77 percent); abil-
ity to give and receive constructive critical feedback

(75 percent); and communication skills (73 percent).
A board may well require different skills training
depending on its gender diversity.
We found that the size of an organization made a
notable difference in how well board disputes were
resolved. Respondents from smaller companies were
more likely to say that the issue was not resolved than
were those from larger enterprises. O f those surveyed,
24 percent from smaller enterprises said that their
issues were frequently not resolved, compared to just
6 percent from medium and 16 percent from large
companies. (It should also be noted that a significant
number o f respondents across all enterprises stated
that there were never occasions when their issues
were not resolved.)
Another marked difference was in the kind of
issues viewed as complicating factors in resolving
conflict within the board. Exactly 50 percent o f those
from small enterprises said they had encountered
avoidance o f the issue frequently or very frequently,
compared to just 21 percent o f respondents from
medium and 19 percent from large companies.
Also, 53 percent o f small-company respondents
saw dealing with the emotion o f those involved in the
dispute as frequent or very frequent, compared to 18
percent o f medium and 26 percent o f large-company
directors. A possible reason for this difference might
be that small and medium firms tend to have smaller
boards, making group cohesion more important to
the participants.
As an overall trend, we found little disparity in the
amount o f training that respondents received across

the different sectors. However, there is a significant
difference in the skills that people want across the
different sizes o f companies.
While ability to deal with different personalities
is valued across all sizes, smaller enterprises place
more emphasis on negotiation skills and being able to
deal with more extreme personality types. The ability
to deal with volatile personalities is prized as a skill
by these organizations more than with larger ones.
In medium companies, there is a desire for process
skills, with the ability to chair an effective meeting
being the most desired skill, while those from the
largest enterprises have most need for general com -
munication skills. This may well reflect the different
needs o f companies as they expand and encounter
different problems.
Overall, the results show the prevalence of board-
room disputes, and the damaging effects that unre-
solved disputes can have. Even those disputes that are
resolved still have a significant impact on a business,
because they waste management time and distract
from core business priorities. Further, we found that
the majority o f disputes are resolved by internal
methods o f negotiation and mediation, rather than
through court action. Therefore, it is important for
board members to be capable o f resolving disputes
themselves and thus should continue to be trained
in the skills needed to do so.
However, some board disputes are more difficult
to resolve, and the most complicated are those that
involve human factors such as competing factions

and emotions. Our survey uncovered a skills gap in
training for these types o f issues, and we learned that
the vast majority o f respondents would appreciate
more training in these soft skills.
Training in how to handle different personalities
and emotions (as well as increased training in nego-
tiation and mediation skills) would equip boards to
tackle difficult disputes because o f board m em bers’
reluctance to address these human factors.
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