Conflict

In his book Breaking the Constraints to a World-class Performance, William Dettmer discusses conflict resolution. He observes that often what we call conflict is in fact confrontation - the expression of an emotional response to a deeper, subtle conflict which often goes unrecognised.

He describes two types of conflict both as competing forces. Opposite Conditions are forces which push us both to do something and not to do something or to do its opposite at the same time. Different Alternatives are mutually exclusive conditions which attempt to coexist.

Classically the conflict is resolved either by imposing a solution on one side by the other or by compromise. The Gulf War is an example of the first win-lose solution and serves as clear evidence that such a solution does not actually break the conflict. Compromise is a solution where neither side gets what they want. The cold war showed just how great the cost of this can be.

The best solution is where both sides get what they want but the win-win solution is rare; and the reason is that most of us don't know how to structure one.

Enter an Israeli Physicist by the name of Dr Eliyahu Goldratt and his Theory of Constraints. He states that there are no conflicts in reality. His way of dealing with conflicts is by use of a technique called evaporating clouds, the second of five logical tools for improving systems. The reason for the name? Its potential to evaporate conflict.

A very good description of its use can be found here. Essentially it is a means of identifying the conflicting prerequisites of two requirements of an objective. Goldratt states that there can be no conflicts in reality so we are left only with wrong assumptions. Often there are a number of wrong assumptions which have lead to the conflict. Fix them and the conflict no longer exists. The diagrams and explanation on the site which I linked to make this very clear. No emotional nonsense to deal with and both sides are happy.

Goldratt is an interesting individual and ToC is a fascinating theory. There are very few textbooks on the subject as Goldratt believes that most people don't read them. But they do real novels, so much of Theory of Constraints is encapsulated in such literature as that wrtten by Ecademist Russ King. His book We All Fall Down is a novel about how the theory could be used to solve problems for the Healthcare industry. A shame that so few of those charged with managing the NHS have read it.