WISHING PEOPLE WOULD “DO” CONFLICT BETTER
Just a few things I wish for: that world peace and climate control are truly possible (and that leaders around the world work together to make it happen), that people are kinder to one another, that leftover fries taste just as good warmed up, that pets live longer – and, well, I could go on. Sounds fanciful, right? One of my other wishes – more pertinent to this Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog – is that we learn, beginning as toddlers, how to interact in healthy ways when there is conflict between us and other people and that we accept that interpersonal disputes are a normal and inevitable part of our lives.
My conflict management coaching practice is full of clients wanting to do conflict better and I know many friends and family members who also report this desire. I, like you I expect, am a life-long learner – trying to be better at many things including how to engage effectively in conflict- with competence and confidence! I acknowledge it’s hard and that being better at conflict – doing it well – requires us to know how and when to stand up, when and how to stand down, how to respond from a place that shows self-awareness, compassion, self-respect, kindness, honesty, dignity, and a willingness to hear and connect about our differences.
This week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions) blog challenges you to consider how you would like to do better when it comes to engaging in conflict. To do so, I suggest you bring to mind an interpersonal dispute you know you didn’t do very well.
- What is/was the dispute about?
- What did you say or do in that conflict that you realize was not very effective, kind, smart, compassionate, etc.?
- What impact did you observe or hear regarding the other person’s experience of what you said or did?
- Thinking about it now, what specifically would you have said or done differently if you had it to do over again?
- If a close and caring friend observed you in that conflict about what might they be surprised (disappointed) considering how you interacted?
- What makes being more effective in conflict most difficult for you?
- What are 5 things you would like the people with whom you are in conflict say about how you engage in it i.e., what characteristics would you like them to attribute to you? What would you like to be able to say about yourself and how you engage in conflict that reflects the better version of you?
- In what ways are your answers different in the two previous questions if they are?
- What would it take for you to think more highly of yourself when it comes to how you engage in conflict?
- Looking back on the same dispute you started with here (first question) what are the three learnings you have gained from answering the questions here so far?
- What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
- What insights do you have now that you didn’t have before you answered these questions?
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