A few years back my family bought a house in a small beach community in Rhode Island. We had two primary purposes for doing so. First, we wanted to invest in something over the long term and we planned to rent the house out in the summer to cover a good part of the mortgage. Second, we wanted to use it with our girls when it was not rented and in the offseason. Since we have owned the house, we have really loved it and the little town it is in.
As we got to know the place, we noticed something a bit odd. At the very beginning of our road, which is deemed private by the town (with that designation the town doesn’t take care of it and repairs are left to the families), there were a lot of potholes. But these were not your ordinary potholes…they were huge and just kept getting bigger over time. Shortly after we moved in, I was out working in the yard and we saw one of our neighbors – who I will call Carol and Adam -- with a wheelbarrow full of stone walking to fill in the holes. As they did so, I could hear an altercation ensue with a woman named Nina that I did not fully understand at the time. As our neighbors walked back to their house, dejected and without their stones, I introduced myself and asked what had happened. It turned out that Nina and her family did not want the potholes filled in and apparently this dispute had been going for a number of years. I also learned that in the previous year another family on the street had paved their driveway. They had extra asphalt left over and tried to pave over the potholes to help the community, but that was also viewed as an unwelcome effort. What had been put down was dug up by Nina and her family who lived right on the corner. That is when I thought – there has to be more to the story. So, I began to probe around our small street and the families that lived on it.
Fast forward to last Fall. I was out doing yardwork, yet again, and I saw my neighbor to the right of our house, who I will call Amanda. We chatted for a few minutes about the weather and then I popped the question, “What’s the deal with all those potholes at the beginning of the road?” She did a big eyeroll and in her thick Rhode Island accent said, “Don’t even get me stahted (translated that means ‘started’) on that! It’s been going on for so long. Nina and her family just won’t let anyone fix it. It’s crazy!” I listened carefully and then inquired further “Why is that?” She looked at me and said “Who knows. Don’t waste your time. It won’t ever get resolved. They are just difficult.” I nodded, smiled, and then got back to cutting the grass. Now I was really intrigued and needed to explore more.
This following Spring when I came back down to our house I met our other neighbors directly to the left of us. They lived right on the corner where all the potholes were and across the street from Nina and her family who had guarded those potholes with their lives…at least that is what it felt like to many in the neighborhood. Our neighbors were a nice elderly couple – who I will call Ann and Steve. They had been there for many years. The more we talked the more I wanted to ask about the caverns in the road. I waited for my chance and then took it after a pause in our conversation. “I am curious” I nudged, “What is the situation with all these potholes?” Ann looked at me with a little smile and shared, “I know, isn’t it awful.” I smiled back and said, “So you’re the third or fourth family who has said that. Why hasn’t it gotten fixed?” In an exasperated tone she recounted the reasons and the story of how we had gotten to this point. Then I inquired, “How well do you know the people across the street – Nina, I believe is her name – who is so opposed to filling all this in?” As Ann shared, “Oh, I know her and her family pretty well – we are certainly friendly. Not best friends, but we talk.” I smiled and then said to her, “You know I am little unclear on why they don’t want the potholes filled in. Do you know?” The smiled dropped from Ann’s face and she said, “Come to think of it, not really. We just took it as a given since this has been going on so long and it has been pretty controversial. We just leave it alone and don’t talk about it.” That is when a light bulb went off. I asked her, “Do you think you might be willing to have a conversation with Nina about why she is resistant to fixing the street?” She thought for a minute and said, “It does feel somewhat uncomfortable, but let me think about it. I will see if I can do it in a natural way.” “OK great – that would be excellent.” I added as I left -- not quite sure if Ann would really raise this with Nina given her trepidations.
Three days later I received a text from Ann saying she had actually talked to Nina and she was open to filling in the potholes. I said, “Wow that is great. Did she say anything about why she had not been, but now was willing?” Ann called me later and explained that when the road had been paved in the past people drove too fast down it and it seemed to lose its feel as a ‘small beach road’. Nina also mentioned that she did not like all the outsiders coming in to fix everything in the town the locals had lived in for so long. I began to get a fuller picture of what was happening. I told Ann that I would be down the following weekend and maybe we could get a number of people together on the road to talk about what would be acceptable. I also shared that I would get an excavator to come by and join the conversation to give us some different options. Ann liked that idea and would invite Nina to our little gathering.
When the weekend came around, we all met on the road. To my surprise everyone seemed willing to fix the problem. It appeared that this was the first conversation that had happened around this issue as a group. When we were done, we had a plan, but I needed to get all the neighbors on board to share the cost since this was a private road and this was not an inexpensive endeavor.
In previous efforts to fill in the potholes some of the people on the street used email to try to get people on board. That did not work very well. I thought a more personal strategy of one to one conversations might be better. I reached out to Carol and Adam and told them about the progress. They were thrilled and agreed to divide the work. I would knock on 5 doors and they would take the other 6 because they knew those people well. We would explain the situation, the solution, and ask for their contribution.
Over a two week period we were able to speak to everyone and ALL 12 families agreed to contribute their share – even Nina who had been protecting the potholes over these many years. The first phase of the project has been completed and then next phase has just begun.
So why did I bother to write this up and what can be learned from this little dispute that finally got resolved much to the relief of all the people on our street? There are three lessons that I can offer – maybe you can find others.
- Ethos. From Aristotle’s famous work Rhetoric, he outlines 3 means of persuasion, one of which is Ethos. Ethos is defined as someone’s credibility and trustworthiness. Put differently, it is about the messenger, not the message. In this instance it became very clear to me that I was not the right messenger to have this conversation with the guardians of the potholes. They saw me as an outsider and part of the reason their little community had changed so much. That is why I thought to engage Ann instead to be the messenger. I knew the conversation would unfold differently if a ‘local’ was asking Nina and not me. I do sincerely believe this was an important part of the process. Nina saw Ann as one of their own.
- Process. Process was very important here. Some of the newer residents had tried, with the best of intentions, to fix the potholes, but they never engaged Nina. In fact, they essentially sought to purposefully bypass her because she was difficult. This only fed into Nina’s narrative that all these outsiders did not respect her (and the other locals) and would just do whatever they liked to suit their needs. When we created a process where Nina was not excluded, but included and her opinion was valued, she was much more amenable.
- Underlying interests. The last lesson was the underlying interest beneath not fixing the potholes. The potholes met Nina’s needs of slowing people down on the road and preserving the small beach feel. Of course, there are other ways to do that, such as speed bumps and a well taken care of gravel road that we eventually agreed upon. The more we all talked about it the more Nina seemed to feel respected by the process and willing to engage. In her mind, she had been disrespected up until that point. When disrespect happens – intended or not -- that dimension has to be dealt with or there will not be progress.
In the end, this little dispute, that befuddled people for so long, required a community effort (in conflict resolution parlance via William Ury, it took the Third Side). Every person had a role to play as orchestrators, connectors, messengers, mediators, or simply as contributors providing their share of the resources to make this happen. I hope that this changes the dynamics on our little street and when we have bumps in the road again (yes, pun intended) we will deal with them as productively as we did here.
Contributed by Dr. Joshua N. Weiss, Assistant Professor and Director of MS in Organizational Leadership and Negotiation Program
