This chapter begins in practice and works backward toward the theoretical question: Are there situations where managing conflict is enough... in which our socialized desire for conflict resolution may be more than is really needed for joint action?
We live in a world in which our environment is continuously changing. Organizations and communities are constantly dealing with new developments and pressures. A predictable and stable world surrounding organizations and communities is a luxury we used to take for granted that no longer exists.
In the United States, we are also living in communities and in organizations at work in which our diversity and our awareness of our differences in values, ethnicity, religion is increasing. Learning to manage these differences is becoming ever more important. This new situation requires organizations that are far more flexible and responsive than those in our past. It requires communities to develop ways of gathering people for input and planning immediately, not six months hence. It requires methods that can acknowledge and deal with differences, not suppress them in the service of homogeneity.Over the last fifteen years, practitioners who consult with organizations and communities have developed large-group methods of working with “the whole system” in large groups. These remarkable Large-Group Methods allow groups from fifty to several thousand to gather and work together. Billie Alban, an internationally known organization development (OD) practitioner and I have been studying these methods since the early 1990s. Our book, Large Group Interventions: Engaging the Whole System for Rapid Change (Bunker and Alban, 1997) is a conceptual overview of twelve major methods, what underlies their effectiveness, and why they work. In March 2005, we edited a special issue of The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, which presented recent trends and developments in the use of these methods. This chapter represents our most recent thinking as we continue to develop our understanding of what these methods can do and how they work. The first three sections are about each of the types of methods now in use. The three types are Methods for Creating the Future, Methods of Work Design, and Methods for Discussion and Decision Making. After an explanation of each type of Large- Group Method and a case example, I will describe and speculate about the processes that allow conflict to be managed and sometimes resolved in these events. In the final section, underlying principles that make these methods effective in dealing with differences will be proposed.