Consider a situation where two people are in dispute over possession of an orange.

The dispute may be resolved by one person, grabbing the orange, and fighting off the other (domination). Alternatively someone might cut the orange, and give half to each person (compromise).

There is a third way of solving the dispute which Mary Parker Follett calls ‘integration’.

In this situation one person may wish to eat the orange, the other to make a cake with it. When making a cake, all that is needed is the peel. So we peel the orange and give the core to one person and the peel to the other. We have found a ‘win-win’ strategy, where both person’s needs are satisfied.

In any dispute we should always try to ‘peel the orange’.

CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT - Mary Parker Follett

As conflict – difference- is here in the world, as we cannot avoid it, we should, I think, use it. Instead of condemning it, we should set it to work for us. Why not? What does the mechanical engineer do with friction? Of course his chief job is to eliminate friction, but it is true he also capitalises friction. The transmission of power by belts depends on friction between the belt and the pulley.

The friction between the driving wheel of a locomotive and the track is necessary to haul the train. All polishing is done by friction. The music of the violin we get by friction. We left the savage state when we discovered fire by friction.

We talk of the friction of mind on mind as a good thing. So in business too, we have to know when to try to eliminate friction and when to try to capitalise it, when to see what work we can make it do. That is what I wish to consider here, whether we can set conflict to work and make it do something for us.

There are three main ways of dealing with conflict: domination, compromise and integration. Domination, obviously, is a victory of one side over the other. This is the easiest way of dealing witrh conflict, the easiest of the moment but not usually successful in the long run, as we can see what has happened since the War (World War 1).

The second way of dealing with conflict, that of compromise, we understand well, for it is the way we settle most of our controversies; each side gives up a little in order to have peace, or, to speak more accurately, in order that the activity which has been interrupted by the conflict may go on.

Compromise is the basis of trade union tactics. In collective bargaining, the trade unionist asks for more than he expects to get, allows for what is going to be lopped off in the conference. Thus we often do not know what he really thinks he should have, and this ignorance is a great barrier to dealing with conflict truthfully.

At the time of a certain wage controversy in Massachusetts, the lowest paid girls in the industry were getting about $8.00 or $9.00 a week. The demand made by two of the representatives of the girls was for $22.40 (for a minimum wage, note), obviously too great an increase for anyone to seriously think of getting at one time. Thus the employers were as far as ever from knowing what the girls thought they ought to have.

But I certainly ought not to imply that compromise is peculiarly a trade union method. It is the accepted, the approved, way of ending controversy. Yet no one really wants to compromise, because that means giving up of something. Is there then any other way of ending conflict?

There is a way beginning now to be recognised at least, and even occasionally followed: when two desires are integrated, that means that a solution has been found in which both desires have found a place, that neither side has had to sacrifice anything.

Let us take a simple illustration. In the Harvard Library one day, someone wanted the window open, I wanted it shut. We opened the window in the next room where no one was sitting.

This was not a compromise because there was no curtailing of desire; we both got what we really wanted. For I did not want a closed room, I simply did not want the north wind to blow directly on me; likewise the other occupant did not want that particular window open, he merely wanted more air in the room.

BASES OF INTEGRATION

If, then, we do not think that differing necssarily means fighting, even when two desires both claim right of way, if we think that integration is more profitable than conquering or compromising, the first step towards this consummation is to bring differences into the open.

We cannot hope to integrate our differences unless we know what they are.

The first rule then, for obtaining integration is to put your cards on the table, face the real issue, uncover the conflict, bring the whole thing out into the open.

One of the most important reasons for bringing the desires of each side to a place where they can be clearly examined is that evaluation often leads to revaluation.

We progress by a revaluation of desire, but usually we do not stop to examine desire until another is disputing right of way with it.

This conception of the revaluation of desire is necessary to keep in the foreground of our thinking in dealing with conflict, for neither side ever ‘gives in’ really, it is hopeless to expect it, but there often comes a moment when there is a simultaneous revaluation of interests on both sides and unity precipitates itself.

OBSTACLES TO INTEGRATION

Finally let us consider the chief obstacles to integration.

I requires a high order of intelligence, keen perception and discrimination, more than all inventiveness; it is for the trade union to fight than to suggest a better way of running the factory.

Another obstacle to integration is that our way of life has habituated many of us to enjoy domination. Integration seems to many a tamer affair; it leaves no ‘thrills’ of conquest.

Another obstacle to integration is that the matter in dispute is often theorised over instead of being taken up as a proposed activity. I think this is important in business administration. Intellectual agreement alone does not bring full integration.

A serious obstacle to integration which every business man should consider is the language used. We have noted the necessity of making preparations in the other man, and in ourselves too, for the attitude most favourable to reconciliation.

I have left untouched one of the chief obstacles to integration – namely, the undue influence of leaders – the manipulation of the unscrupulous on the one hand and the suggestibility of the crowd on the other.

Moreover, even when the power of suggestion is not used deliberately, it exists in all meetings between people; the whole emotional field of human intercourse has to be taken fully into account in dealing with methods of reconciliation.

Finally, perhaps the greatest of all obstacles to integration is our lack of training for it.

AUSTRALIAN STANDARDS ON DISPUTES RESOLUTION

AS 4269 – Complaints Handling - Specifies essential elements of an effective complaints handling process for both complainants and complaint recipients from the inception, to satisfaction or determination. Provides guidelines dealing with the implementation of the complaints handling process, the actual complaints handling and disputes.