Respectful Workplace and Construction Companies

Employee: “What do you mean I can’t tell him to fuck off?” Boss: “No, you can’t. Our new Respectful Workplace Policy requires that people treat each other civilly and politely. Telling him to f-off won’t cut it anymore.” Established construction companies are in transition. Historically, the construction industry, especially worksite tradespeople and workers, more-or-less accepted […]

The Three Sisters Approach to Managing Conflict in the Organization

We need to learn more of the old ways, and adapt them to today’s situations. Where I live, the oldest ways are of Aboriginal, Indigenous, Native origin. In Master chef and educator Dan Barber’s agitating book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, he pays respect to the Iroquois’ Three Sisters Strategy, a […]

In Which Corner(s) is Your Conflict?

When in conflict, the source of the conflict can be confusing, never mind the way out!  Ken Wilbur’s Integral Vision is a handy, big picture, framework that can be applied to conflict management: Wilbur’s model is not dedicated to conflict. It applies to everything, literally, as I discovered in his A Theory of Everything.  Each […]

The book on Conflict Mastery

“You make me angry.” “Don’t get your noise out of joint.” “Settle down.” “Just ‘cause I said it, don’t mean that I meant it.” We use scores of phrases like these when involved in interpersonal conflict. If not spoken out loud, we speak them inside our head. Needless to say, our conflict directives rarely end the […]

Are You Configuring The Future to Suit The Facts?

“I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, A Scandal in Bohemia. According to German psychologist, Gerd Gerzenger of the Max Plank Institute, relying on your intuition […]