In conflict and negotiation, it’s a common mistake to assume you have less power than the other person, particularly in workplace situations where the other person is your supervisor or someone in higher positional authority. In any conflict or negotiation situation you have more possible sources of power than may immediately be obvious. For example, […]
Examining mental models
Mental models are the explanations and pictures we construct in our heads to make sense of the world. The parable of the blind men and the elephant illustrates how our mental models influence our conclusions -- the man touching the tail thinks an elephant is like a rope, while the man touching the tusk believes an elephant is more like a spear, and the man touching the trunk concludes an elephant is like a snake. We disagree better when we can detect our blind spots, examine our assumptions, and interpret our experience through multiple lenses.
When compassion trumps anger, everyone wins
A mediation student of mine told me this story some time ago: She was in bumper to bumper traffic during rush hour in Winooski, VT. Now, as someone who used to live in the Burlington area, it’s hard for me to imagine bumper to bumper traffic lasting longer than one minute, but perhaps an accident […]
I didn’t do it intentionally
I can get pretty inward-focused when I’m working on a project, so much so that I tend not to pay much attention to what’s going on around me. I know I’m really absorbed when I start to notice small bruises on my legs and arms. They come from my banging into door jambs as I […]
Conflict at work may be the snake under the rug
Don’t let silence kill your company
What we see depends on what we look for
First, follow the movement of the rotating pink dot: Next, stare at the + sign in the center of the image. Finally, concentrate for at least one minute on that same + sign. Most people will see only a pink dot in Step 1. In Step 2, most will see the moving dot turn green. […]
Don’t miss the gorilla
We don’t always see what is right before our eyes, though we think we do. Inattentional blindness is a phenomenon in which we fail to perceive something in plain sight due to where we’re focusing our attention at the time. It’s one reason people fail to notice motorcycles on the road, gorillas walking through the […]
From stumbling blocks to stepping stones
I’m reading a gripping book right now, Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales (affiliate link). Gonzales profiles men and women who survived epic-proportion catastrophes in nature—adrift at sea, caught in an avalanche, lost in the Bolivian jungle—in order to understand why some of us survive such extraordinary circumstances and most of us don’t. And he believes […]
Forget fault, consider contribution instead
Blaming others for the difficulties and conflicts we face is an alluring option. It’s ego-protective, in that we save face by pointing out the other person’s transgressions. We’ve been pretty acculturated to blame as a way to engage in conflict and protect ourselves, our assets, our rights. And we may genuinely believe that it wasn’t […]
How red converse all-stars taught me my first negotiation lesson
This one’s for any of you who step a bit too readily into conflict. The take-all-comers folks. Those of you who’d love to be a little less reactive to the day-to-day squabbles that make up a part of life. When I was eight, I rather desperately wanted a pair of “boy sneakers.” Up until then, […]
Your conflict rules of engagement
Can you guess why these matter?
Your mental models of conflict
During conflict we tend to turn our attention to managing the other person or getting her to behave differently. Realistically, though, the only persons we can truly control or manage during conflict are ourselves. And in managing our own reactions, in seeking more constructive responses from ourselves, we inevitably change the interaction with the other […]