Conflict

When you are dealing with people, conflict is inevitable. As the father of twins (2 sets) I find this topic fascinating. There are usually at least two differing opinions on each topic. This is mine, no its mine. Give it, give me it. Let go. Watching young kids in conflict, I often see the “take my ball and go home” approach. Watching adults in conflict, I also often see the thinly veiled “take my ball and go home” approach. Sometimes it is just easier if we do not have the conflict and avoid it altogether. We can agree to disagree, but what we really want is to just wait until I have the upper hand and then I will engage in the conflict with you. Or, I will use this against you to beat you on the next time you have an idea and I can trump it. But if we are willing to stay in the conflict throughout the entire cycle then, we can get to a resolution. Rarely is the resolution result in one party getting 100% of their way and vice versa.

I think it is fascinating watching how people respond when the conflict begins. I am not conflict adverse, I think I learned it from my mom. However, my wife is very conflict adverse and I am pretty sure that she learned it from her mom. As like most things in life, we follow what we see. Which way is right? My way of course. Just kidding. The correct answer is, I don’t know. So how do we stay in the cycle throughout and why should we? This is what I do know about every conflict I have been involved with in my life, if I don’t feel like I have been heard and listened to then nothing is getting resolved. I mean, I really have to feel like I have been heard and I really have to listen and consider the other persons point of view, not just give lip service to it. Once those two things have occurred, it is much easier for me to spend my time on collaboration on a solution. If neither of those two have occurred, then the person that doesn’t feel heard continues marching along in the “selling” of their point of view. They add factoids, stories, analogies, etc., anything to get heard. The cycle never cycles. It only goes back and forth and nothing gets resolved. We just take our ball and go home and wait until the next time we have a chance to get even. I hadn’t considered listening as being the key to solving conflict, or at least cycling through the conflict. Maybe it’s not the key but I think it starts there. What do you think? I promise, I will listen…