A key role of leadership is helping people overcome challenges and achieve results. In this article/podcast, you will discover a new process to help you reframe conflicts. This approach will enable you to lead your teams beyond just meeting challenges resiliently. You will empower them to unleash personal and professional growth.

One morning at breakfast, Sara described a conflict between two people we love. Feeling their struggle and pain, she sought to find an insight that would help them reach an effective solution. She asked, “What do you think about this conflict? How would you approach the challenge that it represents?”   

Pouring the green tea, I replied, “First we must recognize that most people have a natural tendency to apply a binary frame of mind. That is, when we see a problem, we react by attempting to solve it there and then. We tend to equate conflict with something bad that needs to be removed. This mistaken belief prevents our taking advantage of the opportunity inherent in most conflicts. The fact is conflicts can lead to breakthrough developments. Thus, my first suggestion is to avoid falling into the trap of reactive ‘solutioning’ by creating space for a different approach.”

Why is trying to pivot immediately from a problem to the solution often a suboptimal approach?

There are situations for which this simple binary equation doesn’t work because the solution cannot come from the problem itself. As Einstein taught us, we cannot solve a problem at the same level at which it was created.  

A brief demonstration reveals the limitation of the “binary solutioning” approach. Position the palm of your hand close to your head, right in front of your eyes. You will find that the palm occupies almost your entire field of vision, leaving little room to see anything else. When you pull your hand away from your face, however, you can see your palm as well as the entire space around you. The same is true with a problem: you experience a new perspective when you step back to see a bigger picture.

We find solutions, therefore, by a) gaining a new and broader perspective, b) addressing the root causes, and c) introducing a new level of thinking that transforms the map of meaning that created the problem in the first place.

Here is the alternative thinking framework and process I proposed we use to lead a conversation that offers a path from conflict toward resolution. I placed three napkins on the table, naming them observe, elevate, and approach.

Step 1: Observe

After listening to Sara describe her understanding of the conflict under discussion, my observation is that there are six points of difference that comprise the bigger conflict. I attempt to unpack these differences, name them with greater specificity, and separate the amorphous feeling of conflict into a concrete set of data points. This first step allows me to bring a new level of clarity to the situation. It is easier to resolve a series of specific concerns and find exact remedies than it is to try to address a cloud of conflicts. In this, I step back to observe and gain a bigger perspective. I seek to validate the issues on the table rather than pivot immediately from problem to solution. 

Step 2: Elevate

In step 2 of this discovery process, I look for an insight, an understanding, and an appreciation that elevates and enables a new point of view. Here is what I offered:

“Life is full of tensions and conflicts. Consider this fact: life is a theater in which intentions clash with reality. Tension arises when hopes and desires encounter opposing or incompatible hopes and desires. For example, the spiritual meets the physical, or the personal and the universal rub against each other and rarely agree. Such naturally arising tensions are present even before we bring value systems, beliefs, politics and economic conditions into the equation. These contradictions create fertile soil for conflict, especially when we consider that these realms are dynamic and evolving spheres that influence and interact with each other.”

By immersing myself in these observations, I am prodded to find the fulcrum where a new level of appreciation can be accessed, which I do by shifting from the “what” inquiry to the “why” inquiry. “Why” is a purpose inquiry. Instead of reacting to eliminate conflict immediately, I seek to understand its purpose. The game-changing insight comes with the realization that conflict has a purpose. I propose not only that the occurrence of conflict is purposeful, but that conflict has a dual purpose.

At the individual human level, conflict offers a growth opportunity. Through conflict we develop capabilities and capacities that we otherwise would not cultivate. Conflict is a central character in the developmental drama of everyone’s journey.

At the planetary and universal level, conflict is a technology that sparks innovation and breakthroughs in the evolutionary process by serving as a catalyst and trigger.

A common human response to conflict is to remove the problem, as that is believed to eliminate the source of pain and struggle. Once we recognize the purposeful opportunity conflict offers, we realize that a better approach is to use pain and struggle as fuel for learning, development, and growth.

These layers of understanding point to a key realization: how we handle conflict determines whether we grow and develop, or we freeze and arrest that development.

Our response to challenges and resistance determines whether we participate constructively in the evolutionary process they offer. This process of deliberation is part of my second napkin of “elevate,” which arises from the initial set of observations.

With these insights, I now am ready to propose an approach and offer process assistance.

Step 3: Approach

In this step, I suggest that there are two complementary approaches we can take with respect to conflict. The first approach is one of compassionate support: we offer encouragement, guidance, thinking frameworks and techniques without trying to take away the conflicts people encounter on their development journey.

In this approach, we advise, support, and offer the wisdom of experience. We do not, however, take from others a conflict they must face. Even if we could do that, why would we deprive them of the gift of the growth opportunity inherent in their struggle?

The second approach is one that acknowledges that progress, maturation and growth bring about change in the problems we need to handle. If this year we face the same kind of problems we struggled with last year and the year before, the implication is that we have made no developmental change and progress. Embracing new challenges, on the other hand, is a sign of progress, maturation and possibly new elevation.

How do we know that we are progressing on our journey? When we discover that this year we are dealing with a new set of challenges that open the door to new opportunities for us to embrace.        

By refusing the knee jerk reaction of the binary equation from problem to solution, and by stepping back to observe, elevate, and formulate an approach, we are able to escape the Binary Solutioning and the Einstein paradox within it. 

Fortified by the above insights and mindsets, Sara and I continued our conversation, reflecting on how this information might help address the situation faced by our loved ones.

We all must deal with conflict. Here is a radical thought: to be alive is to be in conflict. Reversing this construct would ask: If you are experiencing no conflict whatsoever, are you alive?

What about the conflicts you face in your life? What observations and insights can you develop? What approach will you take to reveal and engage the development purpose of the conflict? How will you use an existing challenge as an opportunity for growth?

FULL SHOW NOTES: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf24

Welcome to Create New Futures. Every episode, best-selling author and host Aviv Shahar will explore ideas and insights that can awaken and inspire you to the opportunities you have to create new futures for you, your family, your teams, and for your business. Life is too short to not be engaged in fascinating conversations that open, inspire and unleash new ways of thinking and seeing possibilities and beauty in life that work.

Through Create New Futures, Aviv will be having conversations with leaders, experts and interesting people to explore ideas and reflect on practices that you can use and apply to create and shape the future. With his guests, Aviv will put a magnifying glass on strategies and frameworks that he has applied to help senior executives and their teams achieve significant breakthroughs that lead to game changing results. Ideas, strategies, breakthroughs and practices that you can apply. Through his concept of Architecture Thinking™, Aviv walks you through what is needed to lead, change, transform an organization, redesign your life to achieve new goals, serve new needs and realize new possibilities. Leaders need to consider how to bring about and enable a compound set of outcomes by integrating multiple inputs.

Together with his guests, Aviv will explore how to develop strategy, how to lead to enable teams to unleash their brilliance and what is the inside work that leaders must engage in to develop executive presence and charisma and the capacity to see both the forest and the trees. More than ever, humanity now needs people who are open and prepared to imagine, create, and sustain new futures. This is a time of great transformative and disruptive change. It demands our best imagination, courage, and creativity. Through this podcast, Aviv will inspire you to be tomorrow's agent by creating conversations that birth new possibilities for you and for the people in your life.

Listen here: http://www.avivconsulting.com/podcast-create-new-futures/

After spending 14 years in corporate America, Geoff Bellman launched his consulting firm - 40 years ago.  His consulting has focused on renewing large, mature organizations the likes of Verizon, Shell, and Boeing.

Geoff is also an author and has written such books as, The Consultant’s Calling: Bringing Who You Are to What You Do, which is how I was first introduced to him.  His most recent book, Extraordinary Groups: How Extraordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results, explores teams, families, and groups that perform beyond everyone’s expectations.  In this book, Geoff seeks to find out what enables such breakthrough performance to happen.  Listen in to learn more about Geoff and his insightful views on this fascinating topic.

• How do ordinary people achieve amazing results?
• “Through the exploration of shared purpose that we followed intentionally, we became fond of each other.”
• “I saw myself as an observer of what other people were doing.”
• “The great thing was that other people asked this of me. I was so fortunate that people sought me out to do this work.”
• “I was approaching 40 and I thought if I am going to try this consulting stuff I ought to try it now.”
• “What I was looking for is in the subtitle of my book, The Consultant’s Calling: bringing who you are to what you do. I was looking for the opportunity of being more of myself.”
• “People struggle with, and look forward to discovering who they are more deeply.”
• “I enjoy the work most when the future is unknown, and we are creating a new future- we are not following a path, we are cutting a path. That’s the most exciting work, when together with a client group we are helping a new future emerge.”
• “There is excitement when people feel that they’ve signed up for an important purpose, a noble purpose, a purpose that the world needs.”
• “True friendship creates a space that allows for everyone to grow.”
• In this work, I am called to bring my best self to it. I remind myself what could I do if I acted more in concert with our larger reasons for being.”
• “When we create organizations that expect perfection, we move people to pretending.”
• Your presence and perspective are as important as your skills.
• “What is not just the identity that I have but what’s the identity that I want to have? What is my unique contribution to this world?”
• “Integrity for me has to do with integration of purpose with method. How do we go about doing what it is we want to do?  The alignment of action with higher purpose.”
• “Finding and agreeing on purpose is more difficult, potentially, than many people think.”
• “One of the great things about groups that work extremely well together is not just their unity around purpose, but beyond that, their pursuit of the deeper aspects of it through time.”
• “If we allow people to present themselves as they really are we’ll do better.”
• You become stronger and more whole when you bring who you are to the work you do.
• Dare to step into open, ambiguous, and uncertain terrain where a new future can be fashioned.
• Let yourself discover the creativity and energy that gets released when you work together with others to cut a new path forward.
• Do the work of integrity. What purposeful alignment are you ready to create?  When you do the work of integrity and purpose, you change the world in small and big ways.

FULL SHOW NOTES: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf23

Miguel Gonzalez is the Director of Global Logistics Procurement and Operations at Dupont and the future Chief Procurement Officer for one of three new companies that will be created after Dupont and Dow Chemicals finalize their merger.

He’s a global procurement and supply chain leader with broad experience and his unique skill is translating complex business needs into strategies that accelerates results in both short and long terms.  Miguel has led global teams, has a good grasp of changing market conditions and vast experience when it comes to building and leading resilient and adaptive teams.  I’m happy to introduce him to you and to share the experiences that led him to where he is today.

• Always stay open to see the next opportunity and the next learning.
• How Miguel uses books to internalize accelerated learning. Miguel reads non-fiction books and whitepapers, making notes and annotations in order to refer back to them and apply what he’s learned in the real world.
• How do you convert your experience into tools in your toolbox? You start with an empty toolbox. Then, every experience you have you develop a tool, and you put this tool in your toolbox.   The more experiences you have, the more versatile is your toolbox.  Interacting with great leaders enables you to put great tools in your toolbox.
• How do you thrive in a large enterprise? In large companies it is about understanding the strategies, getting to know the stakeholders and what is important; aligning, communicating, and building the right networks internally and externally.  These are the basics.
• The most important behavior enabling Miguel’s success is trusting first. Open and transparent communication at the outset as a starter location is you build a great collaboration. 
• “Great leaders challenge our thinking by defying the status-quo.”
• “Leaders facilitate the dialogue that frees people from becoming stuck in yesterday.”
• Build strategic relationships. Cultivate trust, mutual respect, and open communication.
• Keep an open mind, continue learning and try to anticipate what the next big thing will be and then seize that opportunity.
• There is a point in life where you’ll have to change to get to the next level.
• You have to plan but you have to be ready because life will change your plans and you need to plan again.
• Every relationship is a learning conversation.
• Be present in the moment to offer your best. Every moment has the potential to open new doors.
• Seek out new experiences. By engaging in new experiences you engender new learning.

FULL SHOW NOTES: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf22