{"id":109,"date":"2011-05-01T10:19:48","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T15:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/?p=109"},"modified":"2011-05-12T09:49:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-12T14:49:02","slug":"new-ways-to-think-about-solving-intractable-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/2011\/05\/new-ways-to-think-about-solving-intractable-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"New ways to think about solving intractable problems"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

New book from Peter Coleman<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently I had the good fortune to spend an afternoon with Peter Coleman, author of the forthcoming book,\u00c2\u00a0The Five Percent, Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(the link is to Amazon because you are going to want to buy this book).\u00c2\u00a0 Coleman<\/a> is the director of the International Center for International Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and Associate Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coleman leads a team whose project, “Modeling the Fundamental Dynamics of Intractable Conflict” is funded by the McDonnell Foundation.\u00c2\u00a0 They are working together to apply\u00c2\u00a0ideas and methods from complexity science\u00c2\u00a0to what\u00c2\u00a0Coleman describes as “the 5 % problem<\/a>“\u00c2\u00a0 — those 5% of intractable, destructive and enduring\u00c2\u00a0conflicts that persist despite application of otherwise proven conflict resolution methodology.\u00c2\u00a0 Team members include\u00c2\u00a0Andrzej\u00c2\u00a0Nowak\u00c2\u00a0and Robin Vallacher, social psychologists with expertise in the application of dynamical systems to cognitive, interpersonal, group and social phenomena; Larry Liebovitch, a physicist with expertise in formal descriptions and modeling of system dynamics; and Andrea Bartoli, a social anthropologist and practitioner who specializes in international conflict and genocide prevention\u00c2\u00a0(descriptions are from the team’s website).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the workshop I attended Coleman\u00c2\u00a0used\u00c2\u00a0his group’s findings and applied them to difficult business problems to show how we might apply\u00c2\u00a0the group’s emerging theory\u00c2\u00a0to conflict resolution in our own workplaces.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyone who has held a leadership position knows that some problems resist solutions.\u00c2\u00a0 And, enacting proven conflict resolution strategy seems to make some resistant problems even worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Coleman’s work\u00c2\u00a0helps me\u00c2\u00a0understand why.<\/p>\n

A crude oversimplification of the work is that intractable conflicts are extremely complex in nature, so complex that it is difficult to sustain a mental map of factors that influence the conflict.\u00c2\u00a0 The brain acts to simplify the conflict, and, in fact, the tendency is to over-simplify, to reduce the conflict to a simple us\/them, pro\/con, I’m right\/you’re wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 The complexity of the conflict\u00c2\u00a0is too much to handle cognitively.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Once the conflict is simplified, opposing forces can dig in, increasing intractability.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, applying traditional problem-solving models typically means deploying a rational, planned process that focuses on activities like negotiation and mediation, methods that work in what Coleman calls “thinking in straight lines.” In thinking about problems, we generally believe that one thing leads to another, one thing causes the next thing to happen in a straight line of linear causality.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, complex and intractable problems are neither reducible\u00c2\u00a0nor linear.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00c2\u00a0behave more like “problem systems,” systems that cannot be understood through simplification and which will not respond to linear approaches (or will respond in unpredictable ways).\u00c2\u00a0 Coleman\u00c2\u00a0and his team study these conflicts as dynamical systems, with loops of interactions, hubs of agreement and disagreement, and varying positions within a landscape of attractors (patterns we fall into in our relationships that resist change).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

A problem solving approach begins with\u00c2\u00a0complicating rather than simplifying the conflict description.\u00c2\u00a0 This can be\u00c2\u00a0achieved visually by “conflict mapping” (creating a picture of the factors\u00c2\u00a0acting on all parts of a\u00c2\u00a0complex problem).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Then\u00c2\u00a0the problem solvers can use the picture to look for hubs and actionable areas of agreement,\u00c2\u00a0see where influencers aggregate to help or impede resolution, and work to expand on\u00c2\u00a0the “hidden possibilities” for agreement and resolution that the map reveals.\u00c2\u00a0 One of his most interesting recommendations is\u00c2\u00a0to\u00c2\u00a0“aim to alter patterns not outcomes.”\u00c2\u00a0 Since complex problems are built with complicated\u00c2\u00a0loops and circuits, altering these maps, re-wiring them if you will, is a better mental image than focusing on a specific outcome.\u00c2\u00a0 Think\u00c2\u00a0of the solution as changing the map, “changing the landscape” of the problem\u00c2\u00a0rather than “solving” the problem.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Finally, Coleman suggests\u00c2\u00a0“privileging emotions” when dealing with intractable conflict.\u00c2\u00a0 Ignoring the emotional content\u00c2\u00a0of the conflict is a form of\u00c2\u00a0simplification that is unhelpful to long-term solutions.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I found Coleman’s thinking stimulating because traditionally we think of\u00c2\u00a0conflicts as\u00c2\u00a0having solutions, something like solving a math problem.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Thinking of an intractable conflict as system, whose stasis depends on persistent tending of a landscape of forces and factors, is proving a helpful new conceptual framework for me as I go about my work.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book will be published on Tuesday.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a copy on order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I had the good fortune to spend an afternoon with Peter Coleman, author of the forthcoming book,\u00c2\u00a0The Five Percent, Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts\u00c2\u00a0(the link is to Amazon because you are going to want to buy this book).\u00c2\u00a0 Coleman is the director of the International Center for International Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6,7,55,5],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-problem-solving","tag-leadership","tag-peter-coleman","tag-problem-solving","tag-systems-thinking","entry","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}