Clearly understanding roles and goals greatly contributes to stress management in many situations, whether in a family or organization. Uncertainty is stressful and becomes blame, confusion about who does what, and feeling what work you do is unappreciated. In one case I mediated, the manager and employee had such different ideas of what each one’s role was, that their goals were constantly clashing. By the time I was invited to help, the manager’s goal was to find a way to get rid of the employee, while the employee’s goal was to replace the manager. They were both very stressed and mistrustful.

One of the relevant conflict management skills is asking good opened-ended questions. Here’s some steps to take, which is not an exhaustive list but will help frame the approach:

1. Determine the particular reason for having a goal.

The reason for a goal is fundamental to the approach to setting the goal. If the reason is to meet a target, such as sales, then setting the goal might have quantitative questions: how much, what size, which territory, who is responsible etc? If the reason for the goal is to support someone’s personal growth and development, the questions might be more qualitative: what feelings, whose perspectives, when in time, is it in the job description etc?

2. Discover the nature of the relationship between the people involved in setting the goal.

The context for the goal setting influences the process. Is there a power differential that might set of tone of the more powerful person dictating goals to the less powerful person? Is the relationship so strained that the people involved might never be able to agree on who has what role or responsibility? Is it peers who are collectively setting a team goal that all will be asked to meet?

3. Delve into how empowered the people involved are.

A common scenario might be a supervisor, who we’ll call R, giving a yearly performance review to a staff member, who we’ll call D. R and D may have a tense relationship based on past history of irritating each other, or a friendly relationship because they think on the same wavelength. R must still reflect on what his/her intentions are for the meeting with D about work goals. The choices for R would range from: having a friendly conversation because all is well with D’s work, to having a disciplinary tone in which consequences are set out if D does not meet R’s expectations, or anything in between.

4. Develop a clear intention for the process of setting goals

If you intend to set achievable goals, have an understanding of the power dynamic and options for how to frame the conversation. Some questions to ask yourself before going into the goal setting meeting might be: what assumptions do I have about the reasons, goals and employee; are those assumptions skewing my intention; if I change those assumptions do my intentions change?

There are at least two places where clear roles and responsibilities matter to harmony. One is among members of the Boards of Directors of profit or nonprofit organizations. The other is any workplace with more than one employee.

Boards of Directors are often made up of volunteers recruited for their skill, experience and talent, plus a passion for the cause of the organization. Or, maybe just to pad a resume with ‘good works’. Whatever the motive, once on a Board, just having passion and being a do-gooder isn’t enough to prevent conflict from arising among the Directors. What they have in common with other kinds of people who are paid workers, is that their conflict often stems from unclear job descriptions, or ambiguous roles with uncertain responsibilities.

When the roles and responsibilities lack clarity, there are three risks. The first is that gaps in who is responsible for certain tasks exist where it’s no one’s job to do that task. Whether people notice the task is falling into the gap or not, no one steps forward to do it because it’s no one’s job. The consequences of having gaps is blaming and fault finding in who ought to have assigned it to someone, or who should have done it without being asked, or at least have noticed it wasn’t being done.

The second risk is in overlaps. Where the roles and responsibilities fall into more than one person’s plate, it might get done, but in a way that sends inconsistent messages or skews the ability to evaluate the outcomes. The frequent outcome of overlaps is jealousy and hostility that one’s ‘turf’ is being disrespected, the work is being second-guessed and people tend to feel undermined or their competence questioned. Otherwise, they reason, the other person would not have been doing work that is mine to do.

A third risk comes from slaps. Whatever is causing people to feel bad about confusing roles and responsibilities, the outcome tends to be the same. Someone feels slapped for doing or not doing something that should or should not have been done. Likely, it was something that might have been avoided if everyone had been clear on whose job it was to make the necessary decisions associated with the neglected or overly attended to task.

I’ve been reading, as perhaps you have as well, that happiness lies in having friendships and collegial relationships, and not in having excess money or in acquiring things. This is not a recent discovery. The Greek philosopher Epicurus, in about 307 BCE, taught that having an emotional connection with other people was a requirement for true happiness.

It makes sense, therefore, that knowing how to have and to be a friend and colleague should be one of the skills we learn as children. Usually socializing and interacting with other children teaches us the skills for getting along well with people, but not always. Some children have experiences that make it difficult for them as adults to have connections with others. And, realistically, everyone can not get along with everyone else. There will always be someone we’d rather not call a friend. Still, we are hard-wired to want to connect and get along with people, even with the difficult ones.

At a recent workshop on dealing with difficult people, one of the participants confessed that at work she was one of the difficult people others had to deal with. She didn’t want to be difficult. She just didn’t know how to release the friend and colleague that she knew was inside her, which others weren’t seeing. She felt internal conflict with herself over how she wanted to relate to people in the ordinary way that others seemed to and still be her unique self. How, she asked, could she change to be like everyone else so that people liked her, without selling out what she liked about herself?

Change is never easy, so we started with the simple few things we could do. Changing one thing would set off a chain reaction because everything is connected to everything else. We identified three conflict management techniques for connecting with others in a satisfying and authentic way. Adding those to our repertoire won’t change our unique personalities. However, they could change the nature of our relationships - for the better. The three conflict management skills we discussed are:

1. using questions to move from positions to interests;

2. understanding conflict management styles so that she uses the one that’s appropriate for the situation; and

3. matching the level of conversation (was the level about facts, emotions or identity?) of the other person so that the discussion is about the same thing.

Difficult people are hard to get to know so assumptions about them often substitute for understanding them. If we use the conflict management skills, it won’t guarantee others will like us. It will mean they won’t consider us difficult to deal with, and that means they get to know us and from there can decide if they like us or not.

 There are myths  that we hear about what mediation is and what a mediator does.

I propose telling some stories to expose three of those myths about mediation.

Myth one: it’s touchy feely stuff and not real law or problem solving.

Myth two: agreeing to mediate is a sign your case is weak.

Myth three: if you aren’t tough in the mediation, you’ll have to compromise too much.

These are true mediation stories of cases I’ve had, made generic to preserve confidentiality: the substantive areas vary to demonstrate the issues are universal. The stories include one insurance, one estate, and one employment

1. A nurse in a long term care facility inherited from an elderly man with dementia. The deceased’s niece and nephews contested the will. They accused her of spotting a resident with few visitors and no immediate family and influencing him to sign a will in her favour. At the mediation, her lawyer would not let her answer the question about her relationship with the deceased. He said that was touchy feely stuff and not relevant to the law of wills and estates, which was clearly on her side. In caucus she told me that she had been the deceased’s friend for over 30 years.

? What would you recommend happen next?

Defendant lawyer admitted he had been defensive and it was a mistake to not let his client tell her story. In the next session he apologized and she told her story in a clear, credible way. It isn’t weakness to admit a mistake and apologize. Telling your story is not touchy feely stuff. It’s real human dynamics made visible.

2. Defendant lawyer was well prepared, briefed, and had his client, the insurance adjuster rep, ready to settle. He gave an opening statement that said they were there to resolve the claim.

Plaintiff lawyer was not ready to settle and did not state a position for his client, the insured. His opening statement was that they were there to listen because he hadn’t expected that the defendant would come with an offer. He said that coming with an offer would suggest he thought his case was not strong enough to take to court.

? What do you think the defendant’s lawyer said / did next?

He worked with the plaintiff’s lawyer to get him to a place of negotiation. He explained to the insured how the process could go, offered cases in support, kept the conversation pleasant and non accusatory, got to everyone’s interests, and encouraged the plaintiff to consider the offer or make a counter offer through her lawyer. Def lawyer was courteous to plaintiff and lawyer throughout. It settled in a range that satisfied everyone and plaintiff lawyer did not lose face. Take the opportunity to settle seriously enough to add value to the client’s options. Mediation is not about having a strong or a weak case. If you’re prepared, your case can be stronger than if you are unprepared. It’s in the work you do to get ready that weakness or strength will show at mediation.

 3. The night before a mediation of a lawsuit in its 10^th year of life, I got a call from plaintiff lawyer – he said of the other lawyer: “we loathe each other – can’t be in the same room together tomorrow with our clients.”

? What would you recommend happen next?

We mediated between the lawyers one hour before the clients arrived. They had been so tough that they lost all respect for each other and the case went on 9.5 years longer than it needed to. There’s a balance between being a pushover and being so tough that no one can negotiate with you. Find that balance and you won’t have to compromise because you’ll be able to negotiate a win/win.

Getting knowledgeable about how mediation works makes it much easier to achieve your mediation goals. Falling for the myths of mediation makes it much easier to fall into negotiation and mediation traps.

Anecdotally, I’d start with it meaning: to have appropriate skills and experience to deal with those stresses and pressures that come with interactions that reduce your sense of wellbeing and health. This assumes, of course, that conflict reduces or affects quality of life. I’m going to assume this is a reasonable assumption for most people, most of the time. While some people might enjoy being in conflict, it isn’t common.

To be more specific, being competent means having strengths and wisdom necessary to engage in effective, productive and generally happy personal interactions with others. Social interactions keep us healthy and reduce stress. Being skilled at doing this is a positive contribution towards quality of life.

Conflict competency is also an attitude. Attitudes include how we chose to perceive our interactions. We can be motivated to be competent or decide not to work on a skill set

This week, I was consulted by a delightful person and her representative. She was about to confront her manager and wanted advice on approaches that might be most likely to result in win/win for everyone. This was already a step towards becoming competent in handling conflict. She was showing the attitude of wanting to engage in an interpersonal interaction that would be effective for everyone involved.

She recounted the statement her manager made that offended her and motivated her to see me. Her representative and I suggested to her that how she took the statement might not have been what the manager intended it to mean. She said she had not thought of that. Her perspective opened to new possibilities and assumptions she was able to make.

It was a pleasure watching her attitude change as she became more conflict competent before us.

Some professional mediators were talking and the question came up about when to “use” conflict management techniques. Those in the conversation wanted to know when it was okay to behave ‘normally’ and when they were to behave with conflict competence. There was a lively discussion about this.

After the various arguments for and against the opinions were aired, we were left with a couple of choices. Either conflict management was a technique that one used strategically, or it was a way of being in the world much as your personality gives you a way of being in the world. Having heard the arguments in support of the positions, what might be left to propose?

A compromise seems somewhat unsatisfactory: e.g. sometimes be conflict competent and sometimes not! There isn’t an obvious reason to willingly be conflict incompetent. Is there an integrative alternative? Perhaps it is cinema that offers an insight. Every good story has a conflict at its core. A movie without a conflict is one where not much happens that an audience wants to watch. The conflict can be subtle internal angst or cars blowing up in a plotless serial display of special effects. Hollywood knows that conflict drives the story, and we are, after all, the sum of our stories. A totally peaceful life is not all that interesting.

Perhaps we can do the drama, and the venting, and exhibit our righteous indignation over the unfairness or injury. Then, we can process the information before taking a moral and ethical high road. In other words, maybe we can be both conflict competent and incompetent. We can have the full range of ‘normal’ human emotions and reactions. Then, before we react the way those human emotions and reactions are driving us to do, our conflict resolution side can slide like a veil back in front of our faces.

Is there another option, or a completely different set of questions that would reveal “the answer”?

On 10 December, 2009, President Barak Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize and gave the Laureate address in Oslo, Norway. I listened with interest for many reasons, one of which was because it was the Peace Prize awarded to the President of a nation at war.  That’s a bit challenging to get my mind around. Still, without making any judgments about the prize committee’s decision, I’m prepared to take conflict management lessons from all kinds of places. I was curious. That’s the necessary precondition to learning. I was listening. That’s the second precondition. So, what did I learn?

President Obama said it was important to have principles to follow when dealing with rogues. I’ve added how his principles apply to conflict management at work.

I.               Adhering to standards isolates those who don’t meet them and strengthens those who do.

When someone on the team is, in your opinion, slacking or acting disengaged from work, it’s tempting to feel that you are being penalized for showing up on time and doing all your work. After all, that person is getting away with goofing off, so it isn’t much incentive for you to work hard. You might get into a conflict about what you see as the unfair work distribution. President Obama said the other person may have low standards, but he or she is also isolated. Once you lower your standards to his or her level, you are keeping that person company and ending that isolation. Keeping your standards high keeps you strong.

II.              Uphold values when it’s easy and when it’s hard to do.

The values we hold at work come from several sources. First, the organization’s values are stated in the vision, mission and values statements. Also significant are the values of your discipline or your specific work. For example, if you are certified by a professional association, you are bound to follow the values of your profession or trade. If you are located within a distinct community, you may share the values of that community. Finally, and just as important, are your individual values, such as your beliefs and worldview. Sometimes, these values are in conflict with each other. When that happens, you may find you are in conflict with yourself and/or with your team. Then, it is hard to know what values to prioritize. President Obama said that it is in such circumstances that knowing and understanding your values and their place in the hierarchy of values is most important. When there’s conflict is the time to know your values and let them guide you.

III.            Build a just and lasting peace.

That sounds good; what does it mean and how would I do it? Perhaps it means peace that isn’t bullt on the oppression of others. It also connotes a peace that is courageous, even where there is fear. It would be nice to have no fear, but that means having nothing to be afraid of. We don’t yet live in that world. Perhaps it will be enough to have courage when afraid. Perhaps that would build a just and lasting peace. How is that to be done? President Obama had some suggestions:

1.     Use alternatives that change behaviour with real enforcement for breaches.

2.     Don’t stand by when there is injustice that can be spoken against.

3.     Stand with allies who also support your values, moral imagination and sense of possibility.

4.     Find hope in situations and pursue that hope or there will be status quo.

5.     Value human dignity.

6.     Know what ‘ought to be’ and seek to enact it.

7.     What actions you do you must accept when others do them.

8.     To achieve resolution requires accepting responsibility and perhaps making sacrifices.

9.     Reject either / or choices and look to creative options for having justice for everyone.

Conclusion

Things happen between people and conflict can result. You are the first in line for those who can problem solve. Do I agree with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s choice for 2009? Irrelevant. It’s a done deal. Instead, let’s take the lessons we can get from the recipient. Conflict management lessons can come from anywhere.

A blind spot is anything that, because of your identity and experience and location, you cannot see or understand. This week, I was the after-meeting speaker for an association. The topic was one of my favorites, Developing Conflict Competence.

As usual, it was an interactive session in which the audience members used the information to consider their own situations. One man in the audience was particularly engaged in the discussion. His appearance is important to the story. He was a retired, white man, over six feet tall, fit and imposing. He made the point that a lot of getting along with people was just being friendly and polite. To make the point, he related that he usually greeted everyone, even strangers in cities he visited, and they almost always returned his greeting. This, he declared, proved his point that we can all contribute to better inter-personal relationships. It was a terrific reinforcement of the talk I was giving.

Then, the man decided to test whether I used the same technique to get along with people. He posed this question: when I travel, do I greet people, such as those standing waiting for the elevator with me. I replied that I frequently greet strangers but might not in the scenario he had chosen. He looked dismayed and challenged that I selectively greeted people, suggesting that I was less committed to good interpersonal relationships than he. The rest of the audience looked somewhat confused, although I can’t say for sure what they made of the exchange at that point. 

So, I explained my reply. When I travel it is usually during the week when the people I am likely to meet in elevators are also business travelers. Therefore, the person standing at the elevator with me is likely to be a working male; that is, a man between late teens and late sixties. If I were to give him the big smile and hearty greeting that the man in the audience had described as his way of being friendly, the man at the elevator might just as possibly think I was making an advance or trying to hit on him. In other words, in the context, I might edit my usually friendliness to be socially appropriate for my identity, experience and location.

The man in the audience looked stunned. He said: “I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Indeed, he might not have. That does not make it less real for those of us who are women traveling alone. I assured him it was a very real consideration. He varied his surprised response: “I never thought of that.”

That’s his blind spot. He has never had reason to think what it might be like for women considering his identity, experience and location is different. There are so many places in which we have blind spots about many things. Doing a Blind Spot Analysis to determine what you are blind to, can help develop your conflict competence. There are applications of Blind Spot Analysis in any area in which you might have conflicts.

At a recent conference where I was a key note speaker, I overheard a conversation between someone eager to deny global climate change and someone from the far North who is living with the consequences of melting ice and diminishing sea life. The former worked in oil and gas, while the latter was a government employee north of the 60^th parallel. The one’s identity as an ‘Oil Man’ and location in a major city that is hub to the industry, made him blind to the experience that the Northern government employee was trying to explain. The urban dweller had no context for understanding the lived experience of the remote North.

We all have blind spots. There are very serious issues in the 21st century, with lots of potential for conflict embedded in those problems. Blind spots add denial into the conflict while reducing the knowledge available for solutions to emerge. If you hear yourself denying or questioning whether someone else’s stated reality and knowledge and experience is right - because it is so different from your own - then perhaps it’s time to conduct your own Blind Spot Analysis. 

Hospital administrators and public health officials are sleeping somewhat better knowing that they have flu pandemic plans in place. While there may or may not be a deadly H1N1 pandemic, with climate changes will come other diseases that will each bring its own scares. It’s good to have a plan in place against pathogens. The plans developed for the last flu scare dealt lightly with policies for such items as who gets what in which order of priority.

Pandemic planning seems to depend on the expectations that patients, families and loved ones will accept decisions about priority for treatment. If so, is this a reasonable expectation? It is foreseeable that not all people will do as they are told, especially when they are frightened and ill. 

Do pandemic plans take into account the conflict that comes with fear of scarce resources and the frantic desire to get a share? Is there an appeal mechanism, place for advocacy to have someone bumped up the priority scale, or process for the patient who argues with the ranking given? Where is the plan for dealing with people who refuse the ranking that might mean death for a child, spouse, parent, or friend? What are the provisions for when the three-person team making the ranking decisions cannot agree? Is there a void in the plan, or is the plan just silent on how decision makers plan to keep the peace by keeping patients in their place?

Conflict creates hard choices, even when decisions, policies and plans are ethically and scientifically based. If the planners believe that science and medicine will deal with the conflicts their plans create, they are mistaken. In each pandemic plan should be conflict management strategies and training for the daily dramas that come with staff shortages, contagion fears, dread of disease, burn-out of those who are filling in, stress related illness, and too little of everything. At the very least, those making the treatment ranking decisions must have strategies and training for resolving the conflicts that will almost certainly arise during their decision-making.

This week, one of the parties took me aside and asked a great question: is it seemly for a manager to apologize to someone he supervises? He was concerned about losing face, or diminishing his authority in the employee’s eyes. It’s a legitimate concern and it’s based, in part, on a belief that power comes from being strong and always in the right.

After he and I discussed it, he shared his insight into a different way of managing. He returned to the mediation table and told the employee he was sorry for how he had acted. He said he hoped that they could repair the relationship and continue to work together with more 2-way feedback than they’d had before.

The manager wasn’t giving up any power; his authority remained unchallenged. What he was offering was to learn from the communication they would henceforth have with each other. The employee was happy with the outcome and the manager felt empowered with his new knowledge.

• someone wants something done and the other doesn’t accomplish it
• a lover misses a cue to be supportive
• the boss had a particular deadline or quality of work in mind that was missed
• children aren’t quiet when silence is needed
• and so on…..

What is most interesting about mediations involving disappointment over expectations that aren’t fulfilled, is how often the person who disappointed did not know there were expectations he or she was supposed to be meeting.Here’s a sample of typical dialogue from some similar stories, distilled into a flow:

Kathy: I can’t count on you to follow through with anything you commit to.

Tom: What did I commit to that I didn’t do?

Kathy: You knew I needed that done by Thursday and you did everything else first. So when Thursday rolled around, there was no way you’d have enough time to get it done.

Tom: Why didn’t you say it was more important than everything else I was supposed to do this week?

Kathy:  How could you not know it was a priority? I told you how important it was. And you knew I needed it for Thursday.

Tom: Sure, and then you asked for three other things so how was I to know the first thing was still the most important?

This could have been avoided with simple clarity about what was expected when. Tom expected to be told what the priorities were so he didn’t have to guess, and Kathy expected Tom to be an adult who knew those priorities through competence. They could spend the next years arguing about Tom’s inability to read minds, and Kathy’s refusal to treat him like a child, which is how each of them frames their point of view.The lesson for me from all the conflict stories in many mediations, is to be clear about expectations. Telepathy and micro-management are not the only options. Avoid disappointment; state your expectations and interests.

Another reason to deplore sex selection however it occurs, does not get spoken of very much but it is chilling. When countries have a critical mass of young unmarried men, with no hope of achieving the successful mating and parenting that sentient beings are hard-wired to seek, the common outcome is that those countries may go to war with their neighbours. A surplus of single men between the ages of 18 and 35 has been linked as a factor in starting wars.

For all of the correct moral and ethical choices, the fate of these girl babies must be a priority. For all of the hopes of social change leading to world peace, this situation must be addressed now.

Every living thing has a conflict during the day. Some critter gets too close and gets hissed at for some reason. They know when to fight, and when to retreat. When they lose, they find something else to do and someplace else to stand. When they win, they get back to their day. They carry grudges, sure, but it doesn’t seem to define their lives. They have balance.

 We talk about needing work - life balance in our complex lives. I suggest it would also be healthy to have work - life - conflict balance, since our conflicts are just as inevitable as those of the critters.

This week I was at a typical stand-with-a-glass-in-hand cocktail reception, standing in a group with a glass in my hand. I noticed two women very near me in the crowded room. One of the two had an interesting looking book in her arm. I tried to see the title. The woman glanced at me, and looked uncomfortable before moving away. 

I quickly apologized: “I’m sorry, I was trying to see your book; it looks really interesting.” 

The woman seemed very relieved: “I thought you were angry that we were standing too close.”

Had I unconsciously looked angry? Or maybe my curious look comes across as angry to those who don’t know me? I hadn’t meant to be rude nor intended to make the woman and her companion feel uncomfortable, yet their assumption about me was that I had done both.

Simple good manners and an early apology let them know my intention had been benign and we wound up having a fascinating conversation about our favorite books. These strangers who had been prepared to believe I was judging them, and were judging me, wound up making the evening far more pleasant by including me in their conversation. 

There are many opinions about ‘political correctness’ and ‘thought police’ telling us what is the right thing to say rather than being able to say anything we want. They may have a good point, that we should be able to just live our lives without being judged by others. Sometimes though, just basic good manners can correct the potential for conflicting interactions.

This week I participated in a webinar conducted by Insight Fusion. A community of consultants doing work on innovation in organizations followed an online slide show and discussed the ways to engage people whether they believe that knowledge is important or they believe that exploration is important.

My interest in participating in this webinar and the conversation about the topic stemmed from my observations about the conflicts in the workplaces where I intervene. I often observe people in conflict over how to achieve their shared tasks and mutual goals. They all agreed on almost everything except how to get where they knew they wanted and needed to go. Some wanted to be bold and innovative. Some had a lower risk tolerance and wanted to take a safer more factually based route. Depending on whether someone believes in fixed knowledge or fluid exploration, he or she will have a different approach to a problem and a very different set of possible solutions that have the potential to create extremely different action plans. This is what I call their conflict mental map: each person in the conflict has a mental map of what s/he thinks is the correct route to the goal and, on this mental map, the other people in the conflict are on the wrong path.

Dennis Stauffer of Insight Fusion (insightfusion.com)led the webinar and wrote this about its:

“To a great degree we each create the world as we know it. Our assumptions and beliefs form mental models that have a powerful impact on how we see and interpret everything around us. Some of our mental models are based on conscious choices that we may strongly defend. Other mental models are unconscious choices. They are unexamined assumptions that we hold without realizing their implications. Your mental models may make it easier or more difficult for you to learn, adapt, solve problems and respond to challenges in all aspects of your life, personal and professional. This assessment is designed to reflect back to you some of your mental models and the beliefs, values and behaviors you hold as a result. Our mental models are frequently invisible to us. So it can be tremendously helpful to identify and examine them.”      

There is a whole set of conflicts or potential for conflicts that can arise from this difference in belief systems. The conflicts in this analysis would be between those who believe that there is a definite answer if only there are enough collected facts and those who believe that possible answers could be explored or discovered. This difference in approaches to issues and solutions could be a source of considerable conflict when members of a work team need to formulate shared action plans.

The way to move forward from this potential deadlock is to get out of the either/or thinking in which this clash of belief systems gets people stuck. Those who believe that there is knowledge that would lead to a set of facts that would point to the right answer have a valuable contribution to make to the team. Those who believe that there are possible new unexplored options to consider also have a valuable contribution to make to the team. In order to do this, people must be realistic about what type of thinker they are, and what their belief system about knowledge is.

The path forward is in the conversation between those two ways of believing. Rather than each arguing in favor of his or her preferred belief of how to proceed, they could have a conversation about all the options, exchange interests, share their concerns and projections, and keep open minded about what the others have to say. Chances are that their goals for the team are the same, such as to succeed in the action plan whatever it is. What they disagree on is how to achieve that goal. They may have to trust that there are a few different ways that they might succeed and that their collective wisdom can be trusted.

These are tough times in lots of different contexts. It seems like the reactions to tough times also vary, and some reactions are people acting out their fears and anxieties.

Behavior seems to be following the worsening economic indicators, which is viewed by some as a justifiable response to stress. This behavior can be everything from being faster to lose one’s temper to outright violence. Once this starts in the workplace or at home, it damages relationships and creates toxic conditions, unless it is dealt with immediately and well.

Workplaces have “zero tolerance” and other policies that attempt to enforce good behavior. Is there more that can be done to relieve the stress that some say contributes to the acting out? In other words, what will create peaceful environments where people have more internal strategies than just acting out their frustrations and anger at external matters that seem beyond their control?

Ideally, everyone will feel fairly treated and respected. That would be a good foundation for peaceful relationships. Since we all have different definitions of what this might mean or look like or how it might be achieved, we also need skills for dealing with our feelings when we believe we are unfairly treated and disrespected.

A useful skill is checking meaning when someone communicates. It is easy to react to what we thought someone meant in a message, without checking on whether our assumption about his or her intended meaning is correct.

Taking responsibility for our reactions is another good behavior. When something happens, it may not be ‘done to us’ and we need not always react as if it were being personally aimed in our direction.

Uncertainty makes us feel insecure and shaky, which can cause us to behave differently than if we had more information to guide us. Dealing well with uncertainty is a skill that can be developed. Learning to generate options and create ‘what if…’ scenarios so that we feel better prepared for more eventualities will help us create our own sense of security instead of just reacting to what we think others should be giving us.

Fostering a sense of resiliency and belief in our capacity to be okay is another useful skill for feeling peaceful in our relationships. Resilient people take adversity and uncertainty in better humor because they work with the situation as it arises, rather than catastrophizing about what awful things will come out of the situation.

Yes, many situations are very difficult right now. how we deal with those adverse conditions is the measure of who we want to be and how we value the relationships we are able to enjoy.

Two friends stopped talking to each other after a disagreement. They each thought the relationship was over because they had officially called the friendship off. Yet, when they each individually saw their mutual friends, that fight was all they talked about.

Some think that once people are in a conflict, their relationship has been broken, ruptured, or ruined. In other words, the relationship no longer exists. In fact, being in a conflict ties the people together in one of the most tightly coupled of relationships. A conflict competent strategy - whether it is conversing with, apologizing to, sending a message for the other people - is just about the only method for changing a conflict relationship.  However, not many people are able to experience a conflict and immediately put the whole episode behind them. 

Few emotions are stronger than feelings of anger, betrayal, pain, rage, insult, rejection, hurt feelings, and/or mistrust. Typically, when people have a conflict they replay in their head the circumstances, the conversations, and the potential life changes that have or are likely to occur as a result. Even when those they are in conflict with are not near by, we argue our point of view to them in our heads. 

Things we said that we regret saying and what we did not say but think we should have said all come to mind, sometimes disturbing our sleep in the middle of the night. As we go abut our days, keep our appointments, push a buggy in the grocery store, and visit with loved ones, there is a low-grade interference with our feeling of well being. We go about our business thinking about how justified, righteous, misunderstood, hard done by or aggrieved we are. In other words, there is often little or no escape from our minds’ thinking of the person we feel strongly about, whether that high emotion is love or hate. 

Bottom line is that avoiding, ignoring, or pretending about conflict is rarely successful in relieving us from the harsh effects of conflict. Our thoughts tend to keep us actively engaged with the conflict even as we try to forget about it. Dealing competently with the person or people we are in conflict with is the best solution to putting the conflict behind us.

That might not seem like much, but control over self gives each of us the power and ability to begin to change our conflicts into more positive events. We don’t have to wait for someone to agree or give us permission to make a change. We don’t even have to let them know we’re trying.

If you are in conflict with someone whose behavior, attitude or judgments you wish would change, you likely know by now that your efforts to impose your will on the other person have not been effective. Instead, try starting with your own behavior, attitude or judgments towards that other person.

I’ve been coaching the President of an international company who was having a conflict with others on the senior management team. The current economic conditions were making the conflict much more intense by adding financial concerns to an already difficult relationship.

As he and I were going through the problem from his perspective, the President said, “…  he didn’t act like a normal human being would.” I asked the President how that opinion of abnormality would have sounded to him if he had overheard someone else saying it. The President defended his opinion of the other person’s actions. When I asked in what ways the President’s opinion of the other person was observable by others, he admitted he hadn’t thought of that. He did believe it was possible that his attitude about others on the senior management team could be affecting his own actions and behaviours.

In other words, the President’s judgment of the team was well known, even though the President was adamant he had never expressed that opinion to anyone but me. He didn’t have to say it; he showed disrespect for the members of the team in a lot of ways. Who started the disrespect was not the issue. He had a goal of improving his relationship with the team. He was, therefore, the one who was able to start towards that goal.

The President got it immediately: “you mean, I’m acting towards them the same way I’m complaining they are acting towards me?” I got an email from the President the next day: “I changed my attitude in the meeting today and there were no conflicts or snide remarks. I guess I was part of the problem.”

Try becoming more conflict competent in your interactions with that difficult other person who you have tried unsuccessfully to change, and watch the person adapt to your change. As your behavior becomes more conflict competent, the conflict situation will improve. The person who gave you permission to fix the situation by making changes was you.

Change that which is within your power to change, that is, your own behavior, attitude or judgments. You will notice the difference, even if no one else notices at first.

As much as we might like to believe we are impartial (without bias or prejudice), no one is that objective or free of socialized or cultural influences. We all have biases towards or against certain things. Even though we may be unaware of it, our thoughts, words, body language and behaviors all express those biases. Careful listeners and observers can hear and see our preferences. We telegraph, in our answers to questions and statements of opinion, whether or not we are impartial.

There are a few different consequences of this unconscious bias; I will touch on two of them.

1. Our biases can prevent our seeing the full complexity of a situation. In complex issues, we fall back on what we already believe to be true. That helps us manage the amount of information we would otherwise need to have in order to understand what is happening. A bias or two here and there means we accept some things as true whether they are or not. Thus, we don’t have to rethink everything we accept as true. Whatever does not fit with what we believe to be true, we can reject as false. While this simplifies our life, it acts as a barrier to getting the full story from all perspectives.
2.  A bias towards something is just as limiting in our points of view as a bias against something. I love ice cream. It is my bias towards what makes a treat great. I’m happy to reject the knowledge that ice cream is bad for me. That point of view doesn’t fit with my idea of what is good for me. If it’s just ice cream, no harm is done. However, if my point of view is limited because I accept or reject something as true or good without seeing that my bias is the reason, then I may be perpetuating myths about something, someone or some place.

One of the ways around this is to be a relativist, rather than an absolutist, even though that makes some ethicists cringe. By relativist I mean that you couch your answers and opinions in terms that acknowledge the many variables that exist in each unique conflict situation. Instead of relishing the simplicity of having your biases decide your opinions and answers to questions, challenge your own thinking and feelings about whether you believe a statement is a true fact based on your bias.

A practical application of this need for relativism is in complex conflict situations, such as the Middle East. We know what we already believe, and we can then reject the other sides’ facts. If we don’t acknowledge the complexity of the situation, we can stick doggedly with our own point of view. Believing what we already believe to be true and rejecting anything that disagrees with our bias certainly is easier than challenging whether we have a bias towards one of the sides. However, it might be that our underlying assumptions, beliefs, and biases are not true, or at least not as true as we want them to be.

When people, families, societies or states are in conflict, we don’t have to state a preference for one side over the other in order to be advocates for peace. The answer and the opinions of who is wrong and who is right might well warrant the best answer of all: “It depends”.

We began by asking who in the audience blamed the mother M, who blamed the daughter-in-law S, who blamed the son Y, who blamed S’s mother CD, who blamed S’s father J. Once the votes were in, we began the conflict analysis of reasons underlying the characters’ motivations. 

The defenders of M pointed out that she was a single mother who loved her son Y, and wanted S to be a good wife to him. M gave Y a secure life and S was ungrateful. Defenders of S argued that M was overbearing and would not allow S to be mistress of her own home. Defenders of CD contended that she was just trying to stand up for her daughter S when M was trying to control everyone’s life. Defenders of Y explained he was not weak, but was simply torn between his love for his wife S and his mother M. Defenders of J said he was just goofy but did not mean any harm.

As we discussed the characters’ inner lives and reasons for acting as they did, we saw the parallels to our own lives and how we assume others’ intentions are good or bad according to our own beliefs. When we worked to understand each characters’ intentions, motives, reasoning and emotions, we became less blaming and judgmental, and became more tolerant and compassionate. By the end of the discussion, we agreed there was more than enough blame to go around, but each character was simply trying to do the best he or she could under the circumstances.

After that, the audience had no accusations left for the character they had once voted was the villain of the movie. Now, can we apply this exercise of compassionate listening to our own lives and conflicts? 2009 will be more peaceful if we can.

Abortion is a deeply divisive social conflict. Conversations about social conflicts tend to follow a pattern that is typified this week by the exchange between the University of Calgary administration and Campus Pro-Life.

Interactions around social conflicts tend to follow this script: First, a group raises an issue about which they feel passion and energy.  Second, another group states it is offended, or irate, or an equally passionate and energetic response that is oppositional to the first group. Third, someone in authority becomes concerned enough to take a stand, which usually supports the original status quo that existed before the first group raised the issue. Finally, the media gets interested because it’s now a public conflict. 

This script almost inevitably becomes a standoff where no one can back down without losing face or feeling that some higher principal has been betrayed. Where the ‘rule of law’ prevails the standoff will eventually end either peacefully or with minimal use of force, albeit with bad feelings on all sides. In less fortunate examples, or more extreme cases of social conflict, the standoff culminates with someone in authority calling in men and women in uniforms to end it. 

Recognizing the pattern means it should be possible to change the script. Pattern recognition is an initial step to improving conflict interactions. So, that next questions are: how to change the pattern, and to what new script?

How to change the pattern: Since 1992, dialogue groups comprised of pro-life and pro-choice activists have been meeting to find common ground. They begin with one-day workshops and, in some cases, have continued meeting to jointly work on the systemic societal problems that create unwanted pregnancies. 

The new script: Facilitated dialogue groups change the polarized rhetoric. Dialogue groups exchange narratives, among other exercises, as trust-building conversations. As former adversaries become acquainted they rarely change their opinions about abortion. However, through dialogue they expose the stereotypes about their opponents and change their opinions about each other. This creates the conditions for finding common ground. 

Breaking down the barriers through dialogue and shared knowledge rather than legal action and threats, does not make the social conflict go away. People will still disagree about abortion. What does go away is the typical pattern of standoff, which is a lose/lose proposition for everyone. In dialogue they find principles they can agree upon, which is a win/win.

 It’s a script revision worth trying.

At the mega-scale, there’s the economic crisis, global climate change, ongoing war, and a new regime in America. At the micro-scale, it translates into worry about personal finances, different decisions about lifestyles, public condemnation of those who believe differently, and leadership under scrutiny to do something.  

Let’s be honest. If times were good, we would want more of the same. Same economics. Same politics. Same relationships. Hard times create the chance to fix things that are wrong.

Finally, we are hearing: 

• talk of re-making the economy as if the environment mattered; 
• politicians admit we need to talk across the political divide to create a united effort; 
• interest in finding educational and social change alternatives to war;  
• that leading means being visionary as well as being pragmatic. 

It’s awful that people are getting beaten up financially. It will be even more awful if we don’t use this convergence of turbulent events to create a better, more sustainable future.  

Peace is created through talk. This does not mean stupid give-it-all-away negotiation.  It means talk that strengthens understanding, creates relationships for the future, and explores options for co-existence. It may also include warning talk, power talk, exchange talk, and transformational talk.

Not talking means no learning and no change. Refusing to talk suggests fear of what might happen. In today’s warfare, no one wins and the war ends when people decide to quit fighting. Then they have to talk.

Does it make some sense to talk first?

Everything really is connected to everything else. 

Kathy and Nina, dear friends, colleagues, teachers, and mentors to many, were married in a Quaker meeting in Toronto. As wonderful as the wedding was, as happy as we all were to bear witness to their joy, perhaps the best part was the reception. Kathy and Nina are involved in so much that is making the world a better place. Their circle of friends includes people who gave up corporate jobs to try to save the world.

One stimulating, inspiring, and hopeful conversation at the Friends Meeting House involved people from the environmental , the peace, the youth criminal justice, and the health movements, and a commercial pilot. Disparate though we were, as we discussed our visions of the society we want, we had a shared belief that relationships are at the core of each of our visions. The relationships we envision are peaceful, sustainable, safe, and healthy.

We concluded that if every relationship has those characteristics of peace, sustainability, safety and health, then the world will too.

There are steps we can and must take to achieve this vision. Those steps are possible if we have the collective will.

The environment supports and sustains us, so our actions locally and globaly must support and sustain the environment.  

To continue this sustainable cycle that keeps us alive, requires peace.

If we live in peace and have a sustainable environment that supports us, we will be healthier in mind, body, and spirit.

If we are healthier in mind, body, and spirit, we will have improved capacities to keep our communities safe.

If our communities are safe, we will not need to fear crime.

If we do not fear crime, we will have improved relationships with others.

As our relationships improve, we will have achieved our vision of the society we want.

After the workshop, they said they had learned very useful strategies to break the cycle, change the pattern, and do conflicts more competently. They set out to practice their new conflict skills on the people who cycled through the conflicts with them.

One of the things they learned is that each of them can change the pattern on their own, whether the other person in the conflict knows, agrees, participates, or collaborates on the change. By taking responsibility for managing his or her own contribution to the conflict pattern, each of them can change the conflict to something more productive. 

i teach the Theory and Practice of Dialogue, and Deliberative Democracy. Public forum debate is a healthy way for everyone to learn, expand their skills, create community, and change their mind if persuaded by something they hear. 

Blog warfare has ramifications for the ongoing societal conversations about the kinds of community we want to build and the value of public trust. 

1, if we are expressing a desire to revitalize a dialogue process that has become dysfunctional, then “I’m right, you’re wrong” is unlikely to do it. What in blog warfare will lift more people to a better quality of life? There wasn’t much in the websites I read that speaks word of inclusion, representation, embracing diversity, or community comprehensiveness.  We should be noticing the disconnect between the kinds of communities we find meaning in and what we create in blaming and accusations. 

2, the model of side taking debate that is being used is an impoverished example of what public onilne dialogue could be. Dialogue has a well founded theoretical basis of transformational learning, that is, we hear and learn and understand. Attacks on one side in short sarcastic witticisms isn’t enhancing anyone’s skills or lives. 

3, public dialogue introduces new information that can create better outcomes by illuminating what others are thinking. Reducing the comments to simplicity reduces our skills in complex thinking. When the topic is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that a man is ungrateful because he does not like the taste of the toast his girlfriend made when he was ill, we miss the opportunity to inquire into whether his illness may be affecting his taste buds. That’s a simple example, but the whole point of blog warfare is simplification, in a world that needs complexity in thinking skills.

The ‘remedy’ for a jaded cynical community is to transform a jaded cynical debate process into a true dialogue of learning from each other, which can be just as much fun as calling someone names and telling them they are wrong.

Person A said that Person B treated the letter Person A had delivered to B with disdain even though it was important, threw the letter to the ground, and then, ignoring both Person A and the letter, went back to work as if Person A were an irritant to be dismissed without a word. This rudeness was inexcusable to Person A, who believed that was the moment the conflict took flight. Person A left the office feeling belittled and offended.

Person B’s version was that Person A had stormed into the office without knocking, threw the letter in Person B’s face even though B was at work, then stood there huffing as if Person B should immediately stop all other work. Person B pushed the letter aside to deal with once Person A had gone, and it might have accidently slipped to the floor from the push. Person B believed the conflict erupted when Person A entered the room as a rude interruption, and thus, B felt justified in continuing to work because, to do otherwise, would reinforce Person’s A belief that such behaviour was acceptable when it clearly was not.

So, each agreed on the basic facts. One person entered the office with a letter that must be brought to the other person quickly. The first person had transferred the letter to the second person’s desk. The second person pushed at the letter. The letter had fallen from the desk to the floor. 

After that, everything else was subject to interpretation. Either A had entered B’s office rudely, or not. B had reacted rudely or not. The letter had been pushed with emotional force or not. The letter’s fall to the floor had been accidental or not. There was huffing involved or not. 

Two people, one set of facts, two very different interpretations, depending on whether the addition of a hostile adjective served the purpose of making the other person wrong, or not. Since we are very poor mind readers, we infer the adversarial or friendly intention of other people based on how we feel about them.

If, in our mind, someone is friendly, we see their actions as friendly and their intention as well meaning. However, when we perceive someone as adversarial in relation to ourselves, their actions will be perceived as adversarial whether they meant it that way or not.

When I inquired further into the history of their relationship, they revealed that the letter incident was just one of a series of events between them that was negatively interpreted. In other words, because of their history of animosity, each was prepared to believe that the other had a hostile attitude, and interpreted their actions through those belief systems. Once we were able to explore the reality of the belief, the letter incident took on greatly diminished significance.

Work this busy month has revolved around a theme: dedicated, ethical, and well-liked people got into conflicts that could have been prevented or solved early. My clients were in situations that left them feeling unfairly treated, angry, misunderstood, and/or the victim of an injustice. How did it get to be this way for intelligent, good people?

It can’t be reduced to a simple answer, but there was a pattern. Once they felt disagreed with, they saw their own perspective, defended their position, and got bogged down in a conflict they could not find a way to end with grace.

Here’s a typical example of the situation and how they eventually addressed it.

If a boss reprimands an employee and the employee accepts that, there is no dispute. If the reprimand feels unfair, the employee challenges the boss creating a dispute if that is how the boss responds. If they put this incident into a framework of ongoing personality and stylistic differences and make the reprimand about everything the two of them ever had differences about, it is a conflict. 

There is no dispute. 

Employee might accept the reprimand because: employee admits wrongdoing; boss is too powerful to contradict; employee feels reprimand is trivial in the bigger picture; boss speaks in a way employee does not take seriously; employee does not respect boss’s opinion, and so on. In each possible option, the employee makes meaning of the boss’s words and decides, consciously or unconsciously, how to react. The dispute is prevented because the employee mentally normalizes the reprimand as less important than, say, doing the job well or getting along.

The employee challenges the boss. 

Once employee engages boss, it’s boss’s turn to decide what meaning to put on the interaction. The dispute may emerge or not, depending on the respective meanings they put on each other’s words and attitudes. Decisions about meaning are not made in isolation. They are grounded in history, character assessment, judgment of effort, value to the team, and other factors. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: What assumptions am I making without verifying their accuracy? How are my feelings about the person affecting how I perceive the person’s words and deeds? What are my words, deeds and attitude contributing to how this interaction is unfolding? If I change or manage how I feel and react, what else would change?

They put this incident into a framework of ongoing differences. 

Because boss and employee have a history, a dispute over the reprimand will recall each time the other has been perceived as irritating, overbearing, wrong, or an obstacle to success. Their words are no longer about the reprimand, but call up experiences such as: “you always”, “you never”, “last time this happened”, “you promised”, “when will you ever”, and reconstructions of other times that expectations were disappointed. The reprimand takes on the meaning they make of their entire relationship. The incident that caused the reprimand is replaced with allegations of character flaws, inadequacies in abilities, and judgments about the other one’s lack of ethics and honour. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: what am I attributing to the person that has nothing to do with this incident? Is how I feel about our relationship affecting my response to the words the person is saying now? If my best friend said exactly the same things what would I assume s/he meant?

Every new dispute incident piles up in the context of the ongoing conflict.

Things may seem calm until the next incident, at which time the fuse is shorter, recovery time to equilibrium is longer, hurt feelings are deeper, and mistrust is stronger. The next time boss makes a decision employee takes it personally. The next time employee stumbles boss perceives it as lack of commitment. The prevention strategy at this level is to ask yourself: is my judgment about this situation being affected by left over feelings from the conflict? Do I perceive this as being done to me rather than something that just is? What is my responsibility, if any, for the situation?

You can address disputes before they become conflict systems. Talk to yourself honestly about what is really going on and how you are interpreting it to fit your image as the innocent party. Whether it is boss, teammate, partner, or other person, the question is not who is right or wrong - each believes s/he is right and the other is wrong. The better question is what meaning are you, a human with feelings, making of what is going on? Change the meaning you attribute to the situation, and your perception of the qualities you attribute to the other person can also change.