4.4 Book Review

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R E S O L V I N G C O N F L I C T S

A T W O R K

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Also by Kenneth Cloke

Conflict Revolution: Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism

The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution

Mediating Dangerously: The Frontiers of Conflict Resolution

Mediation: Revenge and the Magic of Forgiveness

Also by Joan Goldsmith (with Warren Bennis)

Learning to Lead: A Workbook on Becoming a Leader

Also by Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith

The Art of Waking People Up: Cultivating Awareness and Authenticity at Work

The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy

Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflicts: Stories of Transformation and Forgiveness

Resolving Conflicts at Work: A Complete Guide for Everyone on the Job

Thank God It’s Monday: 14 Values We Need to Humanize the Way We Work

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T H I R D E D I T I O N

R E S O L V I N G C O N F L I C T S

A T W O R K T E N S T R A T E G I E S

F O R E V E R Y O N E O N T H E J O B

K E N N E T H C L O K E • J O A N G O L D S M I T H F o r e w o r d b y W a r r e n B e n n i s

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Copyright  2000, 2005, 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 — www.josseybass.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002.

Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Credits appear after the Index.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cloke, Kenneth, date. Resolving conflicts at work : ten strategies for everyone on the job / Kenneth

Cloke, Joan Goldsmith ; foreword by Warren Bennis. – Third edition. p. cm

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-470-92224-8 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-01062-4 (ebk.);

ISBN 978-1-118-01081-5 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-01082-2 (ebk.) 1. Conflict management. 2. Interpersonal relations. 3. Personnel management–Psychological aspects. 4. Psychology, Industrial. I. Goldsmith, Joan, date. II. Title.

HD42.C56 2011 650.1′3–dc22

2010048701 Printed in the United States of America third edition PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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C O N T E N T S

Foreword Conflict: An Opportunity for Leadership By Warren Bennis vii

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Ten Strategies for Everyone on the Job xv

STRATEGY 1 Understand the Culture and Dynamics of Conflict 1

STRATEGY 2 Listen Empathetically and Responsively 29

STRATEGY 3 Search Beneath the Surface for Hidden Meanings 63

STRATEGY 4 Acknowledge and Reframe Emotions 93

STRATEGY 5 Separate What Matters from What Gets in the Way 131

STRATEGY 6 Solve Problems Paradoxically and Creatively 169

STRATEGY 7 Learn from Difficult Behaviors 203

STRATEGY 8 Lead and Coach for Transformation 241

STRATEGY 9 Explore Resistance and Negotiate Collaboratively 273

STRATEGY 10 Mediate and Design Systems for Prevention 301

The Authors 333

Index 335

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F O R E W O R D

C O N F L I C T: A N O P P O R T U N I T Y F O R L E A D E R S H I P

In the midst of the recent financial crisis, it is clear that leadership has never mattered more. We are in dire need of leaders who can courageously confront and resolve the many conflicts that plague our organizations and threaten our well-being, who can address and resolve the conflicts that damage the very fabric of society, and who can openly and skillfully resolve conflicts that have an adverse impact on our daily lives.

We need organizational leaders who can release us from unrelenting conflicts and do not merely paper over disagreements and disputes. We have to resist the temptation to follow leaders with perverse agendas that undermine or distort the authentic resolution of recurring conflicts. Instead, we need to develop organizational leaders who are skilled in resolving conflicts, who seek solutions that address underlying causes, and who serve the interests of all involved.

If we look to one of the leaders of our early Republic, Abigail Adams, we see that she had it right when she counseled her son John Quincy that hard times are the crucible in which character and leadership are forged. ‘‘It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed,’’ she wrote to him in 1780. ‘‘The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulty. Great necessities call out great virtues.’’ The spirit of this wife and mother of two founding presidents inspires us to consider our

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own era as a time when leaders can imaginatively create environments in which conflict resolution strategies generate a viable, collaborative new future. This future will be created by leaders who can cope with rapid, uncertain change and address social strains, psychological tensions, and chronic conflicts in cultures that foster collaboration, open and honest communication, and conflict resolution.

The first skill of these leaders is a capacity to exercise good judgment by making the right decisions in the midst of confusing and frightening conflicts based on knowledge, wisdom, and an ability to remain true to overriding values.

A second skill of these leaders is the ability to enlist others and motivate them to seek resolution to seemingly insurmountable con- flicts. This skill flows from what the psychologist Daniel Goleman calls ‘‘emotional intelligence,’’ the capacity to understand and connect with the hopes and fears of those who are in conflict and to find common ground in the values they share.

A third skill of these leaders is respect. Respect to those in conflict signifies that they have been seen and valued for who they are; disrespect signifies that they are invisible and do not matter. People in conflict often engage in destructive habits in order to gain respect. The debilitating dispute that seems unbearable and never-ending can evaporate when a leader affords respect to all involved and enables each person to experience being valued and included.

This new breed of leader creates respectful, ethical, innovative, and productive work environments where everyone is encouraged to invent solutions to ongoing conflicts. The characteristics of these leaders include widespread alignment based on a commitment to deal with conflict in a straightforward manner; empowerment of all parties to identify and resolve the conflicts they encounter; and transparency that allows conflict to be viewed openly and honestly so that inquiry, integrity, and reflection are generated and prized.

Alignment

Leaders align those who work on all levels of their organizations to perceive and accept common understandings of the causes of organizational conflicts. They inspire a commitment to resolve disputes by articulating shared values and goals. This alignment has a great deal to do with spirit and a team atmosphere. A shared understanding of the sources of conflict in the everyday organizational life aligns

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everyone to achieve a higher purpose and uplifts and harmonizes their aspirations. Each person is then able to view conflict as an opportunity to learn and one that can lead to improvement in work, in products, and in a shared future.

Empowerment

Empowerment means that everyone believes they are at the center of the organization rather than at the periphery, and they make a differ- ence to the success of the overall effort. Empowered individuals take the risk of acknowledging the conflicts they generate or encounter. They know that what they do has significance and they take responsi- bility for surfacing conflicts, learning from them, and achieving lasting resolutions. They exercise discretion and responsibility and create a culture of respect in which everyone is encouraged to openly confront disputes and disagreements and to develop methods to resolve them, without having to check through five levels of the hierarchy for per- mission to take on contentious issues. Leaders who empower their organizations generate and sustain trust and encourage systemwide effective communication.

Transparency

When inquiry-based reflection and transparency are at the heart of organizational culture, learning opportunities and useful information flow unhampered. In these cultures people are open to problem finding, not merely problem solving. In these adaptive, values-based learning organizations, staff on all levels find, identify, and resolve conflicts before they generate crises. Leaders encourage the free discovery of ideas and the sharing of information to solve problems. They are not afraid to test their ideas, even if full disclosure threatens to reveal deeper conflicts. A learning and inquiring organization, in which transparent exchanges of information are a matter of course, allows everyone to reflect on and honestly evaluate their actions and decisions.

Thus, postbureaucratic organizations generate leaders who value meaningful interactions, healthy conflicts, and active dissent; who are not averse to risk taking; who support learning from their mistakes, rather than blaming others for them. They develop informal leader- ship in cross-functional teams and they actively listen to the ideas of

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colleagues and support the talents of others. They create organiza- tions that are decentralized into autonomous units in which decision making is shared. They demand self-discipline and emphasize individ- ual responsibility, collaborative relationships, widespread ethics, and open communication that resolves conflicts when they emerge.

This subtle yet profound and perceptible change taking place in our philosophy of leadership creates organizational cultures that encourage the honest expression of conflict and candid discussion of differences. These changes include

• A new concept of humanity, based on an increased understanding of our complex and shifting needs, that is replacing an oversimplified, mechanical idea of who we are

• A new concept of power, based on collaboration, reason, and synergy, that is replacing a failed model of power based on coercion and threats

• A new concept of values, based on humanistic-democratic ideals, that is replacing a rigid bureaucratic system that regards property and rules as more important than people and relationships

I now add a fourth change reflected in the central argument that Cloke and Goldsmith make in the pages that follow:

• A new concept of conflict, based on personal leadership and organizational learning, creative problem solving, collaborative negotiation, satisfaction of interests, and a view of conflict that can promote personal and organizational transformation. This creative model is replacing a limited approach to conflict that seeks to suppress, avoid, or compromise issues rather than resolve the underlying reasons that gave rise to them.

With this book, the authors offer wisdom, food for thought, and tools for those of us who seek to improve our abilities to address conflict and to create organizational cultures in which conflicts are openly and candidly addressed. Cloke and Goldsmith provide multiple strategies for addressing, resolving, transforming, and learning from conflicts. They challenge us to learn to live with ambiguity, to commu- nicate more openly, to participate in conflicts with integrity, making

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a virtue of contingency, and finding unity in the issues that divide us. In doing so, they make a significant contribution to creating healthy organizations by providing methods for resolving the destructive con- flicts to be found in this contentious era. I welcome the sound advice that follows.

Warren Bennis Distinguished Professor of Business Administration

University of Southern California

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This book is dedicated with love to our grandchildren,

Orrin, Thacher, and Tallulah, in hopes they will gain

wisdom from the lessons their conflicts can teach them.

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Every effort to reach out to those with whom we disagree brings us all closer together, and this book could not have been written without the extraordinary courage and dedication of mediators and conflict resolvers who have joined us for over thirty years in improving our understanding of how to move from impasse to resolution in deeply entrenched conflicts, and how to create successful workplace collaborations.

We thank all of you for your unfailing support, your honest feed- back, and your deep understanding.

We also thank the many courageous leaders who have joined us in experimenting, discovering, implementing, and improving the ideas we present here. It is only because of their courage and willingness to try something new that we were able to ‘‘field-test’’ our ideas, learn from our mistakes, and tell you their stories.

We especially want to acknowledge the many members and lead- ers of Mediators Beyond Borders (www.mediatorsbeyondborders.org) whose unflagging commitment to promoting peace and reconciliation around the world encourages hope and inspiration.

A special thanks goes to Warren Bennis for believing in us and supporting this book, and to our children and grandchildren, who have been our greatest teachers. We thank our editors, Alan Rinzler and Seth Schwartz, our talented indexer and friend, Carolyn Thibault, and our extraordinary assistant, Solange Raro.

Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith Center for Dispute Resolution, Santa Monica, California

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We have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living.

The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared

to the task of reconciling our differences. From War to Peace is not from the strenuous

to the easy existence. It is from the futile to the effective,

from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life.

The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways

and heroically seek by whatever hardship, by whatever toil

the methods by which people can agree.

— Mary Parker Follett

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

T E N S T R AT E G I E S F O R E V E RY O N E O N T H E J O B

The rules of the game: learn everything, read everything, inquire into everything. . . . When two texts, or two assertions, or perhaps two ideas, are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is complex.

— Marguerite Yourcenar

It is nearly impossible to grow up in a family, live in a neighborhood, attend a school, work on a job, have an intimate relationship, raise children, or actively participate as a citizen in the world without experiencing a wide variety of disagreements, arguments, disputes, hostilities, and conflicts.

Much of our childhood is spent in conflict with those we love, with our parents, siblings, and playmates, who teach us the first and most difficult lessons of life, including how to respond to intense emotions and handle behaviors we find difficult to understand or accept. Our schools teach us hard lessons about rejection and compromise, about how to succeed and fail in a hierarchy, how to manage disputes with teachers and peers, and how to overcome shame, rage, and fear.

As adults, our most intimate family relationships are immersed in and deeply influenced by conflict. We learn how to respond to conflicts at work; in interactions with government agencies, schools, and companies; and in the neighborhoods and communities where

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we live. We learn different skills in response to conflicts with our spouses, partners, children, neighbors, and coworkers over miscom- munications, false expectations and assumptions, unclear roles and responsibilities, disagreements and rejections, changes and losses.

Our diverse societies and multiethnic, religious, and social cultures seem saturated with conflicts that scream at us from headlines, ads, and movies that, in their intensity, subtly shape our psyches and percep- tions. Our communities have been deeply divided by racial prejudice, hatred of dissenters and those who are different, and conflicts over competition regarding the use of scarce resources to satisfy disparate needs and expectations.

Our workplaces and organizations are profoundly shaped by con- flicts between workers and supervisors, unions and management, competing departments, and stressed coworkers. Our competitive economy, status-conscious society, and politicized government agen- cies reverberate with chronic disputes between ins and outs, haves and have-nots, us and them, powerful and powerless — all battling over the distribution of power, status, goods, and resources.

When we lack effective skills, our first response is often to avoid or suppress conflict, or try to make it go away, causing us to miss its underlying meaning. As a result, we cheat ourselves, our opponents, and our organizations out of learning, making it impossible to correct what led to the problem in the first place, prevent future conflicts, and discover how to improve our overall ability to resolve and transcend our disputes.

Yet, the pain, loss, and irretrievable damage that are suffered by individuals, families, organizations, and communities in conflict can also create miracles of transformation when people find new solutions, are moved to forgiveness and reconciliation, and are able to reclaim peaceful lives, relationships, and organizations. These are the two faces of conflict, the destructive and the creative, the stagnant and the active, the aggressive and the transformative. Between them lies a set of strategies, techniques, and approaches for turning one into the other. It is these strategies that are the subject matter of this book.

Everyone is capable of seeing both these faces, though most of us, when we are in conflict, focus on the first rather than on the second. We have all learned how to fight and how to collaborate, how to run away and how to stand up for what we believe in, how to hide what we think and how to say what we really mean, how to resist change and how to embrace it, how to live as though no one else mattered and how to collaborate closely with others, how to get stuck in impasse

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and how to improve our lives and our relationships with those we love or respect.

In short, each of us has learned destructive as well as creative ways of responding to conflict. Yet in order to shift from the destructive to the creative, from the stagnant to the active, from aggression to trans- formation, we need to search within ourselves for the true meaning of our conflicts, and for the skills we need to turn one into the other. If we can become more aware of what we are contributing to our con- flicts and start to listen and learn from our opponents, we can work together to improve the organizational structures, systems, processes, and relationships that generate chronic conflicts, and overcome the tendency to slip into negative or destructive responses.

Conflicts at Work

Most executives, managers, and employees face conflicts on a daily or weekly basis, spending from 20 percent to as much as 80 percent of their working hours trying to resolve or contain them. If we simply quantify the time spent by the average executive, manager, and employee on unresolved conflict and multiply it times their salary, the result would far exceed the cost of in-depth training in conflict resolution skills.

Yet, with the right approach, most of these conflicts are entirely avoidable, unnecessary, or easily resolvable. Many workplace disputes arise from simple miscommunications, misunderstandings, seemingly irrelevant differences, poor choices of language, ineffective manage- ment styles, unclear roles and responsibilities, false expectations, and poor leadership that can easily be corrected through listening, informal problem solving, dialogue, collaborative negotiation, and mediation.

Unfortunately, few of us have been trained in how to resolve the many conflicts that come our way. Few schools teach it, and few corporations, nonprofits, or government agencies offer conflict prevention programs. They rarely train managers and supervisors in dispute resolution, or orient employees to collaborative negotiation, creative problem solving, peer-based mediation, and other conflict resolution methodologies.

When organizations do try to train their executives, managers, and employees in conflict resolution techniques, these classes are often far too brief and oriented toward elementary skills, or toward suppressing or merely settling conflicts and trying to make them go away. They rarely take the approach that conflicts point to issues, problems, or

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difficulties that can provide unique learning opportunities and lead to significant improvements.

Thus, we pay a heavy price for conflict — not only individually and relationally, but organizationally and socially — through litiga- tion, strikes, reduced productivity, poor morale, wasted time and resources, unnecessary resignations and terminations, lost customers, dysfunctional relationships with colleagues, destructive battles with competing departments, stifling rules and regulations, gossip and rumors, and reduced opportunities for teamwork, synergy, learning, and change.

Chronic Conflicts at Work

The deeper sources of conflict at work are chronic disputes that repeat themselves in various guises, but never fully disappear. The causes of these disputes often have little or nothing to do with the petty, superficial issues people commonly fight over, but go much deeper into the structures, systems, processes, and relationships in the workplace; the nature of conflict, the culture of conflict within orga- nizations; and the ways work is organized, compensated, processed, and acknowledged.

Chronic conflicts can often be distinguished by the repetitiveness of their allegations, issues, and accusations; by their acceptance and tolerance for disrespectful and adversarial behaviors; by their low level of resolution, reescalation and renewal of hostilities; and by the seeming irrationality and incongruity between high levels of emotion and the apparently trivial issues over which people are fighting. For this reason, chronic conflicts are commonly mistaken for miscommu- nications, personality clashes, or accidental misunderstandings, yet on analysis reveal strong underlying similarities.

Simply defined, chronic conflicts are those that nations, societies, organizations, families, or individuals

1. Have not fully resolved

2. Need to resolve in order to grow and evolve

3. Are capable of resolving

4. Can only resolve by abandoning old approaches and adopting new ones

5. Are resistant to resolving because they are frightened, dissatisfied, insecure, uncertain, angry, or unwilling to change

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How, then, do we resolve chronic conflicts at work? We can begin by recognizing that every chronic conflict contains at least two fundamental truths: the truth of impasse, that people are stuck with a problem from which they would like to escape and cannot; and the truth of resolution, that it is possible for them to become unstuck and move to a higher order of resolution or relationship. They can do this by understanding, at a deep level, that whatever it was that caused them to get stuck in the first place can also enable them, when they use the right skills, to transform the way they think, feel, and act about it.

We can also recognize that every organization, whether it is a cor- poration, school, nonprofit, or government agency, generates chronic conflicts. Each of these conflicts poses a challenge to the organization that it has not faced directly or in its entirety. Each chronic conflict thereby reveals a paradigm that has begun to shift, a problem that has yet to be solved, or an opportunity for improvement that has not been understood, seized upon, or implemented.

Indeed, every chronic conflict presents us with a unique opportunity to significantly enhance our personal lives, deepen our relationships, improve our processes, expand the effectiveness of our organizations, increase our work satisfaction, and release us from impasse. To reach these transformational outcomes, it is necessary to understand how and why we get stuck, and develop the strategies and skills that make resolution and transformation possible.

The Dark Side of Emotion in Conflict

When we are in conflict, we say things we do not mean and mean things we do not say. Only rarely do we communicate at a deep level what we really, honestly think and feel, or do so in ways that are empathetic. We seldom speak from our hearts or expose our vulnerability in ways our opponent can hear. Why do we fall into these traps? Why is it so difficult to do what we know is right?

Our conflicts have the capacity to confuse and hypnotize us, to make us genuinely believe there is no way out other than through combat. Conflict possesses dark, hypnotic, destructive powers: the power of attachment when it is time to leave, the power of demonization when it is time to forgive, the power of articulate speech when it is time to listen. Conflict alternately strokes and crushes our egos, fuels and exhausts our will, energizes and freezes us in fear. It speaks to a deep, ancient part of our soul that thirsts for power and delights in revenge.

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When we are engaged in conflict, our emotions seem enormously powerful and overwhelming. When we are in the grip of strong emo- tions, they feel limitless and unstoppable, irresistible and all defining. Part of the seduction of strong emotions is that they allow us to present who we are and what we want in absolute terms. They force us to identify with the seemingly infinite power of our feelings and to surrender control to something larger than ourselves.

We have all experienced times in our lives when we lacked the skills we needed to communicate honestly and empathetically with others. We have all been aggressive, judgmental, and hypercritical, or passive, apathetic, and defensive. Our efforts at honesty have been misinterpreted as aggression and our empathy as weakness. We have not known how to temper our anger with compassion, how to listen to our opponent’s pain when we were being criticized, how to discover what caused our opponents to act as they did, or how to take responsibility for our own miscommunications and conflicts. We have failed to find ways of working collaboratively with our opponents and find solutions to our problems. As a result, we have felt trapped in our conflicts, sensing or believing that there was no exit, no way out.

In addition, we have all resisted apologizing for our behaviors, acknowledging our miscommunications, or recognizing that our deepest, most destructive emotions originate inside us, having little or nothing to do with our opponents. We have become lost in self-aggrandizement or self-denial, sometimes simply by focusing exclusively on what our opponent did or said. We have engaged in conflict because we were unhappy with our lives, needed attention, felt rejected, lacked the courage to stand up for ourselves, felt insecure or upset by criticism, were ashamed of our own cowardice or grief, or did not have the skill to respond effectively to someone else’s behavior. And our opponents have behaved exactly the same way for the same reasons.

Instead of facing these internal reasons for being upset and gaining insight into our deeper motivations, we have become angry with others and claimed our cause was noble, just, true, and right. We have described our opponents as evil, unjust, unfair, harassing, aggressive, dishonest, disloyal, and insane, as opposed to describing our own pain, or why our relationship with them is important to us, or searching for the misunderstandings, false expectations, miscommunications, and petty incidents that we have both blown out of proportion.

In the process, we have missed the truth: that these petty concerns can be transcended only by expanding our awareness of the deeper reasons

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that gave rise to them. We can escape them only by being honest with ourselves, our opponents, and our colleagues about what is really both- ering us, by genuinely listening to those with whom we disagree, and by discovering that we have much to learn from them. Once we let go of our emotional investment in being right, we can begin to collaborate in the discovery and implementation of creative solutions.

Settlement Versus Resolution

In many organizations, executives, managers, and employees have learned to sweep conflicts under the rug in hopes that they will go away. As a result, organizations have developed cultures that encourage people to avoid discussing difficult issues, not fully communicate what they really want, and settle for partial solutions or no solution at all. In doing so, they cheat themselves and others in the workplace out of learning from their conflicts and discovering more skillful ways of resolving disputes.

Denying the existence of conflict does not make it disappear, but simply increases its covert power. Organizations that encourage people to avoid or suppress disagreements, or reward them for being ‘‘good employees,’’ inevitably develop systems and cultures that sacrifice honesty, integrity, creativity, and peace of mind for a superficial, fragile, temporary, and false facade of agreement and civility.

In many workplaces, employees have learned to accept a level of humiliation, abuse, superficiality, and unresolved conflict simply in order to keep their jobs. Consider, for example, how much humiliation, abuse, and conflict you and others you know have accepted. Here are some questions to ask yourself and others at work:

• Do people in my organization embrace and try to learn from conflicts, or do they avoid them and try to sweep them under the rug?

• What price have my colleagues and I paid as a result?

• What price have I and others in conflict paid for being unable to resolve our disputes, or for having to dissemble and pretend they do not exist?

• How often do we carry our conflict with us for years?

• What price has the organization paid for unresolved conflict?

There is an enormous difference between communicating superfi- cially to settle your conflicts and communicating deeply to resolve

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them, between compromising over issues and transforming your con- flicts by learning from them. We try to settle our conflicts when we are uncomfortable with them, feel frightened by them or by what we imag- ine their resolution will entail, and wish to avoid or suppress them, or to pacify our opponents. We compromise and try to make them go away because we experience them as stressful, uncontrollable, violent, frightening, and irrational, because we lack the skill to handle our own intense emotions, or because we do not know how to respond safely to the intense emotions of others. Often, we see our conflicts as failures, or do not think they are important or useful. Sometimes we are simply afraid of hurting other people’s feelings by addressing them directly.

Unfortunately, when we avoid, suppress, or compromise our con- flicts, we often miss the chance to reveal their underlying sources, correct them, learn from them, or break through to the other side. If this is our approach, we will seek settlement for settlement’s sake and cheat ourselves out of opportunities for resolution, learning, and transformation.

It may come as a shock to you that we do not advocate peace for its own sake, or believe that settlement and compromise are always better than conflict. As we see it, peace without justice soon becomes oppressive. Superficial settlements often lead to silence, sullen accep- tance, distrust, and renewed hostilities. By contrast, resolution leads to learning, change, partnership, community, innovation, increased trust, and forgiveness. All these positive outcomes are lost when we ‘‘trade justice for harmony’’ or commit to ‘‘peace at any price.’’ Peace, in this sense, does not mean the absence of conflict, but the skill and ability to engage in it collaboratively and constructively.

Into the Eye of the Storm

When we seek resolution, we are drawn toward the center of our disputes, into ‘‘the eye of the storm.’’ While this may sound irrational and even dangerous, it is nonetheless true that by moving toward our adversaries rather than away from them, we more quickly discover what lies beneath the surface of our disputes, and begin to see how we can listen empathetically even to those who oppose us. We can then acknowledge what we have in common, clarify and resolve the issues that are dividing us, devise creative solutions, collaboratively negotiate differences, identify and resolve the underlying reasons for

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the dispute, learn from each other and the conflict, and strengthen and revitalize our relationships.

At the center, heart, or eye of every storm of conflict is a calm, peaceful place where opposition and antagonism are united, trans- formed, and transcended, where learning, dialogue, and insight take place. Journeying into the eye of the storm is, for this reason, a core, or meta-strategy for moving from impasse to resolution and transformation.

To move toward the center of our conflicts, we need to change the way we think about our disagreements, and how we behave in their presence. We cannot succeed in the long run by avoiding confronta- tion, or by simply ceasing to communicate with our opponents — these responses will not resolve anything. Instead, if we recognize that every conflict contains hidden lessons that can fuel our growth, change, learning, awareness, intimacy, effectiveness, and successful relation- ships, we will not be frightened of moving toward their center. As we do so, we may be able to see, hidden deep in our conflict, signs of the emergence of a new paradigm, indications of a desire for a better working relationship, a detailed guide to what is not working for one or both of us, and an implicit request that we work together to make things better.

Paradoxically, we may engage in conflict because we do not believe it is possible to resolve our disputes, and therefore become more aggressive in order to avoid feeling defeated. Sometimes we fight because we need to express strong feelings or beliefs about an issue, or we are trying to remedy an injustice. Perhaps the other side has refused to listen or negotiate, and conflict seems to offer a welcome antidote to stagnation and apathy. Being aggressive is sometimes the only way we believe we can spark communication and honest dialogue — not because it is right, but because we feel it is the only way we can get the other person or the organization to listen. Yet hidden in the allure of our principled opposition is the price we pay for having an enemy.

Lasting change happens when we use higher-level skills to move through our conflicts to achieve deeper levels of resolution, allowing us to shift from divergence to convergence, from antagonism to unity, and from impasse to transcendence. In this way, conflict resolution is an expression of the highest personal, organizational, social, and political responsibility. It is an antidote to unfairness and injustice, a more effective way of bringing about social change, and sometimes the only way of successfully communicating our opposition to policies

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and practices we do not like. In each of these cases, it is not conflict that is the problem, but the destructive, adversarial ways we engage in it.

How Far Apart Are People Who Are in Conflict?

Our greatest sources of inspiration and personal satisfaction come from love rather than hate, from moments of connection rather than moments of aggression and hostility. Yet even while we are searching for insight and transformation or trying to rise above the fray, we find ourselves mired in petty squabbles that make our efforts to avoid or ignore them seem almost laughable.

Every conflict we face in life is rich with positive and negative potential. Every dispute can be a source of inspiration, enlighten- ment, learning, transformation, and growth — or of rage, fear, shame, impasse, and resistance. The choice is fundamentally not up to our opponents, but to us, and depends on our willingness to face them by engaging directly, constructively, and collaboratively with our opponents.

For example, consider this question: How far apart are people who are in conflict? We believe there are three correct answers:

1. They are an infinite distance apart because they cannot communicate at all.

2. They are no distance whatsoever because their conflict makes them inseparable.

3. They are exactly one step apart because either of them can reach out and touch the other at any moment.

If these answers are correct, where are these conflicts actually located? Again, there are three correct answers:

1. They are located in the mind and heart of each party because their perceptions, attitudes, ideas, emotions, and intentions are indispensable to the continuation of the dispute.

2. They are located between them because every conflict is a relationship.

3. They are located in the surrounding context because all conflicts take place within a system, culture, or environment that influences how they are conducted.

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The third location is especially important in workplace conflicts, which are always located at least partly in the organizational sys- tems, structures, processes, and cultures that inform everyone’s choices about how to respond.

The answers to these questions suggest that you can improve your ability to resolve conflicts not only by taking the one step that separates you from your opponent, but also by changing the way you think and act in their presence, by working to improve your relationship with them, and by redesigning and shifting the organizational systems, structures, processes, and cultures in the workplace in which they occur.

The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote, ‘‘When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.’’ Looking into your conflicts means surrendering your illusions, no longer seeing yourself as a powerless victim, or your opponents as evil enemies. It means giving up your fear of engaging in honest communication with someone you may distrust or even dislike, and taking responsibility for the attitudes and behaviors that you bring to the conflict.

The Transformational Power of Conflict

When we choose to face the dark side of our participation in con- flict, we begin to recognize its extraordinary capacity to transform our lives by shifting the way we understand ourselves, experience others, conduct our relationships, relate to our organizations, and learn and grow. This hidden, transformative power of each and every conflict lies in the potential for its resolution in a way that leads to a discovery of a better way of being, working, and living simultaneously.

If this proposition seems surprising to you, think of a time when your life shifted dramatically and your relationship to the world around you was transformed. Was your transformation connected in any way to a conflict? Did you achieve a flash of realization while in the midst of a dispute? Did you change as a result of loss, confrontation, criticism, divorce, or the death of someone you loved? Did it occur as a result of negative feedback, discipline, or termination? Before you achieved clarity, did you feel torn between conflicting alternatives? If so, you are not alone. As you consider these questions, we invite you to begin your own transformation by consciously and skillfully engaging in your conflicts, experiencing them completely, turning them into learning experiences and opportunities to practice new skills, and working to reach genuine closure.

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By transformation, we mean significant, all-encompassing, lasting change. Transformation is not minor, incremental, small-scale, linear, temporary, or transitory. It is a change in the form of the conflict that leaves it, us, and them different from the way we were before. It alters our sense of reality, of identity, and of possibility. Transformation occurs when we let go of what happened and allow what is stuck in the past to die so our present and future can live. It occurs when we discover that what we most needed to resolve in our conflict was inside us all the time.

By using the strategies we describe in this book, we hope you will be able to find or create a new sense of yourself and your organization, a new direction in your life, a new understanding of any opponent, and a new approach to resolving future miscommunications, misun- derstandings, and conflicts. We hope you will be able to redirect the energy, focus, and time that constitute your personal investment in conflict to fuel your personal and organizational growth, learning, and effectiveness. These transformational opportunities are open to each of us at every moment in every conflict.

Surprisingly, large-scale transformations often take place through very simple actions, such as listening, asking questions, and making commitments. To achieve transformational results in your conflicts, we ask you to make two commitments. First, we ask that you pay attention to the way you are when you are in conflict, and that you choose to listen and learn — both internally to your own voice and sense of truth, and externally to the voice of your adversary or opponent. Second, we ask that you alter the way you act, by exploring options without biases, separating problems from peo- ple and interests from positions, exploring the reasons for your own resistance, and that you decide to be a leader in your own conflicts and do so, as best you can, with courage and commit- ment.

Within these twin spheres of being and acting, there are innumer- able techniques, methods, approaches, questions, interventions, and processes that can give birth to transformation. Each of these will be different for each person, organization, and situation. Not every method will work for every person, every conflict, or at all times. What matters is that you search for what works best for you, one opponent and one conflict at a time. The strategies we offer are not magic wands. The magic arises from your ability to select the right approach at the right time with the right person.

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About This Book

Philosophers have written that the universe can be found in a single grain of sand. This book is our effort to describe the universe we have found in the sands of conflict, which we have studied, sifted, and shaped professionally over the last thirty years. In the process, we have helped thousands of people in workplaces in the United States and around the world resolve their disputes.

We wrote this book to assist everyone who works — employees, lead- ers, managers, teachers, principals, union representatives, and workers in corporations, nonprofits, schools, and government agencies — in learning from their conflicts. Everyone can increase their skills, not merely in making conflicts disappear, but in discovering their deeper underlying truths, resolving the reasons that gave rise to them, pre- venting future conflicts, and seeing them as drivers to personal and organizational transformation.

To assist you in discovering these truths for yourself, we present ten strategies for resolution. These strategies are a diverse set of tools you can use to improve your skills and resolve your conflicts — not just hammers and wrenches, but mirrors and scalpels, and meta-tools that will help you design your own special tools for each new situation. The mirrors are to help you reflect on what you are doing to sustain or encourage the conflict. The scalpels are to assist you in eliminating unproductive, destructive, and unwanted behavior patterns and free you to approach your conflicts in a more constructive, collaborative, and strategic manner. The meta-tools are to help you when the other tools don’t seem to work. Our object in offering them is not to tell you what to do or how to do it, but to provide you with insights that will lead you to your own useful methods and important truths, as we have been led to ours.

The Ten Strategies

Each of the ten chapters that follow offers a core strategy that can lead you from impasse to resolution, and possibly to personal and organizational transformation. By working with each strategy, you will be able to improve your ability to confront, embrace, struggle with, and resolve disputes in your own way. As you investigate each strategy, we provide you with detailed suggestions on how to think about, practice, and redesign it to meet your needs.

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While you may prefer a simple step-by-step guide guaranteed to help you navigate life’s difficulties, we have found the recipe approach to dispute resolution hopelessly inadequate. Simplistic approaches to conflict cannot anticipate the unexpected, respond to complex issues and emotions, or account for individual or organizational uniqueness. They cannot appreciate the wholeness of conflict, which cannot be recognized by slicing it into smaller pieces. Instead, we offer a series of somewhat circular, iterative, intersecting strategies that will lead you to the center of your disputes and reveal their hidden transformational potential.

We refer to ‘‘strategies’’ in order to differentiate a strategic approach to conflict resolution from the more common tactical one that consists of a series of linear steps leading closer and closer to resolution. In our experience, transformation requires the introduction of something new, which requires more than tactical thinking, and resolution is rarely a linear process.

Rather, the search for resolution and transformation reflects a state of mind, an intention that cannot be located by following a previously crafted blueprint or map, but must be discovered for yourself. There is no guaranteed technique or tactic that can lead you there, yet every conflict resolution technique has the potential to open your eyes to hidden truths and reveal a path forward. In fact, it is likely that you already know the value of every strategy we suggest, and understand deep inside that successfully implementing any strategy requires you to first look inward to find the place where you get stuck.

The word strategy implies planning, but it also suggests a journey to a place that is, to some extent, unimaginable and indescribable before you arrive. For this reason, we ask you to adopt an attitude of openness, possibility, adventure, and curiosity, and to bring a commitment and desire for resolution to the process. We know from experience that if you pursue any of these strategies, opportunities for transformation will automatically begin to open for you. We invite you to take this exciting journey with us.

Here is a brief explanation of the strategies we explore in each chapter:

Strategy 1: Understand the Culture and Dynamics of Conflict. Every conflict is significantly influenced by the culture and dynamics in which it takes place. Understanding these elements will help you discover the hidden meaning of your conflicts,

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