From Conflict to Convergence: Coming Together to Solve Tough Problems

CHAPTER 12Take Your Time

At this point we hope we've convinced you that collaborative problem-solving has immense benefits. Spoiler alert: Speed is not necessarily one of them! While it may save you time in the long run, finding wise, durable solutions built on higher ground often requires patience and fortitude.

It's probably also clear that the building blocks of collaborative problem-solving laid out in Part III are not a light lift. Ensuring that the full range of views are represented, nurturing trust, developing a shared understanding of the complexity of the issues, identifying the underlying interests of the parties, and creating new identities based on a shared commitment to solving the problem—all of these things take time. However, as a very smart, wiry-haired man once said, “Time is relative.”

COLLABORATING SAVES TIME IN THE LONG RUN

Reflect back again on the issue that you selected in the “Try It Out” in Chapter 2, “How to Reach Convergence,” or consider another divisive or challenging issue in your workplace, school, place of worship, or community. How long have people been fighting about it? How about an unresolved, contentious issue in the state where you live? How long have people been fighting about that? Probably for quite a while.

Yet polls show that Americans are not as divided as we think, even when it comes to some of the most divisive issues in the country. For example, less than 1 in 10 Americans, across political parties, support cuts to Medicare. ...