Years ago, I joined a US Standards technical committee because I wanted to master a certain technology. What I learned instead was how to deal with fundamentally opposed factions and help them find a way forward.
The committee I joined was a backwater of a backwater committee. It was considering whether or not to recommend the new Microsoft Office file formats as a US standard. It consisted of archivists, academics, and other genius level folks who loved to think long term (100’s of years) and geek out about storage and information organization. Members also included employees of some of the biggest tech companies on the planet.
I was super excited to be on this thing. I had just spent the last year or so deeply immersing myself in these new file formats, was looking for any opportunity I could to go deeper. and was lucky to get my wish.
What I should have realized was the political nature of this group. Of course, Microsoft had a representative on the group, but so did some of Microsoft’s largest competitors. It was hard at first to understand what were legitimate concerns and what were deliberate obstructions.
It was a weird experience for me. I was clearly a Microsoft fanboy and I was selfishly there to geek out. I naively had no idea the problem space that I was walking into. I did learn a fair amount more the Office file formats (all of which I’ve forgotten). The real learning, however, was how to find consensus around groups who were deliberately looking to obstruct.
How to find a way forward when sides are diametrically opposed?
I watched a former trial lawyer, turned document archivist, turned leader of our ragtag conflicted group of pseudo-enemies, work his magic. This was definitely not what he signed up for. But I feel like his life naturally led him to this place. It was amazing to watch him work. First off, this was a real-deal problem. There are still angry articles written about him out there. Some were written by members of the committee. We’re talking a back water of a back water committee. I can’t imagine that any of the long-term members signed up for that. In fact, I’m guessing these file formats ended up here because no one else wanted to touch the political mess they came with!
In any case, watching him work was kind of like watching Gandalf. He would smile, and gently work the problem space higher and higher, until finally, he could get both sides to agree to something, anything, that he could then use as a basis for moving forward. I never asked him if he did any mediation during his legal career, but I do know he did some divorce cases that must have come in handy!
It was literally an awesome experience to watch this older academic sitting at the head of the table with an angry Microsoft on one side and an angry IBM on the other.
Elevate to align
This all came back to me because a buddy of mine and business partner, Dan Rogers, is starting a new project over at IntentionalSidekick.online. He’s producing 365 days of back-to-back content. (I can’t imagine. Once a week feels herculean to me!)
Earlier this week, he posted about finding alignment between your vision (what you say you want), intent (what you actually want), actions (what you do), and the universal constraints that surround us. Internal conflict comes when these four things are in misalignment. Of course, this works with relationships as well. It made me think of our fearless committee leader. He was essentially moving everyone up the problem space until he could find alignment across people who were literally being paid to force different outcomes.
There were those on the committee whose vision, intent, and action were not in alignment with themselves, let alone with the rest of the committee. Our leader never challenged this, at least not when I was present. He was always elevating until he could find that alignment.
His patience and dogged optimism in working with essentially globally warring factions was a valuable life lesson. Never once did I see him get pulled into the fray, all the while, working to find a very simple agreement from which he could build a foundation. I can’t remember what it was, but it was very much something as silly as the color of the sky. But, once he got it, the mood shifted in the room. Pretty much everyone knew we were going to find a way forward.
Hey future me:
When in doubt, elevate until you find alignment.
Thanks to Carmine Savarese for the photo of the blue sky and Austin Ban for the hot air balloon.