Many of the articles I posted here previously will be published in my forthcoming book, Conflict 101: A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Problems so Everyone Can Get Back to Work. To protect AMACOM’s copyright interests, I have removed them from this website.
Thanks for visiting this website. I look forward to talking with you more in the future, and invite you to purchase the book when it is available in Spring 2011.
I just read about a new device developed by the MIT Human Dynamics Laboratory, a sociometer. This wearable digital device has an infrared sensor and a tiny microphone to track your patterns of speech and your body movements in conversation with other people. It was a revelation to me – then I googled it, and discovered it’s been around since 2002.
Now I am wondering when we can order one from Amazon or eBay. The MIT folks were using this device to study interaction in groups. I want one to know myself better. How do I talk with other people? What is my voice tone? How much do I physically engage in the conversation? If 55% of communication is nonverbal, 38% is tone of voice, and a mere 7% is the words themselves, it seems that a device like this could give us a lot of information about how we are communicating. And if the best negotiator spends more time listening than talking – that is what Dale Carnegie says – we would do well to know how much time we are taking up in the conversation, and how much we might actually be listening.
So much of that nonverbal communication happens in our faces, between our mouth and our eyes, I want an advanced sociometer, one that can pick up that information as well. Then I’ll really know more about how I am communicating. Imagine getting that kind of feedback: knowing how often you roll your eyes, or look away, or shake your head; knowing how much you encourage others with a tilt of your head or a nod. What if there was a sociometer that could measure the level of sincerity in your smile?
I suppose, until that device is on the market, we’ll have to rely on our own willingness and ability to become more self-aware, so that there is congruity between our speech and the rest of our communication. So that we can connect more easily with others, find solutions together and minimize the negative moments.
“As conflict—difference—is here in the world, as we cannot avoid it, we should, Ithink, use it. Instead of condemning it, we should set it to work for us. Why not? Whatdoes the mechanical engineer do with friction? Of course his chief job is to eliminatefriction, but it is true that he also capitalizes friction. The transmission of power by beltsdepends on friction between the belt and the pulley. The friction between the drivingwheel of the locomotive and the track is necessary to haul the train. All polishing is doneby friction. The music of the violin we get by friction. We left the savage state when wediscovered fire by friction. We talk of the friction of mind on mind as a good thing. So inbusiness, too, we have to know when to try to eliminate friction and when to try tocapitalize it, when to see what work we can make it do….”
Mary Parker Follett, Dynamic Administration
These wise words were written by Mary Parker Follett, an organizational and management consultant in the 1920’s. Peter Drucker called her his ‘guru.’ Almost 100 years later, we are still learning from her: to see conflict as a necessary and positive process, to collaborate to find better solutions. She even wrote of the power of moving from positions to interests, half a century before Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and Bill Ury popularized the concept.
Two pairs of Groucho Marx glasses looked down at me from the living room mantle. “What are those for?” I asked.
The first few years of Arthur and Deborah’s marriage were stormy, littered with broken dishes and hurt feelings. Neither of them quite knew why they got so mad at each other so quickly. Sometimes they couldn’t even remember what the argument was about. They just knew they had a mess to clean up. They struggled on, the love between these twenty-somethings stronger than the baggage that each brought with them into their home.
After the latest round, Deborah told me, Arthur sent her a bouquet of flowers. I thought, “What a tender, sweet, romantic thing to do.” Those Groucho Marx glasses were tucked into the bouquet. When Arthur got home from work, he explained a new set of rules of engagement.
“When we are going to argue,” he suggested, “first we have to put on these glasses. I’ll speak as the attorney for Arthur. You speak as the attorney for Deborah.” Picture the next argument. No dishes flying this time. The two of them looked at each other in those ridiculous glasses with large plastic noses and brushy moustaches. When they talked about what they were mad about, each could take some distance from the argument. “On behalf of my client, Deborah, I’d like to say…” “Well, the way my client, Arthur, sees it….” The moustaches blew each time they spoke. The argument ended quickly. They couldn’t yell for laughing. And they were able to hear more easily what the other had said.
Here are a few quotes from the Texas Conflict Coach conversation last night. They are too good to let go unnoticed.
“Listening is more than waiting for your turn to talk.” Michael Nichols
“Anxiety is the enemy of listening.” Michael Nichols
When we hear the other person’s feelings or needs, we recognize our common humanity.” Marshall Rosenburg
’Empathy is guessing the other’s feelings; seeking to understand them better.” Marshall Rosenburg
“Sympathy (i.e. ‘Oh, I understand how you feel and I feel so sad about that.’) takes the flow from them and brings the attention to me.” Marshall Rosenburg
W.A.I.T. = Why Am I Talking?
What Am I Thinking?
If you want to hear more of the session Click Here
The How of what we say can communicate much more that the What. The words can be the same, the tone of voice can change the meaning entirely.
I remember my mother’s voice saying my name, ’Susan.’ How different it sounded all of the different times she used it:
The name stayed the same. The meaning was in her voice. The tone of voice she used then can effect me the same way today, when someone else uses it.
Knowing this has taught me to be very careful about my tone of voice when I am talking to someone I disagree with: to be careful that my tone of voice respects who they are, what they know, and where they have been, to keep their ears open to what I want to say.
For some people, New Year’s Day is the day to settle in front of the TV for a marathon of parades and football games. For others, it’s about making resolutions, or eating black-eyed peas. For me, it is The Day to Put Away The Christmas Decorations. This came down to me from childhood as a decree from my mother. I have learned to approach it as a negotiation with my husband, Tom.
“What part of putting away the decorations can you help with?”
He offered to take down the large wreath hanging above the mantle. “Great,” I started giving directions, “After I take down all of the fruit and pine cones and greens that are piled up on the mantle, you can bring in the ladder and get the wreath.”
Instead, Tom, eager to watch the games, came in with a grabber tool – an aluminum stick with pinchers on one end and a handle on the other. “I’ll just reach up there and get it down. No need to drag the ladder in here. “
I was aghast, “You can’t do that. Just wait until I get the mantle cleaned off.”
He insisted. When he reached up and grabbed the wreath, it fell onto the mantle. I watched as each and every one of the pieces on the mantle fell to the floor. The greens and the string of lights were the last to go. aaa slooow moootion mommment.
I felt the pressure inside my ears. They were about to pop. I was on the edge of exploding. Inside my brain was yelling, “I told you not to do that! Now look what you’ve done!!!”
I breathed. Deeply.
I thought “Get out of the room, Susan.” I went to the basement, found another Take Down the Decorations task and busied myself with it. For a while, I turned my mind from thinking about the scene upstairs.
After my system had calmed down and I allowed myself to let those thoughts back in, my frontal lobes were calm enough to engage. I realized that there was nothing on the mantle that would break. I laughed out loud. Laughing was the last thing I expected from myself, but what I saw replaying in my head was so absurd. Each one of those apples and pear s and pine cones clattering to the floor and bouncing around. And then all of the greens and lights sweeping off the mantle and onto the floor.
When I went back upstairs, I was relieved that I hadn’t gone off, that in fact, I had held to my own advice: Be aware of where you are feeling it. Breathe. Take a break…
Eight a.m. on Saturday morning I am standing at the desk at the local gym, my pink yoga mat hanging over my shoulder. I am not the patient, easy- going self I like to think I am. I am certainly not the mellow woman who leaves the yoga class each week.
For the second week in a row, the class has been cancelled. Last week when I complained, the man at the counter handed me a complaint card which I was happy to complete. This time a young woman behind the counter looks up, shrugs and says, “The schedule is not my job.” She turns away. I gasp. And pop back a hot response. “You need an attitude adjustment!”
Back in my car, I replay the moment over in my head. What happened? And how did it happen so fast?
I check my assumptions. I assumed she would say “I am sorry for the inconvenience.” I assumed she had training in customer service – maybe she is a high school student who has been put into the job without being adequately trained. I assumed she would give me a complaint card – they sit in a stack on the counter. I assumed it was her job to assist customers – maybe it is not her job, maybe she simply stopped by the desk to pick up a pen on her way to teach the spin class.
How fast a brain processes – even if it is wrong. Chris Argys calls it the Ladder of Inference. Taking in data, interpreting selectively based on history and beliefs, making assumptions and taking action. In seconds. Or less.
As long as I am out, I might as well run a few errands. Target, the bank, the farmers market. I realize that I may be the one who needs an attitude adjustment. Sheepishly, I drive back to the gym to apologize. She is not at the desk anymore. I leave a note.
This Is Just to Say
“I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.”
Here is William Carlos Williams classic poem: How to say “forgive me” without ever asking for forgiveness. An apology that does not apologize.
I’ve been thinking about ‘forgiveness’ since my last entry. That was about FORGIVENESS writ large – how we let go of pain we may have carried around for years. Forgiveness is also for the little stuff, the day to day stuff. I wouldn’t get far in this relationship without that forgiveness every day over and over, and it is always a humbling experience.
As much as I know about anger – what sparks it, how to recognize it when it starts bubbling up, and how to redirect it – still it catches me. There is that moment when Tom says something to me that comes in at an angle, just so, and the inside of my head grabs it. It sounds like the alarm on a submarine: “Attack! Attack! Attack! We are under attack! Man all defensive weapons!” And I fire away.
I carry this righteous indignation around for a while before I am ready – or able – to put it down. Then I look back at my over-reaction, suck in my pride, and I am filled with regret that alas, I have done it again. I turn to Tom to apologize. Yes, I know I have done this before. It’s a part of me that I really don’t like. I am sorry that I did it again.
I want to say “I’ll never do that again.” What I can say is “I’m working on it.” I can see that I do let go of my pride and ego more quickly than I used to. The instances are less frequent. And they are shorter. And I can see that that they were usually triggered by some outside stress – it wasn’t about him at all.
