Use the Storyteller Method for Conflict Resolution

Andrea and Yolanda sit in my office deliberately not looking at each other. Their arms are crossed, their knees are pointing away. It would be impossible to sit further away from each other in my office. They were brought because they were just in a fight. Punches were thrown, hair was pulled, and perhaps even more damaging, horrible names were called.

I ask what happened and immediately both students begin to yell accusations. “She pissed me off!” She called my mother a slut!” “She hit me.” “She…”

“Whoa whoa! Stop!” I explained that everything they just told me was all about how they feel, but not what happened. I told them that we needed to start with the facts. The things that actually happened in the physical world. “Sure,” I said, “We can talk about our feelings after. Feelings are super important, but they are useless without knowing what happened.”

I then began a process I’ve begun calling the storyteller method of conflict resolution. I asked Yolanda to talk first. I asked her what was the first thing that happened? She said that on the previous day Andrea had walked by her desk and knocked her pencil to the ground for no reason.

“Andrea is this the first thing that happened?”

Andrea said that it wasn’t. Earlier in the morning Yolanda had called her fat.

I asked Yolanda if that was true and she said that it was not true. Here is the beauty of the storyteller method. Instead of arguing and deciding a factual dispute, I asked both girls to use their imagination and think of a situation where both people could be telling the truth. Perhaps someone said the word fat in a different context, or a close word. I waited. After some time passed in silence, Yolanda ventured, “Well I did say the word fat earlier, but I was calling myself fat. I was talking to my friend."

“Ok, Andrea, when you heard the word fat did you hear your name specifically?”

“No?” After some negotiation we all agreed that Yolanda had said the word fat and in a perfectly reasonable response, something everyone has done, Andrea mistook that for an insult.

Then, using the white board in the conference room we painstakingly constructed the entire series of events, on a timeline, down to a blow by blow account of the fight. At each disagreement I asked the question, what might have happened so that both of you would be right? How could the events unfold so that both of you have an accurate account even though you see things differently? Each time we would stay right on that point and negotiate it out until we all agreed on a story of what happened. Soon, they were helping each other. With just a tiny bit of coaching they began saying things like, this is what I thought happened but maybe I misunderstood?

By the time we finished constructing the story of what happened we had long since replaced resentment for understanding, anger for empathy. Each student had a real understanding of the motivations of the other. And, while I think it’s a little crazy to attack someone for insulting my mother, both students saw the actions of the other as entirely reasonable given their knowledge and understanding of the moment. By the time we were ready to resolve the conflict, the conflict was resolved.

Often, the actual events bear little resemblance to the story of events we agree on. This doesn’t matter at all. In real life we are all sometimes petty and irrational. In real life we are rarely our best selves. What matters is that we construct a story together. What matters is that we take the time piece together and understand events in a way that helps everyone to see each other in a better light.

All most every dispute begins with a very different understanding of events. How many times have we looked in the rearview and thought, oh no! I accidentally cut that person off. While we see the driver behind us offering the one-finger wave with the mistaken but understandable notion that what we did was intentional? Whether it’s the workplace, or neighborhoods, education, or even politics, taking the time to construct the story of events with a skilled arbitrator almost always solves the dispute even before its time to try and solve the dispute.