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When Growth Is Diffi cult

Quick Video: Disagree, Don’t Argue

Visit www.MakeWorkGreat.com for a short video segment about

how to use the five building blocks of reality to improve your
communications. This is also an easy bit of information to share if
you’re trying to describe the contents of this chapter to a trusted
friend or colleague.

your only option. You can also choose to wrap your crystal around
the other person. If you’re already practicing good habits regarding
overtness and clarity, yet you still fi nd yourself in frequent, painful,
and/or unrecoverable disagreements with someone, then that person
is probably not a great candidate for addition to your crystal at the
moment.
In that case, look back at Figure 6.1, reassure yourself that you
can influence this person more effectively by focusing your attention

on someone else, and move on in your culture-changing efforts. Use
the troubleshooting model for situations in which it helps, but don’t
waste energy trying to convert someone who simply isn’t interested.
Keep practicing your good habits, and turn your attention elsewhere
when you can.

Life on the Boundary
By now, you should have realized that for the foreseeable future you’re
going to be interacting with two kinds of people—those who recip-
rocate your new patterns of interaction and those who don’t. The
idealized distant future may contain a reality in which every person
around you is a member of your cultural crystal, but the immediate
outlook is probably not so ideal.
That’s okay! We’ve discussed in detail how to handle the differ-
ent categories of people—members, additions in progress, candidates
for addition, and everyone else. We’ve reviewed a troubleshooting

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