This is the third “writing out loud” excerpt from the working draft of Adam Kahane’s new book, “Collaborating with the Enemy: An Open Way to Work with People You Don’t Agree With or Like or Trust,” to be published by Berrett-Koehler in 2017. Adam is keen to engage with interested readers around this material as he develops it. If you have not yet subscribed and would like to continue receiving updates and participate in a conversation about them, please sign up here.
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marco valente says
Greetings,
I enjoyed the draft chapter. To your questions: most useful, not-so-useful; Insights arising; What is missing;
Useful: What I find most useful is the exploration of the shades of gray, which is worth unpacking.
Insights: The insights arise from challenging two worldviews: one that in lack of a better expression we can call the “political activist” (we will have it our own way, no matter what) and the other that can be summarized as the “stoic diplomat” (we will keep on dialogue, no matter what). I guess this chapter goes further into challenging each of these worldviews if one camp believe they possess the one and only sure-fire recipe for lasting societal change, and honoring their importance at the same time. That I find very useful.
Not-so-useful: through your books and SOL articles, I have ran into the stories of South Africa and Guatemala multiple times, to a point where, to me as a reader, the first three pages sounded a bit too familiar as you have written about both stories extensively elsewhere. Considering a similar reader who is familiar with previous thing you wrote, you might want to shorten it perhaps?
Missing: Maybe it is an editorial style not to cite many other authors’ works so extensively (after all you are not creating a paper that needs to reference every bit) but I wonder if you would add the perspective of Bill Torbert as an additional useful frame to understand talking and fighting. In his book (Torbert et al., Action Inquiry, 2004) they talk about a way to see leadership’s twin trail of advocacy and inquiry. These dimensions, advocacy and inquiry, sound very similar to your dimensions of talking and fighting, maybe too similar not to be cited.
Best wishes,
M.
Adam Kahane says
Thank you for the feedback Marco. I will include footnotes in the book, and will look again at Tolbert’s book.
Martin Hawkes says
A skim of this latest chapter, which is quite stimulating, prompts 3 reflections: (i) As one involved in helping to bring institutional parties to a series of conversations around climate change in Ireland over the past year I’m also aware that the issue is of such critical importance and the time-frame for solving it closing fast that I find myself also involved in the 350.Org direct action initiatives due in May around keeping fossil fuel in the ground. My instinctive preference is for dialogue and bringing everyone into conversation – business and unions as well as churches and greens – while recognising that there comes a point when a more direct stand is required to signal to the larger system that urgent change is needed. I see both options as valid and having their role. (ii) It may be instructive to look at one’s personality preference in these matters. In Enneagram typology, type 8 known sometimes as the Leader or Controller, has an impulse to impose their sometimes black and white view on to the world (and needs to learn to balance natural assertiveness with appropriate receptivity and vulnerability) while type 9 (Diplomat/Harmoniser) has a strong urge to avoid conflict and bring harmony (and needs to learn that making an omelette requires the breaking of eggs). (iii) It has been observed that some Buddhist societies are prone to being ruled by military dictatorship; could it be that an excessive commitment to harmony pushes more assertive impulses into the shadow where they erupt in forms of dictatorship? All three observations argue for finding appropriate balance between assertion and receptivity in the dance of life.
Alla Kholina says
Hi, Adam.
I do not accept the fight, as a way to achieve any goal.
Instead of “fighting” I use “creating”.
My way: talking and creating what talking was about.
How to create with enemies?
I do not accept word “enemy”. For me there are people, but blinded by his anger, lust for power and money.
I agree that such people need to feel your power. But do not use it to fight. Use it for creating your vision.
To do it, you need great courage not to be afraid, and great faith in yourself and your capabilities of creator.
I know that the time for struggle has already passed. Now is time for active creation of the reality we all want – peace and the world community.
Charles M Lines says
There are a few things struck me on reading your latest draft: using the power of stories and providing the space for people to reflect upon them to achieve significant transformations of perception; the importance of achieving an informal if not always comfortable environment within which people can engage with and listen to each other (something that in my experience is often undervalued).
The key point about managing polarities, switching between fighting and talking, etc., resonates strongly with me. Effective collaboration is often about managing apparent or perceived paradoxes or, at the very least, dilemmas. This complex almost paradoxical nature of collaboration can often lead, as you say, to the coup d’ etat being the logical (or even unavoidable) outcome of a certain way of collaborating: a way which fails to appreciate that, sometimes, the more we try to collaborate the more we can come into conflict (I explore this (point 4) and similar, perhaps counter-intuitive, characteristics of collaborative working here: http://cuttingedgepartnerships.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/surviving-and-thriving-within-weird.html). As we talk with some and embrace them, others who feel suffocated and ignored will withdraw to create their own opposing alliances that will then need to be engaged with – or fought against –or both — and so on.
Thanks again for your vivid examples and experience!
Hein Dijksterhuis says
Thanks for sharing Adam. Wonderful that you dive deeper in your own experiences and why it’s so hard to keep working relationships with partners. I am at a similar place 😉 I am afraid. Fighting and talking are needed in my experience. With my wife I have been fighting for 2 weeks during our first Holidays together in Portugal. After 27 years we’re still together. What’s most important is that you can’t walk away from each other and will go through the challenging times. You need to be mature enough to witness and endure the fighting without stepping out. That part I miss in this chapter. Theory U calls it the container but I don’t like that term. The Anthroposophy lemniscate sign is already overused according to me… (or refer to it)
Adam Kahane says
Thanks Hein. I agree that container is an important part of the story. What is your point about the lemniscate (which is of course a shape that predates Anthroposophy)? This is the way Johnson suggests that polarities need to be managed.
Steve Gunther says
I agree that, having read your previous work, the reiteration of some of your formative work is a little redundant. Though I guess if someone hasnt read your work, then it serves as a necessary introduction.
Fighting makes me think of George Bach, who in the ’60s wrote a book called ‘The Intimate Enemy’. His point was that rather than try to stop couples fighting, we needed to teach them to fight better. One element of this consisted in his characterisation of fighting styles ‘hawk’ and ‘dove’. This was related to ‘belt lines’. The Hawks have high belt lines, and so also strike out in ways that Doves call as below the belt, and visa versa.
Well, thats interesting also because ‘fighting’ covers a lot of ground. Theres loud disagreement, theres knife fights, theres gun fights, theres protesting with placards. So in a way you lump both fighting, and people’s framing of it, into a kind of homogenous lump. Yes, in the bigger picture, there is some kind of polarity between conciliatory conversation, and strident differentiation of positions. But perhaps theres too much generalising when it comes to simply summarising these as two sides.
Another associated thought. Dear Saul Alinsky used to say that polarisation (ie fighting) was a necessary strategy, not because one believed in black and white positions, but because it was a strategic necessity to get things moving where talk only went so far.
Of course, speaking of creativity, he employed enormous creativity in his fighting, winning the day with farts and other effective tactics.
Adam Kahane says
This is all extremely helpful, Steve, thank you. I am not sure what to do about stories that I have told before: I am trying to write this book for a broader readership than my previous ones–for everyone who need to work with Others but who finds this daunting–but this does involve some repetition for old friends like you and Marco.
Janine Machet says
Thanks Adam. I am fascinated and inspired by your open,inclusive and dynamic working drafts. I thoroughly enjoyed your first two chapters, particularly interested in your references to polarity theory. I wonder if you have explored Steve Mcintosh’s organization I.C.E. ? (Institute for Cultural Evolution.) His latest paper (March7th) analyses and explores how to overcome the current polarization in American politics, using polarity theory as well as integral theory et al to inform what I found to be an insightful, dynamic and comprehensive approach to such a complex dilemma as is presently unfolding in U.S.A.
Would be keen to hear any comments you may have.
P.S. Your parallels with knowing how and when to use “power and love” and ” collaborating and fighting” (and adapting) feel particularly valuable for addressing ongoing intractable conflicts. Thanks so much.
Adam Kahane says
Thank you Janine. I will look at Mcintosh’s work with interest. Adam
Marti Roach says
I am enjoying your book very much. Like Martin Hawkes, I am involved in climate change activism. the threads that I wish you would explore more deeply and comprehensively relate to your story about The Guatamalen women activist who had to stop talking in order to keep fighting. she could not risk losing the ability to resist unjust actions. Similary, the point you eloquently laid out from David Suzuki that there there is some baseline of common principles before talking can be advancing on the issue versus risking degeneration. There is also the issue in societal social change of different actors playing different roles and that, in fact is how change unfolds: some fight, some work “inside the room” as you say. Using climate change and the kind of swift action and resolution needed to address this risk would push you into applying your learnings in a new situation–we have not been here before. And, we desparately need more thoughtfulness on talking and fighting on this issue. Thank you again.
Milton Dawes says
A general semantics approach to addressing conflicts would likely start from involving all parties to look closer at some words they use in expressing their side…What do they ‘mean’ by their own words: What do they think about and understand from some words the other side use. How do they feel or react to the other’s words, etc….All this before starting to address the complex issues before them.
The post.
Very insightful, and much needed explorations in a world that seems to me to be rushing towards global madness.
I am wondering: Are the ‘principles’ you have discovered passed on to opposing parties as “factors that contribute to their different ways of “‘seeing’ and talking” about things? My focus (as you well know) from my general semantics studies has to do with “The ways we use words affect the ways we think about ourselves, others and the world around us”.
A significant and important variable in our efforts at self-transformation and resolving our conflicts involves our recognizing the power of words: Words will use us–if we do not attend to our ways with words. It’s worth our while to remember that “We see-relate-and treat ourselves, others and ‘the world’ following the ways we use words.” The way we think, talk about, and define things, situations, others and ourselves, grounds and reinforces our attitudes, prejudices and biases, generates our creative impulses, influences the choices we make, how we do the things we do, and so on.” We created language…and in turn, language has been creating us and our human world: our diverse field of activities, our institutions, our religions, our societies, our philosophies, arts, sciences, values, and so on. Words will use us if we treat words as being more important than the structures and operations the words are intended to represent. Words use us when we forget that: “The structures and operations of the nonverbal world do not follow our human created, stable, enduring, and generally accepted rules of grammar”: The sentence “There is an apple on the table” does not automatically grow an adjective when the apple is left on the table for several weeks. Words use us when we forget that with our definitions, descriptions, opinions, ideas, theories, feelings, beliefs, etc., we have left out a great deal of what’s going on, what went on, and what might ensue. We can avoid many conflicts through remembering: Words we use, are not the situations the words are about. We create more problems when we interact following our words instead of exploring the structures, relationships and operations our words are supposed to be about. Words do not have meanings. (Lexicographers admit this.Their admission can be found in “Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 10 th. ed., page 28a) We give our individual meanings to words and create conflicts and problems for ourselves when we forget we do that. And this becomes more complex when words of one language, group, tribe, culture, etc, are translated to another.
Hermann Funk says
Hi Adam,
Thank you for your generosity in letting us be part of your “thinking process” for your new book. I find this fascinating. As a German who has been living in SA for over forty years and being involved in conducting dialogue sessions so that we can bridge the divides that are still a major challenge in this country, I find your ideas very valuable. Even though I am a relative newcomer to this kind of work, only for the last seven years, I have experienced the frustration you are talking about when the conversations do not lead to the progress all participants like to see. I do have a problem with the word fighting though. Isn’t there a better word or expression to articulate the polarity you are referring to? I do appreciate your pointing out the healthy, generative cycle, but unfortunately overstepping that boundary could easily lead to real fights which we want to avoid in the first place. I am not a linguist, but wouldn’t assertiveness, boldness, forthrightness be better “expressions” and assist in reducing the risk to step into the lower part of the matrix?
Dan Leahy says
Thanks Adam,
Very thought provoking. As I reflect on my many years in LIOS it seems that we have gone through cycles of collaborating and fighting, more often as a reaction to an unconscious sense of an unbalanced polarity, rather than an intentional response. I’ll need to set with this for a while.
I appreciate the disorienting disturbance, Sir.
Be Well,
Dan
Dylan Skybrook says
Hi Adam,
I really appreciate this process of “writing out loud”.
This chapter resonates for me. I have thought a lot about the talking vs. fighting conundrum, especially regarding sustainability. For instance, there is a dynamic in which a group like Greenpeace kicks a company’s ass, which makes the company look around for a consultancy who will help them change via talking. The fighting enables the talking. (Inside the room/outside the room.) Which has made me question my attachment to the talking side of things. On the other hand I often see a disposition in my more “fighting” oriented friends that seems to be kind of adolescent, prone to demonizing the “other”, and sometimes lacking a vision for the future and a way to get there. They just want to fight and win over their enemies! That’s not a pole I want to visit, and yet I appreciate some of the outcomes of their work. It’s a puzzle.
I wonder if there is more to describe (and perhaps you will in later chapters) about the principles that might make talking or fighting the appropriate response. What is “fighting”, for instance? Is it surfacing things that need to be said, even if its uncomfortable? Is it insisting on rightness even in the face of conflict, as in your example of David Suzuki? Is it using power to try and make something happen in a situation in which the opposing force won’t talk, or at least not honestly? (Because what is the point of David Suzuki talking with a tar sands CEO who won’t honestly engage about the effects of his company’s activities on the conditions that support life?)
I wonder if there is something about not actually fighting when you fight. During the civil rights movement, people sat at lunch counters and rode in the front of busses because it was the right thing to do. Those acts could have been met with acceptance, they didn’t harm anyone else. Interpreting them as fighting is in some sense on the provoked, not on those committing the acts.
You quote MLK’s on power and love and that get’s close to what I’m thinking about. I think there is a way to fight with love, in which one’s desire is not to vanquish the other, but for all parties to be restored to wholeness. And that that is the case even if the means are yelling, street protests, boycotts or whatever. It requires a lot of us to act with this kind of discipline of love, even when fighting. But if we do, then we will act differently even when we are in apparent opposition. We will sound different when we yell. Interactions will have a different tone. I think this is maybe what I’m getting at, which is that all fighting is not the same, as you note in your regenerative/degenerative chart, but how do people know which is which? What principles do they follow? It really is a discipline and I’d like to hear more about that.
The other thing that supports this idea is looking at it from a complexity lens in which our ways of interacting together create the society we live in. In that way there is no way to fight reactively with each other, or do whatever level of violence to each other, that creates a peaceful society. So, what is the love-fighting discipline that allows us to really mix it up, but still be creating the society that we want?
Adam Kahane says
Very helpful Dylan, thank you.
Tim Merry says
Hi Adam,
Love this. The oscillation between fighting and talking just feels true to my experience of being married and my experience of working in highly complex and fraught multi stakeholder work. I massively appreciate your ability to put some language on something the justifies working with the way things are rather than forcing an ideology of how things should be among us. I have never been the wordsmith you are but for sure recognize when something synchs up to the reality of my work. Nice one. I hope I get to read more … Squeezed this in while putting Elliot to bed tonight. Best wishes Tim
Eileen Moir says
A powerful chapter Adam.
I can relate to the analogy of inhale/exhale in understanding the relationship between talking and fighting in generative processes. Your examples suggest that the protagonists used fighting to shift the dynamics when things were getting stuck. It’s similar to intervening in group dynamics as a facilitator to move things on. To create waves as it were. So I understand better how you are using ‘fight’ in the framework.
I noted other readers’ comments about repetition of examples that are covered in previous books. My reading of Chapter 2 is that these paragraphs lay the foundations for your candid personal reflections. Particularly how subsequent experiences and observations, including feelings of dissonance between work and personal collaborations, had challenged your original beliefs.
These paragraphs are powerful. They’re courageous and infused with humility. Without the summary of your SA and Guatemala experiences it wouldn’t have the same impact. It also brings to life the notion that we have to continually review our deeply held beliefs, otherwise we’ll be danger of getting stuck ourselves.
In many ways you are modelling collaboration through the ‘Writing out Loud’ project. You have to decide whether to accept readers’ comments or reject them and defend your position (collaborate or fight). It’s a neat idea and I’m delighted to be part of it.
Martin Echavarria says
Hi Adam,
I did enjoy the chapter but also agree with someone’s comments that the examples being used come from you previous writing and that can seem a bit repetitive. I also think that you could improve the narrative by explaining the distinction between what you mean by talking and what you mean by fighting from the start and not waiting till the end. For some reason when it ended, it fell flat for me and late in the chapter.
I don’t think polarities are meant to be managed, but to be lived. Polarities refer to dialectic tensions that exist in all elements or relationships and I agree completely that fighting/disagreement and peacemaking/agreeing reside in all relationships when people are trying to collaborate. The key is when people and most importantly groups are either stuck in one way of being or can’t hold within themselves and in the group, the emotionality of each, so that productive action, stemming from communication and cooperation can be produced. As I wrote in Enabling Collaboration, people become blind to the inter-subjective experience of being in the group and can’t see what the group is dealing with, that’s the key reason for having facilitation support. I wonder why you end the chapter mentioning the individual and not the group.
I think there is something to be said between real collaboration and cooperation, both being very different and you may want to reflect back in your experiences, why certain programs worked and other’s didn’t, when did real collaboration emerge, what it the lack of fighting “in the room”? Perhaps “collaboration” was masked and what you saw was only cooperation and a reason why Guatemala was having difficulty in 2008. What has happened in Guatemala since? Collaboration does not happen without the energy of “fighting”. I do not like this term, because fighting can be misconstrued as violence, but I see how it’s hard to find the right term here. Collaboration only happens when striking/cutting direct language is used to get through the bullshit that groups can get into, the niceties that often times get in the way of true collaboration. Collaboration refers to arriving at a place where the group cuts away what not do to, what to remove, what is not relevant to the actions they decide on taking based on their affiliation and membership to a common objective/goal and to themselves. I agree completely with you that there is “the need to fight.”
I think it may be helpful to make a distinction between broad-based actions at a political level that can be considered “fighting” as you are framing it, as compared to when you are in the room between and within the group that is supposed to be “talking”. Taking Ken Wilber’s integral model, it seems to me that you talk about Q4 (Objective Plural) at a very high level, and the reader can accidentally equate it to Q3 (Subjective Plural). This could be an interesting inquiry for sure, and perhaps feeling through the past experiences you may find new learning that you had not considered before.
I also enjoyed the story of Suzuki’s speeches and wanted you to elaborate further on what happened with him, did he change or how has he grown in his approach using the “outside the room” / ” inside the room” approach you mentioned. It seemed to me that his decision was strategic and political in nature, rather than really “talk” he choose to use public opinion, and the media through his letter to “fight.” What has happened to him since then?
I enjoyed the last couple of pages and found them useful from an individual point of view, but felt like the narrative kind of drops off and what does the really mean to the group that is collaborating? I think that there could be a better ending that encapsulates the individual process, the collective process and that which is strategic vs. tactical. But this could be too much!?
Again – Hope this helps,
Martin Echavarria
PS: Page 3, 5th paragraph, I think it should be dumb struck, not struck dumb… and Page 7, there is a typo – additional ‘s’ on 6th paragraph second sentence. And last sentence you have an additional “both” that needs to be removed.
Adam Kahane says
Thank you very much for this careful reading, Martin, and these most helpful questions.
Pablo Villoch says
Dear Adam,
This idea of Collaborating with the Enemy reminds me the fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty.
In that tale, the princess was bewitched because the witch was not invited to the party.
Fairy tales bring a lot of encripted wisdom, hidden behind archetypes and metaphors.
The main lesson ot the Sleeping Beauty is “Always invite the Witch to the Party!”
Translating to multi-stakeholder dialogue, it means “Invite to talk those who you’d rather exclude from the process”.
From a Jungian perspective…”embrace your own shadow, in order to face and dance with your dragon”
Adam Kahane says
This is a wonderful addition, Pablo! Thanks.
Colin Mitchell says
I am new to this process and discussion and find it a most interesting approach to fueling the creative fire!
As a South African, politically left of centre, I am aware of the Mont Fleur scenarios and actively use them as a case study in supporting social and economic development in various national and international settings. To understand and also appreciate what had brought the ANC and the Government to the quaint Mont Fleur Hotel in the first place it is necessary to go back a few years. i) City Bank had succumbed to international pressure (or economic risk) and refused to roll-over South Africa’s loans; ii) Trading conditions for (not least) Gold Fields and Anglo American had become increasingly difficult – South Africa at that time was the worlds largest producer of Gold. Both groups had already been back-channelling since 1986 by meeting with the ANC in exile (Zambia and London) and by exerting their considerable influence on the National Party; iii) Information is emerging (Stephen Ellis: ANC in Exile – 2013; RW Johnson,) that the ANC were less and less convinced that they could sustain, let alone win, a domestic war.
so …. in the hope that my comments do not come across as cynical here goes.
I don’t think anyone sets out to collaborate – they want an outright win. The starting point is always to secure victory with the cost of that victory being less than the value to be realized. It is only when winning looks increasingly unlikely or the total price affordable or unacceptable but, with the “spoils” far too valuable to walk away from, that we start looking at compromise as an alternative. Compromise essentially means that each party surrenders only as much as they can get away with. Agreement, is reached when each party believes they have extracted as much value as the other can or will give without the other walking away. It is at this time that the notion of compromise evolves into a much more “politically” acceptable notion of collaboration.
The problem is that, with time, the trade-off’s needed to reach the compromise are questioned, sometimes very aggressively, and buyers and seller’s remorse sets in with each party believing that they gave and received too little from the negotiations. This can be seen in South Africa today with unmet social demands, and political expediency, pressurizing a move from the “flight of the flamingo’s” to the “Icarus” scenario.
Does this imply that scenarios leading to compromise and resulting in collaboration is a “fool’s errand” and ultimately destined to fail? – not at all! What it does mean is that collaboration should be seen for what it is – a lowered intensity but still a continuation of the negotiations (maybe fight in the context of this book) with the original terms of compromise being revisited.
A solution may possibly be found by taking practical note of the insights of the work of Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow 2011) “When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives too easily fall victim to the planning fallacy. In its grip they make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on the rational weighting of gains, losses, or probabilities”; and, Nassim Taleb (Antifragility 2012) who makes a well-argued case about iatrogenic’s in development and transformation and the longer term fragility that is inevitable.
A plausible conclusion may be that focusing on the optimistic “rose colored” scenario and probably over-optimistic vision of the future is necessary but far from sufficient. Greater, if not the greatest emphasis, should be placed on what not to do in order to avoid the negative scenarios at all costs.
Adam Kahane says
Very helpful, Colin, thank you. I think that one of the points you are making here is crucial: that in general people would prefer to win (impose), and collaborate (especially with their opponents) only when they cannot win.
Adam Kahane says
Dear readers: Although at this stage I am not commenting on every one of your postings, I wanted to let you know that I am reading them all carefully and with great appreciation. I am taking note of all of your queries and suggestions, as well as the specific issues that catch your attention, and will work with them all over the coming months as I rewrite these chapters. It is a wonderfully encouraging way to write, in interaction with you. I will acknowledge all of you by name in the final text. Meanwhile I am writing “Chapter 3: There Is Not Only One Right Answer.” Yours, Adam
Jose Bucci Casari says
I missed a more detailed exploration of the lemniscata dynamic between talking and fighting, what are the signs, body and mind? What should be the right/best/appropriate way to intervene at the boundaries?
Sorry for the delay in posting my comment
Jose
Adam Kahane says
This is a great question Jose! I will think about this.
Jeanne McPherson says
I appreciate the unfolding of your argument in this chapter, Adam. I am reading your work from the perspective of the workplace, where your ideas have much application.
[Footer: Typo– …”not” instead of “note”]
p 5: “opponents”…. I wouldn’t necessarily call someone who differed from me an opponent, especially if that person were a business partner. I am juggling terms as I read (enjoying it all).
“Fighting” is another loaded word for me. Sometimes we fight with words (talking) and sometimes we fight through death and horrible violence.
Following the Barry Johnson paragraph: “If love and power are drives that all of us possess, then talking and fighting are the derivative ways of relating with others that all of us can employ.” It sounds like you are equating love with talking and power with fighting. I’m confused at the analogy–it seems overly reductive. Power has many forms other than fighting, and love, many forms other than talking.
The James Hillman paragraph talks of business, the arts, medical fields, and other areas of work–my focus. It would be helpful for me to see a distinction between these areas and the social upheavals you mention in previous examples. Fighting takes on a different meaning then.
Nice ending to this chapter: acquiring skills in asserting as well as collaborating.