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Here's another character who everyone will recognize.  The Drama Queen.  Male or female, those who "stir up" conflict to add a little dramatic flair to an otherwise boring day, do so for a predictable set of reasons.

Before dissecting the guy who's the first to spread the word that George is being fired for "cooking the books," and tells Crystal that the office manager has it in for her at the same time he tells the office manager that Crystal covets her job, let's briefly return to the conflict "basics" outlined in chapter one.  

A conflict exists whenever two or more people believe that their needs (or desires) cannot be satisfied at the same time.  They see all relationships as zero sum games.  The social scientists would say that such people are in a constant state of  "perceived relative deprivation."  They are deprived in relationship to their fellows.  

We all live in a state of relative deprivation.  We drive a Honda while our neighbor drives a BMW.  We rent while our best friend owns.  Our salary is less than six figures.  The guy in the office next to us is making 200 grand.  Other people have been given more talent, better luck, more resources, superior business and professional networks, and, of course, more loving and supportive families.  And yet these "relative" deprivations do not always result in disputes.  Not unless we name, blame and claim.   

Naming, Blaming and Claiming

As we said in chapter one, "conflicts" over scarce resources do not ripen into disputes until we suffer a perceived injurious event such as failing to get in to the school of our choice; being rejected by an employer we hoped to work for; having our lavish dinner party go unreciprocated, or watching someone else take our parking space!  When we begin to suspect that we have been injured, we start looking around for the source of that injury -- someone to name as the cause, to blame for the loss and from whom to claim redress.  

Name, blame, claim.  

The Drama Queen in the Field of Conflict

Of the primary responses to conflict -- denying, avoiding, yielding, problem solving, and contending -- the Drama Queen almost always chooses contention.  Contentious responses to conflict include ingratiation or gamesmanship, shaming, threats, promises or arguments, and coercive commitments or violence. All of these tactics are employed to overpower the will of another to get what the contender wants. 

Meet Drama Queen John.  He's your colleague who has recently been assigned to work on the same project you have.  You are calm, well-organized, efficient and productive.  John is impulsive, chaotic, inefficient and un-productive.  You've never understood why John has lasted as long as he has at this job.  "Maybe he's the owner's brother-in-law" you've speculated -- but only to yourself.   

As a good team player, you've been keeping your own counsel.  You've mentioned neither your opinions about John nor your irritation with him to your co-workers.  You've been careful in all your interactions with John not to show your annoyance.  You've been "getting along and going along" while at the same time trying to keep your eye on the prize -- the successful completion of the project that's been entrusted to you.   

For all your caution, things start to go wrong on the first day.  That very afternoon your supervisor Jamie drops by your office to mention that your teammate Gina is complaining about your domineering style.  The following week, you hear that George is saying you didn't deserve the bonus you received last year.  Someone has suggested that you have a "special" relationship with the divisional vice-president.  By week three, the team meetings have become tense.  People with whom you've long worked well eye you suspiciously when you enter the room.  And John is uncharacteristically cheerful. 

What Happened Here?

Unless someone talks to John about his dissatisfaction, we'll never quite know why he's been spreading rumors about you and creating ill-feeling between you and your team mates.  Still, we can make a few fair assumptions based on our knowledge of the social psychology of conflict.

For whatever reason, John appears to have named you as the source of some dissatisfaction in his worklife.  He's blamed you for that dissatisfaction and is actively claiming something from you.  In this case, his claim -- though negative and likely self-destructive -- comes in the form of personal satisfaction. 

What does someone like John get out of demonizing you to your workmates? The perverse satisfaction of exercising control, of making a drab office day momentarily dramatic, and, of exacting revenge from someone he's cast in the role of adversary.  John's hallmark characteristic is a lack of control.  Remember that he's disorganized, chaotic, impulsive and unproductive.  When he's able to create an atmosphere of suspicion about you, he's momentarily achieved the thing he most lacks, the thing you appear to have, the thing he believes people like you have deprived him of -- control.  

Though you needn't pity the poor Drama Queen, now that you know what drives him, you have some chance of engaging him in a productive conversation about his workplace behavior; a conversation that will make your work life far more cheerful and friendly.

Below, the Conflict Map outlining some of the concepts discussed here -- scroll down to the second page. 

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Dear Janis,

As you'll notice, I've posted on my blog the first three "chapters" of the ABC's -- due out from Janis Publications under the more genteel title "A" is for Donkey in July.    

Not meaning to compare myself to one of the greatest writers of all-time -- Charles Dickens -- other than in our mutual need for reader recognition, I'm hoping you will find that the "serialization" of the ABC's will encourage readers to buy it rather than discouraging them from doing so.  As you'll remember,

[a]ll of Dickens' novels made their first appearance in serial form. Nine came out in monthly installments: Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, and The Mystery of Edwin Rood. Five were composed for weekly serialization: The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock; Hard Times in Household Words; and A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations in All the Year Round. . . . Oliver Twist appeared in the monthly issues of Bentley's Miscellany, which Dickens was editing at the time. Although he took up the weekly form with the intention of getting into more frequent correspondence with his readers, Dickens never ceased to fret under the restrictions of tailoring his narrative into briefer segments; and indeed, with Hard Times he returned to the practice of blocking out his stories as if for monthly installments. Thus, the novelist's preferred and characteristic method was that of monthly serialization, calling, as he said, for "the large canvas and the big brushes."

Simply put, as a writer of installment novels who invited reader comments as he wrote, Charles Dickens may have been the first blogger for whom instant gratification was also "too slow." 

We don't, however, have to return to Victorian England for serialization precedent.  Tom Wolfe's phenomenal best-seller The Bonfire of the Vanities  was serialized in 27 installments in Rolling Stone magazine starting in 1984. The novel was a bestseller and a phenomenal success, even in comparison with Wolfe's other books.  Although it was thereafter made into one of the most dreadful movies of all time, we cannot blame that failure on the serial form the novel originally took.

Now that I've compared myself to two of my favorite authors, I will have to display a little humility.  Unless I can merge blogging with book writing, I don't think this book will be ready this July, this summer, this fall or next winter.  I think I'm only going to get it written if I do it this way.  

I hope that's alright with you!  The book itself will be better written (there are editors and publishers for a reason) ; far better illustrated; and, will make a fabulous gift for any friend, neighbor, co-worker, or mother-in-law the impulse-Borders'-buyer has in mind when they first see the ABC's irresistibly offering itself at the check-out stand.

I'm also hoping to convince you that the word "Asshole" will draw more customers than it will repel.  But that's why I'm in contact with readers.  I'm certain they'll tell me.

All best to you and your lovely husband Ray,

Vickie

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(photo by Cobalt 123)

In the ABC's of Conflict Resolution, we call “cowards” by another "C" term.  We call them “conflict avoidant.”

You can decide whether you are among the “conflict avoidant” by asking yourself how deeply you relate to the feelings described by New York Times writer Bob Morris in his article How to Avoid, Well, You.

THE invitation was too good to refuse — an August weekend at the august home of a friend on a little New England island. Yet, from the moment I pulled up to the ferry dock, there was dread in my soul. Two years ago, I had offended an entire family of friends likely to be there. Would one of them be on the boat, where avoidance is impossible?

Checking a reservations list, I was relieved to find myself in the clear. But later, getting an ice cream on the island’s small village green felt like being in highly exclusive enemy terrain, and I walked with head down and turned in fear from each passing station wagon.
In the church thrift store where space is tight (and the clothes irresistible) I hid behind racks with my heart pounding as each shopper entered.

Why, asks Mr. Morris, are we so afraid of the meeting (or confrontation) with the guy whose call we didn't return or manuscript we didn't read? Why do we scan our cell phone to determine a caller’s identity lest she be the woman whose invitation we didn't accept or whose child bested ours at the last track meet.

Never fear. In the ABC’s of Conflict Resolution, there is always an answer to these perplexing social questions.

Help for the Conflict Avoidant

It was my friend and colleague, mediator Ken Cloke who taught me there were five means of dealing with conflict (suppression, avoidance, resolution, transformation and transcendence) and   University of Missouri Law Professor Richard Reuben who taught me there is no such thing as "bad" conflict. However, it was my community mediation experience that taught me just how much better it is address conflict than to avoid it. Those mediation experiences have also taught me that, given the right conditions, people separated by hurt and anger can and do spontaneously reconcile.

Those conditions?  The creation of an atmosphere of hope that reconciliation can be achieved without fear of further psychological or physical harm; the opening and maintainance of channels of communication among people who have closed them down; and, the assistance of a third party who is willing to patiently and lovingly sit with those in conflict like a parent with children recovering from a fever or bad dreams.

As a mediator, I have seen an elderly mother reconciled to a child who sued her for back rent and  sought to evict her from the family home after two years of estrangement. I have seen a man who refused to speak to his gay neighbors for five years – because “I’m afraid of them” -- stand up at the end of a community mediation and ask each of them for a hug. I have seen parents set aside years, even decades, of mutual emotional abuse for the purpose of creating a loving home for their children.

These events are not the rare occasion or the exception to the rule. Nor are they the result of anyone's brilliant mediation or conflict resolution skills.

They are the norm, the product of the process rather than the result of the technique.

A mediator can probably prevent these spontaneous acts of reconciliation, but s/he does not create them. At best, s/he presides over them, serves as their sponsor or appreciative audience, and counts herself privileged to have participated in them from the sidelines.

Why We Avoid Conflict

Mr. Morris asks what it was that drove him to cower behind a clothing rack to avoid seeing someone whose family member he had recently insulted. What indeed, when when we live among people who have reconciled with brothers who raped them and assailants who killed their loved ones?

The answer to the question is shame, the most powerful constellation of emotions we are capable of experiencing.   Shame makes us want to hide - from ourselves, our God and our peers - making shame an isolating state of mind. Feeling shame makes a person passive, or helpless. It causes him to focus more on condemning his entire self than simply owning up to and criticizing his behavior. The shamed individual sees himself as flawed to the core, feels self-conscious in the presence of others and fears scorn.

Because of the depth at which we all experience shame, it makes us want to do the impossible, to erase or destroy the parts of ourselves that make us feel ashamed. The guilt-ridden person, by contrast, only wants to do what he is capable of doing – changing aspects of his behavior.
It is therefore not surprising that guilt tends to motivate restitution, confession, and apology, whereas shame tends to result in avoidance or anger.

The Straight Skinny on Shame

Neuroscientists who study such things will tell you that shame is not a single feeling, but a group of emotions. They will also tell you that shame affects the body nearly as powerfully as it upsets the mind. Shame, we are told, makes us lose muscle tone in our necks and upper bodies; increases the skin temperature of our face (hence the “blush” of shame); and causes us to be uncoordinated in body and confused of mind.

No matter what we are doing when the experience of shame overtakes us, our activities will be made momentarily impossible. Shame interrupts, halts, takes over, inconveniences, trips up, makes incompetent anything that had previously been interesting or enjoyable.

And those are just the physical effects of shame. On the heels of the painful physical experience of shame, we invariably begin to search our recollection and our estimation of ourselves for some way to integrate the shameful experience with our sense of ourselves. We try to make sense of the pain and disorientation caused the sudden upset of a previously positive (or at least neutral) emotional state.

No matter how slight our transgression of the social rules that govern our relationship in a group, our “shame” for violating one or more of those conventions is generally enough to make grown-up professionals and otherwise dignified people like Mr. Morris cower behind clothes racks in second-hand stores.

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Here’s another familiar character. This is the kid who shook you down for your lunch money on the elementary school playground. The one who taunted you in gym whenever you failed to pass the basketball to the only guy able to sink it. The swaggering bad boy who threw the “dodge” ball in your face and then fell down laughing.

But don't be fooled by ribbons and curls.  Boys aren't the only bullies in town.  There’s no bully quite so deadly as the high school girl who has learned to use her talent for empathy as a laser gun directed at her best friend’s fragile teenage heart. Girl bullies, like their boy counter-parts, often travel in packs. While the boys will physically rough up their victims by kicking or punching them, the girls ridicule and shun.

Just as we were not assholes, we are also not bullies. If the mothers in our children’s playgroup want a change in the schedule, we offer our opinions rationally, kindly consider the needs of the other members, brainstorm potential solutions, seek consensus and make small sacrifices in deference to the well-being of the group as a whole. When we do this, we are observing “polite” society’s unwritten rule that cooperation and occasional submission of our needs to the welfare of others will ultimately serve the individual’s needs as well.

Still, there was that fight with your neighbor just last month when he once again refused to prune the branches of the jacaranda tree that are hanging over the fence that divides you -- dropping all those “lovely” purple flowers onto your patio. You got a little heated, you’re sorry to say, and said some things you regret. You called him “lazy” for one and then said something about the size of his backside. You threatened him with legal action – told him your best friend was one of the best trial attorneys in town. You gave him an ultimatum. Then you stormed inside and slammed your door.

You no longer greet your neighbor or his family when they pull into their drive way at the same time you do. You’re not letting your 4-year old son play with their 5-year old daughter. You no longer pop next door to ask for a cup of sugar.

You are shunning them. But that’s not bullying is it?

Let’s ask the social scientists.

Bullying, they say, is the repeated and deliberate abuse of power by one person or group of people over another person or group. Like an Asshole, no one can be a Bully alone in his room. He not only needs someone to push around, but a social context in which to do it.

The reason we so often couple the word Bully with Schoolyard is because the conditions in schools – like those in the military and prisons – are perfect breeding grounds for bullies and excellent places for them to find the people every bully needs – victims.

That’s why the social scientists say that bullying -- the deliberate and repeated abuse of power – is most likely to occur in relatively stable social groups with a clear hierarchy and low supervision.
Why? Because hierarchy – a system that ranks people one above the other -- makes low-status individuals visible and easy to get at. It also makes them less likely to receive protection by their peers.

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You recognize this guy.

He’s the  one who stole your parking place. He cut you off in traffic. Just last night at the Olmstead’s party, he interrupted your story about your trip to London for the sole purpose of changing the subject to his trip to Cambodia. 

You, on the other hand, are not an asshole. You are respectful of other people’s property, return telephone calls promptly, and honor the compacts that grease the wheels of social interaction. These are rules of etiquette, mostly, some of which have been turned into law, like “first in time, first in right.”

Still, you’re not inflexible. You can make the reasonable exception. If you’re standing in the check-out line with a shopping cart carrying enough food to feed a family of ten for a month, you don’t say “no” to the young woman holding a bottle of spring water when she asks if she can cut in front of you. If you refuse her this reasonable courtesy, you are the asshole.

From these few examples we see that an asshole is not necessarily a person or even a behavior. No one can be an asshole alone in his room. He needs someone to be an asshole to. An asshole is a social relationship in crisis. An asshole is a dispute.

Let’s go back to the asshole who steals your parking place.

It’s Christmastime at the Farmers’ Market in Los Angeles. Although the day is warm and the mood festive, the afternoon sun is reflecting harshly against your windshield as you make your third circuit of the parking lot. You’re starting to get really tense. You need to pick up the kids after soccer practice. If you don’t find a place right now you’ll have to turn around and leave, your errand undone.
You’re not, of course, alone in this contemporary hunting and gathering adventure. If you were, you would already have slid your white Kia into one of the many available spaces half an hour ago, picked up the ornaments you need to finish trimming the tree, and be headed over to the soccer field right now. But it’s not just you. There are at least ten other drivers circling the lot with you, and another five or six patiently idling their cars in the aisles.

You think you’re in a parking lot but you’re really in the field of conflict.

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