Mental models are powerful when you are unaware of them. Because you are unaware of them, you don’t examine them. And because you don’t examine them you don’t change them. It is very difficult to get to grips with something that has you in its grip.
Posts Categorized: Organisational Culture
Organisations can create a culture of personal mastery by making it safe for their people to have an alternative vision, where commitment to embracing truth and reality is the norm and where challenging the status quo is expected.
Organisations are only just beginning to recognise that innovation and collaboration flourish in conflict and that the win-lose belief system in adversarial cultures that seeks to dampen and control diversity is not fit-for-purpose in a rapidly changing world.
Great organisational cultures have the aptitude to integrate conflict and collaboration. Both are needed together. Collaboration without conflict leads to conformity and a lack of creativity. Conflict without collaboration leads to disrespect and alienation.
The conflict coach doesn’t just enable disputants to settle their issues, rather the conflict coach supports the organisation so that it learns from its conflicts and so that the organisational culture becomes more effective in resolving similar disputes in the future.
Every difficult behaviour you experience represents a skill you can learn. By rejecting people who engage in difficult behaviour you risk losing a valuable opportunity to learn from them.