Kill Conflict DEAD! Part 2
Deborah Swallow | July 25th, 2010 in : about cross-culture, cross-cultural communication, General
Conflict Across Cultures Series: Have you had enough time to think 
about the Oranges puzzle from a couple of weeks ago? Here is the background to remind you…
If one party wants to grow orange trees and the other party has a child to nourish, (and there are 2 oranges), what is the solution? Take a minute and try to think of a reasonable solution…
How you think and what type of answer you come up with will reflect your influences, your programming and your thought patterns now.
Did you take a side and try for a Win – Lose, distributive arrangement? E.g. The mother wears down the farmer with the baby’s crying and gets both oranges!
Did you take a moral stance? Did you abandon logic or move away from an equal starting point?
To get the best solutions you have to attempt the impossible – to transcend your culture, your learning and your patterns of behaviour.
The principles of negotiation help us to achieve this as they have a magical synergistic quality to them anyway.
By centring on interests and needs, by looking at collaborative strategies, by acknowledging difference and individual motivation, an optimal solution can be arrived at.
In this example, the farmer has need of the pips and the child can benefit from the orange juice. They can both have all of the resource they need most!
How will you apply this learning next week?
Until the next time…
Matthew Hill is a Leadership Trainer and Executive Coach: +44 7813 760 711
Tags: Communicating Across cultures, conflict across cultures, cultural differences, patterns of behaviour, principles of negotiation
Hello, I'm Deborah Swallow and, for the last fifteen years, I've worked in over thirty countries addressing the complexities of people working internationally across multiple cultures, so individuals and organisations alike can gain an authentic competitive edge and win in international markets. 