Month: September 2017

When one of my necklace chains gets tangled, I invariably want to try to untangle it by hand. It looks so simple, like you could just wiggle it apart and be on your way, but it never is.

What I have found is that using two pins to dislodge a knot is the way to do it. One pin holds the chain in place while the other pin is used to untangle the chain at the knot and efficiently pull it apart. Works like a charm every time.

I think the necklace untangling is a metaphor for how it works to pull apart conflicts in organizations. It seems like it should be easy, but often is not. The more you resist, the tighter the obstruction becomes. A few key tools (or people) go a long way in diffusing the situation: one to hold steady, another to work cautiously to make small movements of progress. The untangling happens with a little loosening here and a little loosening there until the knot has worked its way through the chain and the necklace (or situation) is smoothed out.

Untangling – whether in organizations or in jewelry – is a process of small movements that eventually lead to resolution. Hold steady and go slow to smooth out your knots.

Are lobsters yellow? If you answered no, you would be right one in 29,999,999 times, but, as this photo shows, they do appear once in about every 30 million births. And lobsters are blue, orange and split colors as well as the traditional orange, so if you insisted that these tasty crustaceans only come in one color, you would be wrong.

It makes sense that after years of seeing something only one way you would be convinced with some certainty that you are correct in your understanding. Where people get in trouble is that too often they insist that their experience is the only correct answer and that it applies to the breadth of the topic, not just a narrow interpretation.

I am reminded of this meme that was shared on Twitter:

The copy below the drawing claims that there is a “right” answer, but from the narrow context of what we see, there is not. Is it a six or a nine? Yes. But if you backed up or saw a larger context, one answer is likely to be wrong.

Right is a narrow construct. You can be right if the question is tightly defined. The broader your parameters are, the less likely there is a certainty. You are right that most lobsters are orange. But if you expand to consider more of them, a variety appears.

We’d all be better off you make claims of fact with caution and qualifiers that define the limits of your knowledge and experience, and if you were open to nuances that change your answer.

Thanks Meg!