This site is all about you finding the skills and confidence to better handle the conflicts in your life. Most of the time we are confident competent people. Our skills and abilities come under presssure when we have to handle people-problems or disagreements. Most of the time we can handle low-level issues. When we don’t – these low-level issues can grow and fester.
We hope that by ignoring them, they will go away or disappear. Often this is not the case. This lack of attention and neglect is the best fertiliser for growing a good conflict. Why enter into a difficult conversation with them when we can can have a better conversation about them with someone else? A safer conversation, where we can control what is said, how it is said and create the outcome we want without any interference from the other. And of course, if that conversation makes us look good and them look bad, then perahps we were right all along. Importantly, in failing to talk with the other person we neglect not only the problem, but also our relationship with them.
In that absence of communication, we begin to fill the gap. We begin to distort, exaggerate, demonize and blame. We begin to address the conflict, but privately, unilaterally, in our own minds, with trusted friends or colleagues; but rarely with the person we have a problem with. We start to build a story where we are the reasonable, decent person just trying to get by, trying to achieve something. And the other person is the difficult, stubborn one; who is probably doing it deliberately, because they only really think of themselves, because we all know they step on others to put themselves first. And if wasn’t for people like us, this (office, family, relationship, community, world) would fall apart. Sound familiar?
Some people take a different route, meeting it head on. The risk here is that we get caught up in it, the other person’s points can feel just that, points, sharp points and can hurt. Words that hurt are sent back. It can become a competition, our ego can jump in the driving seat, it becomes hard to slow down or step back.
We can also be the mediator, calm things down, pour oil on troubled waters; encourage ourselves or others into a little give and take. Smooth things over. This feels good, for a while. We pretend not to see the pressure building again underneath and the cracks starting to show on the surface.
Many of these behaviours are familiar to us. We have spent fourteen years working with conflict, mediating, training mediators and working on our own relationships. It is this that keeps us doing what we do, keeps us passionate and keeps us learning.
For fourteen years our mediation skills have helped us be better parents, partners, friends and family members as well as resilient, versatile professionals.
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