So, driving home last week my new blog post reached out through the radio and slapped me in the brain--GM. The great general, the GM, the goliath fires staff concerning the ignition switch cover up. And I couldn't help myself from wondering: did they fire the right people, and how did they know?
The whole situation brings to mind a really short, powerful book: The Thin Book of Naming Elephants. It's basic premise is the Challenger disaster happened because the system punished employees who asked difficult, unpleasant (and likely untimely) questions. I mean, it would be AWKWARD to halt the national launch countdown during live streaming. And yet, there were people within the organization who said they should. The same was true with GM. There were people who knew, and what they knew would have saved lives. Why weren't they heard?
So, the first key to avoiding the 'GM Condition'is to ask the right questions in order to build a healthier organization.
The second key to avoiding the 'GM Condition' concerns an article from the Harvard Business Review concerning conflict, blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/conflict-strategies-for-nice-people. It's basic premise? Conflict is necessary for innovation. It suggests conflict as a tool for catalyzing creativity and recommends that if leaders truly want to be appreciated, to be seen as 'nice', then they need to SEEK conflict appropriately. Since this is clearly counterintuitive, it also covered why most organizations avoid conflict.
This caused me to draw the two readings together. A healthy organization needs to create conflict and to invite critical questioning, which also creates conflict. And right there my heart began racing: questioning and conflict eats time for breakfast. There are days where I drive to work praying for a 'quiet' day. Can't the messes I cleaned up yesterday stay cleaned up? Ah, if only. And yet, when pressed, I define my essential job description as: conflict. I deal daily in conflict. I actually just said that to a friend the other day.
'Hey, what do you do as an assistant principal?''
'Um, conflict. I do conflict all day long every day.'
'Ug. Sounds awful.'
Yes, but what if we substitute terms in for conflict? According to this article by dealing in conflict I deal with innovation. How much more invigorating to say I deal in innovation daily. I use conflict to seek novel solutions to ancient problems. Oh, that sounds good. I like that.
'Hey, what do you do as an assistant principal?''
"I deal in innovation daily. I use conflict to seek novel solutions to ancient problems.'
'You're kidding. I mean, you work in a school, right?'
'Yes I do.'
I really like this idea of conflict. I think it is just as important for teaching and learning. It normally takes the form of cognitive conflict not necessarily institutional conflict. Each of the types of conflict are, however, necessary for learning. If we really want students to learn something new - and I don't mean "learning" a new fact - we need them to challenge their current beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI am currently teaching a workshop for physics teachers where I am helping them to learn a new methodology for teaching. To do so I need them to challenge their fundamental core beliefs about teaching and learning. I am providing the conflict that pushes them to examine their own values and actions.
Conflict - whether institutional or cognitive - is necessary for growth. Stifling that only leads to stagnation and often times more drastic results.