The primary techniques for resolving conflict are Smoothing, Forcing, Withdrawal, Compromise and Confronting. Love can be used to in a dysfunctional way to resolve conflict through smothering. The elusive seventh conflict resolution technique is Aligning.
The stages of team formation are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning.
The primary work place motivations are Affiliation, Power and Achievement. A fourth state of being is chaos which leads to dysfunction. The missing work place motivation is Alignment.
The primary styles of management are typically known as Delegating, Directing, Selling and Participation. Delegating is typically erroneously associated with absentee management. True delegating presumes an alignment and is thus better known as Aligned management.
Dissonance conveys information. Learning occurs when we perceive a gap between what we know and what we could value. Dissonance creates that perception.
| In the anesthetized state we turn inward. We disregard the antagonism and ignore the dissonance. We can chose to turn inward in order to meditate, contemplate or pray. We accept anesthetization when we blot out the world by focusing on entertainment. It is not uncommon to exit the anesthetized state by turning towards antagonism and transitioning to a state of conflict. The goal of spiritual disciplines is to allow us to turn inward to meditation and then exit from there to a transforming state. |
| The most extreme form of conflict is war. The formula for creating war is to squelch the dissonance and mobilize the antagonism. Patriotism and religion are often misused to promote unity and thereby minimize dissention. Those same tools are often misused to amplify conflict and intolerance. If dissention persists then we exit conflict and go to chaos. Typically, however, once the hostilities cease we turn inward and become anesthetized. | 
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| In order to transform our self or our immediate environment we need to dampen the antagonism. As long as we feel threatened we are blocked from change. If we feel no antagonism then we have a tendency to become anesthetized. The key to transformation is to amplify the dissonance. Teaching is a technique for creating a non-threatening environment while demonstrating the gap between what we know and what is possible. Learning is the simplest form of transformation. |
| Our goal should be alignment. Alignment of our self. Alignment with those around us. Alignment with God. And alignment of all humanity. The description of the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus is a vision of alignment between humanity and the will of God. The concept of Satyagraha taught by Gandhi is an aligning technique. The dream described by Martin Luther King, Jr. is a vision of an alignment. |
There are four factors that will lead us to alignment.
- First, we must be willing to hear the dissonance and learn to seek it.
- Second we must not only stop our antagonism, we must turn our antagonism into love.
- Third we need to work at this.
- And the fourth factor is time. It takes time to get there.
