When Tension is Rising, Master the ‘Daggers-Drawn’ Phase

Abstract

A sensitive project goes through a certain number of sociological phases:

• 1. The ‘Nirvana’ phase: the project is launched, the technical experts are in the front line, the project is on the road, everything is going well. In 1914 the soldiers went to the front with flowers in the muzzles of their guns.

• 2. The ‘disillusion’ phase: the first snags appear. An attack is launched on the project and it is successful, partly because not every contingency was foreseen. Mistakes are made on certain points, even if they are not yet accepted as such. Staunch allies begin to criticise the project. For example, the union asserts that the IT project is going to pose a threat to manpower levels in sales administration, when this has never been on the agenda before. One of the project engineers has mentioned this fact ‘within these four walls’.

• 3. The ‘daggers-drawn’ phase: the conflict is inflamed and tension is rising. The knives are out and the conflict breaks into the open. Words are exchanged, fighting starts, physically or verbally. This is a key phase:

  • Before, one cannot estimate the true sociodynamic positions of the players. How can each player’s true position be gauged when there is no tension?

  • After, it is too late, one is in the conflict. The critical point has been passed. Now it is not management of the project that is required, it is management of the conflict.