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neither positive nor negative. It just is." It is not whether we have conflict
in our lives; it is what we do with that conflict that makes the difference.
What do we do with conflict? By most standards of feedback, we handle
it poorly.
experience and expertise in doing the job(s) they were supervising others
to do. In reality, however, the position of middle management has not
disappeared. It had just become necessary to "lead from a different
place."
Leaders in today's organization find themselves directing functions less
and facilitating process more. Richard Pascale, in an article for The
Harvard Business Review in 1997, describes this transition in
organizational "revitalization" as one of incorporating employees fully into
the process of assessing and solving problems. This trend in
organizational cultures has significantly altered the landscape, and it has
changed dramatically the required skill base of managers. It requires
process skills and the willingness to take the third party role of facilitating
others to confront and resolve the conflict between them. What we have
seen in this transition is the need for flexibility and "requisite variety"
among team members, as well as leadership.
Facilitating replaces directing and fixing and mediation replaces
refereeing. Pascale (1997) writes, "Leading from a different place requires
leaders to stand squarely in the zone of discomfort and ambiguity." It
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BIAS
SYNERG
Y
"inside" ones point of view and at the same time being "outside" of that
point of view. The result is a kind of collective exploration that can bring
to the surface a greater understanding of both self and other, and thus
moving beyond our bias.
Dialogue in Teams and Team Learning
Peter Senge (1990), author of The Fifth Discipline, states that in applying
these sequential movements and team learning we move on the
continuum from "incoherent thought" to "becoming open to the flow of
larger intelligence." He asserts that "we cannot just improve thought
individually, we must look on thought as a systemic thing arising from
how we interact and learn from one another."
When individuals or groups engage in interaction, whether sharing ideas
or trying to resolve conflicting points of view, the issues of wholeness and
boundaries come into play. They are explored here. In this manual I will
center more on the process of conflict and introduce a protocol I call
Process Management designed to produce resolution and create dialogue.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
exists because of the couple, but is separate from and greater than the
two individuals in the marriage. In all systems there are rules and
principles that govern how the system operates. Here is an example:
If an individual, with a team of co-workers, does more than their share of
work, other team member tends to disengage or put out less energy to
that degree. Leading from a different place focuses on the laws governing
the process of the system.
The Law of Requisite Variety
Another systems principle applies here:
"Rescuers always become victims"
Resisting the tendency to be pulled into a conflict underscores the need
to be flexible and have a repertoire of approaches to a problem situation.
It means having Requisite Variety. One of the most useful concepts in
applying a systems theory to Conflict Resolution is The Law of
Requisite Variety, which states that "in any system (family,
organization, church, etc.) the part of the system with the most
responses, determines the outcome of that system."
Let me illustrate this principle in a couple of situations.
Observe the early stages of the creative growth in the Silicon Valley
region of California where the coming together of bright individuals come
together with strong ideas and produced outcomes that have changed
our lives. Both their use of dialogue and a willingness to engage in
conflict are hallmarks of that dynamic growth. Conflict for the most part
was perceived as necessary to break through to the other side of thorny
problems to form creative solutions.
Another non-traditional way of thinking that emerged from that time was
the phenomenon of "If I have an idea and don' t know what to do with it,
you are welcome to it." This is quite a contrast to the American Corporate
models of turf guarding, secrecy, and win-loose competitive edges.
This was a period of creative energy that can serve us well as a
laboratory of what is possible when diverse thought and a value system
that embraces conflict, comes together.
Developmental theory has it that when we are powerless and experience
pain, whatever skill we discover that tends to reduce that pain we tend to
habitually use thereafter. It becomes like our dominant hand-ness, or our
comfort zone. We can get "stuck" in such comfort zones, confusing them
for feeling good, when in fact they are only "absence of pain" zones.
This is why when attempts to feel good do not work we most often drop
back to the next best position of not feeling bad. If you ever have had the
experience of breaking your writing hand or arm and have had to wear a
cast for any length of time, you find that you can become pretty good at
using your other hand. If a sudden demand or crisis occurs we may
instinctively grab for the writing instrument with the preferred hand, but
in time, we can acquire the ability to use either hand interchangeably.
This process suggests that conscious effort to practice something is like
"tying our preferred hand behind us long enough to complete the learning
curve." This is where a structure or protocol fits in. It becomes a
conscious framework for learning new tools and exercising choice.
Process
Each time we communicate with others, we do so on two levels. On one
level we send and receive messages of a substantive nature, where the
information or what we are talking about takes center stage. The second
level is almost invisible to us, but plays a powerful role in the outcome of
the communication because it is usually most important in order to
to do. While at the same time the boy's "alright" comes from a context of
how one feels about a controlling parent. On the surface, an observer
from another planet who did not understand non-verbal signals, would
have thought these two had a contract. So, in communication a "frame of
reference" refers to the intent behind the communication, which may be
congruent with the words we say, or it may be different.
Deborah Tanner has devoted much of her research and writing to this
phenomenon of frames based on linguistic style and gender. In an article
from The Harvard Business Review, 1965, she asserts that "In every
community known to linguists, the patterns that constitute linguistic style
are different for men and women." The impact of frames is that they do
their work out of the spotlight of conscious thought and substantive
meaning.
The psychologist Eric Berne, developed an entire model (or frame) of
human behavior based on the concept that different parts of the
personality, he called "ego states," could produce different frames almost
simultaneously. We may be speaking from our parent ego state reciting
some information we believe coming from our internal rule book such as
"you're too young to be out that late." While at the same time being
influenced by a frame coming from our scared child who is experiencing
an earlier event when something went terribly wrong at a late hour. The
two ego states (imagine the parent ego and child ego as two overlapping
circles) produce a statement that sounds rational (at least to the speaker)
but is interpreted by they listener as prejudicial feeling, "Do as I say - not
as I act."
Advertisers and powerful communicators make use of frames in very
dramatic ways by associating with the frame reference that comes from
our kid ego, which wants, feels, or needs. The "Marlborough Man" is an
example of that powerful association. It does not tap into our parent
frame or rational part, it connects to our need to be a tough man, free to
roam the prairie
A case may be made that any communication where one person is trying
to influence another will utilize this association process if the expect to be
successful.
I may not even consciously realize that I am using your frame to
formulate how I construct my communication. This is what an intuitive
These are:
1. Individuals in conflict tend to be overly affected by the form of
presented information.
2. They tend to escalate commitment to previously selected course of
action when it is no longer a reasonable alternative.
3. They tend to assume that their gain must come at the expense of
the other party. And there for miss the opportunity for mutually
beneficial "trade-offs" between the two.
4. Their judgements tend to be anchored upon irrelevant information.
5. Parties that rely too much on readily available information.
6. Parties fail to consider information available from taking opponent's
perspective.
The impact of such biased frames of reference shape a reliance on a tool
we call mediation. The prevalence of conflicting frames also shapes the
need for structures or templates that guide us, in conscious ways, to step
outside of their limitations. The most effective structure is that of
processing. The act of deliberately calling attention to HOW we are
communicating.
Here we are using process as a verb, as in "to process" instead of as a
noun. "To process" is to act in a rational manner upon process. An
example of this occurs when one person asks another, "What is wrong
with this picture?", or in the case of active listening when we make a
feedback statement such as "You seem to be upset when you talk about
Mary." This calls the speaker's attention to the "how they are
communicating" and away from the content of the message. This is
especially useful when our substantive message and the process
message are not congruent.