Meeting conflict derives primarily from individual thinking styles, individual behavior, group dynamics, and other situational factors, including the facilitator and their environment. The meeting facilitator is not responsible for resolving conflict. However, they must have a procedure for (and therefore be confident about) managing arguments, conflicting claims, and contradictory evidence.
As a meeting facilitator, you empower participants by enhancing their ability to understand and communicate with one another. You also inspire them to think creatively about their business. But not all participants respond to messages the same way (figure 4.1).
Participants in a meeting argue over an elementary issue. Two people hear the same thing and react as if they were in different meetings. Why? Because people interpret information differently.
There are many theories about how people process information. One theory states that the two hemispheres of the brain govern our thinking with right brain or left brain bias. Another theory, explained in the book Communicoding and summarized in table 4.1, states that the two primary modes of processing information are vertical and horizontal.1 Either way, people with opposing modes of thinking have a tough time communicating with each other because each perceives the world differently.
Figure 4.1. Individual Thinking Style
Vertical thinkers find differences, decompose issues, and design something new from the pieces (inductive reasoning). Vertical thinkers are logical, organized, and detail oriented. They will . . .
Horizontal thinkers find similarities and common threads, making new associations among unrelated items (deductive reasoning). Horizontal thinkers are far-sighted, innovative, and conceptual. They will . . .
Table 4.1. Critical Thinking Comparison
Vertical Thinking |
Horizontal Thinking |
Explains the “plot” when describing a book or movie |
Explains the “message” when describing a book or movie |
Finds differences |
Finds similarities |
Fits into structure |
Prefers the unstructured |
Looks for risks |
Looks at the benefits |
Processes language |
Processes visually, sees patterns |
Seems logical |
Seems intuitive |
Thinks sequentially |
Thinks nonsequentially |
You cannot change the way people think—nor should you ever label participants. Your role is to help participants to hear one another and to better understand their communication challenges. Clues that thinking differences are causing problems include the following:
As I begin to explain how to manage these and other differences, don’t forget my Rosetta stone: remove distractions. Therefore, my cardinal rule will be to not embarrass people. I don’t have this rule because we are professionals or compassionate. Rather, in the role of meeting facilitator, embarrassment is the single most powerful cause of a participant being distracted.
Thus, I encourage you to apply the following guiding principles when dealing with people (based on the golden rule of treating others as you wish to be treated):2
There is a fine line between embarrassing someone and challenging their thinking. Challenging meeting participants to provide objective proof, evidence, and examples is necessary to effective facilitation. All people are influenced by cognitive biases. Original writings by cognitive scientists like Daniel Kahneman3 and Nassim Nicholas Taleb4 should be consulted for a thorough, if not scary, treatment on this topic of biases, filters, and heuristics. Major errors, biases, and illusions they have identified, proven, and illustrated include these:
According to the World Future Society, multiple studies over various periods of time and place consistently show that numerous factors bias group decision-making.5 For example, everyone poorly estimates the time needed to complete a task. Psychologists call it the planning fallacy and the bias of overconfidence. Fallacies and biases put us all at increased risk of failing to reach our objectives and include these issues:
Figure 4.2. Individual Behavior
The term “politikos” translates as “the science of people.” Find comfort in knowing that you will deal better with participants as you gain more experience and come to recognize common patterns of behavior that occur predictably (figure 4.2). In the meantime, keep one fact constant; participants cause problems for a finite period. Often a participant causing problems becomes productive in a different situation. Do not label people permanently. There are no “problem people,” only “people with problems,” and that means all of us at one time or another.
The unit of measurement for assessing problems becomes the extent to which a participant’s behavior is distracting. Assume that people have good intentions, and focus your energy on discovering what is causing the difficulty. In other words, identify the problem—do not highlight the person with the problem.
Learn to be kind, but at the same time don’t be too nice. While the difference remains difficult to explain, here are two examples:
Empower your participants. The deliverable or decision must be theirs to own, not yours. Manage politics by removing ideas from the individual participant and turning them over to the entire group. It’s not who is right, rather, what is right that we seek. Ideas belong to the group—never to an individual. But when erratic or distracting behavior occurs, be prepared to control it. Ground Rules (next section) will help manage much of the nonmalicious behavior.
Here are the tactics I rely on, listed in order of priority and frequency of use for managing personalities:
Ground Rules provide norms for the behavior of groups. Rules help you and the group establish decorum, keep conversations on track, and get DONE faster. Ground Rules apply to participants equally and, therefore, are unbiased. One popular facilitation method begins its workshops by building Ground Rules with the participants. Others call Ground Rules “working agreements” or “working assumptions” because the term “rule” feels too harsh.
When explaining Ground Rules during your meeting Launch (chapter 5), present the primary Ground Rules that will be used in every session. Do not skip or remove any of the first four Ground Rules (five when you add “no hiding” for online meetings). Provide additional Ground Rules when you realize they are needed. Do not use more than nine Ground Rules total or they will become burdensome rather than a device for getting done faster.
Ask people to take calls and reply to messages in the hallway so as not to distract others. Studies have shown that participants who insist they can “multitask” display a meeting IQ that drops below that of a chimpanzee! So avoid facilitating a room full of monkeys.6
Since you won’t be able to change an entire culture with only three words (“be here now”) in your Ground Rules, meet with participants in advance and secure their permission and agreement to stay away from non-meeting-related material during the meeting.
Tardiness is often caused by “back-to-back” meetings, so schedule 50-minute meetings instead of one-hour meetings. Begin meetings at five minutes after the hour and finish by five minutes before the hour.
Your job is to protect participants and separate judgment of their contribution from their personae. However, if participants intentionally fail to contribute, they have violated integrity, something you cannot control. Again, you must stress fiduciary responsibility, since participants are not accustomed to having an obligation to speak up. Most participants treat meetings as an opportunity and therefore leave with much of their wisdom and their feelings “contained.” You need to make it noticeably clear that their sharing is an obligation; if a participant cannot support that principle, he or she should be replaced or cancel the entire meeting. If participants have content that needs to be considered, shame on them if they do not share it openly.
Silence or absence indicates that participants have provided their assent. If they cannot support the responsibility and obligation to make content contributions about their subject matter expertise, then you have much bigger problems than the meeting (see also “How to Manage Quiet People,” chapter 4).
As a group, you are seeking a resolution that is robust enough for everyone to support and not cause anyone to lose sleep over it. So rather than asking the unanswerable question, “Do we have consensus?,” ask whether everyone will support the outcome or whether anyone will lose sleep over it. These are surrogate questions, implying consensus, that each individual can answer.
A great meeting facilitator will get the two people to “objectify” their claims so that they both can agree that the curry rates 1,400 Scoville Heat Units. However, they are not predisposed to think about Scoville Heat Units. They think “hot.” As meeting facilitator, you must challenge participants to make their thinking visible.
I refer to other Ground Rules as situational. Vary their use depending on the meeting type, participants, deliverable, and timing. Secondary Ground Rules I have found effective include these:
In addition to the narrative Ground Rules, you may select some audiovisual recordings to support and reinforce the Ground Rules. I rely on public domain commercials that help emphasize these principles:
What can you do to inspire participation, especially among quieter or socially reserved participants? I rely on five activities described under the “Quiet Person” (next section) that secure critical input from all participants. Additional suggestions proven to work include the following.
Table 4.2 covers different people’s characteristics and useful suggestions for specific problems. These tips have proven highly effective with certain personality types.
As meeting facilitator, you may also witness conflict coming from the entire group. Internal and external conflict reflect emotions that, when harnessed, enable creative change.
It’s your job to understand and manage group dynamics and conflict (figure 4.3). A meeting without conflict is a boring meeting, and I have seen truly little value derived from predictable and unexciting meetings and workshops.
Additionally, the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) aspires for you to do the following:
Facilitators manage groups, and groups are not stagnant. You need to understand how groups develop and appropriate ways to help them without getting in their way. The following sections outline the evolution of groups and two primary types of behavior to exhibit: relationship behaviors and task behaviors.
Groups, like people, develop and evolve. Groups can also regress. As meeting facilitator, you are responsible for moving a group through a developmental process. Every group goes through four stages as it evolves through its life cycle. For any given group, you may see only the first two or three stages.
Table 4.2. People with Problems, or “Wait—Why Am I Talking?”
Title |
Characteristics |
What to Do |
Can’t Stay |
Jeopardizes progress and damages morale by leaving meeting early |
They may have a legitimate reason such as another meeting, day care pickup, or van pool departure. Understand constraints before the meeting begins and schedule accordingly. |
Cliquer |
Close friends who whisper during meetings and hold sidebar conversations |
Standing close to Cliquers will stop their conversation. Enforce “one conversation at a time” Ground Rule. Also enforce this rule if you sense too much private online chatting. |
Controller |
Keeps telling the meeting facilitator what to do—or not do; attempts to control the meeting by changing the activities and procedures |
Listen first; however, never turn over control. Talk to the Controller during breaks. Enforce scope carefully to avoid scope creep. |
Disapprover |
Actively expresses disapproval using body language and nonverbal cues such as rolling eyes, shaking head, crossing arms, and so on |
Move near the Disapprover. Direct open hands in the person’s direction, seeking viable counter-positions. Gently call on online participants by name, but always give online participants the option of saying “pass” whenever called upon. |
Disengaged |
Constantly engaged with their smart phones or laptop; ignores the facilitator; may read unrelated materials |
Use laser focus so that the Disengaged person knows you see him or her. During breaks, talk to them. Do not publicly call out their name. Encourage your culture to embrace the “topless meetings” Ground Rule that prohibits laptops and handheld devices. For online violators, send a private chat. |
Genius |
Uses credentials, age, seniority, or stratospheric intelligence to argue his or her point |
Writing down the Genius’s input fully will satisfy him or her. Interrupt Geniuses who repeat themselves, reading back to them what you have. Carefully challenge them to explain how their contribution relates to the question at hand (to avoid scope creep). |
Impatient |
Jumps into the conversation and cuts off someone else; acts impatient or concerned that his or her ideas will not be acknowledged |
Interrupt Impatient participants immediately to protect the person interrupted, but do not forget to return to them later. Impatience is preferred over apathy. |
Monopolizer or Randomizer |
Talks often and loudly; dominates conversations and is difficult to shut up; may be someone who has a higher rank outside of the meeting than others |
Record input if in scope of the question at hand. If not in scope, ask Monopolizers to write the question down so they don’t forget it when you turn to them later. Use Breakout Teams (chapter 6) and round-robins to prevent the opportunity for them to dominate. |
Quiet Person |
We are not going to convert quiet people into extroverts, but five activities will transform the quantity of contributions from quieter participants |
|
Repeater |
Brings up the same point repeatedly; tries to focus airtime on his or her issue |
Repeaters need to understand that their point of view has been captured. Document their input. Show them visually that you “got it.” When they begin to repeat themselves, interrupt them and read back what you have. Ask them, “What would you like to add?” |
Skeptic |
Voices skepticism shrouded with genuine concern; may degrade someone else’s performance |
Use the “What—So What—Now What” Content Management Tool (chapter 9). Skeptics may justify their skepticism with facts or examples. Through conversations in advance of the meeting, anticipate them speaking up and give them an optimal time to bring up their concerns. Skeptics offer more value than someone apathetic or quiet. |
Snoozer |
Challenged to stay awake, especially early morning or around 3 p.m. |
Enforce the “no hiding” Ground Rule for online participants who must open their video windows. When in person, walk around the room or take a quick ergonomic break. |
Spinner or Twister |
Speaks for someone else; twists ideas or meanings and frequently distorts them when interpreting |
First get the original speaker to confirm you received his or her input correctly and then offer the Spinner time to add his or her own point of view. |
Tardy |
Arrives late and may insist on catching up with what he or she missed |
Use 50-minute meeting intervals to allow people some transition time between back-to-back meetings. Enforce “be here now” and “no hiding” Ground Rules. Do not interrupt the meeting. Review material during a break or after but not during the meeting—or pair participants off with someone else to give them a recap in the hallway or chat room. |
Unexpected |
Shows up without an invitation |
Explain and enforce the role of observers, noting that they may speak during breaks or after the session has completed. |
Verbal Attacker |
Launches verbal, personal attacks on other group members or facilitator; ridicules a specific point of view |
Stand between two people arguing. Immediately interrupt online attacks and mute the attacker if necessary. Make sure comments remain professional and not personal. |
Workaholic |
In and out of meetings; gives impression of being so important he or she is missed elsewhere |
Treat the same way as someone who fits the Tardy or Can’t Stay descriptions; enforce the “be here now” Ground Rule. Allow frequent bio-breaks, even when meetings are online, for people to respond to bodily needs and their electronic leash requests. |
Figure 4.3. Group Dynamics
The following are stages and characteristics of group development (see figure 4.4):
Forming—State of Confusion
Key words: “I,” “confusion,” “why”
Figure 4.4. Four Stages of Group Performance and Individual Consciousness
Note: The four stages are adapted from B. W. Tuckman, “Development Sequence in Small Groups” (1965), 384–399. (Tuckman added a fifth stage, called adjourning, that we intentionally do not discuss.) These stages are overlaid with Ken Wilber’s integral theory (“I”) and Metz’s facilitated meeting stages (Command). Osburn, Moran, Musselwhite, and Zenger (1990) added labels for the stages: (1) confusion, (2) leader-centered, (3) tightly formed, and (4) self-directed (Agile).
Facilitator response: command control (seven-activity Launch in chapter 5)
Storming—Leader-Centered
Key words: “what,” “FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt),” more “what”
Facilitator response: cultivating, explaining, and redirecting
Norming—Tightly Formed
Key words: “I can,” “You should,” “Who will?,” “ fear,” “belief,” “hope”
Facilitator response: cadence, clarity, communications, creativity
Performing—Self-directed
Key words: “we” (“We can,” “We should,” “We might”), “us,” “community,” “collaboration,” “confidence”
Facilitator response: optimally becomes a scribe for the group (“Write that down”)
Boundaries between stages are not always clear, nor does a group permanently move from one stage to another. You guide the group through the earlier stages toward a high-performance mode, understanding the likelihood that even high-performance teams may regress.
Anticipate regression when something new enters the picture, whether a new team member, new Agenda Step, or even a new Tool. The group may return to “storming” with questions like, “Now why are we doing that?”
NOTE: There is no law that groups must reach Stage 4 and become collaborative and high-performing. Most groups never make it past a basic level of competence (Stage 3) in the group life cycle. For groups that reach high-performance mode (Stage 4), your role changes from facilitator to documenter as they tell you what to do (“Write that down”).
Staying relevant and compelling when you facilitate multiple generations presents significant challenges. Problems develop when meetings include different mindsets, communication styles, and priorities. Scheduling, work patterns, and technology intensify friction. Teams are ever-changing and often cross time zones and cultural boundaries. An attitude of acceptance provides you with an effortless secret when you facilitate multiple generations—several types of people—because one trait, common to everyone, is that people would rather be asked than told.
Whether you prefer the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, the DiSC assessment, the E-Colors indicator, or something else, it is clear that not everyone thinks alike. Overgeneralizing should be avoided, but trends suggest the following:
In addition to projecting an attitude of acceptance, embrace the following:
Suggestions for all generations include these:
Hopefully, you begin to see conflict as both challenge and opportunity. Meetings are expensive and mitigating conflict provides one of the absolute best reasons for meetings. However, conflict also comes from the situation, and from you (figure 4.5).
Internal conflict is fear, something everyone experiences.11 All people have some fear. When we allow fear to control us, we lose our ability to perform. The first step is to understand our fears. Once we do, we can control them. Fears never go away—we simply learn to acknowledge or contain them. Below are some typical meeting facilitator fears:
Figure 4.5. Situational Factors
Once you identify your personal fears, you can make them work to your advantage. Adrenaline gives you an edge. Remember that the butterflies in your stomach will always be there. You don’t want to eliminate them. You want to teach them to fly in formation.
Conflict is natural and not necessarily bad, when responsibly managed. Managing conflict justifies the time and expense of face-to-face meetings because conflict cannot be resolved effectively by exchanging documents, email, and text messages.
Facilitative leaders can channel conflict into productivity. Look at the US Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.12 Managed well, conflict leads to expanded information exchange, surfaced rationales, more options, and higher-quality decisions. Managed poorly, conflict destroys. Effectively managed, conflict leads to transformation. If left festering in the hallways, conflict leads to chaos.
NOTE: “A peaceful, harmonious place can be the worst thing possible for a business. Research shows that the biggest predictor of poor company performance is complacency. Conflict can shake things up and boost your staff’s energy and creativity.”13
Society places negative values on conflict at home and at school. We have not received formal instruction about collaborative problem-solving skills. The following sections on external sources of conflict, barriers you will encounter, and a four-activity Argument Resolution response show you how to manage meeting conflict.
Two leading indicators of external sources of conflict are tenure (how long somebody has been around) and reorganization—whenever participants’ jobs, titles, or reporting situations are at risk or being changed. External sources of meeting conflict include the following:
Your ability to manage conflict is also inhibited by other barriers. Knowing about them in advance becomes the best way to overcome them. Once you are aware and prepared, you can adjust. When you are unaware or unconscious, all hell breaks loose. These other barriers include:
Paradigms are established, accepted norms, patterns of behavior, or shared sets of assumptions. They are models that establish boundaries or rules for success. Paradigms may present structural barriers to creativity based on psychological, cultural, and environmental factors. Examples include:
As creatures of habit, we blindly subscribe to our cultural paradigms, unknowingly allowing our biases and prejudices to affect our decision-making and readily falling prey to groupthink. There is power in large numbers but not necessarily an increase in quality. Voting reflects a method of groupthink decision-making. The winner is not necessarily a better decision; it just reflects a bigger number of supporters.
To cause groups to challenge their own paradigms or groupthink, try the following:
Have a few tools in your hip pocket, usually visual or riddle-based. While thousands of such challenges may be found online or in books and libraries, my all-time favorite remains the “bookworm challenge” in figure 4.6. Provide a simple, mathematical answer to the problem before proceeding (hint: the answer has two digits).
This is not a trick question. The books are lined up in proper sequence from left to right, standing up vertically. Simply estimate the straight line distance from the first page in the set of four books to the last page in the set of four books.
I have conducted this challenge with thousands of people and barely a dozen have correctly answered the challenge. Nearly all participants—more than 95 percent—provide answers between 21 and 25 centimeters.
After you capture everyone’s answer, you demonstrate statistical confidence by discarding the outliers, averaging the balance, and allowing a range of freedom of plus or minus 10 percent. The results yield a high confidence interval suggesting that the group should be 95 percent confident that the answer is between, for example, 21 and 25 centimeters, and everyone can go home confident.
Figure 4.6. Bookworm Challenge
Figure 4.7. Bookworm Answer
Yet the correct answer is out of the range, by a factor of nearly 100 percent. You see, the correct answer is 13 centimeters. Few believe it until they see it, so I display the answer (see figure 4.7)—along with a clear message: voting sucks.
We may have even thrown away the closest answer because it deviated so much from the other answers that we assumed it had to be wrong. We’re smart people; we can’t all be wrong by that much, right? Well, yes, we can, because we got caught up in groupthink, also known as the lemming solution, and we just fell off the cliff by agreeing to an answer somewhere around 23 centimeters.
Figure 4.8. Four Activities
There is no instructional class in the world that will teach you how to facilitate a resolution to all meeting conflict, especially arguments. Sometimes, people or parties refuse to agree simply because they do not like each other.
It is not your responsibility to resolve the conflict. However, you can rely on four steps to help you manage meeting conflict that frequently yield consensus (figure 4.8). Fortunately, the four steps are effective and repeatable:
Begin to resolve conflict within a meeting by first understanding, clarifying, and confirming the purpose of the object15 or topic being deliberated (figure 4.9). Effective conflict resolution depends on shared purpose. Competing purposes lead to competing solutions.
Your meeting design role demands that you build consensus around the purpose of the object the deliverable supports, the intent of the object, and why it is important. You cannot afford to have a moving target if you want to build consensus. Make the group’s integrated purpose around the topic or object clear and visible. Document and display the purpose for everyone to confirm. Use the Purpose Tool (chapter 7) as a quick and effective means of writing a consensual expression of purpose. By visually displaying the narrative content, you make it easier to confirm whether everyone can support it or not.
Many analysts are surprised to discover that arguments around requirements and prioritization surfaced because participants could not agree on the purpose of some feature, object, or process. Some arguments are resolved by this clarification of purpose alone. Other arguments persist. If so, move on to the next activity.
Figure 4.9. Confirm Purpose
Figure 4.10. Document Positions
Active listening demands that the facilitator provide reflection and confirmation of what the speaker said (figure 4.10).
When meeting conflict develops, participants may hear what was said, but they need to understand under what conditions the position holds true (and remains valid or not). My own experience has shown that it is critical to reflect why the speaker said something. Typically, speakers’ first statements are about their position. Understanding the why behind their positioning requires additional challenge, leading to disclosure of their true interests.
For example, as a homeowner, I may not want a sewage treatment plant near my backyard. If I am challenged—“Why not?”—my position states, “Because it stinks.” After further challenge we discover that the prevailing wind correlates strongly with the amount of stink and that my primary concern is that the treatment plant be located downwind from my residence. However, I become focused on my position. I don’t think “prevailing wind”; rather, I think “stink.”
Consensus is not built at the symptomatic level but at the causal level. Begin by getting everyone to understand under what conditions certain claims hold valid. Therefore, challenging the why behind what was said becomes critical. Solid facilitation effectively challenges participants to make their thinking visible by using one question: “because?”
Sometimes people who are in violent agreement with one another do a poor job of listening. So amplify your active listening during conflict. Remember that active listening comprises four separate activities:
At least one person in any given group does not listen or hear what another person says. Some people don’t even listen to themselves. Reflection provides an essential activity of effective, active listening. However, you must confirm and not assume that your reflection is accurate.
Once two or more interests have been understood and documented well enough to satisfy the advocates, some arguments will drop by the wayside. Others will advance, so proceed with the third step.
Sometimes people understand each other and yet continue to disagree. Many arguments of this nature are about future conditions that cannot be proven one way or another. Participants may even rely on the same evidence-based support, such as facts, projections, and trends, but interpret this evidence differently in a future world.
To help resolve conflict, learn to sequentially appeal to objectives (figure 4.11), starting with the objectives of the product or project, and then proceeding with objectives of the department or program, of the business unit, and of the entire organization that your meeting supports. If the CEO were in the meeting, which argument would he or she say better supports organizational objectives—and, more important, why?
Carefully and fully document conflicting arguments with supporting claims, evidence, and examples. Have the group contrast their positions by asking them “to what extent” each interest supports the various objectives using the Alignment Tool (chapter 6). Specifically, ask these questions:
Figure 4.11. Appeal to Objectives
Figure 4.12. Escalate
Appealing to the various objectives will reconcile some remaining meeting conflict, but not all of it. In some cultures, for example, safety is critical, and if one position can be viewed as “riskier,” it will be rejected immediately. Consider using the holarchy (see figure 2.1 in chapter 2) for visually illustrating how competing interests should be compared to the various objectives.
So, what do you do, as meeting facilitator, if appealing to objectives fails?
If the first three steps, in sequence, fail to drive consensual resolution, escalate decision-making by taking the documented positions back to the executive sponsor, steering team, or decision review board (figure 4.12). Show them the purpose and position documents and explain how you attempted to use them to arrive at consensual understanding.
Tell the executives that the group participants reached an impasse in the meeting and need help. Ask the executives to reach a decision and, more important, share the rationale behind it, so that this “because” can be brought back to the participants and make the group more effective with subsequent decision-making.
Sometimes participants fail to agree with one another based on irrational or irreconcilable terms. No meeting facilitator can build consensus around every issue, but having a method to manage the conflict provides confidence that you have performed professionally.
Executives absorb what you have provided. They review the documented statements of purpose and position and then go back and appeal to their own objectives, asking questions like:
Typically, executives have better line of site because they are more intimate with plans, shaping curves, and transitional and transformational efforts underway to ensure an organization reaches its vision than meeting participants will be. After the executives share their reasoning with you, take their rationale back to the group and empower participants to make higher-quality decisions in future meetings.
Surprisingly, when threatened with taking the decision out of the meeting room, many times participants acquiesce and suddenly become more flexible than ever before. Remember, no one likes to be told what to do.
How well do you personally respond to conflict? To effectively facilitate conflict, you must keep the situation constructive:
Realize that anger is as normal as any other emotion. We expect or want things to be different or better. Most people direct their anger at those who have some control over them. Anger can be healthy and is different from hostility, which is not healthy. Anger is often used to hide other feelings such as hurt or disappointment. Learn how to deal with anger in others and in yourself. Remain cautious, however, because the term “anger” is only one letter short of the term “danger.”
When dealing with others’ anger:
When dealing with your own anger:
When you listen to participants, they become more prepared to listen to one another. Anger often dissipates, and trust begins to emerge. Make sure that both you and the participants avoid communicating rejection. Rejection incites defensiveness and blocks listening.
All consensus-oriented meeting facilitators are responsible for maintaining balance:
It is not your job to resolve every piece of conflict and each argument. Rather, it is your responsibility to have a method for managing conflict and arguments. And when you follow the advice and sequence of the four steps in this chapter, you have a method for managing all types of conflict in business settings.
1 Susan Tynan and Ruth Feldman, Communicoding (1989).
2 See the appendix for golden rule comparisons in 13 cultures or languages, as well as the silver rule: “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.”
3 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2013).
4 Nassim Taleb, Incerto: Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile (2016).
5 World Future Society, home page, n.d., https://www.worldfuture.org.
6 Apologies for the insult to my primate brothers and sisters.
7 International Association of Facilitators (IAF), home page, https://www.iaf-world.org/site/.
8 One alumnus told us that the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on occasion wear sweaters over their uniforms to hide rank. They understand how important it is for everyone to have permission to speak freely, regardless of rank, during select facilitated sessions.
9 See the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website for a public domain challenge of prioritizing 15 items that need to be carried a long distance by foot when stranded on the surface of the moon: https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/166504main_Survival.pdf.
10 See Howard Gardner’s “Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” https://howardgardner.com.
11 Nobody understands the title of this section, but I can’t seem to let it go. Three trolls, in The 10th Kingdom (Mill Creek Ent.), an American fairytale fantasy miniseries, proudly call themselves “three trolls with the courage of one,” oblivious to the line’s meaning that each troll has only one-third the normal amount of courage.
12 By the way, the penalty for a federal mediator who violates neutrality is prison.
13 Joni Saj-nicole and Damon Beyer, “How to Pick a Good Fight” (2009), 50.
14 Edward De Bono, “Six Thinking Hats,” n.d., https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/.
15 “Object” here means the person, place, thing, or event to be directly affected by the “objective” (deliverable) of the meeting.
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