Because I manage an organizational change consulting firm, I am often asked to describe my work (and am thankful for that request when it occurs).
Upon reflection, I have seen that describing myself as a psychologist, though certainly true, leaves out more than it might convey.
I am not a scholar, nor do I see myself as a researcher in the formal sense of the word.
Instead, my work, and the enormous energy, curiosity, and (often) joy that it generates in me, are best understood as that of a craft.
Much as might a violinmaker or builder of furniture, I have devoted my career to the enhancement, and refinement, of the skills of application of a (relatively) few rather simple tools to aspects of social interaction so common as to sometimes go unnoticed.
My tools are borne of psychological theory, research, and my years of less formal observation. I apply these tools to phenomena that are the very fabric of interpersonal life. I am particularly interested in the resolution of interpersonal and small-group conflict. That is because of the many aspects of group life that I have had the opportunity to observe, it is the resolution of such conflict that seems to have the greatest benefit of group cohesion, relationship building, and accelerated development of creativity and growth. If I were to borrow the language of my many colleagues from the corporate world, I would say that of the many aspects of group life, “conflict well-resolved has the greatest leverage.”
As I started to think about what I might write here, I soon came to see that conveying the substance of my conflict resolution methodology on the printed page was all but impossible. My initial attempts were something akin to describing dancing in print: “Be sure to move your left foot just a bit further forward as the music starts...
Rather than engaging in that folly, I will describe here the concepts that have driven the development and refinement of my methodology and will make suggestions about ways that others can build upon these ideas as they work to improve their own methodologies for the productive resolution of small-group conflict.