This excellent article is by management consultant Margaret Seidler writing in Charleston Regional Business Journal. She writes about the need to see conflict as the management of polarity two necessary opposites:
What I know from my professional work in managing complexity and conflict in organizations is that when people get polarized on big, on-going issues, eventually all involved will suffer. It might not be today or tomorrow, but I can predict with great certainty that it will happen.
[Look] at the stark consequences for a society whose citizens get polarized to the point of deadlock. Here we get winners and losers; lose sight of the big picture; stop listening to the other “side”; get defensive; limit possibilities for solutions because we are so focused on being “right”; bring about anger, resentment — even hatred. Just bear witness to the threats that Congress has received in the wake of the passage of health care reform legislation.
Seidler goes on to confirm a Village Square-ism: It’s about valuing the contributions opposing ideas have to solving problems and keeping those opposing forces alive and bumping up against each other. Or as founder James Madison put it “the constant clashing of opinion.”
With these consequences in mind, we explored the phenomenon of polarity — (interdependent pairs that need each other over time). To demonstrate that we all know and experience polarity, I used the example of one pair we manage every day: inhale and exhale. It is easy to recognize the each part of this polarity pair gives us something vital and needed. And although each is very different, we must get the best of both in order to live, not die. This polarity is readily understandable because the need to gain the best from each becomes apparent in a matter of seconds.
—
You can find more from Margaret Seidler at www.mypowersurge.com
(Photo credit: One Tree Hill Studios)
August 31st, 2010
Joe Keohane writes a powerful piece on how our entrenched political opinion resists fact that contradicts it. Here’s a snip of an article that’s just so good that it’s going straight into the Village Square library, but we’d strongly recommend you head straight to Boston.com and read the whole piece.
Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
Read the rest of the article HERE.
July 15th, 2010
On this July 4th, I’m reading Authentic Patriotism by Stephen P. Kiernan. You should too. Here’s Kiernan about the origins of this very day, 243 years ago:
The colonists rebelled not only to free themselves from the yoke of British rule but also in order to reject the stratification of British society. They fought to bring to life one of the Enlightenment’s highest ideals: a new and nobler definition of what a human being is.
According to progressive thinkers of the eighteenth century, people did not need to bow to someone whose sole claim to superiority over them was birth… In the New World, in other words, merit alone would count. A man should advance not because of which family he was born into I but by virtue of his intellect, character, exertion, and luck.
Kiernan writes about what transpired in the spring of 1776 in New York Habor:
There George Washington and the fledgling colonial army had gathered after an unexpected victory in Boston. At the time the colonies did not possess a navy, not even a single ship. To demonstrate his power, the king sent warships to New York that May and June, foremost among them the sixty-four gun HMS Asia. Soon the British added two fifty-gun ships, the Centurion and Chatham, then the Phoenix with its forty guns, next the thirty-gun Greyhound with an army general aboard. These ships also bore tens of thousands of troops. The king then added the Rose, as well as the Eagle-another sixty-four-gun ship, this one commanded by the fearsome Admiral Lord Richard Howe. Colonists spied five lore ships arriving one day, eight another, twenty another. By late June the harbor and its outer reaches were crammed with some four hundred ships, including seventy-three warships and eight ships of the line with fifty or more guns each. It was the largest military force ever dispatched by any nation on earth.
And what did the colonists do that July? How did they reply to his terrifying display of power and glory?
They declared their independence. They cataloged their grievances, explained their reasons, and announced their permanent separation from Great Britain. The bonds were dissolved, the ropes that tied the colonists to the monarchy permanently cut.
It was not mere impudence that this act of rebellion displayed. It was character. It was determination. The king had failed to realize that every step he took to suppress the colonists, to intimidate them, to reinforce their inferiority, only invigorated their growing conception of what a human being is.
July 4th, 2010
Something interesting happened last week amidst the hype of primary elections and the growing concern of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
June 2, 2010 Armando Galarraga almost pitched a perfect game for the Detroit Tigers. History doesn’t remember “almost perfect” games, but I have a feeling this one will be remembered. With two outs remaining in the ninth inning, Galarraga had a chance to pitch the first perfect game of his career, a remarkable feat for any baseball pitcher.
As the Cleveland Indians Jason Donald hit the ball to the right of Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrerra, Galarraga had to hurry to first base to cover. Cabrerra tossed him the ball, beating Donald to the bag, an “out” for you non-baseball people; even replays showed Donald was clearly out. However, umpire Jim Joyce didn’t have the benefit of the replay and called Donald safe.
Most athletes, especially the pitcher himself, would have been the first in the umpire’s face, yelling and screaming about how much of a _____ (insert whatever) he was. Galarraga, no doubt surprised, cocked his head back, shot Joyce a wry smile, and pitched to the final batter who was also thrown out.
After the game umpire Jim Joyce watched the replays and realized how wrong he was. He immediately sought out Galarraga and, weeping like a baby, apologized. He later said, “I cost that kid a perfect game.”
The next day, the final game of the series between the Tigers and Indians, Galaragga met Joyce at home plate before the game to give him the starting lineups. The video shows Joyce dropping his head and trying to hold back tears. The two men then pat each other on the shoulders, a subtle gesture that meant so much, and went their separate ways.
So often we hear the bad sides of sports, the athletes who hold out for more money, abuse women, and spend lavishly, hold themselves above the law. Many more are better suited for Broadway with their celebrations and dramatic shows of emotion towards a bad call.
Everyone once in awhile, we get to see something great in sports. The blown call will no doubt haunt Jim Joyce for the rest of his career, perhaps longer. Galarraga still hasn’t pitched his first perfect game. But Joyce was man enough to admit he was wrong, and Galarraga was gracious enough to accept his apology and move on. He didn’t argue, he didn’t complain, he simply went back to work.
It would be nice if we all worked the same way. It would be nice if our elected leaders worked the same way. The events between Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga are a shining example of why we need The Village Square. Sometimes hope springs from the strangest of places.
—
Luke Inhen is an FSU political science graduate student and Village Square intern.
(Photo credit.)
June 11th, 2010
See our panel, menu and buy your dinner ticket HERE. Limited scholarship tickets available. Call 264-8785 to inquire on availability.
June 8th, 2010
Reserve your seat HERE. Space is limited. And don’t miss complimentary finger foods and non-alcoholic beverages from 5 to 6 ahead of the movie at 101 Restaurant’s Versailles Lounge just across Kleman Plaza from The Challenger Center. (Plus 101 is offering 15% off of dinner with your movie ticket after the movie!)
June 8th, 2010
(Uh, you might want to reserve your seat now. As if it couldn’t possibly get better, it just did. 101 Restaurant is offering complimentary house beverages and finger foods from 5 to 6 ahead of the movie and 15% off dinner for anyone with a ticket after the movie. And did I mention, the movie is FREE?)
June 1st, 2010
