This post and the next are derived from the professional and life circumstance of Dr. Ignaz Philip Semmelweis (1818 – 1865). Semmelweis’ story illustrates several features of both ideological factors in the development of conflict and the complexity of conflict. By ideology I mean a way of believing that takes on a life of its […]
#38 Dr. Semmelweis And How Being Right Can Cause Conflict Keep Reading »
In the previous blog I explained how having an alternative to negotiation is empowering. Here I am going to talk about alternatives to mediation. In the case of workplace conflict, I find that helping the parties to explore their alternatives to mediation is an effective preparation for mediation. Frequently the alternatives are not as secure
#37 Alternatives To Mediation In The Workplace Keep Reading »
In their groundbreaking book on negotiation, Getting to Yes, Fisher and Ury introduced the concept of Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). The authors present the BATNA, which is also applicable to conflict situations, as a more useful and powerful concept than having a ‘bottom line’. The bottom line is the worst deal that is still
#36 How To Come Up With Your BATNA Keep Reading »
The title of Canadian mediator Ben Hoffman‘s new book is Peaceweaving. I find the word ‘peaceweaving’ descriptive of work I sometimes do inside large organizations. Destructive conflict creates a hole in the organizational fabric and mediation between the parties is not enough to repair the hole. Peaceweaving entails working more broadly in the organization, particularly within
#35 Peaceweaving in Organizations – What It Means to Me Keep Reading »
In interpersonal relationships, power is frequently defined as the capacity to influence or produce a particular outcome. Last year I followed a discussion thread in a Harvard Business Review (HBR) LinkedIn group devoted to defining power. The vast majority of the thousands of people who put forth a definition described power in terms of its
#34 What Is Power? Keep Reading »
Regarding a joint escalation policy, there are two central aspects to what I mean. Firstly, conflict is generally held at the level where it originates in the organizational hierarchy. Secondly, if it is moved up the authority chain, it is done so in a collaborative manner. This blog further explains joint escalation using two
#33 Use A Policy Of Joint Escalation To Shift Organizational Culture Keep Reading »
Last time I wrote about how shifting some attention to yourself can help resolve a dispute. I used the example practice of clarifying your preferred direction in life then assessing whether your engagement in a conflict is consistent with movement in the desired direction. In this blog I will outline a potentially powerful way you
#32 The Internalizing Conversation Keep Reading »
Conflict has a distracting quality. It may draw all our attention to the other party. We should direct considerable attention towards the other party – the person we have a conflict with – but not all of our attention. In attempting to alleviate discomfort and resolve a dispute, parties may look only externally. Fixated on
#31 Shift Attention To Yourself To Break An Impasse Keep Reading »
One of my favourite frameworks for understanding organizational life is supplied by Bolman and Deal (2003) in Reframing Organizations. They articulate four lenses through which to view and understand organizations. Boleman and Deal capture each lens with a metaphor: Factory Family Temple Jungle Factory Through the factory metaphor we understand organizational productivity: there are
#30 Organizational Life Through Four Lenses Keep Reading »
