Conflict Resolution, the Einstein’s Way
[A four point NLP formula to dissolve problems, like experts do]
- M.R.Arulraja, NLP Trainer
www.arulraja.com; arulraja1@gmail.com
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." – Albert Einsteini
Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming/Psychology [NLP] by ‘modeling’ highly successful people. They studied how specifically the successful people differed from others.
And, thus, NLP was born by codifying the thought/behaviour patterns of exceptionally successful people. And, NLP teaches you to operate your minds like them, and to achieve phenomenal results.
A fundamental difference between experts and the rest of us is that experts make a very different set of assumptions about reality.
Those assumptions, contrary to one’s expectations, do appear to be very ‘unreasonable’ or ‘crazy’. Interestingly, they may not appear to be wise at all!
NLP proposes that we, too, make those assumptions our own so we could respond and achieve results as experts do. You may even pretend for sometime to own those assumptions, till you discover their usefulness and efficacy.
This article applies some NLP assumptions to ‘conflict resolution’ contexts and then validates them with assumptions that Albert Einstein makes, as seen in some quotations attributed to him.
Four assumptions that help resolve conflicts
1. When faced with a conflict, ask: “How did I achieve this?”
Successful people assume responsibility over the problems they encounter! When faced with a problem, they ask themselves, “How did I reach here?”, “How did I achieve this?”, or “How did I create it?” They assume (pretend?) that they contributed in someway to the creation of the problem.
Einstein, too, seems to make a similar assumption, if you observed his words in the quote above: “…when we created them!” Problems don’t drop from the heavens. It is we who create them.
Einstein suggests that our thought patterns have a role in the creation of problems, and proposes that we change them.
You, too, may approach problems with a deep sense of wonder and ask: “How did I achieve this?” That gives you better control over the situation.
With this question, first of all, you can be relaxed, smiling at the mess that you created!
And a relaxed mind can operate at its creative best. It makes you alive when, otherwise, you feel like you are dead, drowned in problems!
“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed,” says Einsteinii. This sense of wonder and awe could open your eyes to new possibilities, to invent solutions to problems.
How often a business, a scientific invention, or even a social work intervention results from someone’s creative response to problems! And that from someone who assumed responsibility to solve them!
On the contrary, if you set out to find the causes of problems out there, you end up playing the all-too-common blame game. And, when you hold someone else responsible, even implicitly, you are handing over your authority to solve the problem to that person!
For instance, if you say, “He made me angry,” you are, in effect, saying that you are not the master of your emotions; rather the other person decides and controls the emotion you have!
Thus, though this assumption appears to be foolish at first sight, it may bring you closer to truth than any other assumption. For, how often you unwittingly contribute to the mess that you find yourself in, either by your actions or inactions, in a complex web of relationships!
In such a situation, approaching the problem with a query into how you contributed to its creation helps you have a clearer vision of reality and a higher capacity to change it.
2. Assume or tell yourself: “People always choose the option they think to be the best one for them.”
This is another very different assumption that successful people make about others. Instead of blaming the behaviour of others as foolish, they tell themselves that probably these people chose to behave the way they did for want of something better to choose from!
The successful people ‘pretend’ that others are always intelligent in their choice – even when their choice appears foolhardy!
This assumption challenges experts to invent and offer a better option for others to choose from – a better model of business, a better set of conditions to work, a better model of repaying a loan, a better way of organizing time, a more interesting way to study, and so on – than the one others are already offering.
Every mommy knows the value of this precious assumption, and uses it in critical situations, like, when a child has picked a knife in its hands… Instead of condemning the child as stupid and trying to pull it away from the child, she looks around for something more attractive to offer. Finding a doll near by, she dangles it before the child, so the child will pick it up, leaving the knife aside.
Give people credible, better opportunities that will help them develop. And they will go for it. Keep creating newer and better opportunities, all the time! Often, unprecedented success in business results from such a move that you make – including evolution of new business models!
“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual,” says Einstein.iii
How often we lose sight of this wise counsel! Instead we blame people as foolish, or selfish, or condemn them as wicked, instead of appreciating the choice they made!
Ask yourself: What better opportunity can I offer my people today than what I offered them yesterday, to help them develop themselves as individuals? That way, you will have the best of staff working for your Company to the best of their ability and with total commitment and loyalty to the job!
3. Imagine: “There are no failures, but only feedbacks!”
This assumption, typical of winners, opens the door for you to act/negotiate all over again in a very creative way, by reframing the situation! You give a different label to ‘failures’ by calling them as ‘feedbacks’. A feedback helps you reflect on what you have done, and to make changes, so you could achieve better results.
Once again, notice how this assumption puts the onus for change squarely on you! After all, failing or making mistakes is to be expected when you try doing something.
Einstein says, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."iv
What is important is the lesson these feedbacks bring you, helping you to try something different the next time. But, human tendency is to try hard the same strategy that failed to produce results in the first place!
For instance, if making the child write down a correct answer five times does not help a child get it right, the teacher tends to rather make the child write it ten times again than try some other strategy!
Often, the foolish and the arrogant cling to their position in a conflict and don’t contribute to the resolution of problems; they don’t try a different approach. To such people is applicable Einstein’s blunt remark: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”v
Making the above three assumptions your own transforms you into an expert at reframing problems and taking charge of the situation. You become capable of seeing things through the perspective of those at the other end of the conflict.
4. Believe and assure yourself: "Changing the way you perceive reality is more important than changing the reality itself!"
Yes, the way you perceive matters! More than what you see, how you see determines what you get.
What you make big in your mind’s eye has a great impact on you. And, what you make small loses its grip on your mind!
And, in order to free yourself from any crippling impact of the immediate, view the happenings as if from far away, from a very long distance. The farther away you imagine the view of the problem, the smaller it appears to you. And its grip on your faculty, too, loosens.
“Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.” – Albert Einstein.vi
An NLP Exercise:
Sit relaxed and visualize any ‘problem’ you face. If you feel agitated and much involved, chances are that you are viewing the conflict scene, as if on a huge movie screen, before your mind’s eyes.
Just imagine the movie freezing to become a slide. And the slide becoming a poster pasted on a wall at the other end of the street.
Imagine, further, that the poster is getting washed off its colors, paling and fading out in rain.
Further, imagine the faded picture shrinking in size, becoming smaller and smaller, as if by some magic.
And, imagine it peeling off the wall, and flying off, farther away from you, to your left side.
It has moved so far away that when you think of the problem NOW it is as if you are seeing it as less than a thumbnail size picture, far removed from you, lying in the dustbin on your left side corner of the room…
On completing the above exercise, you will have gained the mental space, cool, and the energy needed to solve the problem!
For, as Einstein rightly points out, only fools will make representation of problems big and complex! But, you need to move in the opposite direction!
To move in the opposite direction, you need to force your mind to do a lot of creative thinking: Imagining…
Imagine that the problem has been solved; peace has returned, and that, with the return of peace, joy and happiness reappears on everyone’s face.
Imagine walking into that happy environment, with renewed energy and commitment to success.
Trust your mind to offer you creative options; look for pictures that emerge; and, often, that’s the way mind works for you, when you unleash its powers.
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A real life story, validating the above assumptions
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After a two-day long NLP Leadership training, a Member of a Board of Governors of a Business Organization reported how he solved a conflict, using his newly acquired NLP skills.
The following narration is taken from my NLP book. It is about a conflict with an agent in a business that was conducted exclusively through agents.
“One of the agents defaulted and refused to pay the dues on supplies advanced. The board decided to lodge a criminal complaint with the police. It was then that he asked for a day to try and handle the issue, himself, before taking the legal route. He was trying to think from the perspective of the agent, and asked himself why this agent was refusing to pay back. He did not have the answer. He went and met the agent and asked him why. The agent was furious, and had a valid reason for not paying the dues.
“Breaking a conditional clause of the contract of the agency, a Board Member had sold their product directly to a farmer in his village, and that at the wholesale rate. That farmer told others that the agent in question was cheating them as he was selling at a higher rate. Hence, farmers refused to repay the loans to the agent on which they collected the product. The agent held the board guilty of ruining his business by landing him in non-performing capital and also for fetching him a bad name.
“Thereupon, the Member arranged for a village meeting and asked the one who collected the product to tell them the rate at which he purchased. He then asked him to tell them how much he spent on his travels and transports. When all expenses were calculated, his direct purchase gave him far less than 10 percent margin over the cost at which he could have bought it from the agent locally. And the local agent sold them (seeds) on credit, readily waiting till harvest for money to be repaid!
“The villagers apologized for their earlier decision and agreed to pay the agent. The problem was settled.”vii
vii M.R.Arulraja, Achieving Rural Development using NLP p.190-191, ISBN:9788190258302
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