And with every New Year, we make our lists of Resolutions.  Sometimes they go down easier if we think of them as Goals.  When I set Resolutions, I don’t expect them to last long.  Goals, on the other hand, we can keep working on, striving for.  If we fall down, we can get up gracefully and give it another go.

The word “Conflict” usually strikes fear in our hearts.  When it’s something that matters, it feels like there is a lot to fear:

• We fear change and the loss that change might bring.
• We fear making a mistake and being seen as incompetent, weak, or unworthy.
• We fear ‘losing face’ – losing our reputation or our pride, honor, dignity.
• We fear being hurt.  And we fear hurting someone else.
• We fear what the conflict might say about the other person, or about current our relationship.
• We fear being disrespected or dismissed; we fear being embarrassed.
• We fear losing control; we fear feeling powerless.

In the middle of those fears, we lose sight of what resolving the conflict can do.  Getting to the other side of a conflict can strengthen relationships, give everyone some valuable lessons, create new processes and answers that no one thought were possible before.  Here are a few resolutions – er, goals – for you to apply to the conflicts that are bound to be waiting around the corner before you are putting the pumpkin on the porch for Halloween.

1. Try something new.  If you usually walk away when the conversation begins to get tense, stay in the discussion.  If your habit is to make unilateral demands and statements, pull yourself back.  Resist the urge get back to that comfortable place you know so well.
2. Listen.  Be curious.  Reflect back to the other person what you heard, and let them confirm that you got it right before you respond.
3. Take a moment.  Suggest that you come back and discuss this further at a later time – maybe after lunch or tomorrow morning.  It will give both of you a little time to think about what you really want and care about.
4. Pay attention to the relationship when you are NOT disagreeing.  Demonstrate concern and interest in the other person.  Build trust by keeping your word and valuing others’ competence.   Where trust is high, people can work through virtually any difference.  Where there is no trust, the simplest disputes are difficult to resolve.
5. As Gloria Steinem once said, “The bible says the truth shall set you free, but first it’s going to really (tick) you off.”  Conflict – disagreement – is inevitable.  Step into the moment with courage, and you may find some real treasures there.

What happens when the reality of teamwork doesn’t match the vision? The meeting is a little tense, there are several ideas about the best way to proceed. One person starts to speak, another cuts in. A head tilts, a jaw tightens, the voices get just a little bit louder, and everyone in the room stiffens. Fear vibrates through the room – fear that an argument is about to take over, fear that conflict will derail the team and the project once again. Some want to get out of the meeting as quickly as possible, others want to pile on, jump into the disagreement on one side or the other.
What can you do?

• Slow down. Take a break. Allow yourself time to think through a way to proceed. Disagreements are healthy and useful to the team. Better ideas can be created when people can share concerns, ideas and creative solutions. Everyone on the team benefits from feeling that their views are heard and valued.
• Take a solution-seeking approach. When and where can we meet? We need a place that is neutral and conducive to hearing one another and enough time for people to air their views What additional information might team members need? How can we get it to them?
• Create a safe place for people to talk. Establish guidelines for the exchange of ideas: stay focused on issues not individuals, listen, respect differences, monitor your airtime, one person talk at a time…
• Be curious. What do others think? And why? Ask questions, wait for their responses. Check out with them that you have understood what they have said – without disagreeing.
• LISTEN – demonstrate your willingness to hear different points of view without jumping in. Ssshhh – keeping quiet encourages others to talk.
• Define the problem. In neutral terms, based on everyone’s views and concerns, develop a common understanding of the problem or question at hand.
• Explore options. Create a list at least five to seven possibilities before evaluating any of them. This will help diffuse either/or thinking.

Have you ever been insulted? talked down to? talked to disrespectfully? What is your reaction when that happens?

Maybe it’s like mine. I don’t hear another word they are saying. My ears slam shut and I get busy doing two things: 1) building a wall in my mind to block out anything else they might say, so they don’t hit me again; and 2) figuring out how I will regain the ground I deserve, as soon as they quit talking – or sooner if I can get in there.
In a disagreement that is just about to detonate, I try to remember this. It’s really easy for me to swing into attack mode. It might be that red rimmed shade of disdain that edges my tone of voice. Or the way my lips curl into a sneer or bunch into disgust. Or the lift of my eyebrows with a few choice dismissive words. These shifts, sometimes subtle enough for me to deny, send the other into defensive mode or into counterattack.

I wouldn’t be in this argument at all if the subject didn’t matter to me. But the disrespect I am demonstrating in my words and actions closes off any possibility of them hearing the content of my concern.
Maybe you don’t like them. Maybe you have argued too many times before. Maybe you don’t trust them. Maybe you are convinced they are absolutely wrong in everything they do, say or think. But you are talking to them for some reason. You must need or want them to hear what you are saying, to consider your point of view, to take it in somehow, and to do something with it.
Somewhere in there is a human being, and you need them to hear what you are saying.

If you want them to hear the importance of what you have to say, be careful that
- the words you use,
- your tone of voice, and
- your non-verbal communication

respect

o who they are,
o what they know, and
o where they have been.

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” George Carlin

Several weeks ago I heard someone quoting her yoga teacher, “Pay attention to the four corners of your mat.”

Every Saturday morning I roll out my mat in the yoga room. It is walled in mirrors on all four sides, making it really easy to see if my knee is right over my toes, or my body is in a straight line from my feet up to the top of my head. Those mirrors also make it easy for me to see what everyone else in the room is doing. Behind me is someone who has his leg bent when it’s supposed to be straight. The teacher should go correct him. And what about the woman two mats over? I’ll never be able to do a forward bend as deep as hers!

That comment about the corners of the mat got me thinking. How much of my time in class is spent comparing what I am doing with what others are doing? I can spend a lot of energy judging what others are doing, comparing their efforts against my own. I started paying attention to my own practice, and realized that was enough to keep me fully occupied.

The experience started me thinking further. I replicate my experience in the yoga room in so many places. It’s very easy for me to get so busy judging others, measuring what they are doing against what I am doing – or what I think they should be doing – that I lose sight of what my own task is. When I turn my attention to my own efforts, when I focus on how I am doing, my own judgments of others take a back seat. By keeping my attention within the four corners of my own mat, wherever that is, I am much more satisfied with what I am doing.
This also means I spend less time judging other people. That makes it easier to give them respect for their efforts, maybe because I am more aware of how hard just showing up can be sometimes. Or maybe because I am more in touch with my own obstacles, I have a little more empathy for theirs.

I am not really a dog person, but I was caught by an article recently by Suzanne Clothier “How Much Does Your Dog’s Cooperation Weigh?”  (http://www.flyingdogpress.com/) What she has to say about dogs says something about people as well.  Stay with me here.

Here are excerpts from Suzanne:

“A while ago, I began to realize that clients were constantly telling me how much their dogs weighed when they were having a bit of trouble with them… After thinking this over for a while, I was ready for the next client who told me how much her dog weighed – in this case, 75 pounds. I asked if she were married, which she was, and then asked, “How much does your husband weigh?” There was a long pause, and then a rather icy “That’s none of your business.”

I reassured her I didn’t care actually how much he weighed, was just curious if he weighed more than she did, which she allowed he did. Then I asked if she had any neighbors… and again asked how much they weighed. In the deep silence (annoyed silence, I felt sure) I then asked if she worked for someone, and if so, how much did they weigh? …

I then asked if she had ever had moments when she had no awareness at all of how much her dog weighed, had had any moments of wonderful lightness when the dog’s eyes are bright and he’s attentive and working with her freely, happily, and not because she was hauling him around or holding him back.

With a smile in her voice, she said she did have those moments, and loved them best of all… I pointed out that any time she became aware of her dog’s strength & weight, it was a clear signal that the connection was broken… When the connection is clear & strong, there’s no sensation of physically fighting or restraining the dog. Regardless of any being’s size, cooperation weighs nothing….

It is in those moments of connection that we find the “unbearable lightness of being” – then it becomes a dance of two minds, two hearts, and not a physical contest.”

We are not exploring dog training in this blog, but we do think about cooperation. There is a lesson for us in this.  When we set up an ‘us-against-them confrontation’ – with a dog or with another person – we are setting ourselves up for resistance.  They will push back or try to get away.  When we can achieve a positive connection with others, we will have their cooperation.  And then we might experience that “unbearable lightness of being” of people working together for a common goal.

Say WHAATTT???  Electronic communication has been around for fifteen years.  Human communication has evolved over millennia.  In the past fifteen years we have not developed an entirely new system that eliminates the nonverbal communication we have refined over generations, or to override the weight that your tone of voice carries when you are delivering a message.  Another researcher, Paul Ekman, also in the 1960’s, conducted detailed studies of facial expressions, determining that expressions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise are universal  (for a fascinating description of his work, read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink).

But that is not what I really want to write about today.    What I want to write about is how much significant information can be left out in an email.   In email, we lose 93% of the communication – when the nonverbal and tone are eliminated from the communication.  In a relationship where trust is low (or thoroughly tanked) the reader will unconsciously “hear” a negative voice, or picture a negative facial expression embedded in the words written on the page.

Maybe this has happened to you:  someone indignantly shows you an email.  “Can you believe she talked like that to me?”  You read it and shake your head, “I don’t know. Iit looks pretty straightforward to me.”  The receiver has inserted his (or her) won interpretation onto the words, based on the negative relationship that they have.

You might even question yourself when you have a negative reaction to an email you receive.

If you have a difficult relationship, whenever possible, talk face to face, or over the phone ,  so that the intent of your message is not so easily distorted.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

When we started the discussion, they spread out copies of emails across the table.  Dave told me his tale of woe, going back several years.  He punctuated each point by pulling out another email.

“There.  You see.  Proof.”

Janet, Dave’s supervisor, had copies of those emails in her folder as well.  She splayed them out in response to his tirade.  She was equally adamant.

“If you read it right there,” pointing to the second sentence in the third paragraph, “you can see that I told him exactly what he wanted to know.”

The two of them can go on like this for hours.  Each one is committed to their own view of events, bolstered by email statements and counter statements.

I have written this story about Dave and Janet.  I could write it about countless others who have come to mediation, furious at each other, adamant about how RIGHT they are, how wrong the other is.

I listen.  I reflect back to each person what they are claiming and why they are upset.  I do what I can to understand their perspectives, and to help theme hear one another well.  When they finally do, they move forward, finding a solution now that they see with new eyes the words that they had read in their email exchange.

What I can’t figure out is: where did the breakdown start?  Did the confusion begin with emails flying back and forth between computers, and then escalate into distrust and hostility as words were misread or thoughts misinterpreted?  Or did the distrust and hostility happen first, driving them to retreat behind this endless chain of emails?

Whichever way it begins, it always gallops in the same direction.  Miscommunication builds, distrust mounts.  The bricks in the walls between people stack higher and higher.  Inevitably, the receiver will read the message through a negative filter, hearing a negative tone, whether the sender intended one or not.  And the receiver will reply in kind.

Follow instead the Rule of Three:  If you have exchanged three emails on a topic, STOP emailing.  Talk directly to the other person – on the phone or face to face.  Work out your differences before the wall becomes insurmountable.

His story caught my ear.  I recognized my own experiences in his description.  I remember the rush of mornings, getting dressed, gathering my materials on my way to a challenging presentation.  I have picked arguments with anyone within reach – usually that would be my husband, though maybe one of the kids, unlucky enough to cross my path.  Later, when presentation was over, I felt like a heel.  How could I have been such a schmuck? Why on earth did I lash out like that over such a little thing?

Maybe that is where the expression “feeling cross” comes from – feeling anxious or irritated by some other event, whoever crosses my path is likely to bear the brunt.

With practice, I have gradually gotten better about this.  More often, I can recognize that what I am really feeling is anxiety, identify what I am feeling anxious about, and turn away from the sharp reactions to the innocent bystanders.

Here are a few questions to ask on those moments when you are feeling out of sorts, or the people around you – spouse or children or co-workers are getting on your nerves:

• What else is going on with me today?
• Is there something I am dreading? Or anxious about? Or scared of?

Realizing this can also help when you find yourself in the line of fire:

• Is this really about me? Or might there be something else that is triggering this reaction?

And if the answer is “yes,” what can I do to defuse the situation rather than feed the fire?

The morning news carried this story of Charlie Sheen speaking to the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre: “I didn’t know you were so sensitive. Sorry if I offended you.”Everyone involved must have known that was not an apology. Rather, Sheen put all of the responsibility on Lorre, saying, in effect, “if you were offended, it’s your fault.”

Maybe you can remember hearing an apology that let you put aside the anger, the hurt, the resentment you were carrying around about the incident. That apology likely included these critical elements:

• Acknowledgement. Some recognition of the part the person played in whatever went wrong, and the harm that it caused.
• Some suggestion for how to move forward. The person may have asked you for ways to repair the damage done, or offered their own solution.
• Changed behavior, to demonstrate their intentions that their words have meaning.
• Time. Allowing you time to process what you have heard and accept what has been said.

If you remember the difference an apology had for you, you might think of someone with whom you are having difficulty, someone who might be waiting for an apology. Give it a try. It can be the first step toward creating a new day between you.