We are never more wrong than when we are most right.

When we are convinced that we are right then we close ourselves off to criticism or to dissenting voices and opinions.

The results can be devastating.

A report on the Fukushima nuclear disaster has stated that the crisis was caused by

““Our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with program’; our groupism; and our insularity”

For the full article see the Fukushima Crisis “Made in Japan” from the Financial Times.

What does this teach us?

 

Organisations which do not allow dissenting views run the risk of crisis.

Dissenting views can serve to test strategy and decision making.  They do not, of themselves,  question authority although closed authorities can easily perceive dissent in such a light.  When permitted dissenting views can support and assist authority and leadership.

 

There is often a general reluctance to question or to call out issues that we may perceive.  This can fall under conflict avoidance – not wanting to rock the boat or to be seen as a troublemaker or insubordinate.

Speaking out and stepping into these conflicted spaces takes courage.  We need to be able to raise our hands and say “You know what, I’m not so sure about this…”

Instead, “sticking with program and groupism” proves to be much more alluring.

It can feel safer to stay with the herd, even as it runs itself off the cliff.  We assume that they know what they are doing.  They could not all be wrong after all, could they?  And out of all of us, surely someone else has already raised the question that has sprung to my own mind.

The danger of this self destructive, conflict avoidant compliance is perhaps increased in these current times of perceived scarcity.

If we perceive a scarcity of jobs and a threat, no matter how slight of cuts or redundancies, then it is natural perhaps that we should look to be even more quiet and compliant.  After all, if we were to highlight a critical flaw in process or regulation and call it out, would we not be marking ourselves as troublemaker?

Organisations need debate.  They need to address the opposing views and invite them out, explicitly, as a means of testing and refining policy.  As long as we allow ourselves to be deluded that we are right, then we run the risk of being blindly, catastrophically, wrong.

Doubt, debate and dissent could well be your best leadership allies.

 

 

Playing Musical Statues With The Conflict Averse

There is a moment at every child’s party that I have grown to detest.

It is the popular but increasingly fraught game of musical statues.

For those unfamiliar with the rules in musical statues you play music and all of the children dance.  Or run.  Or just wave their arms around.

The music is stopped and the children have to stop and stand still. Like statues, you see?

A judge then has to call out who was the last person to stop moving and that child is then out of the game.

What I observe is this.

The music plays.  All of the children dance.  Or run. Or just wave their arms around.

The music stops.

It is obvious to everyone who the last child to stop was.  It is obvious, even, to the judge.  you can tell because the judge is looking at that child.  But there is a problem.

The judge is conflict averse.  they avoid conflict or risking upsetting anyone.

And so we play a different silly game where the judge, filled equally with compassion for the child and with concern about what his or her parents will say, does this…

“Oooh, I don’t know.  Oh. Its so hard.  I, really, erm, well let’s start the music again and see what happens next time round…”

Musical statues is like leadership.

We cannot do it without feedback and stepping into those areas of potential disagreement.  If we cannot bring ourselves to do this then we need to work on our own conflict competency levels to help us, and those who are led by us.

If we do not, then the whole game becomes both meaningless and endless.  In a bad way.

For more on this idea of conflict leadership and fear of conflict, see this blog article by Mike Figliuolo

Have you heard the one about the Israeli conflict resolution expert and the trade union?

Conflict is complex.  No doubt about it.  One of its complexities is the way it can quickly turn in on itself, seducing us all, even the experts, into its destructive ways.

I’m grateful to my friend and book designer Ayd Instone, for bringing this article to my attention.

It tells the story of an Israeli conflict resolution speaker and expert who had been due to speak at a Manchester NHS event until he was cancelled because of the Trade Union Unison’s objections.

On first reading I was taken by the irony of such an expert being banned because he was deemed to be a part of the “Enemy” camp; the union, Unison, it is alleged, support a full ban on Israeli bodies in their stated policy support for the Palestinian People.

I had a sense though that the article would soon reveal more complex lessons about conflict.  And it does.  Let me list the ways.

1. Polarisation, the good guys and the baddies.

The most obvious conflict dynamic is the incredibly crude, but often prevalent tendency to polarise between the good guys and the bad.  This dynamic is often seen and rarely helpful other than to steel resolve and allegiance to one camp or the other.  It is the “If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem” or “If you are not with us then you are against us.” rhetoric.  It is the Cowboys and Indians mentality and even as I write that it feels offensive, such is the prejudicial impact of such polarisation.  It ought to be a thing of the past.

We have little hope of being able to effectively engage in conflict and disputes when such crude rhetoric is employed.

Instead we should be vigilant.  When it emerges then we ought to find ways of calling it out and asking ourselves “What attitudes does this indicate and what are the alternative approaches?”

2. The drama triangle

An extension of the good guys bad guys dynamic is the drama triangle. Here we have an added role.  The drama triangle sees villains, victims and rescuers.

Try it.  How do the protagonists and camps fare in this light?  Where would you position the Israeli speaker, the palestinian people and the union?  Who is victim, villain and rescuer?  Now how sure are you of that?

The great thing about the drama triangle is that our positions within this map are never fixed and instead we all shift around, creating a vortex, a whirlpool of relationship and uncertainty.

The union appears to have adopted the rescuer role.  But have they spilled over into villain by cancelling this speaker and denying him not only his appointment and speaker’s fee, but also even the possibility that he could have something to offer?

Is the speaker himself, Moty Cristal, villain as a part of the Israeli machine, as the union seem to infer or is he victimised by this as the article tries to depict?

Perhaps he has fallen into the expert’s trap of trying to play the rescuer?  Consider part of his response to the cancellation;

“I am confident that the only way to resolve conflicts, let alone the Israeli-Palestinian one, is through effective communication and constructive dialogue, rather than violence or boycotts.” Very helpful Mr Cristal.  But conflict is complex.  Now consider the full quote provided by the article;

“Values-wise, unlike you, I am confident that the only way to resolve conflicts, let alone the Israeli-Palestinian one, is through effective communication and constructive dialogue, rather than violence or boycotts.” – my emphasis. See how that “Unlike you” comment shapes the dynamic?  What kind of name calling has happened here?  Two things being points 3 and 4.

3. Seduced by conflict

Conflict sucks us in and we end up playing by its rules.  I suggest that has happened here.  The “Unlike you” comment comes across to my eyes as indulgent and, I suspect, irresistable to Mr Cristal.  For all of his expertise, which I do not doubt, we see that he has been seduced by conflict into some specific conflict type patterns.  There is a name for this particular pattern.

4. Attribution

We attribute malevolent, unattractive characteristics against those we find ourselves in conflict with and attribute noble righteous characteristics for ourselves.

We see this in play with the “Unlike you” comment.  It is not clear what evidence Mr Cristal has based this upon and in many ways the presence of evidence or otherwise is irrelevant. Once we attribute a characteristic, or in this example, assert the lack of a characteristic that Mr Cristal claims for himself we make dialogue less, not more likely.

There are other attributions in play.

The oppression of the palestinian people is seemingly attributed against all Israelis.

The Israeli embassy has attributed motives for the decision.  It is a “Racist policy in every way…” and the decision is also referred to as being “shameful.”  There is more within the very same paragraph.

A characteristic of incompetence is attributed against the decision makers;

” It seems that those who canceled it are in urgent need of such training.”

5. Resistance to resolution

Conflict is resilient at very adept at negating attempts to resolve it.

We can see this here.  The speaker’s possible contribution and expertise is roundly dismissed as an irrelevance to “The working relationships within a local NHS trust”

His appointment is rendered “Inappropriate” and we can see our final dynamic emerge also…

6. “…and another thing!”

We have all played this one.  If we are in a conflict or argument make sure you win it.  If that means that you scramble around for extra justifications to support your point, any justification, then do so.

The Union’s final quoted objected draws upon the “Inappropriateness of funding an international speaker at times of such austerity, when front line staff in the Trust are at risk of redundancy.”

This is a clear “…and another thing!” justification.  Given more time we could probably come up with others.

Thank you once again to Ayd Instone for such rich source material.

Let me know if you have seen yourself palying out any of these dynamics.  They are entirely natural and predictable.  they are not raised here by way of criticism, merely by way of observation.

The problem is then when they creep into dialogue and relationships then we greatly prejudice one another, ourselves and the prospects of effective dialogue.

As you read this there will be a temptation on your part – which side am I on?  that itself is a complex conflict dynamic.  I may have fallen unwittingly into my own conflict patterns.  Please do feel free to point that out if so.

 

 

 

Conflict resolution is neither rational nor objective.

I had an enjoyable breakfast with a friend recently.  He said he admired the work I do in writing and delivering training on conflict and collaboration communications because it was a more “Rational and objective approach to resolving disputes; You take the emotion out of it.”

I bristled.

For me, working with conflict is neither rational nor objective.

It is fluid, chaotic, messy and sometimes very emotional indeed.

Effective conflict leadership is rational in the sense that it has purpose and logic to it. Yet it is irrational in that it should not be a slave to hard logic based arguments.  Sometimes the irrational, the uncertain and unmeasurable holds the key to making progress.  They can certainly serve us very well as souces of inspiration or innovative thinking about how we might approach a problem.

And is it objective?

I would argue it is not.  Objective can mean distanced, aloof, dispassionate, disconnected.  To me, conflict leadership means being able to connect with the people involved and their fears, concerns and needs.  There is a balance to be struck in not becoming enslaved to those aspects but we certainly need to be aware of them, to acknowledge them and the flavours they impart to any conflict cocktail.

In that sense, effective, powerful dispute resolution does not make objects of the dispute and the people within it.  The conflict dialogue is an inherent part of that conflict drama being played out.  It is subjective, it must be.  And by stepping into these conflict spaces and contributing our own voices, questions and thoughts can we hope to build a different narrative.

By being objective, on the outside, we run the risk of not connecting.

This is not to say that dispute resolution experts should not strive to be neutral or independent.  They can and should continue to do so.

But we need to get stuck in, to be comfortable with the messy stuff and carefully, skillfully play a fully integrated role in enabling the disputants to be effective in building agreement.

Collaboration? Oh we don’t do that here.

Collaboration is bandied around a great deal. It can feel as if every team, organisation or change programme shouts the need for collaboration from the rooftops. The reality is that collaboration is often resisted very strongly. Why is that?

Upon examination, usually through robust facilitated dialogue, it becomes apparent that collaboration is misunderstood.

Collaboration is still perceived in too many organisations as a weak approach. We need less collaboration, one team leader might say, and firmer approaches to resolving conflict.

This presumes that collaboration is soft or somehow conflict averse. Effective collaborative working should harness the conflict between teams and individuals and enable those debates to be had.

Within even half effective collaborative endeavours we should expect to see a level of trust and commitment that will make it possible for the divergent voices to speak out their own concerns and also to hear, and explore the other.

Another reason for dismissing collaboration is that previous experiences have created an expectation that collaboration is a mere talking shop. This is something I have experienced myself.

Collaborative conversations that go on and on are unhelpful. Planning the conversations and allocating time to consideration and specific expectations of when we shall decide upon a way forward can help greatly.

Be sure to allocate enough time for full but not interminable collaborative explorations to take place.

A final reason for not collaborating may be as a result of previous collaborations producing less than optimum results.

This is regrettable not least because the outcome is the responsibility of both collaborative partners. The sentiment that we agree to an outcome and then complain that the outcome did not serve us well disregards our acquiescence.

This can happen when those collaborating have not invested in the skills required to collaborate properly, to be assertive and aware of the dynamics within collaborative teams, or perhaps to invest in conflict competencies that enable us to keep pushing for those optimum outcomes.

If collaboration results in less than optimum results then you only have yourself to blame. You should have said no or, even better;

“You know, I don’t think we are quite there yet. Let’s try harder to see how we can improve on this.”