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STEWART LEVINE
The Cycle of Resolution Conversational Competence for Sustainable Collaboration
Covenantal relationships induce freedom, not paralysis. A Covenantal relationship rests on shared commitment to ideas, to issues, to values, to goals…. Words such as love, warmth, personal chemistry are certainly pertinent.
—Max DePree
Developing Conversation Skills
Gail Johnson is the executive director of Sierra Adoption, a nonprofit transforming lives of foster children through finding permanent adoptive families. Thousands of children are trapped in the California foster care system, out of reach of adoptive families. More than half of foster youth who come of age without a permanent family are homeless, in prison, or dead within two years. Gail’s success recruiting and preparing families to adopt children with disabilities often ended in the frustration of being told such children were “unadoptable.” Because of Gail’s work, California no longer considers any child unadoptable!
In 1999, Sierra was engaged in a federally funded partnership with the Sacramento County agency that was referring children to Sierra. The working relationship had fallen apart. Gail wanted to resolve long- and short-term conflict, get beyond mistrust, and forge a high-performance team. Few believed the partnership could be salvaged, let alone become a high-performance team. Using the Cycle of Resolution, the conflicts were resolved and a working agreement was structured in a short period of time. That agreement was the foundation for a healthy, productive partnership with a new vision of sustainable collaboration. In the first year following the intervention, 109 “unadoptable” children were placed in permanent families.
Change happened because the conversational process of the Cycle of Resolution forged a shared vision and a high-performance team that enabled the realization of Gail’s vision of “unadoptable” children with real homes.
Frequently Asked Questions
HOW DOES THE CYCLE OF RESOLUTION WORK?
This change model provides a set of principles and conversational protocols that provide a road map for difficult conversations people often avoid. They are reluctant to engage because they do not have a map to navigate through difficult conversations. They do not know how to get into, through, and out of the dialogues. The Cycle of Resolution leads to an “agreement for results” that serves as a map and project manager to desired outcomes. The premise of the method is that:
The effectiveness of any collaboration and any organization reflects the quality of the relationships that constitute the enterprise; and, the relationships reflect the quality of agreements among the participants. The goal of the interventions is sustainable collaboration and a “culture of agreement and resolution” where everyone has the same vision, the same path to get there, and the same tools to keep them on track.
The first part of the process is developing an attitude of resolution—enrolling people through the realization of just how large the huge cost of conflict really is and understanding that most conflict is not about bad intention—most conflict is structural, a function of different individual characteristics, needs, and outcomes. Different needs and the lack of clear explicit agreements lead to conflict. Few people have ever learned what to speak about when they want to prevent conflict and collaborate effectively. They do not have the map to solid “agreement for results,” the basic building blocks of collaborations and organizational culture. The ability to engage in such a dialogue requires some basic traditional communication skills (self-awareness, listening, and emotional intelligence), a desire to embrace the principles that make up the “attitude of resolution,” and knowledge of the conversational steps.
Another key premise is that no matter how good the agreement on the front end, conflict will arise because of changing and unforeseen circumstances, incompleteness, and personal challenges. Besides crafting good agreements, an important aim of the intervention is to “normalize” conflict so that people will not remain emotionally triggered—they internalize the skills and temperament to get through the “white water” that is challenging them on the way to the skill and goal of reaching more effective agreements. The long-term goal is the realization that when disagreements occur, a fight does not have to follow—you just need a new agreement. When an organization, or a collaborative partnership of any kind, embraces the cyclical process—the Cycle of Resolution—there is little drain on productive capacity; they realize the empowering alignment resolution and agreement brings.
The key aspects of the method include:
1. Understanding the Costs of Conflict:
• Direct Cost—The cost of professional help
• Productivity and Opportunity Costs—lost time and diminished productive capacity
• Relational and Continuity Costs—The real cost of replacement
• Emotional Costs—The immeasurable drain
2. Cycle of Resolution (figure 1):
• Attitude of Resolution—mind-set and principles for engagement
• Telling the Story—everyone sharing how they see the situation
Figure 1. The Cycle of Resolution
• Preliminary Vision—what might be fair and take care of everyone’s concerns
• Getting Current and Complete—a structured way of processing emotions
• Agreement in Principle—the broad-brush new vision for the future
• New Agreement—the details of the new vision and road map
• Resolution—back in action, with no constraints on full engagement
3. Ten Essential Elements of “Agreements for Results”:
• Intent and Vision—a picture of the desired outcome
• Roles—who is responsible for what
• Promises—what people will do
• Time and Value—how long and what will each person receive
• Measurements of Satisfaction—the metric that measures success
• Concerns, Risks, and Fears—what’s creating fear of moving forward
• Renegotiation—the ability to make changes
• Consequences—what is the loss if the vision is not achieved
• Conflict Resolution—the method to use when conflict occurs
• Agreement—meeting of mind and heart, the assessment of trust
4. Principles of the “Attitude of Resolution”:
• Abundance—there is enough for everyone
• Efficiency—what is the quickest, most effective way to get to resolution
• Creativity—the ability to meet in a shared space and invent
• Fostering Resolution—does the communication process encourage resolution
• Openness—full disclosure of facts and feelings
• Long-Term Perspective—the opposite of winning today
• Respecting Feelings—they are real and need to be accommodated
• Disclosure—no holding back
• Learning—allowing the shifting of positions as you learn each other’s perspective
• Responsibility—resolution cannot be delegated
5. The Law and Principles of Agreement: A detailed set of guidelines flowing from the basic law that “Collaboration is established in language by making implicit (talking to yourself about what you think the agreement is) and explicit (discussing the agreement with others) agreements.”
6. Laws of Manifestation: The power of our thinking and engaging brings our vision into being. The clearer our thoughts and agreements, the more powerful the results will be.
Table of Uses
About the Author
Stewart Levine (www.ResolutionWorks.com) creates agreement and empowerment in challenging circumstances using his conversational models to create “Agreements for Results.” Clients include government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and Fortune 500 companies. Getting to Resolution was an Executive Book Club selection, featured by Executive Book Summaries, named one of the 30 Best Business Books of 1998, and called “a marvelous book” by Dr. Stephen Covey. The Book of Agreement (Berrett-Koehler, 2003) has been called “more practical” than the classic Getting to Yes and named one of the best books of 2003 by CEO Refresher (www.Refresher.com). Levine is an instructor for the American Management Association.
Where to Go for More Information
REFERENCES
Levine, Stewart. The Book of Agreement: 10 Essential Elements for Getting the Results You Want. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003.
———. Getting to Resolution: Turning Conflict into Collaboration (Russian, Portuguese translations). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998.
Resolutionary Thinking Newsletter.www.ResolutionWorks.com.
ORGANIZATION
Resolution Works Online—www.ResolutionWorks.com
For information about ResolutionWorksOnline, a new eLearning program, contact Stewart Levine: [email protected] or (510) 777-1166.