By Patricia Mukhim
It is agonising to have to choose between two equally awful alternatives to resolve a serious issue like illegal immigration/influx. At such times the only sensible thing to do is to read and learn lessons from enlightened thinkers. Stephen R Covey in his book, ‘The 3rd Alternative’ shares gems of wisdom on how to solve some of life’s most difficult problems. Politicians and bureaucrats as well as pressure group leaders in hiding might do well to read this book now. The ancient Greeks thought of this as being caught in the horns of a dilemma because it is like facing a charging bull. Regardless of which horn catches you one of them will run you through. Faced with such a dilemma the insecurity of the 2-Alternative thinker is understandable. Some throw up their hands and surrender. Others pounce on one horn of the dilemma and drag everyone else along. Obsessed with being right they make a great show of defending their rightness even while bleeding from the wound. Still others select a horn to die on because they feel they must. They see no 3rd Alternative. A debilitating response to 2-Alternative thinking is that it makes us stop hoping. We forget that in any Great Debate there is a “Great Middle” of people who don’t identify with any pole. How do we engage this Great Middle?
The 21st century is a borderless world. Walls are falling. The only walls that exist are between people. The walls, though invisible form a barrier to trust, communication and creativity. The only way to tear down these walls is the internal strength to think “We” not “Me.” The Japanese believe in collaborative or co-operative learning because they think there is much to learn from many minds than by learning alone. Yet this society is caught in a mental block fuelled by egotism. If the Government is seen as obstinate, the pressure groups holding this government to ransom are equally recalcitrant. Truth be told, both the Inner Line Permit (ILP) and the Tenancy Act are games of political one-up-manship. Both sides are premised on the wrong paradigm. Both see themselves as representatives of a viewpoint. None cares to find alternative views that could be more sound than those on the table now. Both sides are waiting to win the game. But to my mind they are playing a zero sum game. It would make sense therefore for all of us looking for a way out of this stalemate to read Stephen Covey’s ‘The Third Alternative.’
In the polarized paradigms of our society it is common to assume that only one point of view is correct and that the whole point of an argument is to win – to beat the other side. But for the 3rd Alternative thinker the goal is not to win but transformation for everyone on all sides As we learn from each other we naturally change our views; sometimes radically.
At this moment the rage thermometer is way up. The rising fever of contention has made us insane ; hence the petrol bomb attacks. Pressure groups are roaring and on the war path determined to take on their enemies – the Government and all the vulnerable groups in society. So what about all of us? Do we as Covey says play the victim helplessly waiting for someone to save us? Do we take positive thinking to the extreme and slip into a pleasant state of denial? Do we sit back stoically, with no real hope that things will ever get better? Deep down do we believe that all the prescriptions are just placebos anyway? Do we keep plugging away like most people of goodwill doing what we’ve always done in the slim hope that things will somehow get better?
Albert Einstein made this point very succinctly when he said, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” Einstein suggests that in trying to solve our most difficult problems we must radically change our thinking – develop new mental reflexes.
Most conflicts have two sides: It’s always ‘your way’ or ‘my way.’ But the way forward is a higher way. Each of the alternatives is rooted in prejudiced mindsets aimed at punishing a third character. The ILP punishes genuine visitors who choose to enter Meghalaya through legally created entries while the Tenancy Act punishes the house owner and the tenant. Each side sees itself as virtuous and rational and the other side as lacking in virtue or common sense.
This 2-Alternative thinking is what has created this frustrating impasse. The problem is not in the sides we take but in how we think. The problem is with our mental paradigm. A paradigm is a pattern or model of thinking which influences how we behave. If we shift our paradigm then our results and behaviour change as well.
Take the case of the ILP and Tenancy Act. They have both become mental maps that are incomplete in themselves. Society could pay a terrible price by following one or the other. If both sides agree to keep their respective maps side by side and combine them it could be a more inclusive map that takes into account both perspectives. That is some progress. But even so, both sides might be left with incompatible goals. Worse, both sides after having understood the views of the other better might fight each other even harder. In an ideal situation not dictated by politics both sides could look at each other and say, “Perhaps we can come up with a better solution than either of us has in mind. Could we look for a third alternative we have not even thought of as yet?” Stephen Covey says hardly anyone ever asks that question. Yet it is the key not just to resolving conflict but of transforming the future.
Covey says we get to the 3rd Alternative through a process of synergy. Synergy is when one plus one equals ten or hundred or thousand. It’s the mighty result when two or more respectful human beings decide to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge. It’s about the passion, the energy, the ingenuity, the excitement of creating a new reality that is far better than the old reality. Synergy is not the same as compromise where one plus one equals one and a half. Everybody loses something. Synergy is not just resolving the conflict. When we get to synergy we transcend the conflict. We go beyond it to something new, something that excites everyone with a fresh promise and transforms the future. Synergy is better than ‘my way’ or ‘your way’. It is ‘our way.’ Synergy is about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. But minds that are on the defensive are neither creative nor co-operative and therefore they resist synergy. The greatest enemy of synergy is pride. It’s the great insulator that prevents the creative blending of human energies. The ancient Greeks taught that hubris or extreme arrogance is the worst of crimes and leads to the downfall of people, organisations and nations.
The main symptom of hubris is lack of organisational dissent and conflict. Both in the case of the 10 pressure groups and the Government there is hubris. The pressure groups see their ability to stick to a single stance and a lack of internal dissent as a strength (symbol of unity). But that is hubris. The Government too headed by a smart CM believes it has all the wisdom. And not one of the ministers dares to challenge him. So he feels invincible. That is hubris. Some conflict in the cabinet would have led to better ideas. The problem with those afflicted by hubris is no one dares to challenge them. So if they receive no inputs from others; if they are only talking but not listening; if they are too busy to deal with those who disagree then they are heading for a fall.
This is where we are at now – a complete stalemate with no one willing to budge. Shall we continue to remain spectators? At what cost? And who will lead the way forward?