The Art Of Conflict - phase 1: Centering
Managing conflict, a science or an art?
At the 2008 XP Days conference in Paris about a month ago, Régis Médina, Antoine Contal and I co-presented an approach to conflict management inspired from the Aikido martial art and several books we read on conflict handling.
A short disclaimer first: we don’t claim to be experts in the field of conflict management, but rather apprentices, actively trying to define consistent ways of building great teams. We have attempted to gather some of the wisdom of some authors, and mixed it with our own experience. We are convinced that the capacity to dialog and resolve conflicts is precisely what will differentiate a tedious, second-rate XP team from an ultra performant XP team.
The emergence of a third, smarter solution is not a myth. I have personally witnessed it many times, especially with complex, controversial problematics. It arises from a sort of stereo, 3D vision of the problem at hand, where each participant enlightens the weaknesses of the other's suggestions and asks for direct and honest feedback on his owns.
Solutions produced by 2 brains have far fewer defects and this alone lowers the probability to revisit the code months later, trying to find the faulty instruction that caused the system to crash... who never spent hours striving to understand a context, only to finally find out that a variable was badly initialized or an overriden function did not respect its contract?
The martial art by excellence for that is Aikido, or the Art of the Harmony of Energy. I’m not an expert, so please forgive me if the analogy sometimes turns a little rough.
I will immediately start by quoting a definition of the japanese word ‘aiki’, that introduces the analogy: "United spirit. The spiritual principle of destroying an adversary's will to fight, or the physical act of dominating an adversary by harmonizing with his force and redirecting it."
Another very important aspect: Mastery of Aiki is evolutionary. It requires several years (maybe decades) of regular training, during which the practitioner slowly evolves and passes through different degrees.
As with its physical version, we believe the verbal conflict is consistently best handled when following three phases, that we will call Centering, Alignment and Redirection.
There are many ways a conflict can be generated ; the one steming from an open, direct and straightforward attack is the focus of this article.
Centering: Start with yourself!
Why not even preparing a ritual? Look for a pen and a piece of paper, start to scribble something as if you were thinking hard, while breathing as calmly as you can.
I hardly manage to be consistent on this first stage ; most of the time, the attack comes unexpectedly, in an inappropriate context (bad place, bad time...). In spite of my good will, I still often happen to fail here; this failure is commonly expressed in two possible ways : violently fight back or go to silence (and burn in the inside to say how stupid, inept and arrogant the other is). As for me, my introverted nature generally guides me to the second type of behavior.
A common explanation to this very human reaction relates to the 3 layers of the brain: when recognizing a threat, the compulsive reptilian brain immediately takes the lead, quickly followed by the lymbic brain, center of our emotions; both contribute to blur our consciousness and judgment faculties.
OK, we fail, again and again, against this same barrier... well, the wise persons we are now should remember this famous adage: failures represent our best opportunities to learn and grow.
Let’s see... what kind of knowledge could I capitalize from these? The purpose is to improve, to better handle my reaction the next time such an agression occurs. What about recognizing the way my brain and my body are changing in front of a clash?
One technic we found efficient is the personal diary: in the evening, a few hours after the clash, we describe the facts, and how my body reacts under stress (tensions in the neck, heavy breathing, lower lip biting, having butterflies in the stomach...).
This effort of analysis will help a lot in recognizing when we start losing control; the conscious mind can finally take over from the animal instinct of defense, I can breath without restrain, accomplish my ritual and so on.
Now, let’s take advantage of these precious seconds to quickly promote the intellect to captain of the ship! We can identify here the second level of centering.
We also noticed very helpful to question our honesty and objectivity in those moments. Some filter in my mind has certainly distorted reality and obscured my vision of the situation?
Have I fallen in this condition that Arbinger Institute terms as "being in a box": the condition of being the problem and not knowing that I am the problem?In this box, we create problems and cannot see that we are often creating them; we think that others are responsible for that situation; therefore we feel justified in resisting.
I think better to quote this excellent definition: “The traits of being in a box include focusing on others' faults, being defensive, blaming, exaggerating values, feeling victimised, and exaggerating differences.”
Am I respecting the other in my thoughts, though my external behaviour? Am I considering his/her ideas, feelings, and needs as important as mine? If not, I am seeing this guy in front of me as a thing rather than as a person, and the conditions aren’t met for any constructive outcome.
“Wait a second! He/she certainly is in the box towards me as well; why should I be the one to make the first step?”, could be replied to this logic. It makes sense, but let’s look at it straight out: I do not have any other immediate way of resolving that conflict, but to start working on myself. The other’s thoughts and feeling are out of touch. I need here to remember Stephen Covey’s circle of concern and circle of influence.
Don't we say, doubt is the best quality of any scientist... none of us owns the truth!
Even if I was 100% certain my position was true, showing patience, genuine curiosity and some humility is the surest path to nurture the quality of my next interactions, my relationship as a whole and to unite my team toward the success of the project.
Let's stop here for this time; I will devote the next posts to alignment and redirection.
At the 2008 XP Days conference in Paris about a month ago, Régis Médina, Antoine Contal and I co-presented an approach to conflict management inspired from the Aikido martial art and several books we read on conflict handling.
A short disclaimer first: we don’t claim to be experts in the field of conflict management, but rather apprentices, actively trying to define consistent ways of building great teams. We have attempted to gather some of the wisdom of some authors, and mixed it with our own experience. We are convinced that the capacity to dialog and resolve conflicts is precisely what will differentiate a tedious, second-rate XP team from an ultra performant XP team.
- Conflict is in human nature
- Conflict is generative
The emergence of a third, smarter solution is not a myth. I have personally witnessed it many times, especially with complex, controversial problematics. It arises from a sort of stereo, 3D vision of the problem at hand, where each participant enlightens the weaknesses of the other's suggestions and asks for direct and honest feedback on his owns.
Solutions produced by 2 brains have far fewer defects and this alone lowers the probability to revisit the code months later, trying to find the faulty instruction that caused the system to crash... who never spent hours striving to understand a context, only to finally find out that a variable was badly initialized or an overriden function did not respect its contract?
- Conflict can nurture or destroy individual commitment
- Conflicting does not equal fighting
The martial art by excellence for that is Aikido, or the Art of the Harmony of Energy. I’m not an expert, so please forgive me if the analogy sometimes turns a little rough.
I will immediately start by quoting a definition of the japanese word ‘aiki’, that introduces the analogy: "United spirit. The spiritual principle of destroying an adversary's will to fight, or the physical act of dominating an adversary by harmonizing with his force and redirecting it."
Another very important aspect: Mastery of Aiki is evolutionary. It requires several years (maybe decades) of regular training, during which the practitioner slowly evolves and passes through different degrees.
As with its physical version, we believe the verbal conflict is consistently best handled when following three phases, that we will call Centering, Alignment and Redirection.
There are many ways a conflict can be generated ; the one steming from an open, direct and straightforward attack is the focus of this article.
Centering: Start with yourself!
- Control your physical instinct to fight back
Why not even preparing a ritual? Look for a pen and a piece of paper, start to scribble something as if you were thinking hard, while breathing as calmly as you can.
I hardly manage to be consistent on this first stage ; most of the time, the attack comes unexpectedly, in an inappropriate context (bad place, bad time...). In spite of my good will, I still often happen to fail here; this failure is commonly expressed in two possible ways : violently fight back or go to silence (and burn in the inside to say how stupid, inept and arrogant the other is). As for me, my introverted nature generally guides me to the second type of behavior.
A common explanation to this very human reaction relates to the 3 layers of the brain: when recognizing a threat, the compulsive reptilian brain immediately takes the lead, quickly followed by the lymbic brain, center of our emotions; both contribute to blur our consciousness and judgment faculties.
OK, we fail, again and again, against this same barrier... well, the wise persons we are now should remember this famous adage: failures represent our best opportunities to learn and grow.
Let’s see... what kind of knowledge could I capitalize from these? The purpose is to improve, to better handle my reaction the next time such an agression occurs. What about recognizing the way my brain and my body are changing in front of a clash?
One technic we found efficient is the personal diary: in the evening, a few hours after the clash, we describe the facts, and how my body reacts under stress (tensions in the neck, heavy breathing, lower lip biting, having butterflies in the stomach...).
This effort of analysis will help a lot in recognizing when we start losing control; the conscious mind can finally take over from the animal instinct of defense, I can breath without restrain, accomplish my ritual and so on.
Now, let’s take advantage of these precious seconds to quickly promote the intellect to captain of the ship! We can identify here the second level of centering.
- Analyse the situation positively
We also noticed very helpful to question our honesty and objectivity in those moments. Some filter in my mind has certainly distorted reality and obscured my vision of the situation?
Have I fallen in this condition that Arbinger Institute terms as "being in a box": the condition of being the problem and not knowing that I am the problem?In this box, we create problems and cannot see that we are often creating them; we think that others are responsible for that situation; therefore we feel justified in resisting.
I think better to quote this excellent definition: “The traits of being in a box include focusing on others' faults, being defensive, blaming, exaggerating values, feeling victimised, and exaggerating differences.”
Am I respecting the other in my thoughts, though my external behaviour? Am I considering his/her ideas, feelings, and needs as important as mine? If not, I am seeing this guy in front of me as a thing rather than as a person, and the conditions aren’t met for any constructive outcome.
“Wait a second! He/she certainly is in the box towards me as well; why should I be the one to make the first step?”, could be replied to this logic. It makes sense, but let’s look at it straight out: I do not have any other immediate way of resolving that conflict, but to start working on myself. The other’s thoughts and feeling are out of touch. I need here to remember Stephen Covey’s circle of concern and circle of influence.
Don't we say, doubt is the best quality of any scientist... none of us owns the truth!
Even if I was 100% certain my position was true, showing patience, genuine curiosity and some humility is the surest path to nurture the quality of my next interactions, my relationship as a whole and to unite my team toward the success of the project.
Let's stop here for this time; I will devote the next posts to alignment and redirection.
posted by Pascal at 11:43 AM
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