Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Either/Or or Both/And?

My friends and I used to talk about a concept of "both/and" as opposed to "either/or."  What we meant was that, when making group decisions, we could look for solutions that were good for the group as a whole - and therefore each person in the group (a win-win approach), rather than one person winning at the expense of another losing.  This really describes the basis of mediation and collaborative process, as opposed to litigation.   It's not about individual rights - it is about taking care of the needs of everyone in the family system.

In other worlds, you're not splitting up the pie in this way or that, you're baking a bigger pie!

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