Do you think harmonious workplace environment is good for company’s growth prospect and innovation?

It's been long time since I posted my last article. Today I am posting a dedate  on workplace environment based on "HBR" article.

When Dick Fuld took over at Lehman Brothers in 1994, he inherited a contentious culture. Traders and investment bankers would not share ideas and competed for business, putting their own interests above the firm’s in nearly every instance. In Fuld’s own words, published in Knowledge@Wharton in 2007, “The early Lehman Brothers was a great example of how not to do it. It was all about me. My job. My people. Pay me.” But by the mid-1990s, the financial services industry had shifted toward an integrated sales model, and such blatant disregard for teamwork didn’t fly any longer. Fuld made unity and collaboration priorities at the firm, nudging them along with employee incentives. By the time of its collapse, in 2008, Lehman reportedly had one of the strongest cultures of teamwork and loyalty on Wall Street. As Fortune had noted in April 2006: “Fuld has incongruously turned Lehman into one of Wall Street’s most harmonious firms.”

The effort to eliminate discord at the firm had backfired. Lehman’s board of directors and management team became too agreeable—and too loyal, content to follow even when they knew better. In 2007 and 2008, numerous signals indicated that the firm was heading into a crisis, but insiders who paid attention to them were afraid to point out the elephant in the room. It turned out that loyalty meant loyalty to Fuld. That loyalty led Lehman executives to an almost willful blindness. Nobody wanted to disrupt the peace.

The problem is that a peaceful, harmonious workplace can be the worst possible thing for a business, according to consultancy eePulse, which conducts in-depth surveys that measure employee engagement. Complacency, in fact, is the single greatest predictor of poor company performance. The second greatest? An environment in which employees are overwhelmed. In the first case, employees are reluctant to rock the boat. In the second, the level of employee satisfaction is low and the amount of dysfunctional fighting is high. In both situations, low energy levels and fear of political fallout curb action that might address any looming crisis.

Many successful companies are known for their stressful work environments. Microsoft, in its early days, had one of the most contentious, high-strung, and fast-paced corporate cultures in the United States. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were famous for yelling at people. Food distributor Sysco, an unusually successful company built on roll-ups and acquisitions, dismisses district managers who don’t meet annual productivity targets—a pretty tough standard for an operating company with thin margins. Market leaders Goldman Sachs and McKinsey are notoriously competitive, hard-driving places to work. Not places you’d go if you were looking for polite and equal regard for all voices.

What do you think? Does harmonious workplace environment is good for company's growth and innovation?