Leading Your Team to Peak Performance: How to Negotiate the Nonnegotiable

Abstract

Shapiro refers to what he calls a fundamental dynamic of human relations, confronted by every organization, even at the level of a team or a division. People want both affiliation and autonomy, creating tension and therefore challenges for managers. This can trigger what he calls the “‘Tribes Effect,’ a mind‐set that pits team members against one another: It is me versus you, us versus them.” He discusses and explains “five lures of the tribal mind.” These are vertigo, repetition compulsion, taboos, assault on the sacred, and identity politics. “The key,” Shapiro writes, “is to promote positive relations and counteract the Tribes Effect, turning conflict from an obstacle into an opportunity for organizational success.”

Advancing Dispute Resolution by Understanding the Sources of Conflict: Toward an Integrated Framework

“…Psychogenic conflict is perhaps the most difficult type of conflict to tackle, but much literature exists to draw on (e.g., Shapiro 2017). This aspect of conflict is not easily resolved through negotiation, nor is it likely to be truly resolved by the imposition of a solution by a third party such as a manager or an arbitrator.…”

Overcoming the tribes effect: The overview effect as a means to promote conflict resolution.

“…RIT suggests that when individuals’ relational identity feels threatened—as is the case in nearly any conflict—they enter a divisive mind-set called the tribes effect (Shapiro, 2017), which bifurcates their perception of identity into an oversimplified ingroup–outgroup distinction: They see their association with the other side as adversarial, they adopt a self-righteous attitude, and they psychologically insulate from others’ conflict narratives. As a result, they are likely to act in ways that are consistent with this binary division of identity even when a collaborative relationship promises a more optimal solution to the conflict (Shapiro, 2010).…”

“…Building upon relational identity theory (Shapiro, 2010), this article examines 2 competing psychological forces that have substantial power to shape an individual’s identity in a conflict situation. The tribes effect is an adversarial mind-set that ossifies the lines of division between parties and leaves them skeptical that peace is a real possibility (Shapiro, 2017). The overview effect, by contrast, is an experience—1st documented through research with astronauts—that expands one’s perspective and creates new prospects for resolving conflict (White, 2014).…”

“…As our world becomes more and more interconnected, there is increased need for theory and practical means to address the complex relationships and identifications intrinsic to contemporary intergroup and intragroup conflict. The present article is the first published one of its kind to build a theoretical linkage between the divisive mindset known as the ‘tribes effect’ (Shapiro, 2017) with the consciousness-shifting experience called the ‘overview effect’ (White, 2014), a potent means to expand disputants’ relational identities in the service of cooperation.…”

“…In response, the field of conflict resolution has sought new theoretical models and practical tools to reduce intergroup polarization. A key finding is that conflict is driven not solely by rational interests but also by an emotional matrix of threats and counterthreats that entrench each party in an opposing identity; the conflict becomes us versus them (Rothman, 1997; Shapiro, 2017). This article proposes a novel approach for mitigating such polarization through means of an expansive mind-set known as the overview effect (White, 2014).…”