Rationality and Conflicts

Most people do behave rationally; you just have to discover the rationale.

I used to believe in this argument very strongly but the word Most in the argument is bothering me now a days. According to the learnings in one of the courses here (I think organization behavior), conflict can be explained when there are differences in

• Norms
• Values
• beliefs
• Data
• Assumptions
• Context

If you go by Rational thinking , everybody commits to an action based on the above categories. I believe this is a very important framework for us as future managers. Majority of our time goes into conflict resolution. When conflict happen; many times you can explain the conflict based on the above framework.

Nonethless, conflicts can also happen because of irrational behavior. Usually pejorative, the term irrational is driven by emotion-driven and impulsive actions which appear to be, less logical than the rational alternatives. In my opinion most of our Indians are almost always on the emotional side rather than the rational side. I believe this explains more number of conflicts in the Indian work environment compared to the US work environment.

Key learnings for me in the future is:

1. Use the above framework to deal with conflicts
2. This framework will help me understand and probably solve many conflicts and mis-understandings
3. However, if something cannot be explained, I need to be cautious of irrationality
4. Most important: I should not take crucial decisions when I am emotional or impulsive

Summary statement: As a manager, my heart should be burning but my mind should be cool.