In Say NO by Default Derek Sivers tells a story about Steve Jobs presenting the then-new iTunes Music Store to an independent record label group. People in the audience kept raising their hands to ask whether iTunes had certain features and when certain other features would be added. Jobs finally said, “Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don’t want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features.”
When I read that story, I was reminded of a similar instance in one of my grad classes. Jen pointed to a popular conflict resolution paperback we’d just read and said, “I love this book. It’s got so much in it for me to think about! But I know I won’t remember it all for when I need it most. I just can’t keep track that much advice.”
Over many years of teaching conflict resolution and negotiation to undergraduates, grad students and workshop participants, one quibble has been raised again and again by learners: The many books and teachings about conflict resolution and negotiation process, even those that resonate deeply, have too much information, too much to remember, too many things that are difficult to keep in mind in the charged atmosphere of a tough negotiation.
Like software that gets larger and more complex with each version, conflict resolution methods also suffer from feature creep and bloat. Thinkers about conflict and its resolution are like software programmers who add features because they can or because every user has a tweak they’d like to see. We see conflict in all its richness, humans in all their complexity, and problem solving as a tapestry woven of a thousand threads.
Venture capitalist and Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki has said that people in organizations need a guidepost, an outline to help them wake up each day knowing why they want to go to work. I think people in conflict need guideposts too, something short and sweet to rely on so they know with each negotiation why they’re there. Kregg, another grad student in one of my classes, put it this way: “When I’m frustrated I need something really simple to latch onto, not a long recipe of possibilities to try.”
The book I’m finishing this summer is, in part, a book about saying no to many of the things I could have written about conflict, negotiation and resolution. It’s about distilling conflict down to its essence, to a few habits of mind that are both easy to remember and incredibly powerful for getting negotiations unstuck. You already know how to complexify your conflicts and relationships, so why read a book that gives you more of the same? Let’s do something different together.
BTW
By the way, the June edition of Business NH Magazine includes an article about difficult conversations in the workplace. I’m delighted to have been interviewed for the article. If you’re a business owner in NH and subscribe to the magazine, I hope you’ll read “We Need to Talk.”
Great post, Tammy. Simplicity is brilliant, less is truly more. Google won with just a search bar on their homepage. Who moved my cheese a short little book, was the best selling business book of all time (I think). The misconception is that simple is easy, in fact it's very difficult. Knowing what to delete, and still communicating the essence of what you want to say is a true skill. One that the marketplace clearly rewards over and over again.
Sometimes the easiest answer to "why's it so dark in here?" is "turn the light on." Not 50 pages devoted to electrical design. But sometimes it kind of seems like rambling is the new black in professional literature.