There are many factors that can affect the process and effectiveness of compromise as well as what happens later. “Later?” you say. Yes, after that often convoluted effort the decisions resulting from compromise then have to be implemented and worked with, and this is another source of problems with compromise. I will get back to the topic of what happens next in a bit.
At the end of the last post, I said that I would be introducing Solution-Building in the first of a series of posts discussing this process as an alternative to standard compromise for making decisions and solving problems. In this post I will start by giving some background about Solution-Building and discuss the basic philosophy of this approach to decision-making and problem-solving.
In the last post I ended with a brief discussion of issues that can arise when working with others we do not like or even actively dislike. This time we will start with how we can get along with, and work with, these people.
In the previous two posts I have discussed commitment, objectivity, and courtesy and have talked about how we can work with people we do not, or perhaps do not believe we do or can, like. Let’s talk about attitude now.
This week I want to start to address an important issue: ego.
Ego is an important part of personality; it defines us to ourselves as who we are. It is very intimately internal to each of us. Ego, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad but how we express our ego to those around us will influence how they see us. It will also influence how they relate to and work with us.
Last week I started on the subject of ego and talked about the positive value of ego and how that could contribute positively to a group decision-making or problem-solving effort. This week I will turn to the Dark Side of ego (with apologies to George Lucas).
Starting with this entry, I will be describing Solution-Building much more directly. The last several posts have provided some of the background thinking that led to the formulation of a series of guidelines, or rules, for using Solution-Building as a framework for better decision-making and problem-solving.
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I apologize for being offline for the past two weeks. I have been dealing with the passing of my 103-year-old father. This involved making many decisions, both on my own and in consultation with my family and people we needed to work with outside the family. Some were easy and some difficult, but I did my best to follow the principles I am writing about in this blog. It helped keep me focused on the essentials and on easing the burden on others, as well as myself.
Now, back to Solution-Building, picking up where we left off.
In this post, we will begin to address the third Guideline of Solution-Building, one based on the principle of courtesy:
This should be a no-brainer, right? Unfortunately, that is often not the way people act with and towards each other.
A short sidestep: a look at current issues in decision-making and how Solution-Building™ can play an important role
