In one mediation, I used the imagery of sine and cosine waves to show not only information processing, but as a visual way of encouraging alignment without toooo much objective compromise.

That’s why I call what I do “Human Trigonometry,” but I won’t go into that here other than to leave the example!

The reality is that when anyone (myself included) who knows more than someone else has a responsibility to accept that he/she doesn’t know it all and be willing to accept that there are times that the professor becomes the student.

Like most others, I welcome honest and open dialog when the time is appropriate and the intent is sincere. The problem is, there are often times when others attempt to take advantage of a) inopportune timing, or insincerity. In my work, I’m asking to be able to help fix real problems while being able to continuing being effective at doing my job.

My challenge has been managing my effectiveness in coaching others while getting my job done. Coaching is something that I need to do so I have more time to coach. Getting my job done isn’t always the most effective use of my time. It’s another “give the person a fish or teach them how to fish” kind of thing. The problem is, my “students” often would often rather I just grab a fish for them by fixing the problem at hand.

Once again, I apologize for my lack of visibility in this conversation. I am heartened by the number of people adding further meat to the “dialogue bone”. Recognizing the value of positive conflict through dialogue versus the downward spiral of destructive conflict is a crucial point here. Collaboration and growth invite conflict. I would not want anyone to misconstrue my comments as being anti-conflict or an attempt to encourage conflict avoidance. Rather, I seek growth through the dialogue around divergent perspectives. Divergence is critical in our work. I AM asking for a positive approach to divergence. I am asking that we actively seek MORE insights versus attacking differing insights.

Remember, escalation is: “My fix is your nightmare and you have to lose in order for me to win.” This is a broken system. I can’t support a continued embrace of a broken system.

Finally, I am writing a follow-up post to this one to provide some further thoughts on systems thinking and the escalation model in particular.

Thanks,
Jean

We can all lose, right now, by participating in total de-stablization and self-destruction at the level of “system” (aka “community” or “group”)

Alternately, we can face reality and make changes to it, by participating in the shaping of something new and great.

Those are the two choices we face now.

Jean calls this out; Jean is a real leader.

I like Jean’s vision and I sign up now with her to advance the work. The actions I take now are listed here:

Group Relations Note dated 10/24/2009
http://www.newtechusa.com/agileboston/notes/GroupRelations.htm

This is a note regarding my strong interest in focusing the attention of the Agile/Scrum community towards Group Relations theory, practice and conferences.

I believe if enough Agile/Scrum leaders simply do some preparation and actually attend a Group Relations conference, we can advance the Agile/Scrum work. This is achievable by raising awareness of how we act and react in often completely unconscious ways as we participate in group life.

I wanted to talk about the research of John Gottman and the importance of positivity in a community and on a team, to which your post seems to point. It was way too long for this forum, so it became its own blog post at: http://collectiveedgecoaching.com/2009/10/conflict-diversity-appreciation/ .

Thanks to all the thoughtful comments from others as well. This is a very varied community!

Jean specifically pointed out valuing “dialogue over debate”. I often start retrospectives with a Focus On/Off exercise from Diana and Esther’s Retro book, in which we help participants think through how their own behavior and words might change if they agree to value dialogue over debate.

Meanwhile, in these comments, I read lots of people discussing the merits of “good” debate and “bad” debate. What if we don’t debate at all? (Picture high school debate society, and the focus on “winning”.) What if we have a dialogue, with a goal of improving our collective knowledge and understanding and a goal of each having more agile practices to offer our teams? How would that change the way we conducted these exchanges?

I prefer the expression, ‘drinking our own champagne.’ It kind of puts a more positive spin on it.

It’s very interesting that this discussion is happening here and not say, on scrum-development or leanagile. But since we have the Internet, everything which must be said does get said, and this discussion obviously needed to happen.

Cheers,
Peter

P.S. nice to meet you.

First and foremost, I appreciate you for all your incredible insights and your willingness to share with with regard to my post. I hadn’t expected the number of replies. I value you taking the time to let me know how the post impacted you.

Secondly, and very importantly, I want to apologize for my lack of engagement in the discussion. I have been dealing with extensive travel (with no internet access) and then serious network issues with my machine now that I am terra firma in Melbourne, Australia.

So please do not take my silence as ignoring or hiding from all that is being shared here. Rather, I am hoping to write another post when I have better internet access in a hope to offer more information around what I mean by escalation and what I find negative and non-useful about it.

Finally, “eating my own dog food”, I hope you can hear me that I am not attempting to point any fingers at any person here. Rather, I am eager to offer a notion that concentrating on positive work, positive dialogue, and growth-oriented divergence is different and more powerful than an escalation stance. This is just systems thinking at work. I’ll try to explain more of that theory and practice moving forward. Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to decide whether we are on an up escalator or not, or if we create up escalators. (Okay, that is all my terminology, so don’t bother looking that up!)

Again, thanks for the many great reinforcing as well as challenging comments. I’m eager to stay engaged and hope to do so once my Mac decides to let me talk to the world again. (Maybe it didn’t like my post :- (

Regardless of the motives for any commentary – whether playful conflict, flame-war or frustration, with so many onlookers and so many bright passionate people, the sudden speed and scale at which differing views becomes an escalation *is* worrying. Presenting agressive commentary without setting the stage doesn’t smell very good. This is why we value face-to-face communication – we can see the smiles, frowns or tears on people’s faces as they’re shouting and act appropriately.

A blind mob onrush towards “sides” may fan the flames of what may simply start out as an expression of taste or frustration. Many of us (myself included) don’t have context but are still wanting to chime in with our views and support towards people we respect. Are we adding value or just laying in the boot?

Any large community or close-knit team will face conflict – it’s inevitable. The challenge is in how to spot it coming and set context, manage the conflict through, look for the underlying causes and learn together.

The selection of flavors; Agile or Lean, Scrum or Kanban – They’re all ice cream, some go better together as combinations and some just taste better to individuals than others.

Given the above, where’s this heading and what do we as a whole community need to observe, learn and change?