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Conflict harmonisation
 
Stress is accounting for a massively escalating toll not just in dollars, but on the quality of human life. It does not have to be that way and it is yet another major responsibility of the leader and human resource manager to be effective in this area.
  
 


On the outset I should like to ask you to agree for the moment to think of conflict as neither good nor bad; to consider it without ethical pre-judgment; to think of it not as warfare, but as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions, of interests. For that is what conflict means – difference.

As conflict – difference – is here in the world, as we cannot avoid it, we should, I think, use it. Instead of condemning it, we should set it to work for us. Why not? The music of the violin we get from friction. So in business we have to know when to try and eliminate friction and when to try to capitalise it, when to see what work we can make it do.

 
 

Mary Parker Follet 1926

  
Violin
 

In management today the command and control model of management and is becoming more and more resented by those being commanded, particularly when those in command apply domination to conceal their managerial incompetence.

Double-loop learning involves feedback. It occurs when the consequences of actions lead to a questioning of the mental model, the underlying assumptions, that have been driving the action. This evaluating, or reflective practice, at questioning may lead to the amendment of the mental model, the reframing of the problem or opportunity, before action is amended. There is a double-loop in that not only are actions amended, but the model driving the actions is also amended. Successfully implementing double-loop learning requires a new approach – old ways of viewing the world have to be permanently changed.
  
 
 
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