Read the original review of The Five Percent by Howard Gadlin, Rethinking Intractability: A New Framework for Conflict, published in the Negotiation Journal here.
In response to Rethinking Intractability: A New Framework for Conflict, Dr. Coleman writes on December 18, 2012:
Dear Howard,
First, allow me to thank you for taking the time to conduct such a thorough review of my book, The Five Percent. I feel honored by the degree of attention and specificity you gave the review, especially given your impressive career and standing in the field.
In a spirit of understanding, I wish to address a few points made in your review. Clearly, I failed to make these points with adequate clarity in the book. But it is important to me to clear up any misunderstandings of the text at the onset, as not to perpetuate them in future discourse in the field. At the bottom of pg. 109, you state that coherence may carry too much weight in the model. Coherence is simply the psychosocial mechanism operating in the model. It is the collapse of complexity due to a need for coherence driven by a dire need for certainty, predictability, and control in such conflicts. But more importantly it is the crossing of a threshold (a tipping-point) into self-organization (a closed system) that is the essence of the model. I speak at length throughout the book about how powerful emotions are the lifeblood of such conflicts. But it is not mere emotions, identities, trauma, or beliefs that drive such lose-lose dynamics – it is how they combine together to trap people, groups, and societies into a dynamic that seems inescapable. This is the prison of intractability. Thus, addressing the emotional life alone, or identities or beliefs, is insufficient.
David Matz’s questions on page 110 “Which influences are more important than others? Which are worth the effort they will take? Which might take priority in time?” – I respectfully suggest reflect a linear mindset. It is the organization and closed dynamics of multiple influences which matter. And in any given situation, local conditions will determine which factors are seen as central. These cannot be determined a priori by a model or a theorist.
I must say I am a bit disheartened that the attractor metaphor falls short for you. Attractors are both a mathematical phenomenon and a metaphor, and we try to use the latter to help the reader imagine something – intractability – that is difficult to see as a whole (due to decades of focusing on its parts), but critical to understand. I find Callahan’s quote confusing – as attractors are both a result and a cause. Nonlinear systems have no IVs and DVs, no causes and effects – only dynamics brought on by the mutual relations of multiple elements over time. I work closely with physicists and complexity scientists to make sure we get this right.
On page 111, you wonder about the connection between “what is going on in a disputant’s head” and “the field of forces described by an attractor.” Again, an unfortunate misunderstanding. Attractors are a type of dynamic that may manifest in people's thinking-feeling in their head (such as obsessions), in their patterns of social behavior (gang violence), and in social and cultural norms – and even in institutionalized patterns (policies). Typically, in protracted conflicts in communities, attractors are operating at all levels and in fact feeding and reinforcing one another across levels. They operate in a fractal manner. This is spelled out in Chapter 4 on the model.
Later in that paragraph you express regret that the model doesn’t account for “a crucial factor in transforming conflict that lies in tapping into, eliciting, stimulating or coxing some impulse toward resolving or even escaping from a conflict”. This is the point of latent attractors, a critical concept in our model. See point 6 on pages 83-84. Latent attractors can be such “impulses”, which are evident in any existing networks of effective action or past, dormant positive sentiments between parties. This is exactly what we are talking about in most of 147-154.
You mention on pages 114-115 that many of the interventions I offer are similar to what others offer. This is correct. We see our model as an integrating platform for our field, but one that allows for a better understanding of what our interventions do and don’t do. So the Attractor Landscape Model is not simply a re-bottling of old wine – it can help us rethink the positive and negative effects of our often well-intentioned actions – why and when they may work and why and when they don’t.
Your description of the approach to intervention at the bottom of 115 is incorrect. It is much more prescriptive than I would suggest. These are all options available to a change agent, but only local conditions, local expertise and conflict resolution savvy can best determine how to proceed in any given conflict.
On page 117 you suggest that understanding latent processes and managing short and long-term actions are disconnected from our model. I see them as both integral to the model – as latent processes signal latent attractors and temporal scope (time lags, etc.) are key.
At the bottom of 118 you make the point that the 5% are not different from the 95% and that the model can perhaps be applied to 100%. Yes, this is possible. But complex systems can be loosely-coupled (where elements affect one another but marginally), tightly-coupled (where the mutual effects are strong and less predictable), and self-organized (very tightly-coupled and unresponsive to outside perturbations). We suggest that this model is most useful with the latter types of conflict – where going directly after the problem often makes it worse.
Thank you for your tolerance and consideration of these points.
Warm regards, Peter
Dr. Gadlin responds to Dr. Coleman on December 21, 2012:
Dear Peter,
(A response) to your wonderfully stimulating answer.
I especially appreciate those points where you caught me falling off into a kind of linear thinking that was not appropriate to what you were discussing in the book. In fact, there were times when I could almost feel myself being pulled into that linearity but still couldn’t help it. Not sure if it is merely the residue of early training, a lack of cognitive complexity or a failure of will. I find the same thing occurring among my staff sometimes when we are working on understanding and intervening in systemic issues. Some of the points in your note would be better handled in a face to face discussion. I find your answer quite helpful and yet I still have some questions about the power and range of that psychosocial mechanism.
Not sure what to say about the attractor metaphor. I am quite willing to concede that the problem may be with me. I’ve had the same difficulty fully grasping it in conversations with a couple of my colleagues who are almost as good as you at explaining it. (You are right, by the way, about the Callahan quote – I should have seen that).
I appreciate your comment about attractors operating in a fractal manner. In fact, in another article about to appear in a volume edited by Chris Honeyman and Jim Coben, I begin with reference to fractals inspired by your use of the concept. But here I was thinking from the perspective of a practitioner who is working one on one with disputants but trying to understand their conflict in the context of the larger systemic institutional dynamic within which they are functioning and using their expressions of feeling or thinking as a link into or expression of the systemic forces. I probably ought to have made that clearer.
The impulse to resolve referring to latent attractors doesn’t quite do it for me, although again I can see that the fault may be with me rather than the concept of latent attractors. Recently, I have been paying special attention to that point in conflicts (and I do not mean something as sudden as a flash of light) where people seem to shift to being oriented toward working the conflict out rather than staying with the conflict or keeping it alive. I find it hard to describe that change with talking about what appears to be an act of will and I am not quite able to account for that with the notion of latent attractors. I re-read the passages you highlight, and I like them a lot but I am still not fully satisfied. Perhaps over time I will be better able to articulate the nature and source of my disquiet.
I do not think we are at all in disagreement about the similarities between what others offer and what you do – I agree with what you say in point 6) in your note.
Finally regarding the point that your model can be fruitfully applied to much more than the 5 %, we may just have to disagree. Kuhn’s observation in regards to new paradigms was that they first catch on because of their ability to explain well what easier approaches could not explain even if their applicability to a wider range of problems was not clear. But I do not think it is an insult to have someone believe that your work has broader applicability than you claim for it yourself. Either way, it’s still a damn good book and I am privileged to have had the chance to review it, and I am so happy that you took the time to write to me.
Warmest regards,
Howard