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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Resolving a Business Argument
We've all been in arguments, such as when one person wants to proceed with something, but the other wants to stop.
A resolution requires empathic listening, the ability to put yourself in the "other person's shoes" and view an issue from the other's perspective.
 Here's how a Six Thinking Hats Short Sequence can be used for 2 persons / parties. The hat sequence is: blue > yellow > black > red > blue.
1. Blue hat: let's agree together to look at the pros and cons of the options (in this example, proceeding and stopping.)
2. Yellow hat: now let's both list the benefits of each option. Listen to each other and work to build a list together.
3. Black hat: now let's both list the risks/faults of each option. Again listen and work together.
4. Red hat: check for changes in feelings. Listen for clues like: "oh, now I understand where you're coming from... Gosh, I never thought about that..." are people emotionally willing to have a healthy discussion?
5. Blue hat: decide on next steps.
One extra step might be to gather more information (white hat) or other choices (green hat).
The sequence is meant to be short, 5-10 minutes duration in total.
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Jacob Andrews
Entrepreneur, United Arab Emirates
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Be and Think in Their Shoe If both arguing parties put themselves in eachother's shoes, the solution arrives fast.
For example, when a customer reports an issue, or when your subordinate raises an issue. Be in their shoe and think from their position and you will be able to find a solution.
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julia burlacu
Entrepreneur, Mexico
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Resolving a Business Argument I have a situation at work with a co-worker who wears her ego on her sleeve and despite the fact that even general management tried to resolve the situation and prevent any further conflict, she won´t change her behavioural pattern.
All the steps / hats have been employed but it seems nothing works. What is to be done in this circumstances? What should the general manager do?
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Jos Essers
Coach, Netherlands
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Resolving a Business Argument @Julia Burlacu: you say "she won't change her bahorial pattern". I am pretty certain that she would like to change, but just cannot as it is within her nature to act and react the way she does.
Most likely she is a highred, wearing her ego on her sleeve. If you deal with her, the way highreds want to be dealt with, you might see fascinating results.
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Thinking, not Labelling @Jos Essers:
Jos: thanks for offering your advice. Let's remember that the Six Thinking Hats wasn't meant to be a way to label people, like Myers-Briggs or 4 Colors. It's an approach to organize thinking in a structured, disciplined manner. In my reply to Julia above, I've offered some thoughts how I might deal with a high ego person.
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Thinking with Difficult People @Julia Burlacu: One of our goals is to improve a person's ability to think in 6 different ways. Consider a person with a high ego as a strength, not a weakness. She expresses a strong opinion; we just need to harness that energy by helping her see where she is weak, namely unable to see and understand the views of others.
Here are some tips, some you may have tried already:
- Appoint a blue hat facilitator to manage the 6TH process. It should not be the general manager.
- Set behaviour ground rules: be courteous, no interruptions, everyone contributes, share the air time. Don't just post them but use them to change old behaviours.
- Watch for signs of non-participation (folded arms, silence). Facilitator should assertively address it. Ask and wait for a response. It is discomforting but does engage.
- Use the red hat sparingly for progress checks. 30 seconds for a show of hands. Do not allow emotional outbursts.
Let us know what worked!
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Javier Elenes
Business Consultant, Mexico
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A Team Multiply not Just Sum Strengths of Team Members As an answer to Julia Burlacu question: what should be GM do. I suggest this 3 points
1 GM explain to team members that a team, by definition achieve more that just a sum (1 + 1 = 3)
2 Use this story about what is a good and bad team: We have 2 members of a team, a financial manager and a human resources manager, the first is strong in reading numbers and weak in "reading yellow lines" of the people, the HR manager is strong in reading "yellow lines" of the people and typically weak in reading numbers. A team shall be good in the 2 issues, adding the best strength of each one
3 GM tell to the members that should not use your strength to attack the weakness of the another member. And never listen to a team member, pointing out an error of a colleague (ie "the financial manager does not realize that his assistant is passing information to her new lover, "from the human resource manager) or "the human resource manager is paying more (from the financial manager).
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Yigzaw Bayew, Ethiopia
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The Six Thinking Hats for Resolving Business Arguments @Gary Wong: I positively share with Gary Wong that organizing ideas in color could help to guide the disputants and to get advice from other consultants.
Business arguments typically revolve around pros and cons, benefits, risks, moods/feelings at the time of exchanging ideas, and next course of action.
Gary organizes these ideas in color sequence of blue, yellow, black, red and back to blue. According to Gary, the discussion starts by pros and cons and ends by deciding to next course of action.
This approach is logical to resolve business arguments.
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Six Thinking Hats Effective Method Equating to Collaboration versus Competition Dealing with others ego's is one of the greatest challenges within business.
There are some that have effectively mastered encouraging respectful communications to facilitate collaboration.
I've been in many meetings where there are those who monopolize and those that can barely get a word in. How to encourage and enable those with good ideas to contribute, while encouraging those who monopolize to share the floor. It's useful then that in such situation there is a facilitator who can get the conversation, discussion, or meeting, back on track.
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sammie
Management Consultant, United States
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Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument In addition to all comments, the theory of conflict negotiation also comes to mind.
The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument touches on five areas of conflict management styles based on two ...
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Broli
Consultant, South Africa
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How to Deal with Rigid, Difficult People Unfortunately difficult or obstinate people have to be 'set up' to be exposed or shocked into seeing their obstinancy. These are the ways of the wise old persons of ancient times.
This was, for examp...
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SYED ATIF ALI
Student (University), Pakistan
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Putting Yourself in Their Shoes @Jacob Andrews : U mean empathizing?...
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wafaa
Sudan
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Be and Think in Their Shoe @Jacob Andrews: it is not easy to put ourselves in each other shoes because you can't really feel the pain if you're not in that position yourself. But you can try....
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Mahmoud, Saudi Arabia
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Resolving a Business Argument May Require Analysis First Thanks to all thoughts putting here for the management styles, but sometimes more effort to diagnose the problem and go deeply in analytical path may be needed....
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melchiorre calabrese, Italy
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Resolving a Business Argument @Julia Burlacu: I offer you the following practical advice:
Search in your co-worker something for which you can praise her, and do this at the earliest.
That shall help her to look at you not more ...
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Bill Boynton
Teacher, United States
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Understanding Eachother's Personalities Very interesting article.
I once experienced an organization who had sent their management people to Myers Briggs personality identification training.
After the training the people who had gone thro...
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Leodegardo M. Pruna
Professor, Philippines
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Resolving a Business Argument @Julia Burlacu: the general manager should talk in private with your colleague and lay down the reason for calling her, reminding her of existing policies relevant to her behavior, and to assure her t...
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Caroline A Vine, United Kingdom
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We are Talking About an Individual My first instinct is to ask why does the member of staff wear her ego on her sleeve? Is there a hidden issue that she has and is overcoming it by her ego?
A mentor may assist here as then they could ...
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ARMSTRONG IDAHOR
HR Consultant, Nigeria
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Conflict Can Be Beneficial Conflict can be beneficial, especially when it has to do with the question of which direction or approach should be taken on a business issue, and the different opposing parties are willing to listen ...
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Blue Hat Summary: We've Just Demonstrated Why we Need Six Thinking Hats! Wow, what rich content! Imagine if we were all in a meeting room together. How many conversations would be going on at the same time?
- I visualize a small group huddled with Julia discussing her par...
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Darryl Lynn Jones, United States
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Resolving a Business Argument Fantastic reminder for those in clinical supervisory capacities!...
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Vachu Kabbinale
Student (MBA), India
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Resolving a Business Argument @Julia Burlacu : From your note, I believe your management tried all the means to straighten up the situation. Now the only option left is to have a backup plan, slowly cut down her assignments and gi...
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Damith Baduraliyage
Student (MBA), Sri Lanka
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How to Deal with Disagreement about the Value of Benefits and Risks? Most arguments get stuck at evaluating benefits and risks. The gravity of elements within are not agreed upon due to experience, lack of facts etc.
- Experience to be justified as wrong or correct pe...
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Adamson, Zambia
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Resolving a Business Arguement That is a good approach. However, when I count the steps presented, I see only five. May be it was a typing error but I feel she should include a white hat (the facts about the arguments)....
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Short or Long Hat Sequence @Adamson:
Indeed in this particular use of the 6 thinking hats there are only 5 steps in which 4 of the hats are used (2 others are mentioned as optional at the end). Obviously there is no need to al...
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Mahmood Azizi
Manager, Iran
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Sometimes a Problem Cannot Be Solved Thanks for putting these thoughts here. If the argument was due to priority of works, schedule, technical matters and something like these there is a possibility to reaching a solution (win-win) but i...
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SAMUEL NDUATI MBUGUA
Management Consultant, Kenya
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Resolving a Business Argument: Personality Types When resolving an argument, it is important to understand the psychological type of the people involved in order to know the level of the flexibility each party is going to have.
The argument will pr...
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John Moses
Manager, Nigeria
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Effective Conflict Resolution is Vital to Organisation's Health There is nothing bad in conflict but how it is resolved is what is more important which I think should be effective and organisational centered.
Human elements must be reduced to the barest minimum s...
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Mandulo
Manager, South Africa
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Dealing with Non-Cooperative Persons Some individuals may be difficult or are not cooperating because they are hiding certain weaknesses. Those individuals need guidance and should be influenced positively....
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Taurai Nyamuzuwe
Student (MBA), Zimbabwe
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Resolving a Business Argument Must Add Value @John Moses : I agree a conflict is healthy only if it adds value to the organization. But if some person is being difficult only for the sake of being difficult, then there is need not to argue with ...
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Ranjan
Director, India
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Resolving a Business Argument I suggest to assign goals / responsibilities which need each other's help to be achieved.
The person having the big ego must get even more difficult goals than the others. Allow them to negotiate the...
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VENKATESWARAN
Teacher, India
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Resolving a Business Argument.. Gary, congrats for this good initiative... It is a practical problem in organizations. I suggest you create an article with all the inputs given herein.
Julia has also raised a pertinent issue in org...
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ernest agbenohevi
Consultant, Ghana
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Six Hats Fantastic for Resolving Issues The six thinking hats constitutes a fantastic model for resolving issues. People find themselves in entrenched positions for reasons of lack of sufficient data or information.
The model draws on the ...
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Strauss
Manager, South Africa
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Resolving a Business Argument: Get Rid of the Anger First :-) Wow people this is a very interesting sequence of steps to follow - I believe that this could also be used for personal needs.
However I might say that I in my personal capacity might have to wait to...
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Jim Liang, Australia
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The Role of Time in the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument @Sammie Cheston: Just to add another aspect to Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument -- it is certainly a useful tool in the context of seeking conflict resolution. Another dimension of it is time, ...
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Amir Momendoust
CxO / Board, Iran
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Resolving a Biz Argument @Julia Burlacu: Hi Julia, have you been through personality behavior studies like DISC? For me, root-cause analysis is key to solving any issue!
What sort of personality does she has resulting her in...
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Dr zahra gheidar
HR Consultant, Iran
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Managing Primary Feelings Yes, it is considerable point; "put yourself in other person's shoes", so you can solve a disagreement or problem with the Six Hats sequence as described by Gary.
Sometimes when we are in arguments, ...
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T Macey
Manager, United Kingdom
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Resolving a Business Argument - Stick to the Facts @Julia Burlacu: Hi Julia, I had a similar issue recently with a collegue (we are both department heads). She got heated and without careful handling this could have become a personal argument.
I find...
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Hat Sequence - Stick to the Facts @T Macey: To put your suggestion into Six Thinking Hats terms:
1. Blue hat - state the purpose of the meeting: "i want to understand... So I'd like to look into... An outcome we both agree on."
2. R...
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claudio pizzi
Business Consultant, Argentina
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Resolving a Business Argument Dear Julia, really it is very interesting to read the different answers that we have in this internet forum.
In my humble opinion when a person wears her ego on her sleeve, it is necessary to work w...
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robin umiom
Entrepreneur, Nigeria
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Managing Ego Among Subordinates Julia has brought a live issue for consideration under this heading. Managing ego among subordinates has been and will continue to be an arduous task for the managers for various reasons prime of whic...
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Andyson Mupeta, Zambia
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Understanding Each Others Personalities This can lead to perceived opinions even before the discussion starts. The "I knew it, why did I even bother" syndrome will rule.
I would like to believe that life experiences are continuously shapin...
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Wisdom Amegbletor
CEO, Ghana
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Dealing with High Ego's A person who wears his or her ego up her sleeve is likely to be covering a perceived or real defect.
Remember that the best form of defence for such a person is to attack. I am of the opinion that on...
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Darryl Lynn Jones, United States
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Gleaning Well-rounded Synergistic Feedback @Kathryn Pawley Steiner: As you know, gleaning well-rounded synergistic feedback is an ongoing challenge. It can be circumvented by invoking directive-control with response constraints in the interest...
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Controlling Time using a Six Thinking Hats Sequence @Darryl Lynn Jones: Darryl: Using Six Thinking Hats enables a facilitator to execute the good points you have made. A hat sequence can be designed for a timeline that is before, during, and after a me...
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Plyin
Manager, China
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Work with Other's Ego @Julia Burlacu: Keep the communication going. If she keeps her ego anyway, show her the consquence. In some circumstances, that will be one good option to ask her ego reason from question beginning....
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Adamson, Zambia
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Work with Other's Ego I agree with Plyin's view that you should keep on communicating. Indeed apply negative reinforcement if things get out of hand.
However, consider employee engagement processes if you can in order to ...
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claudio pizzi
Business Consultant, Argentina
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Two Levels of Self Esteem / Ego @Julia Burlacu : Dear Julia, the ego is an excess of self-esteem. Sometimes the reasons can be found on the surface and sometimes not. So in my opinion it's important to review the issues on two level...
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JOSE AGUILAR
Project Manager, Guatemala
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Administrative Theory is Important I have some experience with companies that have some of the problems that you bring to the forum. I´ve realized that many managers and executives of those companies, have a poor knowledge of adminis...
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Bill Boynton
Teacher, United States
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Dialogue the Need for Listening @Kathryn Pawley Steiner: there is a lot of value in addressing "dialogue" as a method of communicating, where the whole process is focused on sharing idea's, opinions, along with clarifying for meanin...
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Parallel Thinking Greatly Aids Listening to Understand @Bill Boynton: Instead of listening with the intent to understand, we all too often unfortunately "listen with the intent to reply." If you are busy thinking about formulating your response, that mean...
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KATHRYN STEINER, MBA
Entrepreneur, United States
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Documenting May Assist with Resolution Utilizing Six Hats Everyone has provided thought provoking contributions to this discussion. The six hats method, if agreed upon by all participants, would assist with bringing about organization and respect to discussi...
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Caroline A Vine, United Kingdom
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Hats Applied But it Went Wrong Hello all, I recently applied the hat theory on a colleague who subsequently left the office in a huff as they wanted a win and would not listen to anything or any reason or questioning of their under...
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melchiorre calabrese, Italy
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Apply the Black Hat with your colleague @Caroline A Vine : Invite your colleague for a coffee and ask him/her to examine together the risks for future performances. Then ask your colleague directly what you can do for a better relationship....
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julia burlacu
Entrepreneur, Mexico
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Co-worker Issue Resolved Thank you very much to all who answered my query. I am very grateful for your opinions. In the end the situation got solved. But it took few steps. First, I sat down with her and:
1. Asked her to ta...
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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands
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How to Deal with Disagreements at Work I read the following interesting tips on having disagreements at work by Amy Gallo:
What you should do:
Focus on common ground, shared goals and common interests.
Consider the nature of the d...
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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands
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How to Handle Disagreement in your Team as a Manager Yet another interesting HBR article on handling disagreements, this time as a manager of people in your team… Suppose 2 people in your team have a serious disagreement, what should you do as a manager...
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Gary Wong
Consultant, Canada
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Hats and Sequences to Use in Case of Disagreement in your Team @Jaap de Jonge: Since this is the Six Thinking Hats forum, here are the hats to wear and sequences to follow for the Brett and Goldberg article.
I. COACH: Blue, White
Blue hat when directing them...
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Gary Wong
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