“The Make Tracks approach provided the framework to understand each other’s role and the associated difficulties and challenges. The new perspective gave rise to a better appreciation of each team’s work and their needs.”

Director of operations

Schneider Electric Belgium

Embracing discomfort

Our recent project to accompany the transformation of Schneider Electric’s service operations department in Belgium reinforced our conviction that the best solutions emerge from a diversity of perspectives placed in tension with each other.

While one of the objectives was to make the work between teams more fluid, would it not seem counter-intuitive to contrast differing viewpoints? It would be legitimate to ask how such a process would achieve this objective.

Yet, the approach forces teams to step out of their comfort zone in order to gain a better perspective of the system in which their work takes place. It is precisely through the mutual understanding of each team’s reality that everyone was able to appreciate the positive impact of the various changes so that the operations department as a whole functions more cohesively.

Ultimately, this greater awareness of each other’s reality facilitated the design and implementation of a better solution (redefining roles, responsibilities and work processes) because there was a shared understanding of the context and how the transformation would benefit everyone collectively.  What at first may have been uncomfortable turned into a successful transformation through the cross-pollination of differing viewpoints.

Team cohesion does not mean collaboration

Didier Locatelli, associate director for the consulting firm New Deal, agrees:

“Consensus is the search for a position that will obtain the consent of the greatest number (or, in other words, the lowest common denominator) making it possible to synthesise the diversity of opinions expressed. In fact, consensus aims more to maintain the cohesion of the group than to provide a solution to the problem in question. Conversely, compromise arises from the recognition that there is a tension, a clash between ideas, interests and points of view. It is above all a process of conflict resolution by which each actor renounces what is dear but not vital, to obtain the support of others for what is really essential. Compromise is based on mutual concessions in order to provide a concrete response to the problem posed.”

As such, compromise that embraces controversy rather than consensus is the basis for constructing a shared understanding, thus making a lasting solution possible. With this in mind, the following three questions could help identify viewpoints to deepen your reflections:

1. How is the subjective experience of those directly or indirectly affected by the problem integrated into the design of a solution?

2. To what extent are people able to offer their own perspective, potentially different from yours, or the majority?

3. What ideas or viewpoints are we trying to avoid, discount or set aside out of fear of confrontation? Who is likely to bring a complementary perspective on these topics to address these blind spots?

We thank Didier Locatelli for his contribution. You can contact him through his LinkedIn profile.