I am an adjunct faculty member for Mountain State University in their School of Leadership and Professional Development Program. One of the books we use is Peter M Senge’s “The FIfth Discipline”

In a discussion, different views are presented and defended …. In dialogue, different views are presented as ameans toward discovering a new view.  In a discussion, decisions are made.  In a dialogue, complex issues are explored.  When a team must reach agreement and decisions must be taken, some discussion is needed.

In class, one of the students mentioned that when problems arise in his department, the shot-gun approach is to have a quick discussion focusing on the outcome, the end result.

When this happens with my clients, more often than not, the root cause is not even mentioned.  We are on a hamster wheel, running and running and getting nowhere.  We go for the ‘quick fix’ and are content using band-aids for long-term solutions.

Coming to a quick solution can cause friction among team members.

Those people that need to think problems, and solutions, through get irritated when they are not able to process information in the manner they feel most comfortable with.

People on the other end will make quick decisions, preferring to hear only the highpoints and not too much of the minutia.  They will make their quick decisions based on the most important facts.  They become frustrated when others don’t make the same snap decisions.

It is these times that friction can escalate into conflict.   Once conflict rears its ugly head, it becomes a more serious situation.

It isn’t what you said, it’s what they think they heard.

Tags: behaviors, communication style, communications, conflict, Fifth Discipline, friction, Mountain State University, personality style, Peter Senge

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 10:09 am and is filed under communication, human factors, intention, interpretation, leadership, listening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.