- Dr. David Cowan
Le Nozze di Figaro, The Metropolitan Opera 2005. Photo: Beatriz Schiller
The opera is not your run-of-the-mill employee engagement case study, but recent events show there is a great need for dialogue in a place of musical dialogue where the management and staff are very much out of tune with each other.
How would the Dialogue Box approach the matter? There are four zones to the dialogue box: intelligence, emotion, interpretation and narrative. The Dialogue box seeks to locate the heart of the challenge in each zone, and use this to define the dialogue word that could create effective dialogue to change the situation, in this case to bring parties in dispute from a broken relationship to a more engaging approach to solving the problem.
In this blog, I am using the Dialogue Box to assess the MetOpera confrontation currently happening in New York, and see how they might start a dialogue to resolve the situation. I am grateful to The New York Times for its report on the dispute.
Intelligence: In the Intelligence Zone, the Dialogue Box simply sets out what the position is and what decision a management is seeking to take to employees. There is no judgment involved as to whether this is the right or wrong way to start, it is simply assuming a starting place for analyzing dialogue.
This is what is in the MetOpera Intelligence Zone: The MetOpera is facing severe financial difficulties and has decided it needs to reduce labor costs. A new contract deal is on the table, which involves a cut in pay and benefits. Peter Gelb, the General Manager, has sent the company’s orchestra, chorus, stagehands and other workers letters warning them to prepare for a lockout if no contract deal is reached by next week. A deadline has been set for 1 August, and Mr. Gelb says “I sincerely hope to avoid such an unfortunate event.”
Emotion: The emotion zone defines the emotional state of employees in response to the intelligence they have received from management.
This is what is in the MetOpera emotional zone: The emotional response from employees is recorded as one of dismay and they are unsettled about the forthcoming season and their future.
Interpretation: The interpretation zone assesses what sort of interpretation employees will have of any actions, decisions or words offered by management following the release of the intelligence and after the emotional response.
This is what is in the MetOpera Interpretation zone: The current way employees are interpreting any actions by Mr. Gelb is that he is acting cynically.
Narrative: the narrative zone defines the narrative that employees have bought into, which in this case is a counter-narrative to the management narrative attempt to define the problem of cost cutting to save the MetOpera.
This is what is in the MetOpera Narrative Zone: with the current state of affairs there is no chance the employees and management can reach an agreement. The current narrative among employees is that management is intransigent.
This is what is in the MetOpera Intelligence Zone: The MetOpera is facing severe financial difficulties and has decided it needs to reduce labor costs. A new contract deal is on the table, which involves a cut in pay and benefits. Peter Gelb, the General Manager, has sent the company’s orchestra, chorus, stagehands and other workers letters warning them to prepare for a lockout if no contract deal is reached by next week. A deadline has been set for 1 August, and Mr. Gelb says “I sincerely hope to avoid such an unfortunate event.”
Emotion: The emotion zone defines the emotional state of employees in response to the intelligence they have received from management.
This is what is in the MetOpera emotional zone: The emotional response from employees is recorded as one of dismay and they are unsettled about the forthcoming season and their future.
Interpretation: The interpretation zone assesses what sort of interpretation employees will have of any actions, decisions or words offered by management following the release of the intelligence and after the emotional response.
This is what is in the MetOpera Interpretation zone: The current way employees are interpreting any actions by Mr. Gelb is that he is acting cynically.
Narrative: the narrative zone defines the narrative that employees have bought into, which in this case is a counter-narrative to the management narrative attempt to define the problem of cost cutting to save the MetOpera.
This is what is in the MetOpera Narrative Zone: with the current state of affairs there is no chance the employees and management can reach an agreement. The current narrative among employees is that management is intransigent.
So, what dialogue word is needed to unblock this state of affairs and find a way out of the deadlock?
Back in 1980, there was an 11-week lockut that delayed the opening season until December, and aprt from sales it had a knock-on effect on other forms of giving that the MetOpera relies on. This is a no-win situation, As the NYT reports “a lockout would have perils for both sides.” So, how do we negotiate a win for both sides? The starting point is finding a dialogue word that both sides can relate to, one which can guide and benchmark the dialogue.
What dialogue word? Well, having got you all excited about the problem I’m not going to suggest the solution. Answers come out of dialogue workshops, and are not easily defined from a distance. In addition, the dialogue box is partly about the process of analyzing the problem more fully, it is a creative process at work. However, my guess is that it would be somewhere on the theme of cooperation.
This dialogue needs to be on track soon, to allow opening night on September 22, with a new production of Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro, ” an opera buffa which recounts a single "day of madness," la folle journée. This may be pertinent, and perhaps the dialogue word could be “madness,” because that is the narrative the dispute is currently following.
You can find a report on the dispute in The New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/arts/music/met-opera-prepares-to-lock-out-workers.html?emc=edit_th_20140724&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=44076653&_r=0
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