Imagine that it’s two o’clock in the morning and this happens:
Your doorbell rings; you get up, startled, and make your way downstairs. You open the door and see a man standing before you. He wears two diamond rings and a fur coat, and there’s a Rolls Royce behind him. He’s sorry to wake you at this ridiculous hour, he tells you, but he’s in the middle of a scavenger hunt. His ex-wife is in the same contest, which makes it very important to him that he win. He needs a piece of wood about three feet by seven feet. Can you help him? In order to make it worthwhile he’ll give you $10,000. You believe him. He’s obviously rich. And so you say to yourself, how in the world can I get this piece of wood for him? You think of the lumber yard; you don’t know who owns the lumber yard; in fact you’re not even sure where the lumber yard is. It would be closed at two o’clock in the morning anyway. You struggle but can’t come up with anything. Reluctantly, you tell him, “Gee, I’m sorry.”
The next day, when passing a construction site near a friend’s house, you see a piece of wood that’s just the right size, three feet by seven feet – a door. You could have just taken a door off its hinges and given it to him, for $10,000.
Why on earth, you say to yourself, didn’t it occur to you to do that? It didn’t occur to you because yesterday your door was not a piece of wood. The seven-by-three-foot piece of wood was hidden from you, stuck in the category called “door.”
– from Mindfulness
by Ellen Langer
Categories help us navigate our world. They help us order, understand and distinguish between things, people, ideas. But there’s a dark side to categorization: When we over-rely on our categories, they blind us to other ways of viewing and understanding what’s around us. Notes Langer, “We build our own and our shared realities and then we become victims of them – blind to the fact that they are constructs, ideas.”
We suffer from category error in conflict, too. We see someone acting out in a tense moment and label them “aggressive.” We see someone running from a conflict and we label them “avoider” or “wimp.” We observe someone doing something that seems out of character and conclude they’ve become “unpredictable.”
And as we act again and again based on that original diagnosis, we narrow our sight and tune out evidence that contradicts it. We fail to see the loving dad in the man labeled “unpredictable” because we’re too busy viewing his unpredictability. We fail to see all the non-aggressive things that would counter our categorizing the woman in the next cubicle as aggressive. This is precisely why I consider the “dealing with difficult people” approach to conflict resolution a profound failure and disservice – to ourselves and those we work and live with.
There are much more effective ways, and they begin not with diagnosing the other, but with turning our gaze to ourselves.
Hat tip to Dr. Ellen Langer, author of Mindfulness
Conflict Zen® by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at ConfictZen.Lenski.com.
Ha! I'm reminded of Magritte's painting of a pipe, titled, "Ceci n'est pas une Pipe."
Coincidentally, just yesterday, I pulled Ms. Langer's book from my shelf and read the same passage. It helped me address a lawyer's confusion about mediated solutions that do not align with legal norms. This brings to mind, too, the Parable of the Orange (used to explain interest-based negotiation) in which the mother is presented with an orange that her children are fighting over. The mother acts swiftly, and– WHACK– slices the orange down the center. In her mind, this was a simple problem capable of one solution. What else can you do with a round, orange piece of fruit? Hmmm . . . Had she been the least bit curious or the least bit imaginitive, perhaps she may have considered at least one other solution to her children's dilemma. Perhaps that orange could have been peeled . . .
I couldn't agree more – especially when labeling people. Once the DIFFICULT PERSON label is taped onto someone's forehead, it shifts the tone, energy mind set and options as to how you approach them. What if they were actually the person in crisis? or the person acting out of character? or the person having a bad day? or the person with passion? or the person who speaks the truth? Certainly the "problem handling strategy" would be quite different then. The assumption that they are a "problem" not only limits your options to handle the situation, it also determines the tone and attitude you use when interacting with them which then either shuts down or opens up communication.
We all know how it feels when someone has put US into a box; It feels unfair, uncomfortable and unenjoyable it is to be there and once we feel that way- the options of finding a solution have greatly diminished.
Rina, I've used the orange parable in my mediation classes and conflict resolution trainings for years. It's a good one for demonstrating how positional bargaining limits our ability to see great solutions right in front of our eyes.
Susie, I really like your reminder about how uncomfortable and unhappy we are when placed in a box we don't think we belong in. And thanks for your support for undermining that sacred cow, "dealing with difficult people."
Hi Tammy!
I will admit — I struggle with this. Maybe you can shed some light for me?
How does one avoid "labeling" and not go down the road of a sort of …. pollyanna-ish papering over of very real patterns of unacceptable or even abusive behavior?
The unpredictable father does real damage to his children. It doesn't mean he's Satan incarnate, but by that same token, it doesn't mean that whatever positive attributes he may possess are adequate compensation for his pattern of unpredictability.
I recently said the following to someone dear to me in an email who is ending a significant relationship in his life and trying to paint his ex in what looks to me like an overly positive light that treads into the territory of denying real harm that has been done…and thus negating any call for accountability, let alone change, on that person's part. This is, IMO, not a good thing:
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I tend to be much more guarded than you are when there is a history of meanness, manipulation, and/or unpredictable moods and inconsistent behavior on someone's part — even if I love them dearly. After what I went through at my ex-husband's hands, it just… scares me, mostly because I know ***it will not change if the person is not actively working with a therapist on making that change happen.***
Based on a number of things you and others close to you have told me as well as things I have observed myself, there is a history of meanness, manipulativeness, unpredictable moods, and inconsistent behavior on this person's part, and that concerns me for you.
Kindness, respect for autonomy, and consistency are things I highly prize, in part because they are things I work hard to bring to the table in my relationships. Take those things away and I begin to lose any desire to associate with that person, no matter how close we've been in the past.
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What am I missing?
Thanks!,
Pat
Hi, Pat — The danger in categorization isn't that we do it, it's that we (a) never reconsider the category we've put someone in and (b) tend to put someone in a single category — they're only a "door" instead of both a "door" and a "piece of wood."
The devil about (a) is that this presents the danger of what's called a "self-reinforcing loop" in systems theory — when we conclude something about someone, we tend to subconsciously reinforce that conclusion by noticing the information that supports it and ignoring the information that doesn't. It's one of the reasons mediators and conflict coaches can be so helpful — we come in with fresh eyes and ears.
The devil about (b) is the kind of mindlessness Langer writes about — I'd even call it "relational mindlessness" in our world of conflict engagement and resolution. We get lazy in our uni-dimensional viewing of someone and don't give them the benefit of being the highly complex being we all are. Another reason mediators and conflict coaches can be helpful — we get to be the ones who say, hey, that person's not just a "door," you know.
Hope that helps! Great to hear from you,
Tammy
Hey, Scot, thanks for including my post in your list. And thanks, too, for helping me find a new blog to read (Christine’s) as I clicked through to the others on the list. Great resources all. Happy Thanksgiving to you!
This comment was originally posted on Cube Rules