Conflicting Agendas Are Opposing Forces

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Conflicting agendas are opposing forces, and an experienced commander or leader realizes that these conflicts (whether they are hidden agendas or adamantly-stated contentions) will create a situation of encumbered ability [in the best of cases] and of complete immobility [in the worst case].

A leader bases his or her campaign or drive on finding areas of commonality, where agendas amongst all participants intersect significantly enough that every participant is more heavily invested in the interests which unite them to the group’s stated purpose or mission than the differences which separate them. If these differences are too great, or if these differences prove to be in direct opposition or conflict, the team effort will invariably fail, and the mission will not be accomplished.

A leader or commander has an obligation at the outset of a mission to determine: whether or not there are competing or conflicting agendas or objectives, to identify them, to isolate each one (and determine the potential damage which it may do) and to state his or her findings openly and candidly, in order to give the party or parties at conflict the opportunity to either acquiesce or to depart the team.

Barring either of these possibilities, the leader has three possible means of addressing the situation prior to proceeding with the campaign objective.

1) To persuade the recalcitrant party through intelligent argument and negotiation;

2) To remove the recalcitrant party;

3) To abort the mission.

Most leaders do not have the luxury of the third option, and in practice, the second option is generally prevalent.

To cite a practical example from the landscape of business:

Say that you have an acquaintance (a professional of some sort) who has a client, and your acquaintance refers this client to you. At the outset, your acquaintance feels that he is serving his client through the ‘innocent’ referral, and your company is happy to have the opportunity to serve a new customer.

If that customer begins making demands upon your company which would cause you to either 1) deviate from your chartered objectives, or 2) lose money in the process of appeasing his or her wants and needs, you will be forced to decline the engagement, since your first allegiance must be to your company and its stakeholders.

However, your acquaintance may have a greater interest in keeping his or her client satisfied regardless of the consequences to your company. He or she may try to persuade you to take a loss, compromise your objectives or think of his or her political, social or career interests as more important than your company’s needs. He or she is actually demanding that you make a sacrifice, at your expense, for his or her benefit.

In this situation, the only course to follow is one where you explain to both the referred customer, and to the referring professional that the your company is unwilling to take on the customer’s prospective business because it is either not in conformity with your business model (or mission), or because it would cause your company to incur a loss which would be damaging to you, your company and your company’s stakeholders. And then you must peaceably part ways.
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A commander understands that the successful achievement of a goal or profitability is more important than the ballast and burden imposed by conflicting agendas and opposing forces. A commander also understands that conflicts are issues which must be expediently identified, addressed and resolved. The longer the time to resolution, the more damage incurred.

In order to accomplish anything, all agendas of all parties must be in alignment. Anything else results in either chaos or immobility, neither of which is tolerable in prosecuting a campaign or in running a profitable business.

Douglas E. Castle for The Taking Command Blog, The Internationalist Page Blog and The Braintenance Blog.

Some tags, keywords, search terms, research items, categories and labels for your further reference include:
conflict resolution, hidden agenda, conflicting agendas, team leadership, The Taking Command Blog, negotiation, achieving objectives, priorities, business, decision making, sacrifices, compromises, immobility, Blogs By Douglas E. Castle, leadership, hard choices, taking rapid action, politics in business, referrals, relationships, networking, cutting your losses.

As an end note, and generally speaking the person who asks you to make a sacrifice so that he or she may reap a benefit is not truly your ally. -DC

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The Loneliest Leader - The Investigative Journalist Or Reporter

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The written piece which follows was excerpted from a newsletter sent by Truthout, a decidedly "progressive" and partial organization with what one would consider to be a 'liberal bias' in terms of its thrust.

I believe that in my role as an author and as a commander, I should look to every political extreme, no matter how far out on the fringe that it may seem, as a routine function of my professional existence -- as I have said in The Global Futurist Blog and in The Internationalist Page Blog, "What may seem absurd or extremist today may well become tomorrow's status quo."

Political considerations notwithstanding, this is a piece about the personal toll taken by assuming the job of being the loneliest kind of leader - an investigative reporter or journalist.

 Not only do you have to unearth things that frighten you and display them in the naked critical light of day, but you are also the messenger;

and the news that you provide, if negative, generally gets associated with and occasionally blamed on the messenger. The article excerpt, which is very well-written follows...

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When I tell people what I do for a living, the most common response is, "But isn't it depressing???" My response: "Of course!"

Grappling with the news every day is an emotional sky-dive with a rickety parachute. But for each of us on Truthout's staff, it's a jump we must take.

When Truthout reporter Mike Ludwig told me he wanted to cover the brutal "gas rush" that has brought a fracking epidemic upon Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, it was because he felt compelled to do so: he grew up in Ohio, and - watching his childhood stomping grounds fill up with fracking rigs - he couldn't simply stand by. Truthout's lead investigative reporter Jason Leopold has described his decade-long pull to report on the horrors of Guantanamo: "There's something about the crimes committed by the Bush administration in our name that haunts me." And a couple of weeks ago, after watching a gaggle of corporate apologists squawking about the greed of public schoolteachers on a local Chicago news station, I couldn't help staying up half the night to hammer out a column in defense of the teachers' rights and those of their students.

Truthout's content relations editor, Leslie Thatcher, once put it this way: "While our task will never be completed, neither may we ever desist." We can't not do this work. It's not because we love to wallow in the murk of disaster and political frustration. It's because we believe ardently that a more equitable, more humane world is possible, and we must expose the murk in order to climb toward that brighter future.

You, our community, are our partners in this journey toward justice, because you care too much to sit idly by.

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One of the greatest motivators for leadership is the existence of a problem which must be solved for the benefit of that leader and for all of Humanity, as a whole. Every investigative reporter or journalist is a leader, without support troops, and facing life-threatening perils as well as emotionally-devastating truths every single day.

The greatest commanders not only have their respective missions -- but they are also champions of Humanity, compelled by an obsession to do what they believe is truly right.

Douglas E. Castle for The Taking Command Blog

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Threats And Threatening

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The making of threats and engaging in the act of threatening are serious issues. They have a tendency to backfire. Although there are circumstances where a warning is appropriate, an outright threat (as opposed to an implied one, which is the type preferred by certain persons in high political office -- you've seen them in the movies, where a public official wants to induce another official to do his bidding, so he anonymously sends his quarry some photographs of his quarry engaging in "ethically questionable" acts) is seldom an intelligent tactic for getting anything done.

An outright (overt) threat, either made orally or in writing, gives your adversary an advance warning to prepare a counterthreat or defensive action. More often than not, these types of threats engender hostility and defensiveness more than compliance with the desired objective. If the threat is menacing enough, you can find law enforcement on your doorstep. And if you don't carry through with the threat after your adversary has failed to comply with whatever your demands were, you will have lost a position of negotiating strength.

The only threats that are effective are:

1) a threat of a lawful or legal action which you carry through with at the scheduled compliance deadline. These are perfectly fine to put in writing, as a matter of notice and record; or,

2) an imagined and unspoken threat, as perceived by your adversary when he has opened that envelope of nasty photos (as described in sordid detail earlier). In this type of case, you have let your adversary's mind do all of the threatening, without having said a single word.

If you  do not believe that your adversary can be 'behaviorally re-directed' by either of the two above approaches, you must attend to matters swiftly, precipitously and without any warning whatsoever. in order to change the undesirable predicament to which this other individual or entity has subjected you.

Generally speaking, positive reinforcement or negotiation is preferred to threatening whenever possible. If threatening is indicated in the circumstances, let your quarry's mind (and his imagination) do the work for you. And lastly, actions are generally preferable to threats.

This last comment regarding the taking of action is important, and should not be taken lightly. If you have achieved a reputation for taking action, that is more often than not, the greatest threat of all.

Don't be perceived as an extortionist. It is far better to be perceived as a person of action or as a positive motivator in most cases you will encounter.

Douglas E Castle

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Leaders Cannot Hide - Aftershocks And Recoveries

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A few brief word about leadership and what it entails at its most difficult times...during the brief pause after something has happened that either been caused by your command, or is going to call into question your ability to lead. Aftershocks - those lonely, intense and frightening moments: after you've made an unpopular but righteous and necessary decision; after you have made a poor decision that has cost many; when your team, constituents or adversaries (i.e., your most tenacious detractors) are looking to place blame (and you are an obvious and opportune target). In summary, in those critical periods when most Human Beings would instinctively choose to run or hide.

How you handle yourself in the aftermath of a crisis, or at the telltale signs of a "no confidence" vote, when you will be unable to simply run and hide, and your secondary conditioned response program will be to either become 1) terribly angry or 2)very defensive, will truly define you. These are the very opportunities to separate yourself from the ranks of others who would blindly run with the crowd, and those escape artists who will do or say anything (or nothing) in order to escape attention or accountability.

Now (and not later) is the time to address the buzz. Now is the time to stand up straight and tall and hold a press conference. You must take the lead. You are obligated, as a commander, and as a true adult, to send a message. Now is the time to be fully accountable, but without excuses, feeble explanations, a 'politically proper' retreat, displacing blame, or providing the detailed account of a servant or an assistant. You must:

1) Get right to the heart of the issue;

2) Briefly summarize the situation as it truly is;

3) Claim absolute responsibility for your decisions, either good or bad, and regardless of the outcome;

4) If you've caused pain or loss, say that you're sorry for those affected - but don't belabor this point;

5) Move right on, and talk about what your next steps will be. Being swiftly decisive is every bit as important as being right. Don't surrender your position of authority. Remember: You are holding court, and you must not act as if you are on trial. Don't stay and address petty questions - be direct, but sharp -- you must leave because you either have a business, an organization or a country to lead. And your job is to do exactly that.

Leaders must lead. By definition, a leader cannot ever hide. He or she must retain command and control.

Douglas E Castle [http://www.linkedin.com/in/douglascastle]

http://InfoSphereBusinessAlerts.blogspot.com

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HATRED LEAVES ITS TATTOO

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To Anyone Reading This:

There was a Holocaust. More than six million men, women and children were exterminated, their bodies carted off like so much garbage, their emaciated, mangled carcasses tossed into ditches and mass graves.

People deny that there was a Holocaust. Even today, as lesser-known, but equally reviling holocausts ("ethnic cleansing," "racial purification," "civilian massacres," "wholesale carnage," and a host of other terms are applied) take place throughout the world. As I sit here. As I write these words. Denial leads to recurrence, to a lack of vigilance, to a trivializing of the monstrous side of Human Nature. A monstrous element that remains unchanged and right beneath the surface of most smiles despite years of civilization and technological advancement. Despite all attempts at education.

Political correctness, semantics and hideous metaphors abound ("The Israelis are worse than the Nazis -- look at how they've slaughtered innocent Palestinians!") to twist the facts so far out of perspective, so inanely out of context, that the truth is trampled. One of my favorites is the now infamous declaration by the great minds of the United Nations that "Zionism is Racism." They might just as easily have declared "Survival is Sin." ...or "Questioning Authority is Terrorism." Hatred is always fashionable. Rationalization is the only thing which is even more fashionable.

It is like a children's game of "telephone"... atrocities are ignored or rationalized while self-preservation is decried as aggression.

I had an eighth-grade teacher with a number tattooed on his forearm. It was noticeable because he would roll up his sleeves when he wrote on the chalkboard. I was mesmerized by it.

He caught me staring once, at the end of class and whispered, devoid of expression, as if all emotion had been wrought from him like the last tears from a hankerchief, "Branded like cattle. They did this to me. People did this to other people. And much, much worse. Much worse." His eyes were focused on some distant point in the past, right through me. I had never seen a person travel back in time before -- I knew then, intuitively, that time travel has always existed.

Tattoos, like old stories, become distorted. But the distortion is only superficial. There are deep, permanent, but unseen burns, cuts and bruises on the inside. On the souls of so many people. They never are fully healed, and they never go away. They are incurable. These scars, like the truth, are forever.

Denial is simply dishonesty.


Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

p.s. Please forward this message to everyone you know. Keeping it to yourself is a small, but not inconsequential, act of irresponsibility and inhumanity. These can be habit-forming if permitted.
________________________x
THE NATIONAL NETWORKER








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