October 2005

Innovation Tips

…ideas for building collaborative innovation

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The Call to Inquiry and Ingenuity

 

We live in a politically unsettling culture—red versus blue, Islamic versus Christian, Jew versus Arab, fundamentalism versus scientism, black versus white, democracies versus terrorists, county versus city, you versus me. Everywhere we look we seem to find conflict—destructive conflict.

 

Yet we know that conflict can be healthy. A tension of opposites is essential for personal growth. Character does not grow without adversity. Innovations are born of dissonance. The whole spiraling evolution of life—intelligently designed or randomly selected—depends upon responding successfully to conflictive events.

 

How then can we intentionally respond to conflict in a constructive and healthy way? The essential difference between destructive conflict and resistance that generates constructive results can be summarized in two words: inquiry and ingenuity.

 

Healthy conflict requires inquiry—people seeking a full understanding of the sources of conflict together. Honest dialogue about perspectives rather than positions clears the clutter of misunderstanding and raises the blinds on creative solutions.

 

The opposite of inquiry—pigheadedness—leads ultimately to an avalanche of perpetual conflict. Trust and mutual understanding slip rapidly downhill, devastating relationships along the way.

 

Inquiry seeks first simply to understand: What are the values behind the position? What can we do together to achieve the desired value?

 

Understanding between sincere people, born of honest inquiry, leads inevitably to ingenuity—creating viable solutions. Whether a marriage, a friendship, a workplace dilemma, or political, racial, or religious differences, the formula is always the same: honest inquiry produces inventive ingenuity.

 

When inquiry prevails, every problem becomes an opportunity; every conflict provides the potential to create something ingeniously valuable.

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