Our climate is changing and so must we - all our actions matter. That is the conclusion of a small group of dedicated people who, during three 12 hour days, worked out a process for Albertans to come together to tackle the difficult issue of global and local climate change. We all volunteered our time for this effort. If we don’t reduce climate impacts and improve our adaptive ability, we face a very different future than we expected . If saying this means that we are modern versions of Jonah that is okay too.
The background to the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale is that Jonah was thrown overboard while fleeing from a mission to preach doom and destruction. He did not want such a difficult, unpopular job. Once the whale barfed him up on a beach, Jonah figured he had no way out. He set out to tell millions of inhabitants of Ninevah that they would die in 40 days. A remarkable thing happened. The Ninevahians (or whatever they were called) believed Jonah. Each of them, from the king to the commoner, repented from wickedness. So, they weren’t destroyed after all. This annoyed Jonah, for now his prediction was demonstrably wrong . He must have felt foolish; how could he prove that Divine forgiveness, and not bad prophecying, had spared Ninevah? That is our current situation. In 1972, The Report to the Club of Rome, called Limits to Growth, predicted doom and destruction. People heard and some repented. We bought a bit of time, and the naysayers could point out that the predictors were foolish. Business could carry on as usual. In 1987, The Brundtland Report, called Our Common Future, predicted doom and destruction. People heard and some more repented. We bought a bit more time, and the naysayers could again point out that the predictors were foolish. Business could carry on as usual. Now, we are in 2008, and many more people have to hear the predictions and respond by reducing their green house gas emissions, decreasing their impact on the biosphere, and helping save their cities. According to the international and local experts we consulted at this meeting in Facilitators of the group processes we are planning to roll out across
Archive for September, 2008
It’s discouraging, after devoting decades to helping people develop conflict competence, to wander into the realm of SideTaker.com, Whoiswrong.com, and other ‘blog war’ sites. These are unmediated, democratic cyberspace, where everyone is entitled to be conflict incompetent for an audience.Except, it isn’t a democracy that builds capacity, or creates social capital. These sites substitute attack opinions, sarcasm, and bullying for true democratic dialogue.
i teach the Theory and Practice of Dialogue, and Deliberative Democracy. Public forum debate is a healthy way for everyone to learn, expand their skills, create community, and change their mind if persuaded by something they hear.
Blog warfare has ramifications for the ongoing societal conversations about the kinds of community we want to build and the value of public trust.
1, if we are expressing a desire to revitalize a dialogue process that has become dysfunctional, then “I’m right, you’re wrong” is unlikely to do it. What in blog warfare will lift more people to a better quality of life? There wasn’t much in the websites I read that speaks word of inclusion, representation, embracing diversity, or community comprehensiveness. We should be noticing the disconnect between the kinds of communities we find meaning in and what we create in blaming and accusations.
2, the model of side taking debate that is being used is an impoverished example of what public onilne dialogue could be. Dialogue has a well founded theoretical basis of transformational learning, that is, we hear and learn and understand. Attacks on one side in short sarcastic witticisms isn’t enhancing anyone’s skills or lives.
3, public dialogue introduces new information that can create better outcomes by illuminating what others are thinking. Reducing the comments to simplicity reduces our skills in complex thinking. When the topic is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that a man is ungrateful because he does not like the taste of the toast his girlfriend made when he was ill, we miss the opportunity to inquire into whether his illness may be affecting his taste buds. That’s a simple example, but the whole point of blog warfare is simplification, in a world that needs complexity in thinking skills.
The ‘remedy’ for a jaded cynical community is to transform a jaded cynical debate process into a true dialogue of learning from each other, which can be just as much fun as calling someone names and telling them they are wrong.
At a recent mediation, two parties described the events that created their conflict. One (let’s call the first person A) had handed the other (that would be person B) a letter containing information that deserved priority attention. After that, the two versions were very different in intention although they could agree on the basics.
Person A said that Person B treated the letter Person A had delivered to B with disdain even though it was important, threw the letter to the ground, and then, ignoring both Person A and the letter, went back to work as if Person A were an irritant to be dismissed without a word. This rudeness was inexcusable to Person A, who believed that was the moment the conflict took flight. Person A left the office feeling belittled and offended.
Person B’s version was that Person A had stormed into the office without knocking, threw the letter in Person B’s face even though B was at work, then stood there huffing as if Person B should immediately stop all other work. Person B pushed the letter aside to deal with once Person A had gone, and it might have accidently slipped to the floor from the push. Person B believed the conflict erupted when Person A entered the room as a rude interruption, and thus, B felt justified in continuing to work because, to do otherwise, would reinforce Person’s A belief that such behaviour was acceptable when it clearly was not.
So, each agreed on the basic facts. One person entered the office with a letter that must be brought to the other person quickly. The first person had transferred the letter to the second person’s desk. The second person pushed at the letter. The letter had fallen from the desk to the floor.
After that, everything else was subject to interpretation. Either A had entered B’s office rudely, or not. B had reacted rudely or not. The letter had been pushed with emotional force or not. The letter’s fall to the floor had been accidental or not. There was huffing involved or not.
Two people, one set of facts, two very different interpretations, depending on whether the addition of a hostile adjective served the purpose of making the other person wrong, or not. Since we are very poor mind readers, we infer the adversarial or friendly intention of other people based on how we feel about them.
If, in our mind, someone is friendly, we see their actions as friendly and their intention as well meaning. However, when we perceive someone as adversarial in relation to ourselves, their actions will be perceived as adversarial whether they meant it that way or not.
When I inquired further into the history of their relationship, they revealed that the letter incident was just one of a series of events between them that was negatively interpreted. In other words, because of their history of animosity, each was prepared to believe that the other had a hostile attitude, and interpreted their actions through those belief systems. Once we were able to explore the reality of the belief, the letter incident took on greatly diminished significance.
Work this busy month has revolved around a theme: dedicated, ethical, and well-liked people got into conflicts that could have been prevented or solved early. My clients were in situations that left them feeling unfairly treated, angry, misunderstood, and/or the victim of an injustice. How did it get to be this way for intelligent, good people?
It can’t be reduced to a simple answer, but there was a pattern. Once they felt disagreed with, they saw their own perspective, defended their position, and got bogged down in a conflict they could not find a way to end with grace.
Here’s a typical example of the situation and how they eventually addressed it.
If a boss reprimands an employee and the employee accepts that, there is no dispute. If the reprimand feels unfair, the employee challenges the boss creating a dispute if that is how the boss responds. If they put this incident into a framework of ongoing personality and stylistic differences and make the reprimand about everything the two of them ever had differences about, it is a conflict.
There is no dispute.
Employee might accept the reprimand because: employee admits wrongdoing; boss is too powerful to contradict; employee feels reprimand is trivial in the bigger picture; boss speaks in a way employee does not take seriously; employee does not respect boss’s opinion, and so on. In each possible option, the employee makes meaning of the boss’s words and decides, consciously or unconsciously, how to react. The dispute is prevented because the employee mentally normalizes the reprimand as less important than, say, doing the job well or getting along.
The employee challenges the boss.
Once employee engages boss, it’s boss’s turn to decide what meaning to put on the interaction. The dispute may emerge or not, depending on the respective meanings they put on each other’s words and attitudes. Decisions about meaning are not made in isolation. They are grounded in history, character assessment, judgment of effort, value to the team, and other factors. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: What assumptions am I making without verifying their accuracy? How are my feelings about the person affecting how I perceive the person’s words and deeds? What are my words, deeds and attitude contributing to how this interaction is unfolding? If I change or manage how I feel and react, what else would change?
They put this incident into a framework of ongoing differences.
Because boss and employee have a history, a dispute over the reprimand will recall each time the other has been perceived as irritating, overbearing, wrong, or an obstacle to success. Their words are no longer about the reprimand, but call up experiences such as: “you always”, “you never”, “last time this happened”, “you promised”, “when will you ever”, and reconstructions of other times that expectations were disappointed. The reprimand takes on the meaning they make of their entire relationship. The incident that caused the reprimand is replaced with allegations of character flaws, inadequacies in abilities, and judgments about the other one’s lack of ethics and honour. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: what am I attributing to the person that has nothing to do with this incident? Is how I feel about our relationship affecting my response to the words the person is saying now? If my best friend said exactly the same things what would I assume s/he meant?
Every new dispute incident piles up in the context of the ongoing conflict.
Things may seem calm until the next incident, at which time the fuse is shorter, recovery time to equilibrium is longer, hurt feelings are deeper, and mistrust is stronger. The next time boss makes a decision employee takes it personally. The next time employee stumbles boss perceives it as lack of commitment. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: is my judgment about this situation being affected by left over feelings from the conflict? Do I perceive this as being done to me rather than something that just is? What is my responsibility, if any, for the situation?
You can address disputes before they become conflict systems. Talk to yourself honestly about what is really going on and how you are interpreting it to fit your image as the innocent party. Whether it is boss, teammate, partner, or other person, the question is not who is right or wrong - each believes s/he is right and the other is wrong. The better question is what meaning are you, a human with feelings, making of what is going on? Change the meaning you attribute to the situation, and your perception of the qualities you attribute to the other person can also change.
