Making meaning in community can be difficult work. Even in what I call ‘genuine community’ there will be misunderstandings and occasional conflict. Partners in community don’t always get along, but when they find themselves at odds they know how to work together for resolution.
In this mini-series of blog posts I am describing the steps or phases of a method for engaging dialogue, building community, and resolving conflict. My Mentallurgy Method of Dialogue is based on a therapeutic approach that empowers individuals to take creative control of their lives.
Much about life is beyond our control, but where we put our focus – what we think about, what beliefs we hold, what feelings we have, and what we do with all this internal mentallurgy – is ours to decide.
So far, we’ve explored the phases of preparation and consideration. Individuals need to be fully present before they can engage each other as partners in creative dialogue. Once engaged, they need to focus their work on opening a space where each can feel safe, welcome, and included. As I explained, the phase of consideration is ‘considerate’ of the differences that partners bring to the table; but it also helps them transcend their differences in a quest for common ground.
Only by staying on the narrow path between urgency (Scylla) and conviction (Charybdis) can we identify the mutual interests and shared values that will lead us to resolution. In this post we will look deeper into the third phase of creative dialogue, DELIBERATION, where partners enjoin a strategy for clarifying their desired outcome.
In Mentallurgy we give a color-code to four primary attitudes or energy states of human beings. Green represents desire, gratitude, and hope. Yellow stands for fear, anxiety, and worry. Red means anger, frustration, and resentment. Finally, Blue is our color-code for sadness, disappointment, and grief. An aim of therapy is to help the client (called a “creator”) to more consistently ‘lean into green’ – or in other words, keep their focus on what they really want.
Individuals often seek therapy in the first place because their focus has gotten stuck on things that make them feel anxious, frustrated, or disappointed. In short, they’re focusing on what they don’t want and can’t get unstuck.
In the DELIBERATION phase of creative dialogue partners clarify their desired result, commonly called the goal (‘G’ in the diagram above). The goal is what they want to reach, accomplish, or achieve. It’s not merely getting to the box and checking it off, however, for the partners anticipate some kind of positive gain upon reaching the goal. This gain is the reward, payoff, benefit, or advantage their success will bring about.
Simply put, it’s not the goal itself, which is just a mark for measuring progress, but the gain expected through its achievement that partners really want. That’s why ‘gain’ is color-coded green.
From Latin for “to balance or weigh,” DELIBERATION in this context is about weighing a desired result and its anticipated gain against three other factors – all while maintaining focus on the goal. It may be tempting to simply ignore these other factors and fixate only on what we want. But this is the ignórance I mentioned in an earlier post, which is a willful disregard of things that we should be taking into account.
So, what are these other factors?
Risk
In any important endeavor there will always be some factor of risk, referring to the probability of failure – that we won’t reach our goal and get what we want (gain). Partners in dialogue who are working to clarify a truly meaningful goal need to understand that the risk of failure or falling short of their goal is one of the factors that actually elevate its value.
If there’s no risk whatsoever, the goal will fail to inspire and motivate, which is a failure of much greater consequence than merely falling short of a target. In DELIBERATION partners conspire to factor manageable risk into their strategy, not out of it. But then again, if there’s too much risk attached to their goal, the high probability of failure will likely distract partners from their creative work. That’s why the risk needs to be ‘manageable’: neither overwhelming nor nonexistent.
Cost
Any meaningful goal will take time; it may also take money or other resources to make it a reality. In this calculus of success, cost is what we need to give up, sacrifice, or lose in the process. So if gain is the anticipated value added, cost is the value we are willing to give over for its sake. Of course, we run the risk of this trade going badly, of losing more than we gain. Giving time to the collaborative pursuit of a goal at least means that partners are taking time away from other interests and commitments.
Just as with risk, however, if what partners really want costs them nothing, their goal will have little attraction or value. It won’t motivate or inspire their best effort. Cost-free ventures are generally not very interesting or fulfilling. Partners should work to minimize the cost but not discount it so much as to render their goal worthless.
Work
The third factor that needs to be weighed against the anticipated gain of achieving a goal addresses the effort it takes to get there. There should always be a challenge gradient or degree of difficulty associated with worthwhile projects. Otherwise, if a goal is effortless, it won’t be worth much. In many cases, the degree of satisfaction partners feel upon reaching a goal is proportional to the amount of effort they put into its pursuit.
When we lower the challenge gradient – as schools have been doing for students in order to show more impressive success statistics to external funders and state legislatures – we end up diminishing the factor that might otherwise help individuals discover and develop their true potential.
DELIBERATION in creative dialogue is the serious business where partners define their goal, clarify the gain they anticipate with its accomplishment, and carefully weigh this gain against the probability of failure (risk), what they will need to give up for its sake (cost), and how much effort it will require (work).
By keeping all these factors in balance, all the while ‘leaning into green’, partners will be able to draw on the strength of their synergy and grow into genuine community.
Tracts of Revolution 