Some years ago, National Public Radio had a story that illustrates this different approach. It was reported from St. Louis where the pro-life and pro-choice forces were poised for escalating violence. Some leaders in both groups wanted to avoid violence. They asked, “Is there anything that we agree on that could become a source of common ground?” And although there is much that they will never agree about, they discovered common ground in their mutual concern for pregnant teenagers. As a result of this discovery, they created a successful jointly sponsored project to help pregnant adolescents that did a great deal to manage the incipient violence in that city.
Merrelyn Emery’s thinking about the relationship between conflict and common ground in her writing about the Search Conference makes these issues very clear (Emery and Purser, 1996). She sees the conference setting as a “protected site” where people can come together and search for commonalities despite their fear and natural anxiety about conflict. She believes that “groups tend to overestimate the area of conflict and underestimate the amount of common ground that exists” (p. 142). “Rationalizing conflict” is the important process that takes conflict seriously when it arises so that the substantive differences are clarified and everyone understands and respects what they are. A short time is allowed to see if it can be resolved. If not, it is posted on a “disagree list,” meaning that the differences are acknowledged and that the issue will not receive further attention.
At the Seventh American Forestry Conference held in 1996 using the Whole-Scale method, the importance for conflict management of the principles and processes just discussed is further illustrated.
Before the congress was convened, over fifty local roundtables and collaborative meetings were held all over the United States to develop draft visions of forest policy for the next ten years and principles to support them. These meetings included environmental groups, lumbering, public agencies, small business owners, research, and academia. In this prework, it became clear to the conference planning committee that they could not use the traditional talking heads conference format. They chose Kristine Quade and Roland Sullivan, organization consultants from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to design and facilitate the conference.
When the fifteen hundred people invited to the three-and-a-half-day conference convened in Washington, DC, in 1996, the draft visions and principles already created by these local meetings formed the basis of discussions at the tables. The table task was to incorporate the various visions and principles into one set that most people could endorse as the desirable policy for the next decade.
In order to avoid the win-lose confrontations so typical of public issues with diverse stakeholders, they adopted several ground rules:
The leadership did not take positions on controversial issues even though there were interest groups present that wanted them to do so.
They used color cards to vote or show where they stood. Green signaled agreement; yellow indicated uncertainty or ambivalence; red meant disagreement. Agreement was declared when more than 50 percent of the congress was green. This method created space to explore people’s views, especially the meaning of a yellow vote.
Some potentially explosive issues such as divisive pending legislation were avoided as part of the agenda for the congress. In other words, the level of conflict was managed.
On the first day, people worked together at diverse table groups of ten. Then many information sessions by knowledgeable experts were offered. Tables decided where they wanted members to go and these members came back and reported what they had learned to their table team after each of these sessions. During the second and third days, table deliberations were integrated, creating visions and principles that more than 50 percent of those assembled agreed on. Finally, time was devoted to planning next-step initiatives to carry forward the vision and principles.
In the course of discussions, acquiring new information, and trying to move toward agreement, people begin to understand, if not agree, with others in their group. Boundaries become less rigid, and they become more flexible in looking for solutions that might provide gains for both themselves and others on their table team. As they engage in this cooperative process, the atmosphere at the group level becomes supportive and affirming, and the group begins to feel successful. One symptom of this shift in perspective is that rather than saying “I,” there is a noticeable increase in the use of “we.”
Interestingly, at this congress, there was a group of about two hundred delegates who did not like the participative way the congress was organized and met in rump sessions to plan demonstrations and disruptions. As the table groups worked together, however, fewer and fewer of the original dissident delegates were willing to go to rump meetings or participate in disruptive demonstrations. They realized that they could get some of what they cared about through this more collaborative process. Toward the end, only a single person, the leader of this movement, was still walking around the floor picketing and trying to arouse others. The process had clearly captured and engaged all the others.
Methods for Work Design
The second group of methods involves stakeholders in the redesign of work. (See figure 38.2 for a summary.) Large group work design focuses on optimizing the fit between efficient technology and a responsive and motivating human environment for workers.
Figure 38.2 Large-Group Methods for Work Design
Source: Adapted from B. B. Bunker and B. T. Alban, The Handbook of Large Group Methods: Creating Systematic Change in Organizations and Communities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Reprinted by permission.
In the Conference Model (Axelrod and Axelrod, 2000), large conference meetings are interspersed with smaller task forces in a pattern that makes sense for each client. This always includes addressing future goals for the organization as both a business and a social system, an assessment of the impact of the environment on the organization, a technical analysis of the core work process, and a redesign of that process and the structure that supports it. This participative process is used in all types of organizations from hospitals to manufacturing plants and usually takes up to six months to complete.
In the Mercy Healthcare system in Sacramento, California, for example, five hospitals needed to redesign their patient care delivery processes, a core hospital process. They needed to save money and at the same time improve patient care. The first conference, the Vision and the Customer Conference, created a vision of the goal of patient care and involved customers (in this case, former patients and the community) in describing their needs. Then there was an analysis of the current patient care process and where it needed to be improved (the Technical Conference) and a Design Conference to make changes to create improved service delivery with the organizational structure to support it. Finally, the decisions were refined and acted on in the Implementation Conference.
The Technical Conference was held in five adjacent ballrooms, one for each hospital, so that there could be coordination among the hospitals. For example, at different moments in the process, selected members of each hospital went on a “treasure hunt” to the other four ballrooms to look for good ideas that they could incorporate from others. These conferences are usually held about a month apart, which gives time for designated teams to go back into the system, present what has happened to those not attending, and get their input for the next conference. When Mercy Healthcare surveyed three thousand people in the hospital system, 85 percent said that they felt involved and able to give input to the process. This is rather remarkable since only about 150 people from each hospital attended any conference.
The underlying principle here again is that there is a great deal of wisdom and experience in the people who do the work and deliver the service. They, better than even top management, often know where the problems are and what goes wrong at work. Therefore, they need to be involved in the analysis and redesign process. Even if jobs are at stake, as they were at Mercy Healthcare, people would ordinarily rather have a voice in what is
changing than have it done to them. In situations of cutbacks and change, anxiety runs high. It helps manage anxiety if there is openness and regular communication about the process of change and how decisions will be made.
The other work design method is distinctively different. Participative Design, created by Fred and Merrelyn Emery (1993), is a method that redesigns work and the work organization from the bottom of the organization up (see figure 38.2). It is based on the idea that the people who do the work need to be responsible for, control, and coordinate it. This is in sharp contrast with the bureaucratic principle where each level controls the work of those below them. Work is redesigned to conform to the critical human requirements that create meaningful and productive work. Management decides in advance what constraints or minimum critical specifications the unit must work within—for example, that they cannot add jobs or exceed certain budgetary levels. Within these limits, the whole work unit analyzes what skills are needed to get the work of their unit done and who has them. Next, they redesign the unit to meet both the objective criteria for satisfying work and their own requirements. After the bottom of the organization is redesigned, the next-higher level asks, “Given this new work design, what is our work?” and proceeds to redesign it. Theoretically this continues to the very top of the organization. To be successful, Participative Design requires top management to understand and endorse this democratic approach to working with employees.
Interpersonal conflict occurs most often in the Participative Design workshop when people in the work unit are analyzing their work and creating a new organization that they will manage and be responsible for. According to Nancy Cebula, an experienced practitioner doing work with this method, about halfway through the redesign process, the group wakes up to the fact that in the new world that they are creating, they will have to deal with and manage their own conflicts. This is usually a new experience because in hierarchically controlled organizations, people can run to the boss and complain and expect her to do something. Self-managing units, however, must develop processes for dealing with conflicts in their own team and with other teams. For this reason, teams are encouraged to work out a script for the steps they will take when conflict appears. They may start by having the affected parties try to talk it out; then it may become team business. Some teams have rotating roles for mediators. The steps can include calling in human resources to mediate as a last resort. Defining the process in advance helps people openly deal with issues.
In one team on the verge of becoming self-managing, the process faltered when the group seemed unable to select people for the two new teams that were proposed. Someone finally blurted out to the inquiring facilitator, “Our problem is that we have two slackers in the group and no one wants them on their team.” The facilitator asked, “What’s the best way to deal with this?” The group decided to go off into a room and deal with it without their manager or the facilitator. The facilitator said they could take one hour. They retired to the room, from which angry sounds emerged from time to time. Thirty minutes later, however, they emerged with two teams, each including one of the slackers who had been told that they would have to shape up or depart. They had had their first experience at managing their own conflict. Interestingly, one of the slackers quit within a few days. The other turned herself around. She could no longer be mad at the system. Now there were peers in her world to whom she was accountable.
Managing Conflict in the Redesign Process.
Because the people who come to work design events belong to the same organization and have a stake in its future, it is not in anyone’s self-interest to let the organization die. Even if labor relations have been troubled and there are intraorganizational battlefields, there is always a certain level of energy for change and improvement.
Training in conflict management, particularly in systems where there is a strong history of conflict, is often part of the prework that gets a system ready to do participative design.
For some organizations with a long history of mistrust between labor and management, an invitation to participate will not be easily believed. This history is likely to be in evidence in the large group meeting. It appears in a number of forms. Often it is carried by outspoken individuals who make themselves known on the floor. Although the rules of large group events are that people and their views will be listened to and treated with respect, what do facilitators do when someone grabs a microphone and unleashes a tirade against management? On the one hand, these people deserve to be treated with respect. On the other, they are not authorized to speak, and their speech violates acceptable behavior. Often such a person will instigate others with similar axes to grind. In all likelihood, they represent only a small percentage of those present, but their aggressiveness is often intimidating to those whose views are more moderate and are more hesitant to express themselves in front of five hundred other people.
One theory that governs this kind of emotional display is catharsis theory. The idea is that you let dissidents speak their minds, even if it disrupts the time schedule, but you do not let them filibuster or totally disrupt proceedings. If they are not willing to stop after a reasonable time, you may call a short break (everyone else will depart for the coffee and restrooms) and then go on to the next activity.
In one plant in the Midwest with a troubled labor history that Bunker observed, a vocal group of disbelievers in management’s good intentions was holding forth in negative and strong voices. After about fifteen minutes, Bunker wandered out into the hall, where, to her surprise, she found a lot of people grousing. They said things like: “It’s always the same people, and they always say the same things. Why don’t they shut up, and let’s see what happens. I am tired of listening to them.” After the break, when people went back to work on the next activity, the energy level in the room was high and positive. People were deeply engaged and making suggestions for changes that would improve work at the plant.
A second strategy that is sometimes useful is to respectfully engage the whole group in reacting to what is being said by the vocal minority. For example, a facilitator might ask for an indication of those who agree with what is being said and then ask for those with different views to make themselves known. Facilitators often ask questions that bring out other points of view. Moderates need encouragement to express their views, but when they do, a clearer picture of the views of the whole system begins to emerge. As others join the discussion, the community begins to manage it. People will say things to the people hogging the floor like, “Joe, you know you are taking advantage of this and that we don’t support you. Why don’t you sit down and shut up?” Working in this context, the facilitator senses when the group has had enough and is ready to move on to the next steps.
There are times, however, when the frustration and aggravation with the organizational situation and with management is very strong, and for good reason. If people have not been treated well, they need to be able to say this publicly to management and hear the response. This level of conflict has the potential of escalation and of taking a destructive turn. If voices from the floor become personally accusative and cross the invisible line of acceptable public behavior toward superiors, a bad situation could occur. This is everyone’s worst fantasy about large groups—that there might be an irreparable explosion that would do permanent damage.
Although this possibility always exists, it is important to consider and harness the other forces working in this setting to keep conflict within responsible limits. An organization is not an association of persons with no particular bonds. There is a history, a present, and, it is hoped, a future. It is in everyone’s self-interest that things come out better rather than worse. These forces encourage collaboration and help to keep the conflict in bounds. In a large-scale event, conflict is a public process that occurs with the whole system present. The public nature of the conflict is also a force for responsible management of the conflict. The facilitator’s skill to martial the positive forces while at
the same time allowing the expression of the conflict is key to its successful management.
Methods for Discussion and Decision Making
This is the third category of methods developed as ways to diagnose and find solutions to problems, or explore and understand issues.
The large group methods used for these purposes are substantially different from each other (see figure 38.3). Work-Out is a method developed at General Electric that is being used in numerous companies to solve serious organizational problems by bringing together all of the stakeholders in a time limited problem-solving format. Simu-Real (Klein, 1992) creates a simulated organization with the real role holders acting their own jobs in order to understand problems or even to test out a new design for a new organizational structure. Large-scale interactive events uses the Whole-Scale Change framework to solve many types of problems from diversity issues to intergroup coordination problems—for example, to get police, emergency rooms, agencies, and homeless shelters to better deal with the rise of tuberculosis among homeless people in New York City.
Figure 38.3 Large-Group Methods for Discussion and Decision Making
Source: B. B. Bunker and B. T. Alban, The Handbook of Large Group Methods: For Community and Organization Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Reprinted with permission.
The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed) Page 134
