Page 148 - Make Work Great

Growing Your Crystal

are, it becomes obvious that each of the fi ve building blocks is a pos-
sible area of contention. You may be looking at the same information,
but each of you has your own situation, interpretation, approach, and
beliefs about it.
This often leads to disagreement and confl ict, because the topic
of your discussion rarely refl ects the actual area of divergence. You
and the other person might have a disagreement about the correct
conclusions to be drawn from the revenue presentation. The real root
of your disagreement may be situation, interpretation, approach, or
belief, but if your conversation keeps revolving around the informa-
tion or topic—in this case, company revenue—frustration will build
and the exchange of actual information will deteriorate. After all,
you can’t solve a dispute between interpretations or beliefs by arguing
over information. “It obviously means this,” and “No, it doesn’t!” is
about as far as you’ll get.

The solution is as difficult as it is obvious: when disagreement arises,
discuss the real reason for the confl ict! That is, use the fi ve building
blocks of reality to keep the topic of your conversation aligned with
the source of your confl ict. If the disagreement is over interpretation,
discuss interpretation. If the disagreement is over belief, discuss belief.
And so on.
Of course, it is your own habitual practice of overtness and clarity
that prepares you to do this:

• By seeking clarity about the question, you consider exactly
which parts of the information are most important to you.
• By being overt about your own purpose, impact, incentive,
progress, resources, and capability, you become fully prepared
to explain the constraints of your situation.
• By seeking clarity of the need for agreement, you attempt to rec-
oncile in advance the different pressures caused by the difference
between your situation and the other person’s.
• By seeking clarity of approach, you seek to avoid unspoken, unnec-
essary confl icts over differences in the approaches you both take.

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