Good morning fellow leaders and influencers. I hope the sun is shining metaphorically and literally in your part of the world right now!
I had a most interesting meeting yesterday with a fellow faculty member at CUSOURCE, www.cusource.ca yesterday. We were meeting with two other colleagues from the CUSOURCE team, doing some early design thinking for a virtual conference later this year. One of the other colleagues, a member of the senior team wondered aloud about "doing something on conflict resolution?" My fellow faculty member, Michelle Manary, http://www.reframehr.com said, "I've been finding that the first step in conflict resolution is actually to get over yourself." The three of us laughed out loud! She was so right.
Where I went with her comment was that all too often conflict or difficult conversations are made all that more challenging by our internal conversations and our history. So for example, before I have the "difficult conversation" I've more than likely rehearsed and rehearsed the conversation in my own head, or in front of the mirror, playing both roles myself. I can create quite a narrative about how awful the other person is, and how they are being mean to me; all the while, playing both the part of the hero, me, and the part of the villain, them. Or suppose, someone says something to you that triggers you. How much of the trigger is actually based on previous experience, and has nothing to do with the instant case. For example, I used to be kidded about not being able to find "anything" in the fridge as a kid, largely because I was looking in the same place and if it had been moved, I couldn't "see" it. So if someone kids me about the same thing now, I can feel the frustration building and if I'm not thinking I can be hurt by the jibe. What I have to remember is that the joke from the person now has nothing in their mind to do with the joke when I was a kid. And I'm not alone, we all rehearse, we all have history. And one of the first places we can go to have really powerful conversations, to seize the creativity of much conflict, is to get over ourselves.
If you need to have a conversation with someone, and there is a possibility of conflict, don't over-rehearse. Get clear about what is going on for you and if you want to know what is going of for them, ask them. Don't imagine what is going on for them, don;t go and ask their friends, or your friends, go and ask them. And if you are triggered, one of the first places to go is to ask yourself, 'am I being triggered here that is actually about my history, and not this person r this conversation. In short, we can all be far more successful in conflict if we each get over ourselves!
May this week we each find an opportunity to have a better conversation with another person, and not ourselves.