Category Archives: conflict

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Stop Arguing about Truth

I just came across one of those paragraphs in a book that I read, reread and then had to blog about!

Several years ago, organizational theorist Karl Weick called attention to enactment in organizations – how we participate in the creation of organizational realities.  “The environment that the organization worries about is put there by the organization,” he observed, adding that if we acknowledge the role we play in this creation, it changes the things we talk and argue about.  If we create the environment, how can we argue about it’s objective features, or about what’s true or false? Instead, Weick encouraged us to focus our concerns on issues of effectiveness, on questions of what happened, and what actions might have served us better. We could stop arguing about truth and get on with figuring what works best.  (quoted in Leadership and The New Science by Margaret Wheatley, p.37).

I feel like this has been my experience this past year.  Lots of anger and hurt feelings over decisions that everyone participated in creating that led to a pretty negative outcome.  It might be time to stop arguing about truth and take a look inside.  We’ve been asking the wrong questions.

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Is it a Wall or a Fence?

In an article called When Teams Can’t Decide published by the Harvard Business Review the author (Bob Frish) discusses testing fences and walls.   In decision making we often get shut down because of the apparent constraints in a situation.  Although the boundaries might be real we can ask the question whether is a wall, which can’t be moved or a fence, which can.

Recently I’ve been in a situation where a boundary has been presented as a wall.  It really is a fence and although it may be difficult to move it I am confident it can be moved.  I’m looking forward to some conversations about walls and fences.  Let’s move the fences!

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MBTI & Difficult Conversations

For years I’ve used the MBTI in my business to help explain differences and preferences in the workplace.    I’ve administered hundreds of the assessments and worked with all types of individuals and teams.

It still surprises me how often we default to our preferences in situations.  My type profile says one of my challenges is “avoid conflict, even when the organization’s performance is suffering.”   Re-reading some material recently on type and leadership has helped me recognize not only some of my own weaknesses and strengths but also those of people I work with.

It provides me with a common language to have a difficult conversation framed in a non-threatening way that recognizes differences and preferences.

It also gives me some insight into how to encourage and support people.

It doesn’t make it easier for this ‘ENFJ’ to confront – it does help me understand what holds me back from saying what needs to be said.

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Focused on Conflict

An article in The Globe and Mail’s management perspective section today addressed the need for trained facilitators.  It is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently after having been invited to a meeting meant to address a conflict between two parties that seem to growing further apart as the weeks go by.

Knowing that no one would be there trained to facilitate the meeting I began to think about how quickly and easily things would degenerate.  Deborah Macklin is quoted in the G&M article saying, “People find themselves in the position of facilitator with very little knowledge about how…to lead a group to the desired result.  They end up starting the meeting and then waiting for the group to manage itself.”

As someone with a stake in the outcome and someone who understands facilitation I know how difficult it is for a group to manage itself.  My refusal to attend a meeting without a skilled facilitator might seem harsh or critical to a group trying to resolve an internal conflict.  What I really want to do is protect all of us and move towards our desired result.

It is important for a facilitator to be objective or at least state his or her biases. It is so easy for a meeting to become a search for blame attempting to answer the question, “Who is at fault here?”  A skilled facilitator can move a group towards peaceful resolution without fault finding or blaming. The point of conflict resolution isn’t for each side to try and convince the other side that they were right and to walk through a history of their actions.  The point is to restore peace.

I’m all for a focused conversation to resolve conflict. It’s not the conversation that concerns me. It’s the focus.

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Ouch!

Conflict can be nasty. It hurts the people involved and it hurts the people drawn into it. During times of conflict clear communication becomes more and more challenging. Within family and organizational systems conversations that are repeated with the intention of clarifying issues frequently make the truth in a situation more obscure.  Each retelling of a conversation is like a copy of a copy – less clear than the one before.

People often resort to the cliché ‘you see one side of the story and I see the other, the truth is in the middle.’  Not necessarily.  One person may be closer to the truth.  Both parties can in the wrong.  To think it lies in the middle is simplistic.  The root of conflict is deeper than the situation we are in – it reaches into our past, our beliefs about each other, it can include feelings of betrayal and our understanding of God.  We may not even understand ourselves why we are as upset as we are – and yet we somehow think we can communicate it to someone else with clarity.

I think we should limit our conversations.  I know for a blog on communication that might seem odd but really more words don’t help – especially if it was our conversations that led to the conflict to begin with.

If you find yourself immersed in a conflict right now take a day off talking about it.  If you really need to process it center your conversation around this question: ‘Where have I made mistakes in this situation?’ You can’t resolve anything unless you are willing to get the log out of your eye.  Once we do that, grace flows.