Resolving that constant battle about the viability of the mainframe

You’ve just come out of yet another meeting where some new manager has pronounced the death of the mainframe and how all your organizations’ IT needs can be resolved by xxx. Over time, ‘xxx’ has been client/server computing, Linux servers, various midrange machines, outsourcing, and now the cloud. I’m sure there have been other ‘sure-fire’ cures as well.

Of course you argue the case for the mainframe – its speed, its security, how quickly it can do batch work, etc – but when people don’t even begin to know what they don’t know about mainframes, nothing can shake their belief that technology that has been around for a while must be old-fashioned. They ignore the fact that cars and aeroplanes have been around for a while too!

So, what if there were some strategy you could use to get the people in the room to agree? Suppose that you could get people who insist that their opinion is right and everyone else is wrong to work together? What if everyone could feel that they have been heard and their position appreciated by the others in the room? There’s a book by Lisa Earle McLeod, called “Triangle Of Truth: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Resolving Conflicts Large and Small” that came out over ten years ago that suggests how this can be done.

The model proposed in the book is apparently based on celebrated thinkers such as Einstein, Buddha, Barack Obama, and even Elvis Presley, and resolves conflicts by not worrying about which side is right or wrong, but by looking for solutions. That leads to the triangle’s three corners – my truth, your truth, and a higher-level solution.

The key takeaways from the book are:

• The power of principles – even if other people in the meeting are reluctant to transform their mindset, stand-up alone.
• Expose yourself to danger – be like big players and take a risk. Winners aren’t afraid of defeat.
• Abandoning the extremes – forget about ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’, do what’s needed to reconcile with others. A concept is better than compromise.

This is what Buddha called the middle path. It honours the truth of both sides.

The book gives seven principles to bear in mind. They are:

• Principle 1: embrace ‘and’ – Successfully using the Triangle means eliminating either/or thinking. By using ‘and’, we allow ourselves to come up with new ideas.
• Principle 2: make peace with ambiguity – defending our own truth prevents us from hearing any other idea or side to the argument, making it impossible to implement the Triangle of Truth.
• Principle 3: hold space for other perspectives –ignoring the goals that are driving someone else prevents you from working as a team to get what you both want.
• Principle 4: seek higher ground – look beyond the conflict or issue on the table to see the bigger picture, considering the full context of the situation. There really are more than two choices. A new one will help everyone to achieve what they want.
• Principle 5: discern intent – any solutions proposed are thought by their proposer to be the best way to solve a problem. Try to understand the person’s intention – it was probably good.
• Principle 6: elevate others – ask ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions rather than ‘what’ and ‘when’ questions to help people think more deeply. This will help everyone to think more creatively, assimilate multiple ideas, uncover the core truths behind proposed solutions and, naturally, solve conflicts more effectively and without the drama.
• Principle 7: be the peace – be a peacemaker rather than just a peacekeeper. Embrace other ideas and assimilate conflicting ideas into a solution that surpasses the earlier ideas.

The message in the book is that using these techniques not only helps with potential conflicts at work, but can also be used with other groups one belongs to, and even with family relationships. In summary, the book suggests that people need to avoid either/or thinking, embrace ambiguity, and look at what you get when you the word ‘and’ to connect those separate ideas.

So, here we have a technique that will help to stop any battles before they start that might otherwise occur between mainframers and cloud specialists or distributed system experts or even the mobile team. No one side needs to start digging their heels in because a solution that’s works for the greater good will come out of using these techniques. It’s not even necessary for all sides to be aware of the triangle of truth – only one side does. However, I’m sure things would move forward faster if all the people taking part in the discussion were aware of the techniques laid out in the book and the underlying philosophy behind it.

I’d be interested to hear how anyone who tries this technique gets on. Personally, I quite like the ideas in the book.