On 9 Apr 98 at 13:17, Bill Harris wrote:
> If not, is there a lesson for us in dealing with the diversity of
> ideas/beliefs/opinions we see? What is the minimum that we do need
> from each other in such issues? How would we propose staying
> productive when our passions are so caught up in this one issue? Are
> there lessons we can learn from this discussion that would help us in
> dealing with situations we find back home?
I don't want to belabour my current project on conflict prevention, but
heck, I've been working on it for two years, and that's about all I'm
doing...what I am looking at is teaching people how to communicate using
language (which I call cooperative language) which is more likely to
encourage dialogue, even whent here is disagreement.
The problem is not so much disagreement, but the way it is handled, both
vebally, behaviourally and culturally in the organization...and my work is
aimed at trying to prevent UNNECESSARY, unproductive conflict which occurs
as a result of the style of the interactions and the use of language.
I've identified a number of ways of communicating that are inimitable to
dialogue (still working on it), and ways of communicating that are the
opposite.
Beyond that is the catch, though of having to make a decision which is a
separate issue. Imagine if you will Ben and a person who disagrees with
his approach sitting in the HR corporate office and their boss expects
them to make a recommendation about the use of ranking systems. We then
have to look at conflict resolution strategies which are well documented
in the literature.
That would make a great case study!
Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
--"Robert Bacal" <rbacal@escape.ca>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>