Jigar, Shrinivas and me (all three colleagues @ a common workplace) were talking about ‘conflict management styles’. I must admit Jigar does get pretty vocal and opinionated about certain things, and just to lend a perspective, I don’t think that is negative at all.
As usual, the discussion veered from the general to the specific to the abstruse and back again.
At times like these J does not fail to amaze me, he is probably far more intelligent than normal people, and yet, he is like any other genius – cross with the world, unable to relate and integrate with everyday people and things……its sad that in our infinite pursuit of wisdom, we as a society have not yet managed to reconcile ‘intelligence’ – both as a group and as an individual (Also note, I grossly distinguish between intelligence and wisdom).
We defined conflict as
any two different viewpoints which need to be reconciled, and J proceeded quickly elaborated a framework which said that you can manage conflct in one of the 4 ways (and I repeat him verbatim) :
1.
Confront : Where you attack the point of conflict in an unemotional way, always remembering that ideas are what cause conflict, not people per se (So it means, in an ideal world, two conflicting individuals could be best of friends). You keep this onsalught and attack on, until both (or multi) parties agree to one single direction in a rationally convinced fashion, where (at least in an utopian world), all parties win something in the bargain, leading to a
win-win.2.
Smoothen : Where at least one of the parties involved in the conflict, takes the approach of pushing either the whole or part of the conflict under the carpet, to be either dug out at a later more ‘appropriate’ time, or to be buried there indefinitely. (This tends to a situation, where one party – the one who is smoothening, tends to be a percieved loser (in terms of value), and hence this arrangement typically tends to be a
lose-win kind of approach.
3.
Avoid : Where every single possible conflict scenario is avoided, a kind of implicit escapism.
4.
Withdraw : Where you tend to say, that since there is a conflict, I will not actually debate the conflict, or try to resolve it, but instead I will simply withdraw, which means I will retreat all my armory from your stable, leading to a breakdown within the corporation……the net result being, I don’t win, but you do now have a heightened chance of failure. (If this sounds familiar, don’t fret, it is simply
John Galt of Atlas shrugged at work). This approach can be summarised as
you lose approach.
From here we veered into discussion into pros and cons of all the above mentioned models. We agreed that each one needs to be used depending on the given situation, but J was vehement that smoothening can never be a long term strategy. It will eventually lead to implicit unhappiness and frustration. His point was initially
for every conflict we must confront (aim for a win-win), post which we must simply withdraw (aim for a ‘you lose’ result).Personally I was impressed with Jigar’s values because it tends to gravitate towards John Galt. But…..(yes the proverbial spoke in the wheel)…..is confront-and-withdraw the ideal approach in a dysutopian world. Conflict-and-withdraw points towards building a more ‘correct’ world, while conflict-smoothen-withdraw or conflict-smoothen or simply smoothen points to a more peaceful world (both individually and as a corporation)…..though J disagrees, he tends to believe, smoothen adds onto an individual (or coporation’s unhappiness).
Also, just like J I often tend to philosophically debate and preach values which are ‘correct’ and yet ‘difficult’….I also practice them to the extent I can….more so in the past, than in the present….the slow rot of my utopian soul is there for everyone to see. In all of these I have realised that the world hates people who believe in utopia and people who believe in utopia don’t see the world as the right place for them….eventually leading to more ‘correctness’….and yet more conflict both personally and as an a group.
I have often experienced, that the burden of being a hero is too much to carry, the world dumps more and more of its obesity on you……
In all of this the question remains,
do you want to be a ‘John Galt’ or do you want to be a ‘Peter Keating’…….
I admire the fact (actually envy is a better word) that J has the gumption to chase to being a John Galt, but…(again the but or the butt)…..I have chosen in my own eyes to be a Keating. Probably I am tired of being a hero….(but how the f**k can I ever be a hero, if I get tired som easily, heroes never get tired, they run, they battle, they withdraw, just like J (both
John Galt and
Jigar).
This post was to celebrate the triumph of John Galt over Peter Keating in the utopian world, it was also to mourn the slow death which the Galt in me is metamorphisising within me)
PS
I like the way, J sometimes puts across points…..like for this one he had a sexist remark saying, ‘I pump and pump, and if it does not work, then I withdraw before the orgasm’. (Very policitically uncorrect).