| Speaking
of the Senate by Glenn DeLange |
 Glenn DeLange, President, Academic Senate |
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When Grievance
Leads by
Glenn DeLange, Academic Senate President This article does not attempt to address any specific
conflict, although its genesis most certainly can be found in a specific
issue that is currently haunting our halls.
This article rather attempts to address elements of the overall
nature of conflict resolution, and more specifically, conflict
resolution in the workplace. Two
books served as a backbone of information for what follows:
Resolving Conflicts at Work,
(Cloke and Goldsmith 2000) and Building
Teams, Building People, (Harvey and Drolet 1994). The Academic Senate is addressing a perplexing issue this year. It is our goal to examine college-wide policies for
non-contractual grievances. Conflict
resolution is at the core of these grievance policies.
Organizations failing to deal successfully with conflict risk
destroying the collegial fabric that holds them together.
While conflict types can range from perceptions, to boundaries,
to resources, to values, the core of unresolved conflict is
interpersonal conflict. Virtually
all types of conflict left unresolved lead to interpersonal conflict.
Interpersonal conflict, more than any other type of conflict, is
governed by how each individual in the conflict perceives the
“truths” that reside at the conflict’s core.
Multiple truths are a fact of life.
Context is everything. There
is an old proverb about the monkey who placed the fish in the tree to
keep it from drowning. Truths
change as the context in which events are viewed changes.
While we may intellectually accept this notion, we frequently
have difficulty accommodating multiple truths in problem solving.
We defend our positions as if they represent the only possible
truth. Position-based
solutions usually result in one of two things:
compromise (lose/lose), where no one really gets the desired
result, or, worse yet, one side prevailing (win/lose) which simply
deepens personal hostility and mistrust.
Conflict addressed through power (the strongest wins) and rights,
as in court cases that produce winners and losers, are commonplace and
useful in an open society. While
commonplace and useful, they also are adversarial.
There are clear winners, but there are also losers.
Most experts in conflict resolution agree that power- and
rights-based decisions should be a last resort in collegial communities.
Interest-based negotiation as opposed to positional negotiation
is a time-honored technique for resolving highly charged political
conflict which is frequently rife with personal conflict.
Positions encourage individuals to demand that they be
understood. Interests move
individuals to understanding the underlying issues that are at the core
of the conflict. When we
engage in interest-based conflict resolution and problem solving we
accept the individual responsibility of understanding the other’s
concerns and interests, and we accept the responsibility of ensuring
that our adversaries know that they have been heard and understood.
Interests lead to new answers that meet the needs of all
concerned. They lead
to win/win answers.
Interest-based problem solving does not emerge from debate; it
does not result from adversarial negotiations, personal demonization,
behind the scenes arm-twisting and horse trading.
It comes only from dialogue, where each side is committed to
understanding the concerns of others.
Interest-based negotiation moves toward the creation of new
solutions. It requires that
individuals separate themselves from their positions, positions that are
frequently completely unacceptable to perceived adversaries.
One of the keys to interest-based negotiations is separating
people from problems. In conflict we tend to demonize our opponents, and
for good reason. Rather than trying to do personal harm, demonizers usually
have “important goals and are willing to do harm to achieve them” (Cloke
and Goldsmith 2000,146).
Cloke and Goldsmith further contend that by confusing the person
with the problem, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy by creating
mutual hostility, which tends to give credence to both sides of the
conflict maintaining that the other’s position is untenable.
Much of the hostility that I have observed during my eighteen
years on this campus has resulted from faculty developing hard positions
on issues and developing a forum for advocating for that position,
whether through e-mails, parking lot diplomacy, publications, the
side-door into the correct office, or the grapevine (not to be confused
with the campus-wide publication called The
Grapevine). Problems are often attributed to specific individuals.
Character and ethics are attacked.
While potentially effective in the short run, this type of
sharpshooting and sniping has a profound negative effect on our
collegial climate, and it bypasses the critical step in resolving
interpersonal conflict, interpersonal communication.
Damage through personal conflict is devastating to an
organization, and devastating to individuals within an organization.
Organizations, such as ours, that do not have clear paths for
conflict resolution, paths that avoid demonization as an acceptable
means of “prevailing” in conflict, are in danger of losing the
collegiality that is at the core of their identity.
Conflict is good. An
organization without conflict is brain dead.
Conflict has produced some of our most brilliant moments, and
some of our most serious schisms. One of the very important goals of the
senate this year is revisiting our grievance policies and procedures.
At the core of this problem is conflict resolution.
We will be stronger if we develop successful avenues for
addressing conflict; we will be stronger if we strengthen our
understanding of how we approach conflicts—conflicts that could lead
to our brightest and best moments, rather than our worst. & |
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