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As discussed in Stewart Levine's text Getting Resolution, there are occasions where a conflict and the costs of attempts at resolution or the conflict itself were much higher than would be preferred by the parties involved. One such conflict occurred, I think, in my work place in the form of a disagreement between another work center and my own with regards to who would manage certain records of configuration management. The issue came to light because it came to leadership's attention that we didn't have the highest level of accuracy in our records of how and where certain computers were configured versus what was actually set up. Where the conflict really flared up though was in who would ultimately be responsible for such a thing, as setting up a computer involves both my work center, the one in charge of client systems, and my colleague's work center that's in charge of our local network.

Both sides of the argument were incredibly insistent on their respective point of views, with my personnel thinking responsibilities needed to be divided along specialties so we wouldn't be accountable for something outside of our control, and the other work center wanting to reallocate tasks to, in their view, optimize the task flow. I was more interested in having a central point of contact, likely based with the networking work center, but my colleague and his subordinates would have nothing of it as he thought the extra back and forth communication was "too complicated". After much debating though, the senior enlisted from both work centers worked out a kind of hand off which would happen in the records keeping, effectively dividing the responsibility. 

Lo and behold though, not even a couple months later we're still having issues with accurate records. Another meeting is called, with additional man hours being used to think of solutions and counter arguments, and several people are thrown into the conference room. As I was agreeable towards, but frustrated with the turn around nonetheless, my colleague suggested we go with a central point of contact to manage the records. At that moment, I spoke up and noted that we were right back where we were before and heading right towards what his work center had advocated against. We'd gone through another less than ideal process and more meetings, we ended up going back to a solution that was initially pushed off the table for not fitting in with the viewpoint of the moment. We did eventually figure out a solution involving a central point of contact, but it did indeed take some time to arrive at that conclusion.

Considering Levine's 10 Principles of New Thinking, we probably could have benefited a great deal in adopting several of these concepts, if not all. For instance, much of the debate was centered around the workload for our limited resource of manpower...rather than thinking of our manning as a scare resource (scarcity), we may have better been served in believing we had a great deal of talent that could accomplish a great deal, and we could continue to get things done and meet our goals of productivity (abundance). In a related note, we tended to discuss more of the negatives...we could only see the issue in the lens of how not to waste the resource of time, the issue itself, and we also tended to see only the conflict between our work centers. Rather, we could have focused on creative solutions, fostering collaboration, and creating an effective partnership (Levine, 2009).

I think that at the very least, holding the meetings with a collaborative or positive frame in mind would have at least led to more productive dialog, and might have even led us to create a better process in the first place rather than having to use time and resources ineffectively and necessitating yet another meeting. We probably also would have saved the additional stress on our personnel, the scrutiny from higher leadership, and likely would have yielded a much lower level of lingering feelings of strife and lack of desire to work with the other work center. In general, acting in greater accordance with the Principles of New Thinking would've been of benefit for the objective we had, and would have better promoted unit cohesion than the traditional bout over the conference table. The trick, of course, would have been to get everyone on the same page.

Having gone through this thought exercise, I'm of the opinion that as idealistic it may seem, the 10 Principles are not impossible notions and indeed, many of them are principles in which can be readily applied to most any conflict situation or collaborative effort. The challenge comes in changing the perspectives of the parties involved to, as Levine alludes to earlier in the text, get the parties involved telling their side and really talking about the issue, and then getting them to view a conflict situation outside of the traditional paradigm of a win/lose problem to be solved logically and instead viewed in the context of creative, collaborative problem solving that is still a relatively new idea in many circles. It presents an interesting paradox of a relatively simple idea that requires conscious effort to realize to its full potential.

Works Cited

Levine, S. (2009). Getting Resolution. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

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I have to admit from the outset that although the idea of protected values in itself makes sense to me, I'm at somewhat of a loss as to my own protected values within the context of an academic or business setting. Having said that, I did run with the mind mapping exercise and put down some values to include free markets, consumer choice, and allowing businesses and organizations to operate how they will within a legal framework.

As Dan Gilbert alluded to in the first video we viewed for the class, humans can do some irrational things based simply on their perception or the context of losses or gains involved in pursuing certain courses of actions, or in dealing with areas of "sunk cost." We may recall from the examples Gilbert used, people may drive a little further to save some money, or they may have different considerations on whether a night is ruined depending on whether they lost a ticket or lost $20.

I can say that although I might not radically change my courses of action based on my protected views, I certainly can have irrational gripes and occasionally irrational actions based upon how I reconcile my values and the situation at hand. For instance, I put down a belief in democratic government, reinforced by beliefs in people having a choice, having a central authority, and having substantive debate. I do participate in the voting process and support the government, although as a private citizen, I do get frustrated at times by government processes. All the same though, I still play by the rules, I continue to support the system, and I haven't stopped participating or done anything to make radical change. As inefficient as government decision making can be, it still works for me in its own sense, and I undertake what is arguably the irrational option of accepting the system as it is. I also can have misgivings about what does and does not get regulated, but again, rather than do anything for major change, I work with things as they are because of the same arguably irrational choice to take it as it is. The view is in an odd sense, protected in that way, with my belief in the system continuing to reinforce my support towards it. I would assess this belief as highly protected.

I also had a view toward free market capitalism that revolved around competition, freedom in business practices, and consumer choice. Again, I will support this system by being an active participant in it, continuing to eat out once in awhile, by myself a game or gadget, or getting reasonably nice clothes. I also support having choices in what I buy and where. In the midst of all this, I recognize that having a dozen different places with different selections and pricing on some merchandise can create additional stress, and my buying practices can be all over the map. I'm conscious of the imperfections in how companies can sometimes do business and how we do have some issues with high consumerism, but I still consider the system to be workable. I want to be able to choose to buy boots and knives made in my hometown or a car assembled in Europe, but I also want the choice to be able to say I don't particularly care where my trashcan or paper tray was assembled, I just want one that works and doesn't cost a lot. Thinking back, this was part of what influenced my decision making on leaving the dorm system after I transferred colleges...although I indulge occasionally in fancier food stuffs, I didn't want the university to tell me to buy a university meal plan just for the fact I live on campus, which in turn meant I'd either lose money or I would have to spend more for their contracted fair trade, organic, locally sourced food compared to a similar amount of "conventional food" at the local grocery or off campus restaurant. I didn't like having my value of consumer choice infringed upon (among other things), so I made the choice to turn to the free market on housing and make my own arrangements.

Finally, I had an area on my map where I said one shouldn't live to work, that is, work shouldn't be the one and only focal point of a person's life. Indeed, a lot of life can happen outside the office, time flies, and money can only contribute so much to a person's happiness. In holding to this value, while I do what's expected of me at the office and make sure people are taken care of, I'm not of the same mind as some other peers as to use my free time to get multiple additional certifications above and beyond what's required for my duties (which is to say, none at the moment besides basic technical training). I also do make it a point to make time for events and functions outside of work. Having said that, there are still points where the value gets sacrificed, and it happens with some regularity. There are days where I need to wake up early, so I have to turn down some invitations or I need to get to bed earlier. There's also an unspoken rule that one needs to obtain an advanced degree, so that leads me to taking my courses that consume a fair amount of the remaining three to four hours of my day. This value, in short, is one that's valued and is certainly the ideal, but in the execution of real life it is often sacrificed out of necessity. At the same time, it is this philosophy that may say even though it may save money to not take a weekend trip to Monterey or fly back home to Oregon, there are gains to be made in well being by getting away from the grind. One could say its a value that's protected when able.

To conclude, we all have things we believe in, and there's a lot of times where we stand by them whether we have to press on through the imperfections of those beliefs or we can't live them as often as we'd like. The key point though, is knowing those beliefs are there and that they can exert influence upon our decision making processes.

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As wonderful an ideal as it is for people to strive for open communication, honesty, and collaboration, there inevitably will come times where varying degrees of deception are introduced into a negotiation process or even most any other interaction between two individuals or parties. Why a person may engage in a deceptive action may vary, but however it may come about, its worthwhile to be cognizant of when deception may be happening and what the consequences may be for the person being deceived, the deceiver, the issue in question, and so on.

Much of working around or protecting against deception involves evaluating the information being received, and the class' Wharton text on decision making outlines how to go about this in different stages of negotiation, among the most pertinent stages being within the actual negotiation. Four notable techniques includes asking direct questions, listening carefully, noting nonverbal cues, and keeping written records.

According to the text, a study indicated "...subjects were significantly less likely to lie when asked a direct question," citing a statistic of 61% revealing the problem, 39% lying by commission, and none lying by omission. But, when not asked a direct question, none revealed the problem, 25% lied by commission, and 75% lied by omission (Hoch et al, 2001). In short, by not asking a question directly related to a potential problem an opportunity is given to the seller to simply let something go without being addressed "because no one ever asked." Particularly in a sales position, the selling party is highly unlikely to address their shortcomings or outright failures, giving further cause for one to follow the old adage of "buyer beware," especially in situations where there may not be the protections of a written contract or other service commitment.

Second, one should listen carefully to the other party. Its important first off that the representative is someone who is actually a subject matter expert and has a greater depth of knowledge, or that the person actually wields a nominal level of authority within their organization. From there, its important to listen to the answers of any questions, not just to infer the veracity of what is said but also consider what hasn't been said (Hoch et al, 2001). Did they cover all the relevant specifications of a component, or did they not mention a limiting factor that would be of high interest to you?

Tied into that, it is known within the realm of communication studies that an individual can convey additional information of what they are thinking via nonverbal cues, which is generally more difficult to mask or manipulate than verbal information. These cues can include actions such as increased blinking, fewer gestures, hesitation in speech or increased fillers, and other actions that generally lend an appearance of there being something else on a person's mind (Hoch et al, 2001).

Finally, it is advisable for one to write down any particularly important details and claims or commitments, as well as to conduct any records checks or insist on guarantees for particularly important issues (Hoch et al, 2001). As the text illustrated in its example, if something isn't put into writing where there is no room for plausible deniability, or there isn't any legal "teeth," that presents an opportunity for one or both parties to move forth as they see fit and potentially get by with a general attitude of "nobody lied, the truth changed."

Speaking from experience, there have been some occasions where I've received information that wasn't up to the highest degree of accuracy, and in my line of work there's almost a necessity for "expectations management." I remember I was working with a friend in one of our client units, and she had asked me to check back with our planning function on a line of paperwork she needed to have processed. I did this, and the planning shop said she still needed to give them some data points in order to proceed forth. Going back to my friend, she said the planning function needed to be working yet another line of documentation before she could move forth on getting the data. At the end of the day, I was left with no forward progress after playing go between, with both sides absolutely adamant that they were doing their job and the other side wasn't. I, unfortunately, didn't have background on the problem nor did I know what the process should have looked like, so I was not able to effectively determine if I was getting all the information, nor could I ask particularly specific questions or verify the information I was being given.

As for when I've overstated a claim, I've had plenty of occasions where a client would want a specific time frame for when a fix action would be completed. Something I was very quickly mentored to do was never to use the word "will," but instead say "should." For example, we always say "we should be able to get this worked by the afternoon." This is a philosophy we've dubbed as expectations management, and frankly speaking, our clients do it as well with their partner organizations to a certain measure. Generally we've gotten pretty good at sticking to our estimates on time or what needs fixing, but when something falls through, we can still say with a straight face that we "thought" something "should" be doable within a set of parameters, but now we have to work with another set. Maintaining this, I hate to say, is somewhat critical as even under those circumstances I've had a member of client leadership outright accuse us of lying when in fact the situation had just evolved.

Regarding the question of how far I would want to go to leverage a position, I expect I wouldn't stray too far from the common practice of wanting to highlight strengths and positives whenever possible. However, given my line of work, I would also want to be prepared to note any issues that would impact what we have going on, and I would ideally want to be ready to propose possible mitigation strategies or highlight the need to look at the issue when feasible. I fully expect that I would never lie by commission, although admittedly there are occasions within the office where we consider it better to pass up or down the chain only information that's need to know, and only disclose to the fullest extent when we have additional context or a way ahead. I suppose as long as I'm in the military, while there is a level of politics to contend with, I would hesitate to do much in the way of leveraging due to the common expectation of intrinsic trust that comes with the profession. If we ever got into the habit of having to stop and assess everything said by all of our members, or worse yet didn't trust anyone, I would imagine it would create a significant slowdown in the conduct of our business. A high level of trust, I believe, is one of the things that helps us do what we do everyday with any reasonable level of efficiency.

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Frames are something which can inherently influence how one views and processes the issues, factors, and overall world around us, and while frames arguably bring the benefit of simplifying issues into something we can readily comprehend, they also introduce the risk of a framing blindness where one fails to notice other potential viewpoints on an issue. This can, however, be mitigated with frame management techniques that allow one to proactively control them and even use for their own advantage. This includes techniques such as conducting a frame audit, identifying and changing any inadequate frames, and mastering techniques for reframing (Hoch et al., 2001).

A frame audit includes several sub steps, to include a personal frame audit, understanding the frames of others, and to take note of any emerging frames. A frame audit is likely one of the more time consuming parts of this technique, as the prescribed method involves creating a visualization of your own frame. This would, ideally, identify factors and points of interest at the core of your frame, as well as those that are important but not core, and any optional factors (Hoch et al., 2001). From there, the issue of understanding the frame of others and any emerging frames is a matter of actively listening and being open to different modes of thought. Understanding others can be better accomplished by asking what might matter to other parties, and what they might not be considering. Appreciating new frames can happen by embracing changes and working with new means of doing business. (Hoch et al., 2001) In my own experiences, I would say the frame audit process is something of a daily occurrence for my unit. When I first arrived, there was a strong tendency for our IT maintenance oriented unit and our client unit to clash frames. Our focus was on getting regular maintenance done and done right. Our client unit didn't want to stop working for any reason if they could help it. Eventually though, through a lot of conversation with each side vocalizing what their interests were, we were able to agree that we all wanted to be able to get the mission done. We also had to admit to ourselves that we didn't always have the best insight into what was on our client's radar, and that they likely weren't asking IT oriented questions when dealing with certain issues. The working relationship is now, thankfully, much more fruitful.

The identification and change of inadequate frames is more a series of questions that can be asked of oneself when they are doing a critical self examination of how they're looking at a situation. This can include the initial question of, are your frames effective? Are you asking the right questions, are they adaptable, are there any failures in your frames? (Hoch et al., 2001). It also involves cognizance of any symptoms of frame misfit, which can include anything ranging from surprise difficulties and poor results to having difficulties communicating. One also needs to be prepared to question the reference points they're working with in order to gauge what constitutes good or bad performance within your frame, and they need to work to understand any key assumptions about themselves or their organization that can influence their frame. (Hoch et al., 2001) This particular process is another ongoing matter for me, particular when new projects come up. Most recently, I've had to work several projects that involved procuring decorations for our front hallway, and kept being surprised by the number of regulations involved on what we could buy with certain funds, what could be bought with or without paperwork and so on.What became even more frustrating was explaining the project and any difficulties to people I had to work with (and with whom I wasn't necessarily expecting) to have to work on the project with, to include the supply shop in charge of storage spaces, the unit financial manager, the facilities manager for installation issues, so on and so forth. Its been a good hard way to learn about getting as much information as possible upfront to coordinate.

Finally, one needs to eventually work towards mastering techniques for reframing, a culmination of the previous two frame management techniques. This includes using multiple frames, where one can operate with multiple perspectives on the same problem be it from different levels of management and execution or from the perspective of different fields of expertise. It can also be beneficial for one to align their frame to that of others, that is, work together to capitalize on the strong points of each others frames. Having said that, one also needs to be open to asking questions of the reference points of others, prompting a stretch of a frame to include different aspects, or even building an entirely new frame for a situation. In short, one needs to only not understand their own frame and any deficiencies, but they need to be able to work with it and redefine it as necessary for a given situation (Hoch et al., 2001). Coming again to the workplace, we're encouraged to learn about our clients jobs and where it fits into the big picture of Air Force operations, not only so we have an answer as to whats important to them but so we can adjust the frames of our technicians to understand why an issue might be getting worked with a high level of urgency. We've also been able to work with our clients to understand where we fit into things, improving not only our working relationship but also leaning on each other to find better ways to get the job done, or help each other document our accomplishments for awards packages and performance reports.

Overall, the reading and the enclosed exercise make an excellent point that in a given situation, not only are there numerous variables to be considered, but there are different ways in which to view the variables that, in themselves, create further variables for how we look at an idea and how we discuss it with other stakeholders. Complex decision making, it seems, isn't simply a matter of making a choice but it also involves analyzing how you come to a decision and asking if there's anything that was missed either by imperfect processes or due to a frame related bias. I can say in the decision making and the projects I've dealt with, I would benefit from some of these frame management tools in more efficiently focusing efforts on an objective and collecting necessary information. Knowing some of these techniques and the inherent issue of frames in individuals may have saved me some time in the school of hard knocks, and perhaps some frustration in project execution. At this point in my career, I haven't been at a point where there was any great deal of risk involved in my recommendations, nor could I say I've had a high level of influence with any of my frames, but regardless, knowledge of frames and frame management is certainly useful to bear in mind.

Works Cited

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.