On Differences and Disagreements

Usually, there's more than one way to convert disagreement into agreement. Choosing one can be tricky, though, because we so rarely appreciate all of what separates us or what distinguishes our views. Here's a collection of insights that might help find a path from disagreement to agreement.

• If I don't think I can explain it to a child, maybe I don't fully understand it.
• If it's urgent, go slow.
• Accountability and blame are two very different things.
• The problem is not the problem. The coping is the problem. — Virginia Satir
• Questions are usually just questions. Even when they're counter-arguments in disguise, they're still opportunities for giving great answers.
• When people I work with closely get into tangles, I'm probably involved in at least a minor way. Minor might still be significant.
• In tangles, everyone has a role. Being a spectator is a role.
• The person we all acknowledge as being involved in the trouble is only the person we're all willing to acknowledge. There are certainly others.
• We probably aren't the first people in the world to get into this particular fix.
• Our differences in this situation might contain echoes of our differences in another situation. Maybe one key to this situation lies in the other one. Unlocking this one might require more than one key.
• Although there are some people at work who are actually trying to harm others, they are so rare that I probably don't know anyone like that.
• The number of people who hold a particular belief isn't an indication of the correctness of that belief.
• When I say something I later regret, I'm usually repeating a previous error.
• For resolving differences, face-to-face is best. Phone-to-phone is next best. Voicemail is nuts. Anything involving a keyboard is totally nuts.
• Nobody has an accurate view of everything. I might be mistaken on this.
• There is almost always more than one way out.
• When I think there is only one way out, I probably haven't thought about it enough.
• When I Differences and disagreements
  are the doorways to growththink I've thought about it enough, and I still don't have a way out, I'm probably just tired. I take a break and try again later.
• If I think I don't know what I want, maybe going for what I really want is too scary.
• I can consider what to do about an unpleasant possibility without accepting that unpleasant possibility as inevitable.
• I can't actually unsee what I've seen.
• I can see in new ways things I've already seen in old ways.
• I can see for the first time things I've never seen before.
• I can see something for the first time only once.
• I can't unlearn what I've learned, but I can learn what I haven't yet learned.
• When somebody else seems to be trying mightily to make things worse, maybe I don't fully grasp what he or she is trying to accomplish.

This collection is a work in progress. rbrenrLjUINLAYKBEGYdbner@ChackcKbhuvCVhYSgLJNoCanyon.comSend me yours. I'm always interested.  Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

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More articles on Conflict Management:

Saying No

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What Insubordinate Non-Subordinates Want: I

When you're responsible for an organizational function, and someone not reporting to you won't recognize your authority, or doesn't comply with policies you rightfully established, you have a hard time carrying out your responsibilities. Why does this happen?

Indicators of Lock-In: II

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New Ideas: Generation

When groups work together to solve problems, they employ three processes repeatedly: they generate ideas, they judge those ideas, and they experiment with those ideas. We first examine idea generation.

Creating Toxic Conflict: II

Some supervisors seem to behave as if part of their job description is creating toxic conflict among their subordinates. It isn't really, of course, but here's a collection of methods bad managers use that make trouble.

See also Conflict Management and Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming July 18: High Falutin' Goofy Talk: III

Workplace speech and writing sometimes strays into the land of pretentious but overused business phrases, which I like to call high falutin' goofy talk. We use these phrases with perhaps less thought than they deserve, because they can be trite or can evoke indecorous images. Here's Part III of a collection of phrases and images to avoid. Available here and by RSS on July 18.

And on July 25: Exploiting Functional Fixedness: II

A cognitive bias called functional fixedness causes difficulty in recognizing new uses for familiar things. It also makes for difficulty in recognizing devious uses of everyday behaviors. Here's Part II of a catalog of deviousness based on functional fixedness. Available here and by RSS on July 25.

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