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AUTHOR: MARK GERZON
TITLE: Leading Through Conflict
SOURCE: School Administrator 63 no10 28-31 N 2006
COPYRIGHT: The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with
permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
Catalyzing scholl change can turn emotional differences of opinion into learning opportunities
In a school system in the Southwest, a group of leading citizens who had convened around school reform
issues ran into an obstacle that threatened to divide the group: the debate about evolution and creationism.
At the height of the conflict, a "liberal" high school biology teacher said point-blank to the local
"conservative" minister: "I will never allow the teaching of religion in my biology class because..."
"And I will not allow young people to attend a school that denigrates our faith," the minister interrupted,
shouting in defiance.
It seemed like a dead end. These two men, both members of a community group focused on improving
the public schools, seemed locked in battle, neither willing to give an inch. The tension in the room became
so frightening that other participants considered leaving. Instead of bringing hope and inspiration to their
local schools, this group looked as if it might increase division and cynicism.
Such conflicts are inevitable for public school leaders in today's diverse communities. In any situation
that involves change, whether it is a movement for widespread school reform or some other effort to
challenge current education practices, opposing sides emerge. The ensuing dramas involve protagonists and
antagonists, pro and con positions and all the other elements of conflict. Leaders who want to deal
effectively with these challenging, often tense situations need to be more than good managers. They need to
be mediators.
Leadership Toolbox
After a decade of research that scrutinized scores of leaders who effectively led their organizations or
communities through conflict, I identified eight tools that leaders as mediators use in various combinations.
Like a carpenter's implements, these tools should be used in concert. A hammer or a saw, a screwdriver or a
plane by itself can accomplish a narrow function, but complex construction jobs require that the carpenter
use all of these tools.
Similarly, complex education conflicts require the leader to have a complete toolbox and the skills to use
every tool in it.
A definition of each of the eight tools follows, accompanied by its antonym, key questions and a brief
description of its use.
* Integral Vision: The commitment to hold all sides of the conflict, in all their complexity, in our minds
and hearts. (Antonyms: tunnel vision, narrow-mindedness)
Key questions:
* Can you see your whole school or school district?
* Can your colleagues see the whole, too?
* Are you all holding the same picture in mind?
A conflict erupts within your school community. You can't control it. You can't avoid it. But you are
definitely in it. What is the first thing you need to do?
Your first response is not about doing anything; it is about being aware, seeing the whole. So unless
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someone's physical safety is at risk, it is better to take stock before taking sides. Step back and try to see the
big picture. Otherwise, you risk making things worse.
Fear is the great enemy of integral vision. In a climate of fear, it is easy to respond to conflicts by
resorting to stereotypes. Again, keeping all sides in our minds and hearts requires diligent practice. The
week after the attacks on the World Trade Center, a 10-year-old wrote in a school essay: "Last Monday
[before the attack] it was easy to be open-minded. All we had to do was listen to other people's ideas at
recess. But this Monday, we all wonder, can we be open-minded? Can we reflect on all sides of the story?
And more than that, can we understand the conflict and what got us to where we are now?"
This 5[supth]-grader's determination to develop an integral vision is inspiring. While many North
Americans and Europeans contracted in fear, this student strengthened his resolve to see and understand the
whole.
* Systems Thinking: Identifying all (or as many as possible) of the significant elements related to the
conflict situation and understanding the relationships between these elements. (Antonyms: distracted, egocentered)
Key questions:
* How do the parts of your school system (teachers, administrators, central office) fit together?
* When does hot or cold conflict prevent these parts from working smoothly as one integrated system?
School leaders need systems thinking to manage an organization effectively. Because every sizable
organization has departments, divisions or bureaus that develop their own self-interest, an overarching
perspective--sometimes called "going to the balcony"--is essential. Leading "our" side against "their" side is
thinking like a manager. Forming a "third side" that can build a bridge and transform the conflict is thinking
like a mediator.
* Presence: Applying all our mental, emotional and spiritual resources to assessing and transforming the
conflict. (Antonyms: distracted, half-hearted)
Key questions:
* Are you fully present in most, if not all, of your leadership roles?
* Do strains, stresses or distractions hinder your effectiveness?
* If so, where is your effectiveness compromised and what steps are you taking to obtain support in these
areas?
No matter how much we may want to see the whole and think about it systemically, we cannot do so if
we are not right here, right now. Presence is an expression of our capacity to apply all our personal
resources to assessing and transforming the conflict.
The more stressed a school system's decision makers, the more myopic they tend to be. Endless days of
overworking are no substitute for greater awareness moment to moment. Although those around us often can
see the telltale signs of declining presence, we often cannot recognize it ourselves. Our best protection
against our own blind spots are relationships with co-workers that are based on candor and mutual trust.
* Inquiry. A way of asking questions that elicits essential information about the conflict that is vital to
understanding how to transform it. (Antonyms: know-it-all, arrogant)
Key questions:
* Do you ask the right questions of the right people at the right time?
* Are you missing vital information that you need to run your school effectively because you are not
asking questions?
No one can fully understand complex systems or conflicts without asking questions. No matter how much
knowledge we might have in our heads, sooner or later we need to draw on the wisdom of others. If we
don't, our analysis almost certainly will be incomplete. Whether you are a teacher in a classroom, a principal
managing a single school or a superintendent managing an entire district, asking questions is a critical early
step in transforming conflict.
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Inquiry-based education is in peril throughout the world, including in westem democracies. The more
typical view of learning resembles the mental equivalent of consumerism: The more knowledge we acquire,
the better "educated" we think we are. But as some of the leading researchers and practitioners in this field
shared in "Strategic Questioning: Engaging People's Best Thinking," published in the November 2002 issue
of The Systems Thinker, such education "focuses more on memorization and static answers rather than on
the art of seeking new possibilities through dynamic questioning." Instead of learning how to ask powerful
questions, students are becoming highly trained, test-oriented answer givers.
Debate
Assuming that there is a right
answer, and you have it
Combative: Participants attempt
to prove the other side wrong
Listening to find flaws and make
counter arguments
Defending our own assumptions
as truth
Seeing two sides of an issue
Defending one's own views against
those of others
Searching for flaws and weaknesses
in others' positions
By creating a winner and loser,
discourages further discussion
Seeking a conclusion or vote to
ratify your position
Dialogue
Assuming that many people have
pieces of the answer and together
can craft a new solution
Collaborative: Participants
work together toward common
understanding
Listening to understand, find
meaning and agreement
Revealing our assumptions for
re-evaluation
Seeing all sides of an issue
Admitting that others' thinking
can improve on one's own
Searching for strengths and value
in others' positions
Keeps the topic open even after
the discussion formally ends
Discovering new options, not
seeking closure
Even educators in self-designated open societies often must fight to keep inquiry alive. At the University
of North Carolina, for example, the university assigned Approaching the Quran: The Early Revelations by
Michael Sells, as reading for incoming freshman in 2002. Local Christian groups immediately objected,
complaining about the "forced Islamic indoctrination" of American students at taxpayer expense and went
to court to prevent the book from being discussed during orientation week. (No doubt some Islamic
fundamentalists would take the same action if a Christian text were assigned to students in their schools.)
UNC Chancellor James Moesner courageously responded in an Aug. 20, 2002, letter to the editor of The
Wall Street Journal that the "only way we will find the answer to the critical issues facing our society and
our future is to ask tough questions [and] to provide a fertile environment in which our students can fully
explore such questions."
* Conscious Conversation: The practical application of the awareness that we are free to choose how we
speak and listen. (Antonyms: habitual, scripted, mechanical speaking)
Key questions:
* Are you aware of the full range of communication options available to you?
* Do you know when to use each one for maximum impact?
* Is your school's "meeting culture" well designed?
One of the most common causes of an ineffective meeting is that those who lead the meetings do not
choose the optimal way to communicate. Being aware of the options for speaking and listening and
knowing when to use them most effectively can immediately improve productivity and prevent unnecessary
conflicts. Conscious communication also can save a school system's most precious resource: time.
* Dialogue: An inquiry-based, trust building way of communicating that maximizes the human capacity
to bridge thoughts and ideas and to be innovative. (Antonyms: top-down, one-way)
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Key questions:
* Are school leaders stuck in debate mode?
* Do members of your leadership team waste valuable time and energy trying to prove that their
decisions are tight and others' decisions are wrong?
How many school leaders have announced their plan for the coming school year only to discover later
that the plan was based on faulty assumptions? What might these education leaders do differently next time?
They could encourage their colleagues to challenge their assumptions more aggressively.
The best way to excavate potentially erroneous assumptions is through open dialogue. Yet many veteran
leaders do not know how to create an environment that is conducive to dialogue. Dialogue requires a leader
who knows not only how to advocate (debate) but also how to inquire (dialogue). Unfortunately, most
school leaders do not understand how to integrate these two styles into an effective leadership strategy. Yet
doing so is critical for effective management. (See table at left for side-by-side comparison of the two
strategies.)
I asked a group of principals and superintendents in Colorado whether school leaders should deal with
tough issues through advocacy or inquiry. Two members of the group--one who believed advocacy was the
right answer and another who was equally convinced that inquiry was a better choice to address tough
education issues--volunteered to explain their positions.
Frank, the "advocacy" superintendent, was dealing with a longstanding community conflict surrounding
the fiscal necessity of closing at least one elementary school. When Frank and his team announced they had
decided to close Hawthorne Elementary School, they were inundated with angry phone calls and e-mails
from parents of children at Hawthorne who were adamant that the school remain open.
Frank and his staff had analyzed the situation thoroughly during the preceding year. They had spoken
with all the stakeholders, including the irate parents, and had developed a plan they believed was in the
immediate best interests of the whole school district and in the long-term best interests of the students at
Haw home.
"I want to make the case for out plan," Frank said. "It is the right plan and I think that if I come out
strong and clear, I will be able to create community, consensus."
Without comment, I asked the second superintendent, Carol, to make her case for inquiry as a superior
leadership style. Carol's district was in an uproar about the use of computers and the Internet in the high
school library. When evidence was uncovered that students had accessed pornography sites on the school
computer, some parents said the computer should be removed. Others said computer use should be
monitored, while still others said students should be asked to sign an honor code before using the computer
and then be trusted to observe it.
"I don't feel that I should come out and advocate one approach over another because none of them sounds
very good to me," Carol said. "I think we need a community dialogue about this so that different views can
be expressed and we can find a better approach together."
The superintendents were both right. Frank was right to move to advocacy because he was dealing with a
well-known issue and had carefully done his research. He had touched base with all the stakeholders and
was ready to propose a solution that he was confident would work. Carol was right to move to inquiry
because she was dealing with a new, emerging issue. She did not fully support any of the options presented
and felt the community needed time to wrestle with the difficult choices.
The question is not which of these two approaches a leader should use, but when to use each one.
Generally speaking, inquire first, then advocate. If you use inquiry effectively, you are likely to make the
right decisions more often, and more people are likely to agree with you. Knowing how to combine
advocacy and inquiry creates a foundation for forging collaborative relationships across differences, which
leads us to our next tool.
* Bridging: The process of building partnerships and alliances that cross the divisions in an organization.
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(Antonyms: scapegoat, polarizing)
Key questions:
* What relationships in your school or school district are not functioning at optimal levels?
* Do you and your colleagues know how to bridge these differences to achieve better results?
To move through the conflict, antagonists must build a bridge across whatever has separated them--not a
bridge of steel and metal cables, but a bridge of leadership. We have many words for the construction
materials from which these invisible bridges are built: trust, social capital, respect, healing, empathy,
understanding, courage, collaboration. However we name it, it all comes down to this fundamental and
mysterious truth: The energy between the adversaries must change in order for conflict to be transformed
into synergy. When this shift occurs, what was impossible before now becomes possible. The stage is now
set for a breakthrough.
I have learned in my educational consulting work that the most common bridges that educators need to
build are between faculty and administration, between schools and central office and between administrators
and school boards. The stronger these bridges can be built, the more confident students and their parents
feel about the education process.
* Innovation: The creative, educational breakthrough that creates new options for moving through
conflicts. (Antonyms: uncreative, stuck)
Key questions:
* Are the human relationships in your school structured to produce maximum innovation?
* How is innovation rewarded--or punished--in your school culture?
There is no advance guarantee that conflicts can be transformed into resolutions. The breakthrough must
be an innovation. This innovation--a new way of doing things that perhaps could be imagined but not
achieved until now--brings hope. It points the way toward resolving or transforming the conflict so
education not only survives, but becomes stronger.
This is precisely what happened in the conflict between the minister and the biology teacher mentioned at
the outset. After the two men locked horns, the tension was so intense that a high school librarian burst into
tears.
"What am I supposed to do?" she asked, glancing back and forth at the two men who were still glaring at
each other. "When this meeting is over, I go back to the library. I have to work with our children every day.
How can I deal with this without taking sides against somebody I care about?"
Her vulnerable honesty shifted the energy. The conversation became more conscious, and the members of
the group began engaging in genuine dialogue. The librarian's tears reminded everyone of the pain this issue
triggered and made them want to heal rather than reopen this deep cultural wound. Slowly, new insights and
ideas began to surface.
"Couldn't studying the clash between creationism and Darwinism become part of the science curriculum?
" one participant asked.
"Can't biology be taught as a science without teachers bashing Christianity?" another queried.
By the next meeting, this group of concerned citizens had begun to cut through this long-standing dispute
and redesign a science curriculum based on respect, inquiry, and dialogue. In other states, educators have
tried to banish creationism, discredit Darwinism or promote "intelligent design" (all ill-fated quests). But
this citizens group instead broke new ground. They began to design a curriculum that would actually
empower their high school students to learn to think for themselves and, given half a chance, to transform a
conflict into opportunity.
Applying Tools
This school reform initiative survived because it used the mediator's tools for transforming conflict.
Through inquiry and dialogue, adversaries built bridges and, working together, fostered innovation.
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Instead of being trapped by conflict, they transformed it and strengthened education in the process. In the
coming years, no leadership capacity will prove more important than leading through conflict.
ADDED MATERIAL
Mark Gerzon is president of Mediators Foundation and co-director of the Global Leadership Network,
829 13[supth] St, Boulder, CO 80302. E-mail; [email protected]. He is the author of Leading Through
Confide-How Success Leaders Transform Conflict into Opportunity (Harvard Business School Press).
Maark Gerzon
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