MAKE IT SAFE 73others that motivates us to enter tough conversations, and it
eventually enables us to stay in dialogue with virtually anyone.
Consider the following example. A manufacturing company has
been out on strike for over six months. Finally, the union agrees to
return to work, but the represented employees have to sign a con
tract that is actually worse than what they were originally demand
ing. The first day back it's clear that although people will work,
they won't do so with a smile and a spring in their step. Everyone
is furious. How are people ever going to move ahead?
Concerned that although the strike is over, the battle isn't, a
manager asks one of the authors to lend a hand. So he meets with
the two groups of leaders (both managers and union heads) and
asks them to do one thing. Each group is to go into a separate
room and write out its goals for the company on flip-chart-sized
paper. For two hours each group feverishly lays out what it wants
in the future and then tapes the lists to the wall. When they fin
ish their assignment, the groups then swap places with the goal of
finding anything-maybe just a morsel-but anything they might
have in common.
After a few minutes the two groups return to the training
room. They're positively stunned. It was as if they had written
the exact same lists. They didn't merely share the shadow of an
idea or two. Their aspirations were nearly identical. All wanted
a profitable company, stable and rewarding jobs, high-quality
products, and a positive impact on the community. Given a
chance to speak freely and without fear of attack, each group
laid out not simply what it wanted, but what virtually every per
son wanted.
This experience caused each group to seriously question how
it had seen the other side. The groups began to see others as
morc similar to themselves. They realized the petty and political
tactics thc others had used were embarrassingly similar to the