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| Conflict Tool #4: See the world through their eyes Safely tuck away your own perspective for now |
In this section I want to convince you that we all have different views of reality, and in
conflict especially, our views can easily be distorted. This tool can offer you an invaluable
alternative perspective, and what could be more valuable than understanding the
perspective of the person with whom you are negotiating? To see the world through their
eyes, you are going to have to deep breath, and set aside your own view for now.
Looking through your lens
Hocker and Wilmot in their book "Interpersonal Conflict" use the metaphor of viewing
conflict through a lens, as if you are wearing a pair of glasses. They say we each have
our own specific view of ourselves, the other person and our relationship. The view we
each have is shaped by so many things, including our culture and life experience. To you,
it looks crystal clear. It’s reality, period. But others have their own lens and their reality
can be very different, and just as crystal clear.
Your lens changes with life experience, mood, health, stress, sleep, your circadian
rhythms and the time of day. How you view a given situation today can be very different
from how you view it tonight, tomorrow morning, next week, next year, later in life, etc. But
your lens isn't reality for everybody. As right as you think you are, a neutral third person
with a third lens, listening calmly to both of you state your case will almost certainly see
both points of view.
Recall a time when a friend or an acquaintance told you how they’d been wronged by
someone. Maybe you were at a social gathering and someone was telling you how they’d
been cheated by their contractor, or their boss was out to get them, or their former
spouse was making outrageous demands during the divorce. We immediately sympathize
with those people don’t we? It’s always a compelling story and you always wonder how the
other can behave so poorly when this person has done nothing wrong and clearly
deserves better treatment. Of course we sympathize with them; we’ve taken the
opportunity to see the world through their eyes.
Attribution Theory
Not only do you need to see the others perspective, you need to consider that your own
perspective is distorted. In the course of my conflict resolution studies I came across a
concept called Attribution Theory. It struck me that this was at the heart of the conflicts I
dealt with as a mediator.
With respect to conflict, Attribution theory says we tend to explain our behavior and
consequences in ways that make us look better in order to maintain our own self-esteem.
1) My behavior is a result of the situation but your behavior is intentional.
2) If good things happened it was because of me, but if bad things happened it was
because of you or the situation.
Here’s an example (from the West Virginia University website):
You are taking a class and you get test results back. You take a peek and see, ahhhhh, a
65%. You think about these disappointing results for a minute and realize what a lousy
teacher you've got and how badly written the textbook is and how unfair the test was and .
. . you make a lot of external attributions. What caused the 65%? Events outside of you.
External things.
Now, on the next test you take a peek and see, ahhhh, a 95%. Well, what can I say?
When you're hot, you're hot. If you've got it, flaunt it. Some people are born great.
Where's the causality? Inside of you, right? You assign causality to factors within the
person and make internal attributions.
My experience is that in conflict, we create this view of reality in which we’re right we’ve
behaved appropriately and we have good intentions; but the other person is wrong, has
behaved poorly and has malicious intentions. And because they’ve got a different view of
reality, we may even say they’re dishonest because they are misrepresenting what we
know to be true. We start viewing them as unreasonable and untrustworthy, we lose
respect for them and start fighting rather than trying to work with them as equals. And at
the same time, this is happening to them as well!
Summing it up
Safely tucking away your own perspective long enough to see the world through their
eyes opens the doors to communication and gives you invaluable insight to potential
solutions. People usually don’t do this because they don’t want to be perceived as
showing any weakness or inclination to validate the others point of view, but in the
process they create a huge barrier to communication. It’s safe to tuck away your own
perspective temporarily so you can listen and learn more effectively. You haven’t given
any ground, but you’ve learned valuable new information, exerted a calming influence on
the conflict, improved your communication and trust, and opened the door for them to
want to better understand your perspective.
conflict especially, our views can easily be distorted. This tool can offer you an invaluable
alternative perspective, and what could be more valuable than understanding the
perspective of the person with whom you are negotiating? To see the world through their
eyes, you are going to have to deep breath, and set aside your own view for now.
Looking through your lens
Hocker and Wilmot in their book "Interpersonal Conflict" use the metaphor of viewing
conflict through a lens, as if you are wearing a pair of glasses. They say we each have
our own specific view of ourselves, the other person and our relationship. The view we
each have is shaped by so many things, including our culture and life experience. To you,
it looks crystal clear. It’s reality, period. But others have their own lens and their reality
can be very different, and just as crystal clear.
Your lens changes with life experience, mood, health, stress, sleep, your circadian
rhythms and the time of day. How you view a given situation today can be very different
from how you view it tonight, tomorrow morning, next week, next year, later in life, etc. But
your lens isn't reality for everybody. As right as you think you are, a neutral third person
with a third lens, listening calmly to both of you state your case will almost certainly see
both points of view.
Recall a time when a friend or an acquaintance told you how they’d been wronged by
someone. Maybe you were at a social gathering and someone was telling you how they’d
been cheated by their contractor, or their boss was out to get them, or their former
spouse was making outrageous demands during the divorce. We immediately sympathize
with those people don’t we? It’s always a compelling story and you always wonder how the
other can behave so poorly when this person has done nothing wrong and clearly
deserves better treatment. Of course we sympathize with them; we’ve taken the
opportunity to see the world through their eyes.
Attribution Theory
Not only do you need to see the others perspective, you need to consider that your own
perspective is distorted. In the course of my conflict resolution studies I came across a
concept called Attribution Theory. It struck me that this was at the heart of the conflicts I
dealt with as a mediator.
With respect to conflict, Attribution theory says we tend to explain our behavior and
consequences in ways that make us look better in order to maintain our own self-esteem.
1) My behavior is a result of the situation but your behavior is intentional.
2) If good things happened it was because of me, but if bad things happened it was
because of you or the situation.
Here’s an example (from the West Virginia University website):
You are taking a class and you get test results back. You take a peek and see, ahhhhh, a
65%. You think about these disappointing results for a minute and realize what a lousy
teacher you've got and how badly written the textbook is and how unfair the test was and .
. . you make a lot of external attributions. What caused the 65%? Events outside of you.
External things.
Now, on the next test you take a peek and see, ahhhh, a 95%. Well, what can I say?
When you're hot, you're hot. If you've got it, flaunt it. Some people are born great.
Where's the causality? Inside of you, right? You assign causality to factors within the
person and make internal attributions.
My experience is that in conflict, we create this view of reality in which we’re right we’ve
behaved appropriately and we have good intentions; but the other person is wrong, has
behaved poorly and has malicious intentions. And because they’ve got a different view of
reality, we may even say they’re dishonest because they are misrepresenting what we
know to be true. We start viewing them as unreasonable and untrustworthy, we lose
respect for them and start fighting rather than trying to work with them as equals. And at
the same time, this is happening to them as well!
Summing it up
Safely tucking away your own perspective long enough to see the world through their
eyes opens the doors to communication and gives you invaluable insight to potential
solutions. People usually don’t do this because they don’t want to be perceived as
showing any weakness or inclination to validate the others point of view, but in the
process they create a huge barrier to communication. It’s safe to tuck away your own
perspective temporarily so you can listen and learn more effectively. You haven’t given
any ground, but you’ve learned valuable new information, exerted a calming influence on
the conflict, improved your communication and trust, and opened the door for them to
want to better understand your perspective.
| “Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river.” - Cyril Connolly |
| Exercise Think of a recent conflict. Pretend you are the other person describing their perspective of this conflict to someone else. Describe it in detail as you imagine they would. Use the words they would use. Do not exaggerate any points that relate to your perspective. Your perspective does not exist for the purposes of this exercise (you have set it aside for now). If they were there listening to you, would they agree you described it exactly as they would have? |
| Workplace Collaboration |
| Helping business professionals communicate |
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| Richard Trimble, PE WMA Certified Mediator IAF Certified Facilitator Seattle, Washington 206-403-8202 |