You'll recognize it: there's no chemistry between you and a colleague, a stakeholder, a client. You're constantly at odds, and the feeling is entirely mutual. As a consultant, I encounter this often. Sometimes I notice it in myself, but more often I see it happening between other people at the table. And however it comes about, it almost always has the same effect: a negative impact on the project outcome and on the long-term relationship, because you usually run into people more than once. So, you have to do something about it, but what? Recently, I found part of the answer in the latest book by Daniel Shapiro – Negotiating for Sweet Success (2018): the phenomenon Vertigo.

The tribal effect and Vertigo

Shapiro presents a new model for conflict resolution. The main reason for conflict and the main obstacle to conflict resolution is what Shapiro calls the tribal effect. The person on the other side of the table does not belong to your ‘tribe’ or group and is therefore your opponent. This tribal way of thinking leads to “win-lose” thinking (“I must win against you”), which we especially want to prevent from the Mutual Gains perspective of Strategic Environmental Management.

One of the causes of tribal thinking is vertigo. Vertigo is a distorted state of consciousness in which a relationship consumes all your emotional energy. You are sucked into a vortex, so to speak, along with the other person. This causes you to focus only on the conflict between you and the other person. Everything around you disappears, and you fixate only on the negative/conflict. In other words, the interaction with the other person becomes a battle that *must* be won. Try to cooperate constructively then...

A number of obstacles make it difficult to get out of this: You are unaware of this (1), it reduces your ability to self-reflect and promotes stereotyping of the situation and the other person (2), it limits your sense of time and space (3), and you only focus on the other person's negative behaviors (4).

How to deal with Vertigo

Fortunately, there are solutions to get out of this vertigo and stay out. To do this, you must overcome the different obstacles:

1. Are you aware of the symptoms and can you recognize vertigo? Do you feel the adrenaline rising? Ready to attack? Recognizing this phenomenon will already lead to a better understanding of the situation and hopefully to more peace.
2. Shake the relationship out of its vertigo by introducing a new stimulus: return to the goal of the conflict, change the subject, surprise the other person (e.g., with an unexpected remark), or bring in someone else as a ‘referee’.
3. Broaden your horizons: try to see the conflict from a different perspective, take a step back (“go to the balcony”) for reflection, change your (physical) space, and/or play with time (e.g., slow down).
4. Identify the negative dynamics towards each other. What led you to this conflict? Together, analyze the dynamics that have led you to this situation.

Although it doesn't answer the ‘why’ behind a "why it's not clicking" question, this short step-by-step guide hopefully provides tools to tackle vertigo. So that next time you can get ahead of the conflict, or so that you can help others out of their own vertigo.

If you want to know more about vertigo, the tribal effect, or sustainable negotiation, read: Daniel Shapiro's Negotiation (2018) . If you want to read more about Strategic Environmental Management, read the Marc Wesselink Handbook on Strategic Environmental Management (2010).

Senior consultant

Jeroen Medema