Arbitration & Mediation

Negotiating with Difficult People: Taking Your Own Part in It

By Victoria Pynchon

As my book nears completion (A is for Asshole, the Grownup's ABC's of Conflict Resolution) I have more and more discussions about its theme, i.e., that "assholes" (and bullies and enemies) are not people but behaviors and not one person but two.

I've had grown men follow me down the hallway at my mediation home - ADR Services in Century City -  to convince me just how wrong I am about this.  Earlier this week, in yet another conversation on this topic with one of my oldest and most pacific attorney friends, I realized that I needed to differentiate between "assholes" with personality disorders (sociopaths - Tony Soprano;  borderlines - Burton and Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf; and, narcissists - film noir femme fatales such as Barbara Stanwyck in  Double Indemnity) on the one hand and the "rest of us" on the other.  

It's "the rest of us" that the ABC's of Conflict Resolution is about, i.e., those of us who are capable of behaving like an asshole without being one, as well as we who can unwittingly create, exacerbate or fail to counteract asshole-ishness in others.  

Our Part in It

When someone cuts in front of us in line; drives 50 miles an hour through a school zone; behaves boorishly at a party; or, shouts at workplace underlings, is there anyone to "blame" other than the asshole?  Without giving away the revised version of the first chapter, let me first say that we are all blinded to the part we play in disputes by cognitive biases.  Those biases include: 

• fundamental attribution error (over-attributing intention and under-attributing circumstance to another's harm-causing behavior while over-attributing circumstance and under-attributing intention to our own harm-causing behavior /1;
• clustering illusion (seeing patterns where none exist); and,
• confirmation bias (selecting from a vast amount of data only that which confirms our pre-existing opinions)

These biases play a major role in our perception whether "the other guy" is an "asshole" because the central element of assholishness is intentionality. /2 If I told you that the man who cut in line did so in an emergency room because his daughter was bleeding to death on the sidewalk; that the motorist going 50 miles an hour was being chased by gun-toting mafiosi; that the apparent "boor" was suffering from the sudden onset of a debilitating physical condition; or, that the workplace bully was urging his co-workers to leave a burning building, you wouldn't call any of these characters assholes.

Mistakes about the intentions and motivations of our fellows, as well as the constraints under which they are working, are so common in the litigated disputes I mediate that I've been forced to acknowledge just how much of other people's behavior is colored by my untested assumptions.  It naturally follows that my part in disputes has loomed much larger in its resolution than it ever did before.  When a fight is poised to break out between me and my husband, for instance, I will much more readily ask myself whether I made enough inquiries to determine the source of his distressing behavior; whether I've been afraid to start a conversation with him about the matter at hand because might prove "difficult" or who reveal a weakness in my own character or error in my own judgment; whether I'm taking something personally that's not directed at me; whether I'm nursing a grudge long after he's forgotten the event that cause if; and, whether there's a cry for help beneath his accusation.

I have friends in 12-step programs who tell me that "the program's" recommended practice is to keep their own side of the street clean and leave the other guy's faults to himself.  They quote me chapter and verse from their "Big Book":

 Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dis­ honest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situa­tion had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight.

What then do we contribute to the creation of an asshole?  First, we judge the behavior of others tending to believe - without sufficient evidence --  that their injury-causing behavior was meant to harm us.  Opposing counsel filed his ex parte application at 5:00 on the evening before Thanksgiving for the purpose of making our lives miserable.  Second, we see patterns where none exist.  The practice group leader's decision to take associate X to a client meeting following associate X's assignment to a high profile case, means that associate X is being groomed for partner while you are being marginalized.  Finally, we believe our own B.S., which prevents us from accurately assessing the true situation so that we can deal with it effectively.   

And that's what I mean when I say an "asshole" is not a person but a behavior and not one person but two.

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1/  That we do this even with animals whose minds we can't possibly know was brought into sharp relief this week as pundits pondered whether a killer whale "meant" to kill his trainer or was only "playing" with her.

2/  The social scientists have recently discovered that we actually feel more physical pain when we believe has intentionally struck us than accidentally caused us harm.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on February 26, 2010 (boomark / email).