Page 39 - DMGT519_Conflict Management and Negotiation Skills

Unit 2: Nature of Conflict

is a good example of this. The commission itself has no real power. But its members get to write Notes
a white paper, and their opinions are recognized publicly. The final decision, however, is still in
the hands of one person or group.
Then there’s the 800-pound gorilla power, which is a take-off on the question, “Where does an
800-pound gorilla sleep?” The answer, of course, is “Any damn place it pleases.” In this instance,
decision-making is proportional to money power or vote power. The person who can afford the
best lawyer, or who runs a political action committee or who has the most money in the poker
game can call certain decision-making shots.
Now, this may smack of pure dictatorship, but it’s more temporary in substance. It may be that
the gorilla wandered into your living room because it was hungry, and once you fed it, left.
Eight-hundred pound gorilla power – which can also be thought of as the “money/elective
dictatorship” – is essentially limited in nature. Its primary effectiveness has to do with single-
issue politics. The insurance lobby, for instance, is exceedingly powerful when it comes to
insurance legislation, but it will not have corresponding clout in foreign policy issues.
Now we move from the realm of dictatorship to arbitrated decision-making. This can be
summarized as the “rule of law,” where the decision-making is based on some supposedly
objective standard which in turn is being interpreted by one person, either a judge or an certain
rules of evidence. In effect, however, he or she is an autocrat. Although his or her decisions are
theoretically appealable, the probability of such judgements being overturned is actually quite
minuscule.

The next level of decision-making involves consensus input. This is where there is no final
decision until everyone involved in that decision has had the opportunity to provide input into
it. This is a kind of democracy in which everybody has an opportunity to interact, whether it’s
talking about politics, marketing or the homeowner’s association meeting on what colour to
paint the entire condo complex.
Following consensus input, we have consensus understanding. In a situation of consensus
understanding, the group will not announce a final decision until everyone understands what
that decision is. They may not necessarily agree with it, but they understand how and why it was
arrived at. One of the things I’ll often do in a divorce mediation, for instance, is to make sure that
if one party wants the divorce and the other doesn’t, the person who is resisting it is at least able
to say in good conscience that they understand why his or her spouse is requesting it.

Understanding a decision that you don’t necessarily agree with makes it much easier to swallow
the pill and move from anger, hurt and bewilderment to acceptance. Which brings us to the next
level of consensus acceptance, where no final decision or action is taken by the group until
everyone is accepting the outcome. Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone agrees
with the decision. Rather, it means that everyone is able to at least say, “Well, I don’t agree with
this but I accept it.”
With this, we come to the final extreme of the Power Continuum, which is genuine consensus.
This is a situation in which the final decision or action is taken only when everyone agrees with
the outcome. Genuine consensus may seem, on one level, to be a rarely realized ideal. But in
actuality, it’s the basis of our criminal jury system, where every member of a jury, for instance,
must agree on the verdict before there can be a conviction.

See if you can locate along the Power Continuum the decision-making power in the groups,
organizations or situations in which you’re involved. Is your boss or supervisor a pure dictator?
An enlightened despot? A believer in consensus input, acceptance or agreement? Is there a
commission at your workplace that can suggest policy or listen to grievances? Are decisions in
your family made by a single authority figure or a genuine consensus?

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