The resistance to needed changes in your organization is insidious, pernicious, persistent and determined.
And if you are committed to making changes by grappling with the resistance, your approach to resistant people, resistant systems, and resistant attitudes should be as well.
When was the last time you…
…asked fierce questions?
…emphasized uniqueness?
…told stories that related past victories to potential solutions to present–and future–problems?
…ruthlessly eliminated hurry?
…were direct, but not demeaning?
…established a foundation of empathy with another person?
…didn’t read from the manual, but spoke from the heart?
…focused on the connection as the product rather than trying to persuade, cajole, or move another person into buying whatever it is that you are selling?
It’s hard to connect with others because performing the actions listed above is hard.
Not “hard” like plowing a field for planting wheat is hard. Or “hard” like picking lettuce in a field for $4.00 a day is hard. Or “hard” like working on a construction site to break up concrete.
Those kinds of “hard” are increasingly being performed either by human beings (who will soon be replaced by machines and artificial programs that can perform those actions better) or by machines and artificial programs that are performing those actions better right now.
It’s always been hard to make an emotional connection with other people and to break down the carefully constructed resistance to change we have constructed in our heads—that then manifests in our tools, our systems, our organizations, and our civilizations.
For humanity to remain a relevant, vibrant, force well into the future, we had better figure out how to make space for all human beings no matter their status to do the hard work of connecting.
Otherwise, what really separates us from the machines who will replace us?
In a conflict, boundaries are overrun with impunity.
Emotional boundaries.
Ethical boundaries.
Psychological boundaries.
When boundaries are overrun, feelings of betrayal and hurt automatically follow because when we have our boundaries overrun, we recognize that the other party has misused and damaged our trust.
The number one word to maintain boundaries is the word “no.”
The problem, of course, is not the obvious overrunning of boundaries. We can say “no” directly and without guilt in these situations.
We are comfortable with that process.
The problem arises when there is seepage through a series of moral and ethical decisions that initially appear to be right, but ultimately turn out to be wrong.
Saying “no” in these situations doesn’t often happen because preservation of personal pride, selfish ego, and other concerns becomes more paramount than the re-establishing of sinking boundaries.
No matter.
“No” is “no.”
But learn when—and where—to use it.
Here’s an idea:
When you hear an idea that doesn’t appeal to you, doesn’t interest you, or that doesn’t resonate with you, merely say (either internally to yourself or externally to the presenting party) “That’s not for me.”
Then add this other part on.
“And that’s ok.”
Then, either move on physically from the room or emotionally from the interaction.
This works better as a coping mechanism for handling ideas, concepts, and thoughts that we find to be personally repulsive, than engaging in feedback processes where you seek to destroy the other person’s sense of self-worth and seek to shame them into silence.
If it’s not for you, then stop wasting your time (and the other party’s) and self-select out of the pool of interaction.
Do this so that other people, for who the idea is appealing, can self-select into the pool.
This approach works better than staying in the pool of interaction, exercising the vain hope that the messaging underneath the interaction will resonate for you—or be relevant for you—at some point in time in the future, and at the end of the interaction, engaging in the politics of personal destruction via the use of weaponized negative feedback.
The thing about getting to the resolution of a conflict situation is that it is a long road, from the initiation of a conflict to a resolution of a conflict.
And since it’s a long road, the bumps, the twists and the turns are what interests us as spectators. Those of us in the audience are here to witness the journey, not the outcome.
Except: When all the audience is interested in hearing about—or giving their limited attention to—is a boiled down summation of the process, with a list of steps for how to get to end and be done, then there is little about experiencing (or explaining) the moments along the road that can hold the audience’s interest.
The path of conflict requires those of us who have been along the path to provide wisdom—and not shortcuts—to encourage and inspire people to walk the same path. And to stick with walking it when the outcome seems in doubt.
The bumps along the road include opportunities to attain the following traits and skills (in alphabetical order):
Candor
Clarity
Courage
Deep competence
Emotional Intelligence
Forgiveness
Grace
Humility
Indomitable Spirit
Perseverance
Resiliency
Satisfaction (from a job well done)
Self-awareness
Self-control
Wisdom
There will always be adversity. You will always have conflicts, trials, and tribulations. Be of good cheer, and show others the path.
Because there ain’t no app, shortcut, or listicle, for getting the wisdom from walking the path.
The question that academics should be asking (and answering) is this one: “What value do I add to a college students’ experience in a world where information is just a Google search away?”
The answer to this question requires academics to admit, out loud, that research may not be the best way to add value to a students’ experience in the wider world.
The answer to this question requires academics to admit, out loud, that the systemized expansion of the administrative class in colleges and universities may be a value subtraction rather than a value-add for students.
The answer to this question requires academics to adopt a posture that ensures that acquiring tenure is not about research that no one reads, publishing in a few august journals that can’t be accessed via Google, and then maybe teaching some classes.
The answer to this question requires academics to position themselves as true advocates of student learning, rather than giving lip service to the thought.
The answer to this question reduces class sizes, increases educational quality (higher education, that is…there are other questions to answer for K-12) and reduces the impact of the administrative class—and renders opaque the ‘black box’ of administrative decisions.
The answer to this question allows real, lifetime, impactful learning to occur inside of the institutions that we all know and love. Learning that becomes less about lecturing and information transfer (that’s what Google and Youtube are for) and becomes more about coaching, encouraging and watering minds.
There are a few academics who are asking—and answering—this question, but not nearly enough, not nearly loud enough, not nearly often enough, to bring the genuine change that students—both now and in the future—will need to meet the challenges of an ever more confusing 21st century.
The thing that’s on offer—the thing that’s being negotiated—is rarely the thing that we are fighting over.
Our conflicts rarely get close to the core truth of the issues needing to be resolved, which is why management of a recurring conflict situation is a better posture toward conflict than one of trying to persist in getting to a resolution.
The thing that we are fighting over—the thing that should be on offer—must be sold, managed, persuaded, and packaged for other people’s consumption in the way that they want it to be addressed.
Not the way you want it to be addressed.
This core truth is what unites marketing and conflict management. Human beings like being persuaded, marketed to, and talked to, in very specific ways, and if you violate conventions in the pursuit of getting to a deeper truth, you run several risks, but the biggest ones are as follows:
Human beings like being persuaded, marketed to, and talked to, in very specific ways. And if you violate stated (and unstated) social, moral, ethical, and philosophical conventions in the pursuit of getting to a deeper truth, you run several risks, but the biggest ones are as follows:
Being unheard.
Being ignored.
Being unfairly (or fairly) maligned.
Being marginalized when another more persuasive party comes along.
The answer to the question of “What’s on offer?” is the equally compelling question “What’s the truth of what we are fighting over?”
Human beings built many (if not all) of the systems we are surrounded by every day.
Flawed, replaceable, myopic, visionary, human beings.
Language systems.
Monetary systems.
Housing systems.
Legal systems.
Travel systems.
Resource allocation systems.
Organizational systems.
Cultural systems.
Religious systems.
There’s nothing inherent in our DNA that drives us to organize into groups, create systems, and slowly, over time, glacially chip away at an issue or concern until; it is rendered irrelevant or impotent.
And since there’s nothing inherent in our DNA about any of the design or architecting of any of these systems, it should be easy for us to replace them with something else.
After all, human beings made the systems, human beings should be able to unmake them.
But individuals often get into internal conflicts with ourselves when there is friction between the systems we serve in (and have built on) and our inner desires, drives, and motivations.
And when enough individuals experience enough internal friction, all that is required to spark the change that we need to replace these seemingly irreplaceable systems, is someone bravely asserting that:
“Human beings made these systems. Human beings can unmake them.”
Belief and hope battle with the need for security and the fear of the unknown in the dark heart of man. When our systems are viewed as sacrosanct, we are unable to ask the hard questions of them, and we are unable to instigate the hard conflicts that are necessary to make the changes that need to happen.
Systems only seem Teutonic until they are unmade by the very same human hands that built them in the first place.
Value is a loaded term.
When we aren’t curious about the answers to those questions, we stymie (and in some cases, block totally) our efforts to manage conflicts effectively.
We also stymie (and in some cases, block totally) our efforts to connect with others through the process of conflict.
Both acts—the management and the connection—matter more for getting to an outcome that you want due to embarking upon the process of conflict than anything else you might do.
By the way, managing values-based conflicts is hard (think the Israelis and the Palestinians, or the IRA and the British) but it is not impossible—if you unload the term value and ask some serious questions.
And then respect, and act on, the answers.
Generating the courage to confront someone else’s bad behavior is tough.
But it’s not the work.
Creating a plan to confront someone’s bad behavior, rather than confronting and hoping that the act of doing so will be enough to create the change you want, is difficult.
But it’s not the work.
Confronting the person who has behaved badly, executing your plan, and then watching their reactions—and responding accordingly—is hard.
But it’s not the work.
All those actions are part of the process of getting to the goal of growing our courage to confront bad behavior.
The process is not the work.
The work is going through the process, getting to the goal (your goal, not the goal of the other party), getting knowledge from that experience, integrating that learning into what your actions, behaviors, and responses will be the next time a similar situation arises in the future, and then letting the moment go.
That’s the work.
By the way, the work is the thing that’s always on the line. Not us.