Repeated use of any of the three alternatives mentioned—or any combination of them—amounts to submissive behavior. The negative consequences of submissiveness mentioned on pages 130-131 apply to the consistent use of denial, avoidance, or capitulation.
Domination
Another approach to problem solving is domination—imposing one’s own solution on the other person. The person who dominates the decision making comes up with a solution designed to meet her needs. We have found that these solutions rarely meet the dominant person’s needs as well as other solutions might. She might get her way, or gain a particular result, but the relationship suffers needlessly. The needs of the other person are either not addressed at all or are not as accurately perceived or as fully met as is possible.
As you can imagine, aggressive people tend to rely on domination during a conflict of needs. What has surprised me, however, is the number of primarily submissive people who, when in a position of authority, are likely to impose their solutions on others during a conflict of needs. This often occurs in issues between adults and children. Adults often assume they are right because they have more knowledge and experience than children. Thus they rule out collaborative problem solving. A fairly submissive teacher, for example, said that, in relation to students, “I have really looked for the other to agree to my solution. Instead of genuinely wanting to solve a problem, I’ve wanted the other to capitulate. And I think of myself as nonaggressive?!” In teaching communication skills to thousands of people in positions of power (parents, managers, teachers, etc.) I have discovered that many of the less assertive people capitulate when lacking “position power,” but they dominate when in a position that places them over someone else. There are many possible explanations for this phenomenon. I believe that one of the factors is that people have seldom experienced alternatives to domination and capitulation. Thus, when they became authority figures they behave in the way that was modeled for them during their formative years and in their work experience. Thinking up and then imposing “good” solutions seems to be what parents, teachers, and managers are for in the eyes of many.
There are many negative consequences to the overreliance on handing solutions down to others when there is a conflict of needs. For one thing, again there is a flow of resentment. This time it is toward the person imposing the solution. In addition to the normal resentment people tend to feel when dominated, the imposition of a solution may awaken old unresolved resentments of times when other authority figures imposed their will in the past. The authoritarian person, then, may not only have to cope with resentment against his specific act, but with the accumulated resentments of many years. When domination occurs repeatedly the negative results are often dramatic. People resort to sabotage, pilferage, work stoppage, passive resistance, emotional distance, and other destructive ways of striking back.
When solutions are imposed they often have to be followed up rigorously. After all, if the other person’s needs are not being met and/or if she has not participated fully in the decision-making process, she is not likely to be highly motivated to make the solution work. So, not only is it difficult to resolve some issues, but even if resolved they may not stay resolved unless the person who imposed the solution devotes considerable energy and attention to overseeing its administration.
The authoritarian approach to resolving conflicts of needs, when used consistently, can be very damaging to the other person(s) in the relationship. Erich Fromm, the noted psychotherapist, writes:
Inasmuch as social and parental authority tend to break [the child’s] will, spontaneity and independence, the child, not being born to be broken, fights against the authority represented by his parents; he fights for freedom not only from pressure but also for his freedom to be himself, a full-fledged human being, not an automaton. For some children the battle for freedom will be more successful than for others, although only a few succeed entirely. The scars left from the child’s defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis.3
Clark Moustakas, a psychologist at the Merrill-Palmer Institute, studied alienation in children and found that it could be traced in large measure to the way adults dominate children “by loud, demanding orders and by sweet manipulating words.” Says Moustakas: “What shocked me … is that in spite of all the evidence … authoritarian people continue to impose their standards and values on others….”4
Capitulation and domination are win/lose strategies—one person wins, the other loses. Denial and avoidance are also win/lose approaches: through lack of awareness or withdrawal one of the parties loses—she does not get her needs met. When one considers the relationship aftermath, it is probably more correct to say that repeated use of any of these four ways of coping with conflict can be called lose/lose. Each of the parties loses something and the relationship itself deteriorates.
Compromise: I’ll Meet You
Part Way
My dictionary defines compromise as “consent reached by mutual concessions.” Compromise takes into account the needs and fears of both parties. There are times when it can be extremely important in the settlement of interpersonal differences. Henry Clay, the American statesman who guided the Missouri Compromise through the House of Representatives, said that compromise is the cement that holds the Union together:
All legislation … is founded upon the principle of mutual concession…. Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, “I will never compromise”; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.5
In a world of conflicting needs, wants, and values, compromise obviously has its place. It can lead to very undesirable results, however, when used consistently or appropriately, as the ancient story of Solomon’s decision makes clear.
In the ninth century B.C., Solomon was king of Israel. In those days, one of the monarch’s important duties was to serve as judge in personal disputes. One day two women came before Solomon, each claiming a child as their own:
The first said, “My lord, this woman and I share the same house, and I gave birth to a child when she was there with me. On the third day after my baby was born, she too gave birth to a child…. No one else was with us in the house…. During the night her child died because she lay upon it. Then she arose in the middle of the night and took my child from my side while I slept, and laid the child in her bosom and put her dead child in my bosom. Thus when I rose toward morning to nurse my child, behold, it was dead; but when I was able to examine it closely in the morning-light, it was not my son which I had borne.”
The other woman said, “No, the living child belongs to me. The dead child is yours.” But the first woman was saying at the same time, “No, the dead child belongs to you, the living child is mine!” Thus they wrangled before the king.
The king mused…. Then he said, “Fetch me a sword.” They brought in a sword and the king gave the order “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
At this the mother of the living child whose heart yearned for her boy, cried to the king, “O my Lord, give her the living child, never kill it!” The other woman said, “No divide it; neither of us shall have it.” The king said, “Give yonder woman the living child and by no means slay it, for she is its mother.”6
In that situation, the compromise which was acceptable to one of the women literally meant the death of the child. The repeated use of compromise can be lethal in other, less obvious ways. In many marriages very different personalities are joined together. When they differ, they may consistently resolve problems by compromise. During twenty years of marriage, whenever there is a difference each of them settles for something less than what they really want. Their compromises bring them a temporary domestic peace that is without joy and delight. After years of bland compromises the marriage ends in one of two kinds of divorces—legal or emotional.
In organizat
ions, too, the excessive use of compromise kills creativity, stifles people, and strangles profits. In his book Up the Organization, Robert Townsend, a business leader, advised:
Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can’t solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then … pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.7
Since, in compromise, each party settles for something less than its full needs and desires, I call it the mini-lose/mini-lose method. Each side gives something up to end the conflict or solve the problem.
SEEKING AN “ELEGANT
SOLUTION” THROUGH
COLLABORATIVE
PROBLEM SOLVING
In a collaborative problem solving, once the people discover they have conflicting needs, they join together to find a solution acceptable to both. It entails redefining the problem, discovering novel alternatives, and focusing on overlapping interests. In this process, neither person capitulates to or dominates the other. Because no one loses, no one gives up or gives in and because both (all) parties benefit. This is often called a win/win way of dealing with conflicting needs. When it is possible to use this method—and it often is—it is usually the most desirable way to resolve the conflicts of needs that occur between people.
Mary Parker Follet illustrated the collaborative approach to problem solving when she wrote of two people in a small stuffy room in a university library. One person wanted the window open; the other wanted it closed. Instead of focusing on solutions (whether the window would be opened or closed) they concentrated on needs and resolved the problem by coming up with another alternative—opening a window in the next room. This provided fresh air for the person who wanted it and, at the same time prevented the north wind from blowing directly on the person who objected to being in a strong draft.8
After training thousands of people—managers, teachers, parents, health care professionals, salespersons, therapists, clergy, and so on—our staff believe that it comes as a surprise to most people to discover that a win/win method exists which can actually resolve many of the thorniest interpersonal issues they face. Many have told us how gratifying it is to be released from the win/lose, mini-lose/mini-lose, and lose/lose methods of problem solving that they have been locked into for years.
Of course, many people are skeptical that win/win methods can work in the “real world.” When I mention Mary Parker Follett’s examples of opening a window in an adjoining room, a workshop participant is apt to say, “Yes, but there may not be a window in the next room.”9 In that case, creative problem solvers might come up with another option that is attractive to both people. A friend of mine in a similar situation where there was no window in an adjoining room found several solutions to the problem that were agreeable to both. These included changing stats, opening the top rather than the bottom half of the window, and searching for a different location in the library in which to study. I have been amazed at the number of really difficult conflicts of needs in my life that have been resolved by collaborative problem solving. This method is not a panacea for all of life’s problems. There are some occasions when this method will not work or when another approach is more fitting. However, we’ve found it to be successful with an extraordinarily high percentage of typical problems which occur between people.
SIX STEPS
OF THE COLLABORATIVE
PROBLEM-SOLVING
METHOD
One of America’s greatest philosophers, John Dewey, declared that philosophy must cease to be “a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers” and become, instead, a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of everyday people.10 Probably the “most important single emphasis of John Dewey” was his insistence on establishing “universally recognized … rules of logic” that could help people problem-solve in such a way that they could achieve better consequences and avert the worse.11 Dewey’s “rules of logic” constitute a process that can be used to solve personal problems and business problems, resolve social conflict, or do critical thinking about scientific and other subjects.12 Psychologist Thomas Gordon has written helpfully about the application of that process to the resolution of interpersonal problems after people discover through assertion and listening that they have conflicting needs.13
Here are the six steps of the process:
Define the problem in terms of needs, not solutions.14
Brainstorm possible solutions.
Select the solution(s) that will best meet both parties’ needs and check possible consequences.
Plan who will do what, where, and by when.
Implement the plan.
Evaluate the problem-solving process and, at a later date, how well the solution turned out.
Collaborative problem solving requires the use of listening skills, assertion skills, and the conflict resolution method. In addition you will need to understand this collaborative problem-solving method—which is fairly easy because it is such a logical progression. And you will need to avoid the common pitfalls of using the method. Let’s go through the process step by step.
Step 1 : Define the Problem
in Terms of Needs, Not Solutions
Most of us agree in the top of our minds that an accurate statement of the problem should precede the other steps of problem solving. In the rough and tumble of life, however, with pressures on our time, emotional stress caused by the problem, and the demanding intellectual effort that it sometimes takes to define a problem clearly, many people settle for a slipshod definition of the problem. A haphazard definition of the problem will probably undermine the entire collaborative problem-solving process. It is important to arrive at a clear, concrete, succinct statement of the problem.
For a win/win outcome, the problem is stated in terms of needs—not solutions.15 This is so crucial to the collaborative problem-solving process that I want to state what I mean by this distinction, why it is important, and how it may be achieved.
First, what is meant by defining a problem in terms of needs? Most of the time people think about problems in terms of conflicting solutions. Five members of a religious order lived together in a home. They shared one car. All were active in community affairs and thus were frequently involved in evening meetings. As can be imagined, conflict generated around the use of the automobile. When they tried to define the problem, Sister Veronica said, “I must have the car to go to the School Board meeting tonight at eight o’clock.” (The meeting was being held at the eastern edge of the city.) Sister Katherine said, “But I need the car to go to the parish social action task force meeting at eight o’clock.” (That meeting was held in a suburb ten miles west of the city.) As people usually do, these dedicated women had defined their problem in terms of clashing solutions: “I must have the car tonight.” “But I need the car tonight to go in the opposite direction at the same time.” When a problem is defined in that way—in terms of solutions—a win/win outcome has been eliminated. Either one woman gets the car or the other does. One wins, the other loses.
I asked the sisters to state the problem in terms of need.
Both sisters replied, “I need the car tonight.” That was simply restating the problem in terms of their predetermined solutions.
To get at the need which lay behind their proposed solutions I asked, “What do you need the car for?”
Sister Veronica said, “I need to get to and from the meeting tonight.”
Sister Katherine said, “And I need transportation to the social action committee meeting tonight.”
Both women’s need was transportation. Use of the group’s car was one possible solution to their transportation needs. Once they defined the problem in terms of needs rather than solutions, a whole range of other solutions could be generated. This problem had troubled these two women for over a year. Once they defined it in terms of their need for transportation, they
were able to solve the problem in minutes. Six months later I received a letter saying that the transportation solution was still working well and that the “needs approach” had made interpersonal relations in their religious community more constructive.
Remember the two persons in the stuffy library room? They probably began by stating their problems in a solution format. One wanted the window open. The other wanted it closed. If asked, “What do you want to achieve by opening the window?” the answer could have been a statement of need: “To have more fresh air.” If the other were asked, “What’s in it for you to keep the window closed?” she would undoubtedly reply with a needs statement: “I need to avoid strong drafts as I am fighting off a cold.” When the problem is redefined—when it is stated in terms of needs—other options can be discovered which may satisfy both parties, like opening the window in an adjoining room. To discover needs we try to find out why the person wants the solution she initially proposed. Once we understand the advantages that solution has for them, we have discovered their “need.”
Why bother to define interpersonal problems in terms of needs rather than solutions? The reason, already suggested, is that solution-type definitions of interpersonal problems lead, inevitably, to win/lose results.
Ross Stagner says conflict is “a situation in which two or more humans desire goals which they perceive as being attainable by one or the other but not by both.”16 The word perceive is the key to that sentence. If the perception of the problem is changed at the outset from a win/lose orientation to a win/win perspective, the chances for a mutually beneficial outcome are greatly increased. A false and limited perception of the nature of the problem undermines most problem-solving efforts.
Redefinition of the problem in terms of needs leads to conflict re-solution in which both (or all) parties can get their needs met.
People Skills_How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts Page 31
