An Interview with Stewart Levine

...Is divided into four sections:

Foundations
Relationships
Systems
Balance

In my leadership work, I group skills and strategies into the four areas above. First, Foundations give the leader the clarity to know how to lead the team because the final result in clear; second, build and maintain effective relationship to assist in getting to the vision; next, develop effective systems allowing each team member to excel and to work together efficiently; and finally, create balance in work, in life, and between work and life.

The format for this year consists of interviews with Christian leaders from many different types of leadership styles and perspectives - some pastors, some musicians, some lay leaders, some Christian business professionals, and more. My guest this month is well-known author and conflict resolution specialist Stewart Levine.

Stewart Levine is widely recognized for creating agreement and empowerment in the most challenging circumstances. As a result of his observations he designed conversational models that create "Agreements for Results," which improve productivity while saving the enormous cost of conflict. His innovative work with "Agreements for Results' and his "Resolutionary" conversational models are unique.

INTRODUCTION

Hugh Ballou: I know of your work but a lot of folks that are going to read this and listen to this don't know a whole lot about you. Tell them what the “Resolutionary Attorney” means and a little bit about your background with agreements before we get started.

Stewart Levine: Sure. Here’s the short history in how this work developed and evolved. I started my working career practicing law, and I practiced law for about ten years in a variety of capacities. I got tired of fighting with people all the time because law is such an adversary context. So, I'd like to say that in that ten years I learned how to create a lot of conflict. And I got real good at it.

And then I spent 6 years at AT&T. And I ran a team, a sales team with major law firms as my clients but what I saw in that environment was a reason why a lot of conflict comes about in marriages, in business in teams, in partnerships is because people don't have clear agreements on the front end any time they begin any form of new collaboration. And so the light bulbs kind of went off.

And then I studied divorce mediation while I was at AT&T and developed some models for collaboration, communication, and conflict resolution. I was working with, with couples getting divorced and my models were working. And I said, “wow.” So the light bulb went off and kind of over the last 25 years or so, I've gravitated my work much more towards working with organizations of all kinds. And the way I like to say it is, yeah, there is a model for conflict resolution but we only do that to get to a place called connection collaboration relationship. But you're much better off, and the, the greatest way to prevent a whole lot of conflict is to start off with a clear agreement that is a container of a joint vision for what it is that you're trying to do with the folks that you're working with.

 

FOUNDATIONS

Ballou: Great background. I was thinking while you were speaking that I do retreats - board retreats and committee meetings, and staff planning retreats for churches. I lift up the idea of dealing with the fictitious topic of “conflict in the church” to which I get an immediate response of laughter, that it's not fictitious at all. And in a recent study group I've been a part of, there's a couple of rabbis in the group and you know it's the same thing in synagogues as we have in church so, I want to think through the eyes of leadership as I ask you questions in my four areas of leadership. And there are a couple of paradigms… This audience we're reaching is a principally people who work in the Christian church community who plan and lead worship - a lot of church musicians and a lot of pastors. And the situation between pastors and musicians, there's a high percentage of conflict in that dynamic. There's also a percentage of consulate with those and the staff leadership and their boards that they report to. And then another dynamic is, there's lack of follow through because of lack of clarity with, of course, volunteers and some of those working in the church governance like the boards and the councils and, and such. So there's, there's a whole lot of perspectives to look through but basically, as leaders, how do we function to a higher level with some of the wisdom that you have. At the end of this interview, I'm going to link to your books and so people can have some resources to read. So anytime in the interview, if you want to refer to the books, there will be a link at the bottom of this interview. And, as you and I have discussed very, very briefly, my first area of leadership is about FOUNDATIONS - about clarity of purpose, clarity of outcome. What we do as leaders to build a strong foundation?

Levine: Well, sure. You know, some of my work was really developed as a result of the influence of a leadership model that I worked with. And one of the key contexts one of the key things that leaders do is to resolve ambiguity to create clarity for people. So, whether it's resolving conflict because of a breakdown or whether it's really creating clarity and shared vision at the beginning of any project, it's up to the leader in some ways to facilitate, be the observer and make sure that that's where people are, especially at they begin some form of journey together. You know, one of the couple of slogans come to mind, or true, aphorisms, truisms. You know, “if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there.”

It's just you know, so clear. You've got to have a shared vision. And one of the slogans I always use also is - it's from an old Fram Filter oil commercial – “You can pay me now or pay me later” meaning, do this preventative maintenance on the front end of any new collaboration. Make sure you have a clear agreement. Otherwise, you're going to pay for it with conflict as you move down the road. So, that's kind of the importance for a leader of having good, clear agreements. And the other piece is, as a project moves along, a leader's job is to make sure that ambiguity is clarified. So people feel comfortable and that there's no kind of chatter in the back of their mind about where they're headed to so that they can devote all their energy moving towards some clear objective.

 

 

RELATIONSHIPS

Ballou: Yes, yes. We have something in our mind and somebody else has something different in his or her mind. In the second area, we move from foundations to RELATIONSHIP. And, in general musicians and pastors tend to move away from conflict, rather than moving toward it to address it. It's the Fram filter thing. So in terms of relationships, there's a number of your 10 points that apply. But what about relationships and agreements is important?

Levine: What's interesting is the goal of any conflict resolution process is to have a clear agreement. So, there's two points that come to mind. One of the reviews of my first book, Getting to Resolution, stated, “the book might have been called Getting to Relationship.” The other piece about that is that when people think in terms of agreement, and this is an important distinction, often the word, legal contract and long voluminous detailed agreements come up. And, essentially, I use my background and context that I came from, those long legal documents and agreements stay on a hard drive or on a shelf, or on the bottom of a drawer, as long as the relationship works. And I like to think of my agreement facilitation, which I use in many different arenas as a way of creating convergence after having a level of divergence meaning when a group first forms there's a lot of discussion, a lot of talk and you get kind of, a divergent conversation and then you have to bring it back to create convergence, which is a container for the relationship. So, I like to think of my 10 points as, that's the foundation of creating the relationship whether you've got one other person, two people, three people, or a group of 10 or 20. It's all about the conversation that goes through those 10 elements that creates the relationship, defines it, and creates the container for it. So, I hope that responded to the point you were trying to make, Hugh.

Ballou:Absolutely. What's the name of your book about agreements?

Levine: It's called The Book of Agreement: The Essential Elements for Getting the Results You Want.

 

 

SYSTEMS

Ballou: Many times our conflict arises out of lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, and what we promised to each other. You spoke of having a clear, written agreement. I think that promotes good relationship and it preserves those good relationships. Sometimes working with people that we know, we have unnecessary conflict because we're not clear at the beginning about our promises to each other and our outcomes…so thinking about SYSTEMS we go along and we haven't defined how we're going to measure our satisfaction or how we're going to renegotiate. And so, in terms of systems, what in agreement helps us think about systems and, and keeping our focus and staying on track with our progress?

Levine: Well, the agreement is the container for the relationship. The agreement describes if it's a good one if it follows my ten points. Everybody has had the same-shared vision of where they're going. Everybody knows the role that they're going to play. Everybody is clear about the promises. In other words, what they will do, what the tasks are and that they have a commitment to accomplish - the value that they'll put in and the value that they'll get out and that value is real important because when people don't perceive they're getting value then performance stops. We have this vision but how are we going to know whether or not we got there. It’s real clear because people have different understandings of how to measure a result.

The concerns and fears are a critical thing to talk about because people can speak to each other's concerns and fears and this notion of renegotiation is so critical. When we begin, we know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know and things are revealed as we work together. And so, the process of renegotiating as we learn more becomes a really critical part of moving together. When you think in terms of systems, something I call consequences if we don't hit the vision becomes very important. Because there is a consequence to the individuals, to the team, the organization, to the public that they're trying to serve if people don’t hit that vision. And another critical piece is how are we going to resolve conflict. Inevitably conflicts arise. Well how are we going to get to the bottom of them? And, really the last of the 10 elements, which I'm going through, is whether we have trust, because that's the basis for agreement. And essentially, and this kind of goes back to your question about relationship. After you've had this discussion about these 10 elements, the question is, do you trust enough to really want to have a ongoing relationship going forward with this other person or group? And this dialogue will lead you to that place where you can go, yes or no, with a whole lot more information in a systemic way.

 

BALANCE

Ballou: Ah. What useful tools. We're in a new year with church and school musicians right now, so, it's important to get our agreements in place for the 9 or 10 months ahead of us. The last of my four principles is what I call it balance. There are rests in music for a very distinct purpose. They're there for a reason. There's time to pause in life. So balance has the perspective of, well, let's pause, let's review, let's look and evaluate our progress. So we can go back and work with fervor. There's also a balance of all of these elements -we've got 10 elements in the agreement. How do we maintain balance with all of these things that are going on. And in choral music, we're directing the choir in rehearsal and the tenors are too loud. We have to stop in rehearsal and say, tenors, take it down a notch. So, we have balance in that way. But we also have balance in other aspects. So, in terms of what you've laid out in the first 3 points, what wisdom do you have in this area for leaders?

Levine: What pumps up for me, Hugh, is the whole notion of when we're in a place of harmony with the folks we're working for we don't have any kind of drain on our energy to move forward. In other words, it's all about the vision and the task at hand. When we feel any sense of dissonance because an agreement is not clear or because someone is not keeping its promises. It's like a rocket ship trying to break the earth's atmosphere. If you've got some bolts that are loose and if you've got some panels on the rocket ship that are flapping around, you're going to have levels of resistance that get in the way of moving forward. And it's so critical to be sensitive and to trust that inner mechanism that's feeling some level of tension or stress. And when you feel that level of tension and stress you know that something needs attention. There's something off about the agreement. There's something off about someone's performance and those things don't go away. And they need to be addressed immediately.

Having a model to move through it and an agreed-upon process that's part of the agreement provides a kind of an immediate sense of “ah-hah”. Here's what we need to do as a place to sitting around with all of that angst and dissonance and discomfort. You know something to do. This is the system that we've chosen to work in. We'll use the cycle of resolution to keep us on track. And the other piece is even if no specific dissonance comes up, probably every three or four months, a group that’s working together needs to sit down and go okay, so, are we on track? Is our agreement clear? Is everyone in performance? Do we have to renegotiate anything? Just to make sure we stay in that place of harmony because that's where we get maximum productivity and to pick up on my rocket ship analogy, that's when we have the greatest level of forward thrust.

Ballou: Absolutely. We wouldn't think about continuing in a rehearsal when somebody's singing out of tune. We'll learn the notes incorrectly if we're not singing them correctly. Sometimes dissonance is part of the composition. There's sometimes it's unplanned and unneeded and unwanted dissonance. I guess it's the leader's wisdom to understand the difference and to know how to deal with it.

Levine: I was going to say, sometimes, as you know, you just mentioned, part of a musical composition is dissonance, sometimes dissonance in an organization will lead to much greater results as long as people harness the energy of it and use it productively.

Ballou: We're afraid of conflict, but conflict is a sign that you have some energy in your group. I guess we don't shy from conflict and what I'm hearing you say is we address it and we work toward coming together with the different perspectives.

Levine: All conflict is, if you look it the natural world, it's different energies, energy patterns coming together in some ways. How can we use that to create beauty?

Ballou: Sure. And we can do that shaping sounds. We need to transfer those skill sets from music to working with people because that could be 90% of the job, where music is only 10%.

Levine: I was going to say, sometimes, as you know, you just mentioned, part of a musical composition is dissonance, sometimes dissonance in an organization will lead to much greater results as long as people harness the energy of it and use it productively.

WRAP UP

Ballou: I'm going to ask you for a closing thought in a second, but I want to ask you about 2 books. The one you referred to previously called The Book of Agreement: The 10 Essential Elements for Getting the Results You Want. And one that I've not seen from 2009, but I should get it, is Getting to Resolution and Turning Conflict into Collaboration. So it would occur to me that both of those would be full of useful tools for the leader in a church context. Am I right?

Levine:Sure, absolutely. Getting To Resolution, Turning Conflict Into Collaboration, you mentioned 2009 and that's actually the second edition. That book was originally published in 1998. It was named one of the 30 best business books of that year. It was an Executive Book Club selection. Doctor Stephen Covey called it a marvelous book. It's got a lot of lovely accolades and that book contains the whole larger cycle of resolution. The book of agreement, 2003, which I'm proud to say was actually called one of the best books of 2003 and also it was called more practical in Getting To Yes, which many folks consider to be the book of kind of the bible for negotiation and conflict resolution. That book contains real in depth description of the agreement model and it contains 35 sample agreements from different contexts that I prepared working with this material over the last twenty some odd years.

Ballou: Very useful information for those of us that work in the seemingly harmonic world of the church, however, these are really important tools. As we close out the interview here Stewart, do you have a parting thought that you'd like to leave with people?

Levine: I do, Hugh. And that parting thought is, we live in a world where there's an awful lot of dissonance around us. Just pick up any newspaper and read the headlines every day. And I think that one of the gifts that we can give ourselves is to have harmony around us in our own individual worlds and in the families, marriages and organizations we work in. And having agreements is a wonderful way to have those discussions in a thoughtful systematic way that brings us closer to the folks that we want to be closer to.

Ballou: This has been a really eye-opening interview for me and great information, Stuart Levine. Thank you so much for sharing with our audience today.

Levine: My pleasure, Hugh.

To listen to an audio version of this interview, please click here.

 

CONCLUSION

Arrive at your place of comfort utilizing the best of what you can learn from others. Build your foundation, maintain your relationships, utilize effective systems and keep a healthy balance in your life. Begin today. There's not an arrival point. It's simple a journey.

Grace and Peace to you in your duty and delight as a Christian leader.