Sathnam Sanghera: Five easy pieces of advice
A couple of Mondays ago I wrote a piece about coaching and was inundated with e-mails, some of which were supportive, some of which were not. Among the messages that were not so positive was one from a female reader.
"Dear Mr Sanghera," it began. "Your comments on coaching are almost a direct quote from Raj Persaud's article on psychotherapy and counselling in the FT about 12 months ago. Heaven forbid that you may have quoted him without attributing it. I imagine that your readers are likely to be using coaches to help them deal with dilemmas in their business lives. But then what would you know about running a business? The closest you will get is penning fascile [sic] prose about something which you know nothing about. Still, it made a good read and made you look a total plonker. Not something I expect from the FT really. Regards."
This message gave me a certain satisfaction. One of the points in the column was that people who relied on coaches - essentially untrained shrinks - were a bit daft. And here was someone who employed a coach showing all the signs of being just that. Case proven. As with all abusive messages, I did not bother to reply and moved swiftly on.
But the e-mail preyed on my mind. Should I reply after all? Being regarded as a plonker was fine; being accused of plagiarism was less so. But if I did reply, how should I do it? Would a cross message just antagonise this reader further? Would a nice message have any effect? I had no idea what to do. Maybe I needed a coach.
Somehow, I could not bring myself to do something quite that silly. Instead I enrolled on a course offered by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development entitled "Managing Relationships and Conflict". I had read on the internet that the two-day course could help participants "deal with conflict in a constructive fashion". Exactly what I needed.
Not long after enrolling I found myself in a meeting room in London with two tutors, 10 trainees and a flip chart. Much of the content was irrelevant, until we got to a seminar called "Understanding Conflict". "Any difference of opinion is a conflict," explained the kindly tutor. "But it can vary from a helpful difference of views, to a dangerous disagreement. In certain workplaces it can end up with people getting killed."
Having alarmed us in this manner, he introduced something called the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument. This outlined five basic approaches towards conflict. The first three were "confrontation", "avoidance" and "accommodation". These, he said, were all undesirable, as they tended to reinforce the conflict and create more ill-feeling. Even the pleasant-sounding "accommodation" approach was no good: it involved "apologising and conceding the issue to the other person regardless of the rights and wrongs of the matter".
Much more preferable approaches to conflict, he said, were "compromise" ("bargaining with the other person until a compromise is reached") or, better still, "collaboration", ("treating the need to repair the relationship as a problem which the parties need to resolve together"). He then outlined a five-step guide to resolving conflicts in this "collaborative" style: (1) identify what you agree about; (2) identify what you disagree about; (3) agree to what you disagree about; (4) agree to what you agree about; (5) agree a process for resolution.
With these words glowing on a Powerpoint slide behind him, he added: "You could tackle any conflict with this framework, even the Israel- Palestine dispute." I could not wait to get back to the office to test out this claim on my abusive reader. I composed the following message for her: "Thank you for your e-mail about my column on coaching. I agree that many readers are likely to be using coaches and I agree that I know little about running a business (though I did run the tuck shop at infant school). However, I disagree with your suggestion that my piece was plagiarised, that my prose was facile and made me look "a total plonker".
"I think we need to agree that we disagree about coaching. We also need to agree on what we agree about - namely, that many FT readers use coaches and that I know little about running a business.
"I hope this e-mail goes some way to restoring your faith in the FT. Very best wishes, Sathnam."
I did not expect much in return: she had sent her message in "confrontation" mode and I suspected she would switch to "avoidance". I was surprised therefore to receive a response in a matter of hours later. "Thank you for responding to my e-mail," it said. "You are absolutely right. I lost track of the FT's prime function, which is to stimulate debate.
"As I ranted and raved in the office, several people challenged me on my opinions and a very lively conversation ensued, which would not have happened had I not read your piece. So my apologies for calling you a plonker and for suggesting you plagiarised Raj Persaud's piece. Good luck with your writing. I look forward to reading your columns and I applaud you on how well you have handled this situation. Regards."
I had been looking forward to making some facile observations about the CIPD course. I was going to take the mickey out of the "how to listen" session and complain that, at a cost of ￡875 for two days, the whole thing was a complete waste of money. But it seems it was not at all. In fact, I could not recommend the course more strongly.
解决冲突的理论管用吗？
几周前的一个星期一，我写了一篇关于辅导的文章，接着电子邮件如潮水般涌来，其中有些表示支持，有些表示反对。在那些评价不那么积极邮件中，有一封来自一位女性读者。
“亲爱的桑赫拉先生，”信的开头写道，“你有关辅导的评论几乎是从拉吉?佩尔绍德(Raj Persaud)关于心理治疗和提供辅导的文章中照搬照抄的，这篇文章12个月前登在《金融时报》上。如果你援引了他的文章而未注明出处，那就太不应该了。我设想，你的读者可能正依靠辅导者，来帮助他们对付生意上的困境。但这样的话，你对做生意又知道多少呢？你最可能做的，是对某样你一无所知的事情写些肤浅的文章。尽管如此，这篇文章读起来很有意思，而且让你看上去像个十足的傻瓜。我真没想到会在《金融时报》上看到这样的东西。致礼。”
这封信让我感到某种满足。那篇专栏文章的一个观点是，那些依赖辅导者的人(尤其是未经辅导、害羞的人)有些愚蠢。现在就有人聘请了辅导者，她的表现完全符合我的观点。有例为证。就和对待所有那些骂我的信一样，我没有费神去回复这封信，而且很快就掠过去了。
但是，这封电子邮件在我脑海中挥之不去。我到底要不要回复？被人尊称为傻瓜没关系；但被指责剽窃就不太好了。但如果我真的回复，我该怎么回复？如果写一封驳斥的信，是否只会让这位读者更加反感？如果写一封友善的信，是否会有任何效果？我不知道该怎么做。也许我需要一个辅导者。
不知何故，我无法让自己做一件那么愚蠢的事。相反，我参加了英国特许人事和发展协会(Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development)提供的一个课程，该课程名为“管理关系和冲突”。我在互联网上读到，这个为期两天的课程可以帮助参加者“用一种建设性的方式处理冲突”。这正是我所需要的东西。
在报名后不久，我就发现自己坐在伦敦的一间会议室里，和两位导师、10名辅导生和一套活动挂图在一起。起先讲授的许多内容都和主题毫不相关，后来我们开始了一场名为“理解冲突”的研讨会，才切入主题。“任何观点不一致都是冲突，”亲切的导师讲解道，“但是，冲突也有区别。一些是有帮助的观点分歧，一些是危险的争议。在某些工作场所，冲突可能最终会导致杀人事件。”
他用这种方式警告我们后，介绍了一种所谓托马斯-基尔曼冲突模式工具(Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument)的东西。这种模式概述了5种解决冲突的基本方法。前三种是“对抗”、“回避”和“迁就”。他说，这三种方法都不理想，因为它们倾向于激化冲突，并造成更多反感情绪。即使听上去不错的“迁就”法也不好，因为这种方法包括“不论是非曲直，都向对方道歉，并在此问题上让步”。
他说，解决冲突更可取的方法是“折衷”(“与另一个人商量，直到达成一种折衷”)，或者，更好的方法是“协作”(“把和好的需要看作一个必须由各方共同解决的问题”)。然后，他就这种“协作”解决冲突的方式概述了5个步骤：1、确定什么是你赞同的；2、确定什么是你不赞同的；3、就你所不赞同与他人达成一致；4、就你所赞同的与他人达成一致；5、达成一个解决问题的步骤。
上述文字都在他身后的Powerpoint幻灯片上闪现。与此同时，他补充道：“你可以用这个框架解决任何冲突，即使是巴以争端。”我迫不及待地回到办公室，在那些骂我的读者身上检验他说的这句话。我给她写了以下这封信：感谢您给我写电子邮件，就我有关辅导的专栏文章提出看法。我同意，许多读者有可能会使用辅导者。我同意，我对经营一家企业所知甚少(尽管我确实曾在一所幼儿学校经营一家糖果食品店)。然而，对于你认为我的作品是抄袭的、我的文章流于表面，而且令我看上去像个“十足的傻瓜”，我不敢苟同。
“我认为，我们需要就我们对辅导的不同意见达成一致。我们也需要就我们彼此认同的事情达成一致，亦即很多《金融时报》的读者聘请了辅导者，而我对经营一家企业所知甚少。”
“我希望这封邮件多少能让您恢复对《金融时报》的信心。致以最深切的祝福，桑盛姆。”
我没怎么指望这封信能有回音：她当初是以“对抗”的方式给我发信，而我猜想，这次她会转而采取“回避”的方式。但几个钟头后，我很惊讶地收到了她的回复。“感谢您回复我的邮件，”信中说，“您完全正确。我忘记了《金融时报》的首要功能，那就是引发争论。”
“当我在办公室里激昂地说出我的看法时，有几个人对我的观点提出质疑，于是就有了一场非常热烈的对话。而如果我没有阅读你的文章，那么这一切就不会发生。因此我为称您为‘傻瓜’，以及说您剽窃拉吉?佩尔绍德的文章而致歉。祝您写作顺利，我期待阅读您的专栏。而且您对这件事处理得这么好，我也为你鼓掌。致礼！”
我一度期待对特许人事和发展协会的课程作些肤浅的评论。我曾打算嘲弄“如何倾听”这节课，并准备抱怨说，两天花了875英镑，整件事完全是在浪费钱。但是，看起来完全不是这么回事。事实上，我再怎么强烈推荐这一课程也不过分。
如果你在解决冲突上需要帮助，那就请你报名听课吧。不过要快点，可能需要抢位子了。
