Conflict in a team affects its people. People have personal perspectives. Subjective, not objective. Both real and a factor. Opinion counts, for it is among the fundamental drivers of behavior.
Americans value as evidence both facts and personal opinion. See an American curriculum vitae (resumé). It always either cites or offers references. See the sales/marketing efforts of any American company. They always either cite or offer a customer list. See the American judicial system. It always allows for supporting witness testimony.
All parents in all cultures strive to teach their children how to show or exercize good judgement. They want to prepare them for difficult situations in life, in which they will have to make difficult decisions, without the benefit of parental help. American parents will, time and again, advise their children to show good judgement.
Judges – team leads – base their judgement on three sources: on any existing laws, regulations, statutes, rules, regulations; on precedents, meaning how those laws, regulations, etc. have been previously applied; and on the specific circumstances of the conflict. Good – fair – judgement balances the influence of all three.
The higher in the American legal system one looks, the older the average age is of the judges. Americans equate judgement with wisdom. And wisdom is based on intelligence and experience. It is defined as: Accumulated philosophic or scientific learning; ability to discern inner qualities and relationships, insight; good sense; generally accepted belief; a wise attitude, belief, or course of action; the teachings of the ancient wise men. Middle English, from Old English wīsdōm, from wīs wise. First known use before 12th century
A judge conducts a trial in an open court. The judge is impartial. Judges hear witnesses and any other evidence presented by the conflict parties. Judges assess the credibility and arguments of the parties, then issue a ruling based on their interpretation of the law and his or her own personal judgment. In some cases, the judge’s powers may be shared with a jury.
Americans expect their managers to resolve a conflict the way a judge would rule on a case: impartially, considering all of the facts and witness testimony (if any), using their own common sense and experience, but not in any way sharing their responsibility to „make the call“ with other members of management (no jury).
On December 19, 1732 Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard’s Almanack. This book was filled with proverbs and advice, and was so popular that it was continuously published for 25 years, selling an average of 10,000 copies per year.
Many of the proverbs and pieces of advice dealt with time, particularly time management. Some of the best known time proverbs from this book include:
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Lost Time is never found again.
He that wastes idly a Groat’s worth of his Time per Day, one day with another, wastes the Privilege of using each Day.
If you have time, don’t wait for time.
Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.
Ah, simple Man! When a boy two precious jewels were given thee, Time, and good Advice; one thou hast lost, and the other thrown away.
Dost thou love Life? Then do not squander Time; for that’s the Stuff Life is made of.
There is a long history of witness testimony being given an excessive amount of weight in American trials. One prominent example of this is the Salem Witch Trials.
In January of 1692, two young girls (9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams) from Salem Village, Massachusetts, began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable screaming. Although a modern study suggests that these fits were the result of the children consuming the fungus ergot, which can be found in rye, wheat, and other cereals, at the time, the local doctor diagnosed bewitchment. Shortly thereafter, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, and three local women were arrested after the girls accused them of witchcraft.
Two of the women denied using witchcraft, however, the third, Tituba, a slave from the Caribbean confessed, probably hoping to save herself by acting as an informer. As part of her confession, Tituba claimed that there were other witches in the community that had acted alongside her.
This led to mass hysteria within the town of Salem, and soon many more people had been accused of and arrested for witchcraft. In the trials that followed, the primary evidence that was used for a conviction was witness testimony. In fact, some of the witness testimony that was presented wasn’t given by people who had seen the accused practicing witchcraft, but by people who had had dreams or visions of the accused practicing witchcraft. Altogether 19 people were hanged for witchcraft, 7 accused witches died in jail, and one man was pressed to death by stones for refusing to plea.
Eventually the trials were deemed unlawful, and in 1711 Massachusetts Colony passed legislation that restored the good names of those convicted of witchcraft, as well as provided financial restitution for their heirs. In 1953, Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials as the basis for his play “The Crucible,” which he published during the Red Scare (a time of growing fear against communism during the 1950s) in an attempt to remind Americans not to rely primarily on witness testimony when judging innocence or guilt.
Americans are willing to accept the resolution to a conflict which does not go in their favor. They may not be happy, but if the process was fair, they will accept the verdict and move on.
Nor will their manager, asked to intervene in order to resolve, hold any kind of grudge against either of the conflict parties. American managers know that they are paid to serve as judge in resolving internal disputes.
Historically, the United States has little experience with revanchism. Revanchism, from French revanche or revenge, is a term used since the 1870s to describe the desire to reverse territorial losses by a country after losing a war.
Revanchist politics rely on the identification of a nation, of a people, with a nation-state. This mobilizes ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside of the state where members of the ethnic group live.
The American judicial system allows anyone sentenced in a court to appeal that sentence. An appeal is when the accused (and sentenced) can take their case from a lower to a higher court for review.
In the American business context, a team member who believes that the judgement is wrong, or the conflict resolution process was unfair, can ask to have that decision reviewed by next-level management or by a neutral third party within the company, typically the human resources department.
In 1893, the case Nix v.s. Hedden found its way to the American Supreme Court. In this case, John Nix, John W. Nix, and Frank W. Nix filed a suit against Edward Hedden, a collector at the Port of New York, who had charged them a vegetable tax on their imported tomatoes.
The Nixes argued that, because a tomato is, botanically speaking, a fruit, the vegetable tax shouldn’t have applied.
At the trial, dictionary definitions were ignored, because, according to the Court, “dictionaries are admitted, not as evidence, but only as aids to the memory and understanding of the court.”
Instead, the Court looked at such things as the “ordinary meaning” of the words “fruit” and “vegetable” and precedent. In 1889, the case Robertson v. Salomon had established that, although technically white beans were seeds, they were eaten like vegetables instead of planted, so they should be taxed as a vegetable.
Ultimately, the court decided that a tomato should be taxed as a vegetable. The opinion of the court read: “Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas.
But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.”
There have been many famous repeals or court decisions in American history. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal (the American slogan for segregation of white and black Americans) was no longer constitutional, an act that negated their earlier ruling in 1896.
The first case in the U.S. in which the court system determined that a law was unconstitutional and should be repealed occurred in 1803. It was the case of Marbury v Madison, when the Supreme Court decided that the Judiciary Act of 1789 was conflicted with the Constitution and was therefore null and void.
The case of Betts v Brady ruled that the 6th and 14th Amendments of the constitution guaranteeing a right to legal counsel does not mean that the government has to provide counsel for someone who cannot afford it. Later, the case Gideon v Wainwright overruled this decision, and anyone accused of a crime is entitled to free counsel if he/she can’t afford an attorney.
In 1992, 79 year old Stella Liebeck bought a cup of coffee from a McDonald’s in New Mexico, spilled it on her lap, suffered multiple third-degree burns, and required skin grafts on her inner thighs and elsewhere. She subsequently sued McDonald’s.
Although the jury found Liebeck to be partly responsible for her injuries, based on evidence that McDonald’s coffee was unreasonably hot and had caused other injuries in the past, the jury decided to award Stella the equivalent of two days’ worth of coffee sales revenue for the entire restaurant chain. Some of the evidence presented at the trial includes:
1) An engineer from the University of Texas and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation both testified that the risk of harm from the coffee was unacceptable.
2) An expert witness testified that the number of burns the coffee caused was insignificant compared to the number of cups of coffee sold every year.
3) A McDonald’s quality assurance manager testified that the coffee at the serving temperature was not fit for consumption because it would burn the throat.
4) After several other similar lawsuits, McDonald’s knew about the risk of serious burns from its coffee, but did not warn customers of the risk.
Conciliationis is an additional step proposed in the dispute resolution process.
The conciliator meets with the parties separately at a so-called pre-caucus. The purpose is to help each party release their pent up concerns enough to enable them to gain a broader perspective on the dispute.
The parties then meet together at a joint session, where they discuss directly with each other instead of through a mediator.
The conciliator is there to help the parties take responsibility for managing their own conflict, rather than to judge between the merits of the position of one party or the other.