On creating opportunity out of conflict: Two case studies

This paper discusses Interactive Planning and Management (Ackoff, 1981) and its value for managing creatively and effectively in conflict situations. The author compares and contrasts the approach with alternative dispute resolution (ADR) including mediation-, negotiation-, and litigation-based processes and argues that the current methods developed in the ADR field are inadequate in their design to accommodate four considerations: (1) the interrelationships of problems facing organizations in conflict, (2) the accelerating rate of change in society, (3) the purposefulness of the parts of social systems as well as of the systems themselves, and (4) the effects of organizations' actions on their environment. The paper presents two cases in which Interactive Planning and Management was used to transform organizational decision making and structure.