Conflict's High Price
1. Believing
in Abundance
2. Creating
Partnership
3. Being
Creative
4. Fostering
Sustainable Collaboration
5. Becoming
Open
6. Forming
Long-Term Collaboration
7. Relying
on Feelings and Intuition
8. Disclosing
Information and Feelings
9. Learning
Throughout the Resolution Process
10. Becoming
ResponseAble (p. vii – viii).
Levine
(2009) states, “The attitude is developed by listening, sharing concerns, and
knowing there is an agreement waiting to be discovered” (p. 109). Further
understanding of conflict is provided by Hoch, Kunreuther, and Gunther (2001)
as they present observations and discussions about framing and how different
frames can lead to conflict. What began as a task that should have been a fun
process, led to an adversarial position; and, as Levine (2009) notes, there
were not any winners from the Christmas party planning team for American
Pioneer Life Insurance.
As our
volunteer team began the process of planning our company’s first Christmas
party, we truly believed there was abundance, “enough” for all “to get what
they want” (Levine, 2009, p. 47). We were a team of six, including the Director
of Human Resources. The abundance of creativity and money were present as we
started; however, as we began to focus on the entertainment aspect of the
event, the creative partnership soon deteriorated into a group that was wasting
resources (Levine, 2009). The meetings that took place to discuss the pros and
cons of either a band or a disc jockey resulted in a happy team who looked
forward to meetings to an irritated team who saw the rehash of arguments as a
waste of time; time better spent on company work. The continuity of happy
collaboration that once permeated the group had been replaced by painful
emotions held at bay (Levine, 2009). We had held numerous sessions wherein
creative solutions were discussed, offered, and attempts to regain
collaborative footing were made repeatedly. Each of us took turns telling our
stories and why we either supported or opposed the entertainment options. In
the end, instead of conflict resolution leading to a stronger team, as Levine
(2010) observes; our team was dissolved. The HR Director believed the issues
would somehow go away if the team was no longer in place. Unfortunately, all of
the concerns came to fruition the night of the party.
Levine
(2009) states we become “responseABLE” by dealing with “internal and external
conflict” (p. 104). Because our director had failed to deal with her own
conflict regarding an overwhelming support for a disc jockey, our conflict
resulted in a “gnawing effect”, termed “internal chatter” that led to physical,
emotional, and monetary costs (Levine, 2009, p. 4). Unlike the beautiful result
of conflict in nature that Levine (2010) uses to demonstrate the positive side
of conflict, our group learned first-hand of the four sources of conflict: observations,
interpretations, feelings, and needs discussed by Levine and presented by Jerry
Wagner (2015) and the costs of unresolved conflict.
Shortly
after the Christmas party, the president fired the director. He had been
embarrassed at his own company party for which significant amounts of money and
other resources had been allocated. Employees, who had been surveyed for their
preferences, were disappointed as few of the items they indicated as preferred
were realized at the party. All of the energy and emotion the team had invested
before it was dissolved would never be recovered. It was a project that should
have been fun. It should have been a time for six fellow employees to come
together and listen to their respective departments in order to provide an end
of the year celebration worthy of the hard work that had taken place throughout
the company. Had our director used just half of the ten principles, the first
party would have been one to set the standards as opposed to one that was
forgotten before it began. Instead of dissolving the team, we could have
rotated new members each year so more could learn how to plan company events.
Looking back, I believe most of us were reticent to be more open with our
director. Perhaps we feared some type of reprisal, I’m not sure; but, had we
been a bit more unified as a group and maybe if we would have gone over her
head, the results would have been better. Twenty-twenty hindsight can be a
useful tool if you take the lessons learned and apply them in the future. Since
that time, of the ten principles Levine (2009) lists, “believing in abundance…,
being creative…, and becoming open” are new ways of thinking that have helped
me avoid such unresolved conflict, as an individual and as a team member.
References
Hoch, S.J., Kunreuther, H.C.,
& Gunther, R.E. (2001). Wharton on
Making Decisions.
Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Jerry Wagner. (2015, April 17).
Stewart Levine. [Video file]. Retrieved from
Levine, S. (2009). Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict into
Collaboration. San
Francisco,
CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Levine, S. (2010). Powerful Collaborations: Building High
Performance Teams,
Partnerships &
Marriages. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
No comments:
Post a Comment