HIT Piece 1.17.2017

Being “on the bubble” is about how much value you add to the situation, the resolution, or the conflict before the bubble bursts, all over you and all over the other party.

Being “on the bubble” is about being in a place where you are neither advancing nor retreating, merely existing in the space that you’re in right now, regardless of status.

Being “on the bubble” is about not understanding the nature of the situation that you’re in, the nature of the other parties and their perspectives, and the nature of you—and what your deeper needs really are.

Being “on the bubble” does not always feel great, because it’s a spot full of trepidation and fear.

Being “on the bubble” sometimes is the only resolution we get with other people.

Being “on the bubble” might be the only place to be.

The Moral Arc of the Universe

The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

And justice, supposedly, is blind.

Or so they say.

But people, with their prejudices, conflicts, disagreements, and dissensions, have trouble arcing towards blindness.

The issue with justice is not the fact of justice, that which is applied through the creation of laws, the codification of morals, and through genuine appeals to theology and philosophy.

The other issue with justice is that it’s application is often confused with something else.

Vengeance.

Because stories get closer to the truth of this than facts do, a character in a movie once stated that, “Karma is justice without the satisfaction. I don’t believe in justice.”

Many people and groups scream loudly for justice.

There are signs, placards, and bumper stickers with the phrase, “no justice, no peace” emblazoned upon them, but what they are really demanding is karmic retribution, not an arc of the universe bending toward justice.

Or peace.

Retribution, vengeance, revenge; wrongs righted with immediacy and swift, unambivalent consequences. Punishment, meted out by at the highest order, in the fastest way, with as few innocent people harmed as possible.

We are undergoing a global revolution where groups, cultures and individuals are confusing the potential, long desired outcomes of the revolution with their own personal desires for karmic retribution.

The narrative arc of the current revolution goes something like this:

Never before in the history of world is there access to more information, more money and more power to change the world in that ways that we would like it to be, rather than the ways that it has always been.

No longer will disparate groups and individuals wander the world, merely satisfied with the outcomes formerly guaranteed to them by “betters” or “others” in the social order.

We want more.

And if we don’t receive the more that we are guaranteed, then we will either move those in power to get it.

Of we will call for justice (and crank up the social pressure to conform) until we get the material outcomes we seek.

This narrative underlies current calls for justice, with the immediacy of the narrative following ever newly discovered injustices, as wave after wave of more access, more mobility and more individualized power seems to wash over the societies and cultures we inhabit.

But so what, right?

Well, conflicts occur when narratives differ, when perceptions of justice don’t match and when unanticipated disruptions happen. Conflicts happen when narratives of actual injustices (and perceived narratives of injustice) rub up against each other.

And when the only resolutions come in the form of power transfers and shifts, conflicts escalate quickly to violence.

One need only look at incidents around the United States (and the world) last year to see the evidence of this. With that being said, there are some critical questions to ask–and answer:

  • What are we to do?
  • What is the balance between justice, vengeance, and the more revolution that we are experiencing worldwide?
  • What is the most unambiguous way for all people (even those who have chosen not to participate due to inability, lack of ability or lack of interest) to benefit from the new largesse that technology promises to provide?
  • What are societies and cultures to do, even as the center disintegrates and the power holders in culture, media, and journalism and on and on, lose out in the shifting narratives of our times? Who gets to choose?
  • Who gets to make the world?

We don’t know the answers to any of these questions.

But far more energy should be spent on discussing and answering the questions, than on advancing a narrative that cries out for justice disguised as vengeance, while at the same time proclaiming that fairness and equitable treatment are the true goals.

On this day, let us commit to knowing the difference between justice and vengeance and to asking—and answering—the hard questions of the narratives that underlie our motive, our assumptions, and the ongoing global arc towards something that might eventually look like justice.

The Tower of Babel

At the root of all conflict is miscommunication.

The language that we speak, the “babble,” (or “babel,” if you will) is the thing that separates us. The language is not just verbal, of course, but the verbal prompts (or the lack of verbal prompts) create the initial opportunity for miscommunication.

Miscommunication impacts us all, and as more voices enter the public sphere, including voices that were never heard before, the level of noise (or static) increases. And genuine communication becomes almost impossible.

When the medium is also the message, miscommunication becomes the coin of the realm, ensuring access to less understanding and more conflict.

When distraction becomes the thing that drives entertainment (which is easy), rather than education (which is hard) it ensures that in the conflict between education and entertainment, miscommunication and obfuscation become the glass we communicate through.

Badly.

When the individual becomes the purveyor of what is “truth” and what is “lies” (or what is “fake”) the opportunities for those who have clarity about the difference between the two, to manipulate both communication methods becomes almost too tempting to avoid.

When the emotional power of stories matters more as a driver in communicating than reason, facts, and logic, miscommunication becomes easy because emotions are transient, explosive, and unpredictable.

The solutions (or resolutions) to all conflicts come down to attaining clarity in communication, but even if you personally pursue clarity in your communication, there’s no guarantee that your clarity won’t be interpreted as “babble” (or “babel” if you will) by the party you are seeking to communicate with.

Thus, ensuring that the root of the conflict won’t get pulled out from the ground of the fight anytime soon.

Chickens and Eggs

Chickens and eggs.

The reasoning that we use to determine which came “first” is the same reasoning that we use to determine causation in decisional areas where correlation might be a better heuristic tool.

The query regarding which “came first” blinds us to the fact that both the chicken and the egg are here—now.

When we get caught in the circle of determining causation, we are really looking for a place to put blame, so that we can be off the hook, for our part in the causation process.

Most of us aren’t looking for clarity (though we say that we are) and most of us aren’t looking for understanding (though we insist that we are) but most of us are looking for the easy way out of having to take responsibilities for those things in our lives that are hard.

Chickens and eggs.

[Advice] The Best Advice of 2016

It’s hard to know what the best advice is. After all, it’s been a long 2016, and its shaping up to be an even longer 2017.

Here is a list of some ideas to keep you going in the year to come. Or too look back on and wonder what I was thinking:

Relational resonance—The reason that litigation is such a poor method for resolving disputes is because of most—if not all—disagreements, fights, and “differences of opinion,” are about relationships, built on reciprocation and maintained through common resonance.

What do you do after you thin slice another party in conflict? — Thin slicing is at the core of the old saying “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” Yet, here’s the challenge: If you can’t even handle being challenged on your thin-slicing tendencies daily, then expecting that a candidate running for office, a celebrity, or some other person to do what you cannot, is a childish expectation.

No more looking…just leap…— Having the courage to make a change, take an action, do something generous, collaborative, or outrageous, and to do despite the dominant culture of your organization is the essence of leap day. This courage has nothing to do with looking (you’ve already spent an inordinate amount of time looking already) and has everything to do with stepping out and saying: I made this.

Doing what you’ve always done— Intentionality is the watchword in conflict. But, you do have an alternative. You can always keep intentionally doing what you’ve always done and hope that changes will result.

We are surrounded everywhere by the remains of “average”— We are surrounded by the remains of “ok” in a time when “ok” is no longer good enough. And when the disconnect between “ok” and reality reaches a breaking point, we get demagogues, marketers, con men, flim-flam men, and others selling us a bill of goods, rather than the hard truth: “Ok” was never good enough and doing “just a little better” than last year isn’t going to get the same outcome financially, morally, ethically, or materially anymore.

There is a difference between broadcasting, sharing, and interacting, both in the physical world and in the digital world— Broadcasting, sharing and interacting are happening at all levels in our society; and, our digital tools have provided us with the ease of communicating faster and faster. But this also means that our responses to conflicts in our lives become more shallow and immediate, even as the reactions cut us emotionally at a deeper and deeper level.

What are your core values? — Values are not positions (which are often about personal (and sometimes public) identity or maintaining “face”) nor are they about interests (which are often flexible, negotiable, situational, and impersonal). And too often in our public language, at work, at school, in social media, and other places, we use the language of principles to talk about positions—or even worse, to justify mere interests.

There are no shortcuts to accomplishing anything. Boy, do I wish that there were…— The quality, or trait, of getting up and doing what needs to be done, particularly when you don’t want to do it, is sometimes called “will” or “grit” or “courage.”

But these are fancy labels for something a lot deeper that we can’t really describe. And anybody who wants to make a dent in the universe, no matter how big or small, must possess this trait in great quantities if they are to make the dent they want to make.

The impresario’s dilemma is balancing between quantity and quality— When there is so much ephemeral stuff (such as content, ideas, and art), considerations around quality become the watchword for monitoring and disengaging with ideas that we find to be reprehensible. But keep in mind that, once you increase the quantity, quality only suffers when caring about the outcome takes a second place to getting the outcome to happen.

The leap (hey, I wrote about leaping again this year!) from the inside to the outside is going on right now— The deep revelation of the revolution called the Internet, is that it continues to demonstrate that networks are the most valuable resource that an individual, a corporation, or a government possesses to leverage innovation, change, and advancement.

The fundamentals changed this election year. This is rarely a metaphorically bloodless act. And it was not bloodless this year…— People place a lot of importance in understanding, revisiting, and honoring the fundamentals of a problem, because they come, not from conceived wisdom, or even perceived wisdom, but from received wisdom.

Demanding a return to the fundamentals can be a callback to received wisdom, but only if the current problem resembles a past one in any kind of way. And problems involving people, rather than processes, are constantly in flux.

Conspiracy theories abounded at the end of the year. So, here’s a tip about how to deal with all of that…— The standing rule is that people tend to most easily believe in conspiracy theories that they create, and tend to reject the conspiratorial thinking of others.

The trouble with our concerns about fake news is that they come from a place where critical thinking has been reduced in favor of playing to (and supporting) audience attention spans that rival hummingbirds.

In 2017, let’s all commit to growing the size of our ears to hear, our eyes to read, and our brain to absorb, rather than just our voices to speak.

HIT Piece 12.20.2016

When thinking about conflict, the lock-in effect controls our reactions and responses.

We become accustomed to the reactions and responses that we have integrated into our lives on a regular basis. And the people to whom we are responding become locked-in to their responses and reactions to us as well.

Lock-in comes about when the benefits from a decision accrue at scale and the downsides are irrelevant.

Lock-in can be intentional (trying to use the other party’s known conflict responses and reactions to leverage them into or out of a decision), or it can be unintentional (“I don’t understand why he/she keeps reacting this way.”)

Some people are immune to the effects of lock-in, but many more people are controlled by the power of lock-in so much so, that they don’t even realize that it’s happening at the time.

Once a person’s conflict behavior and conflict choices are revealed to them, lock-in can become a powerful deterrent to future poor choices.

But only if we are aware of its presence.

[Opinion] Show MBA’s the Way

MBA’s have a responsibility to save the world.

But they can only do that if the door is opened to them to believe that they can save the world.

For that door to open, someone must show them the way.

And then, when the way is shown, the door opens and the long process of saving our organizations begins.

Don’t believe me?

Well, this fall I had the honor of teaching Conflict Management Strategies for the Corporate World to a cohort of MBA students at Binghamton University in Binghamton, NY. While it wasn’t always comfortable, for the 34 students who attended the class, their lives (and perspectives) around conflict, peace, and strategy were change.

This is feedback in their own words:

 

“This class has taught me a lot of content that I would have not been able to learn in other classes especially the art of negotiation and how to properly apply it. I never would have imagined a class like conflict management would allow me to gain a new perspective of the kind of person I am and how I can apply myself in the business world.

I was actually able to apply some things I learned in class to my friends who were in a toxic environment at work and showed them videos that were part of this course.

To further elaborate on this story, my friend eventually was motivated enough to leave the company and landed an offer at a better company with a flat culture and a director that has an external locus of control as compared to his old manager. The structure of this class gave the students the opportunity to engage with each other and grown to be comfortable enough to speak and discuss different topics openly. In addition, the interactive simulations such as, the quarter negotiation and the Chestnut village, were exercises completely different from the traditional learning style. Not only was I learning how to negotiate, but how to better communicate with others and read non-verbals. The readings were informative and were further elaborated in class lectures.

I would highly recommend this class. This class is a great mix of lectures and interactive simulations. It has definitely brought me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to better understand the person I am in terms of conflict management culture. I now understand the significance of conflict culture in a firm and how that may affect my future decisions in my career path. I just wish I had the opportunity to take this class earlier. In addition, this class is about becoming agents of change for the generations to come and break the barriers of the norm.”

 

 

“This class was very interesting and very informative for me.  I took Negotiations last semester with [professor name redacted] and when I switched into this class I was afraid there would be a lot of overlap in the class content, but there honestly has been little to no overlap.  The biggest similarity was our Chestnut Village negotiation, obviously.  I learned SO much more from you about negotiations, conflict, etc than I did from my previous class, so I am very happy I decided to take this course.

Everything about the class content was beneficial and was designed to make me think.  Your teaching style makes the class extremely comfortable.  I think that the class structure was great.  I really enjoyed the open forum feel, where everyone was building on each others ideas and opinions and although there were clearly some tensions between the students, the structure allowed for everyone to still put forth their opinions.

The content was delivered really well and even though you are not requiring us to take long tests based on memorization, everyone is always ferociously writing, which shows that we want to know what you are saying and internalize it.

I really enjoyed the negotiation, but I think it would be great if you also required us to partake in a conflict type simulation.  It would take on the same format, but would require us to respond with how we would handle the situation- it might be cool to provide a conflict to us on the first day and then provide that same one to us on the last day and see how the answers change.  It would be interesting for us, but I also think you would really enjoy seeing how much of an impact you have had on our way of thinking.

I would 100% recommend this class to someone else in SOM.  I personally think it is the first class that critically made me think about the way I handle every situation in my life. I am also taking a leadership class and I learned and absorbed close to nothing in that class, whereas in your course I have become more self-aware and understand why I act the way I do in the workplace.  I really feel as though this should be a required course for everyone before they graduate, whether it is undergrad or grad.”

 

 

“Literally everything worked for me in this class. I usually prefer to just go to class and not participate because most classes are boring and quite useless, however this class is the complete opposite. Content, structure, direction; the class is set up perfectly to engage students and force discussion, although I don’t feel discussion was forced as multiple students in the class actually were interested and learned a great deal (including me).

My friend [student name redacted], who literally hates class and school, has said on multiple occasions that this is the best class he has ever taken, and I agree. If you got him to come to class and be engaged, you are doing something right.

Definitely best class I have taken, useful, intellectual, meaningful. Also I think papers are the best way to go about grading this class and the group discussion quizzes really took out the stress factor and enabled people to think critically and share ideas.

Other students might complain about having to participate, the simulations, etc. but I would take the criticisms with a grain of salt. This class is great and I feel the only criticisms are going to come from students who don’t see the value in what you are saying and how incredibly intelligent the discussions we have are.

We just had to register for classes for next semester and I recommended this class to every person who was talking about registration, not realizing that the class was not being offered here next semester :(. A couple of them texted me on registration day asking where the class was and I then realized I had gotten their hopes up for an awesome elective. But yes, I certainly would recommend this class as an elective. The School of Management should be begging you to teach this class every semester; it should actually be a required class in the graduate curriculum.

Best class I have taken at Binghamton [University] by far.”

 

Show the MBA’s the way to save the world, and they will run with it.

[Strategy] Truth and Fairy Tales

The uncomfortable truth is that an understanding and appreciation of the impact of human emotions is required to address the conflicts of the present day.

The comfortable fairy tale is that everywhere human beings are freed from the impact of their emotions by more economic choices, more scientific knowledge, and more opportunities to engage rationally with an ordered world.

The uncomfortable truth is that people very often refuse to change their behavior and walk the hard emotional path from awareness to competency unless a radical catastrophic (either positive or negative) personal or social event occurs to them.

The comfortable fairy tale is that humanity (both individually and collectively) is trending inevitably toward an integrated, united, globalized mindset, less captive to the paradigms, conflicts, and drivers of humanity’s conflict-ridden past.

The uncomfortable truth is that some people don’t want resolution (or closure) to the conflicts they are experiencing, and seek instead to inflict the consequences, process, and results of their personal conflicts on others.

The comfortable fairy tale is that resolution would be easier to get to if only irrational actors ceased acting irrationally through the auspices of more knowledge, more data, but less received, conceived, or perceived wisdom.

The uncomfortable truth is, the more that we think about the very nature of the human beings with whom we are in constant contact (and with whom we are in constant conflict) the better we get at managing, not the conflicts of others, but the reactions in ourselves.

The three areas in which we grow are often overlooked, but as conflicts, and the confusion about why they occur, increases, these areas will become more critical to engage in with mastery:

Intentionality—no more accidents. Yes, it seems exhausting to always be consciously aware of what we say, what we do, what we think, and what we feel. But it’s equally exhausting to experience the results of a lack of intentionality.

Self-awareness—physician heal thyself. Yes, it might be a more entertaining and distracting approach to be filled with the noise of others (and the constant pitch of the world). But healing yourself requires coming to terms with the signal coming from inside yourself.

Hearing—rather than listening to speak. Yes, it requires patience to listen to others with whom we disagree, and with whom we agree. But when we miss a critical conflict message because we didn’t hear it, we will have to be far more patient with the consequences as they roll out in our lives.

As the framing of more and more comfortable fairy tales run up against the wisdom of uncomfortable truths, it becomes imperative for those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear, to become more strategic around these three areas.

[Advice] Fights of Fancy

The world inside rules the world outside.

One of the terrible functions of the last half-century has been the rise in the perception of people, both at the individual level and at the group level, as purely economic actors.

When viewed this way, people’s reactions and behaviors (and even group reactions and behaviors) are chalked up to science or economics.

People are perceived as rational actors, realizing that they are in a play called life, full of sound and fury, but ultimately signifying nothing.

Oh, but were this so.

The fact is, conflicts, disputes, disagreements, and more are worked out in the inner life between our two ears, in much more complex ways than economics or scientific analysis can determine. This happens long before they spill out of the container of ourselves and begin their impact on others.

The fights we have are of fancy: Trapped inside our own experiences, we struggle to get out, to escape, and to connect with others.

The very act of escaping from ourselves creates an internal conflict inside ourselves. And as our technology has become more granular, able to connect people at the surface level, across cultures, and even national borders, we have become blinded and less connected to the inner drives of other people.

The tools we have designed can be used to connect, but only if vulnerability, self-awareness, and introspection are built into the tools themselves.

And those traits aren’t built into the tools because they escape the notice of the builder. Primarily because of the inner life of the builder.

A clock with a clock maker.

The world inside rules the world outside.

The reasons why we have abandoned the exploration of the inner self are many, but the reason that we have abandoned even attempting to understand the depths of the inner world that drive conflict is one: We are afraid of what we will find and we are selfish in our interests.

The work of radical self-awareness, intentionality, empathy over sympathy, true vulnerability and intimacy with others cannot come through connecting through our tools.

We must escape the world inside (both ourselves and our digital distractions) and get to the world outside.

[Advice] Allergic Changes

Avoiding what we are allergic to is good sense when we are talking about preserving the long-term health of our physical bodies.

Avoiding what we are allergic to is not good sense when we are talking about preserving the long-term health of habits we have acquired that no longer are producing optimal outcomes for us.

Understanding the difference requires us to engage in radical and persistent self-awareness. But the act of bringing our behavior under control becomes difficult (if not impossible) when we are surrounded by more noise that signal, and by more marketing than wisdom.

Engaging in such self-awareness is the price that we pay for becoming the human beings that we want to be. But we cannot often do this out of our own power. Self-awareness comes from listening to others about ourselves, engaging with ideas and philosophies that are difficult and challenging, and then making the hard decision to make the hard changes to our ingrained behavior.

Conflict becomes easy to engage in when we lack self-awareness (or are allergic to our behavioral need for such self-awareness) because conflict becomes the way of life that makes meaning out of the confusing flotsam and jetsam of a life only barely lived.

Constructing a behavioral existence focused around avoiding the allergen of self-awareness results in the construction of elaborate mental and behavioral echo chambers, silos of information that the challenges of new knowledge cannot penetrate.

And all the intentional emotional and psychological energy that goes toward constructing this existence (which could instead be deployed against a lack of self-awareness) transmogrifies conflicts in our lives from events to be managed to problems itching to be resolved.

And always in ways that work for us, allowing a continuance of avoiding the allergen of self-awareness.

Learning, adaptation, gaining new knowledge and then deploying it to accomplish an outcome.

What’s really triggering your allergies?