USE OF REFLECTION DURING CONFLICT

Imagine a marketing manager named Sue who has been appointed as the only female on a task force that has been put together to bring certain financial services out to new markets by using data-based delivery systems.

If Sue engages in single-loop learning about her conflict with Bob, she might reflect on the tactics she used in addressing the roadblock. She might consider that Bob and she are actually aligned around the goal and simply disagree on tactics, for example, whether they needed more data, whether ThinkRight was the best consultant group, or whether there was a better way to check out the group’s assumptions. She might also reimmerse herself in her gut feelings about the experience and check her intuition. She would look at her style of presentation, nonverbal cues about how her peers might perceive her, and a holistic sense of what she thought was taking place.

If Sue engages in double-loop learning, she might wonder if she had framed the problem correctly in the first place; that is, was there a more fundamen­tal disagreement in the group than the choice of the delivery system for finan­cial services? She might probe her level of comfort and skill in managing power dynamics. How was she responding to the situation, what sense did she have of Bob, and how were her emotions influencing her demeanor? She would ask herself whether she was, indeed, railroading a decision. Sue might raise the question of her gender, perhaps in a semijoking manner, as had Bob, but she would not try to ignore this comment. She might throw it back on the group by stating how she felt and asking others how they felt. She might ask people to consider the way their group had been working together and thus open up a discussion of underlying group dynamics that might be affecting their interactions.

If Sue probes into assumptions and beliefs, she would open up further avenues for discussion that others might not have considered or that they might consider to be not discussible. Doing so could open up the group to new ways of thinking about the problem, or it could exacerbate the conflict, depending on how Sue addressed the issues and how others interacted with her in pursuing their analysis.