Summary

How do you create common ground in a workshop between people who deeply disagree and even fight?

I made a big mistake without knowing it.

I had to work with a group of people who deeply disagreed between each other.

To fix that disagreement, I suggested to the team to explore what are principles that they all agree with.

And this backfired. Let me tell you why.

When we're trying to understand a situation or trying to find common ground, there are basically two ways of doing it.

Either from the top or from the From the top or deductive approach, is to find general principles that people agree on and then apply them to the specific details.

In the bottom or inductive approach, we start from the details and then create common rules.

In my experience, when we start from the top, it doesn't solve the disagreement, it makes it even more visible.

Because even if people could agree on common principles, they will not use the same words for the same ideas

Even when they agree on a common principle, they will then disagree on how to apply it in the specific aspects.

And even worse when working in such a deductive approach. People feel that they should agree on all the principles.

And when the disagreement is that big, it's super hard to agree on everything.

So having made that mistake, I switched gears and tried a bottom and inductive approach, where team members would reveal how they work in practice.

And then realize that other people do the same exact practice, but just don't name it the same way.

People realize that they have more in common than what they thought.

And now we just have to find a new name for these common actions. A new name that doesn't push towards one culture or the other, but that creates a new common culture.

In an inductive approach, you quickly realize where there is common ground and where people really disagree.

You don't force people to come up with common ground. The common ground just appears.

It appears, but still makes clear that not everything is common ground. There are parts where people still disagree.

And I feel this makes a big difference because people can then say, yes, we agree on this, this, and this, and still, I'm not okay with that, that, and that,

Which is a very healthy way of being able to collaborate on the things we agree on and working separately on what we disagree.

So definitely the next time I will work with a group where there is a lot of disagreements, tensions, and even conflict, I will rather start from the bottom to then reveal the common ground and then use new words for these principles that people agree on.