Management came up with:
"We manage with uncompromising integrity."
Workers rephrased it to say:
"We manipulate with inflexible righteousness."
This is an excellent example of how too great a perceived (whether actual or
not, the response will be the same if it's perceived) imbalance of power can
throw a monkey wrench into good communication and collaboration. If workers
have a sense of no control and feel they're on the receiving end of
narrow-minded manipulation, then how much can they be expected to cooperate
and expose more vulnerabilities. On the other hand, if management has such an
apparent sense of responsibility and vision, yet finds their efforts to
publicly make a commitment to integrity turned into what likely feels like an
insult, how much can they be expected to continue to involve staff in
collaborative work?
What typically happens in a situation like this, is that the level of trust
diminishes as each party either lashes out or increases their reluctance to
engage with the other until they can't work together at all. For me, this is
where real leadership comes in (and yes, everyone is responsible for and
capable of leadership, not just management). Without a neutral third party to
facilitate, since not every situation has that luxury, the true leaders have
to set aside their own fears and address the concerns of "the other side" as
though they aren't the other side. Without some degree of courage and
compassion guiding their actions, they'll never reach the level of an LO
organization, and will merely become a CYA (cover your you-know-what)
organization. The difficulty is in teaching people to be guided by compassion
rather than fear (what I try to do in my Conflict Dojo workshops -
unfortunately that's something that realistically only a few can experience,
and I have no brilliant ideas for sharing it with the rest of the world except
to try to get the ideas across in the book I'm writing, Compassionate
Conflict). Anyway, I'm curious to know what intervenetions, if any, that
organization took to deal with the obvious disparity between how management
and staff viewed the proposed mission statement.
Scott, you shared a great quote: "Trust is the Residue of Promises
Fullfilled." Will you please let me know who originally said it? Thanks.
Jill
Jill Johnson and Associates, Inc.
Specializing in THE CONFLICT DOJO:
Conflict Management Training based on the ancient teachings of the martial
arts
12932 SE 272 ST, #242 Kent, WA 98031 USA
206-631-0717
206-639-0776 fax
jj@wolfenet.com
http://www.wolfenet.com./~jj/
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