Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict into Collaboration - Softcover

Levine, Stewart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1576757714 ISBN 13: 9781576757710

Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Adversarial models for dealing with conflict waste time, money, and energy. They satisfy no one, so the conflict ends up resurfacing in a different form. Stewart Levine’s “resolutionary” alternative goes beyond compromise and capitulation. He offers ten guiding principles that stop anger and resentment cold and enable both sides to return to productive, satisfying, functional relationships. Levine’s seven-step conversational process fosters dignity and integrity, optimizes resources, and allows all concerns to be voiced, honored, and woven into the resolution. This second edition has been thoroughly revised with new examples; new tools; new material about communication, trust building, and virtual collaboration; and a more global outlook.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stewart Levine is a lawyer, management consultant, mediator, and trainer. His clients and students include American Express, Caterpillar Corporation, Chevron, ConAgra, General Motors, Oracle, and others. He has been a partner in two law firms and served as Deputy Attorney General for the state of New Jersey.

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Resolution: Getting Beyond Conflict, Compromise, and Settlement

Through dialogue even the most un-resolvable conflicts can be worked out and everyone wins. The process did not include litigation or the emotional roller coaster ride that accompanies most conflicts. It was a delightful experience.

Bill Brown, President, Influence Communications

I remember being surprised when told that settlement of a lawsuit is often characterized by thinking that “if both sides are unhappy, you probably have a good settlement.” Resolution is much better than settling! Resolution provides relief and completeness. The situation no longer gnaws at your gut.

The most fitting dictionary definitions of resolution are: (1) the act of unraveling a perplexing question or problem; (2) solution; and (3) removal or disappearance, as in the disappearance of a tumor.

The third is the most important, even though often aspirational. It means “as if it never happened.” The gnawing effect I call “internal chatter” has disappeared. The lack of chatter frees you to focus energy and attention on the present. If you’ve ever had a back injury, poison ivy, or a broken bone, you know what I mean. Something is resolved when the injury or illness does not impede the present moment.

This is important. You don’t want to keep dealing with the current impact of yesterday’s conflict. The effect may consist of holding anger or resentment, or thinking the result or compromise was unfair. Perhaps you compromised to get the situation behind you, or you deferred to someone else’s decision.

Although at times I have tried not to, for more than 25 years—as a lawyer, mediator, consultant, and trainer—I have practiced a resolutionary3 attitude, one that looks for the fair outcome from everyone’s perspective. Whether you are a hired advocate or you have a personal stake in the outcome, you can adopt an “attitude of resolution.” Evaluating the situation through the lens of resolution, you become an observer of what might be fair to everyone in the situation, even if you are directly involved. Standing in other’s shoes provides the critical perspective. The attitude of resolution is a skill you can cultivate by being aware, reserving your own judgments, and asking yourself if there is another solution that would serve everyone’s long- and short-term interests. It takes practice to develop this new habit of thinking, but I have found this orientation far more useful than trying to win.

Why Resolution?

Have you ever met someone who could not stop talking about something that happened in the past? It pervades their life as if it happened yesterday, although it may have taken place 20 years ago. They are stuck in the past, cut off from the ability to fully participate in their unfolding life.

Conflict has an emotional cost that remains after the battle is over. Win or lose, the scars may be with you for the rest of your life. Some people spend their lives focusing on the promotion they “lost,” the business they “lost,” the divorce they “lost,” the project they “lost.” This tunnel vision keeps them locked in the grip of their own anger.

They might even have “won,” but they have not healed the real cause of the conflict—a breakdown in a relationship that was valuable enough for them to invest emotional energy in a battle. They never completed grieving and they still carry the emotional suffering. They never “resolved” the real issue. They may never even have identified it! Our current ways of thinking that focus on winning guarantee a cost: suffering. The small battles between partners, parents and children, and employees and bosses take a significant toll.

Productivity and satisfaction, in business and personal relationships, come from our ability to collaborate with others. When you are resolved, you can fully focus on the tasks at hand. Your efforts are undiluted. Unresolved conflict, on the other hand, is an impediment to productivity and to satisfying, functional relationships. In today’s world of “knowledge work,” focus and creativity are essential. It’s impossible to be fully productive when you are angry. That’s why resolving the situation that’s sapping your strength and attention is very important.

It is equally important to have a sense of resolve when you start any new collaboration or relationship. You collaborate with others by reaching agreements. Your dependence on others is based on an intricate, pervasive web of agreements. Sometimes these agreements are explicit, but often they are implicit. Your collaboration will be stronger when you can recognize the implicit agreements within it. When you start out with uncertainty, or come into conflict during a project, you experience the cost of not being resolved from the outset. You also realize how inadequate your agreement-making and conflict-resolution tools are. Even though making agreements and resolving conflicts are essential life skills for working with others, they have not been taught to most of us.

Many current practices for resolving conflicts and starting collaborative relationships hinder us because of the way we were programmed to think, and because of the standard systems and practices in place. This book provides you with the following new tools:

1. Ten Principles of a new paradigm—a new way of thinking about conflict resolution.

2. The Cycle of Resolution, a seven-step model for preventing and resolving conflict that is a road map of new behaviors.

These ten principles and this seven-step model will maximize your ability to resolve conflict and achieve desired results in any business or personal relationship.

The Value of Resolution at Work

As organizations cut costs, differentiate products, and streamline productivity, people need to work within increasingly complex webs of face-to-face and virtual collaboration toward common goals. They need tools that foster collaboration in the face of distance and differences of opinion and “culture.” Rather than being angry and stuck, you must learn skills that foster resolution and quickly return you to productivity. This book presents the model for collaborative conversations that result in getting more done with fewer resources. This book reveals how agreement—the final step of resolving a conflict or the first step in the beginning of a new relationship—is an ongoing process, and that conflict and diverse opinions are opportunities for creativity and innovation. You will learn how to establish agreements based on deep heartfelt connection— agreements based on covenant.

Some of the benefits of establishing agreements based on covenant include:

Establishing shared vision of senior management

Improving teamwork

Creating partnership

Motivating participation

Including diverse perspectives and opinions

Using differences productively

Coordinating with external teammates

Using resources efficiently

Communicating more effectively

Building self-managing, high-performance teams

Forging consensus quickly

Fostering an environment of learning and growth

Promoting continual improvement

Capitalizing on the advantages of virtual organizations

Providing a more formal model of communication

essential for effective virtual collaboration.

The Value of Resolution at Home

In addition to their applications in workplace settings, the tools in this book will unlock more satisfying and intimate personal relationships within marriages, families, and less traditional...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1576757714
• ISBN 13: 9781576757710
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 312
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: eucomply OÜ, Pärnu mnt; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland