Conflict Resolution

I have a question for you: Are you competitive, or relational?

Michelle and I attended the ZOE conference a couple of weekends ago, and I attended a conflict management seminar. For those of you who know me really well, stop laughing.... The teacher (Steve Joiner from the Institute for Confilct Management at Lipscomb University) bascially said that conflict is a function of tasks(ministry) on the y axis of a graph, and relationships on the X axis of the graph. Competitive people focus a lot of time and energy on things that are important to them (i.e. ministry) at the expense of relationships. "We are doing it my way, or else". The relaionship people focus their energy on, well relationships with others in regards to things that are important to them. However, the extreme of this is something like, "I am fine with what ever you want to do, let's just continue having lunch on Tuesdays, OK?"

I loved this class. I have to say, I haven't been this entertianed in a long time. Here are some highlights I thought I would share.

1) Giving in to a competitive person, or essentially giving up, only increases the chances that the person will NOT back down at a later point of conflict. In fact, the person is more likely to be even more competitive, because they know if they don't back down, they will get their way.

2) Compromising is almost always a "lose - lose" situation in a conflict, not a "win - win." He actually quoted an annonymous elder as saying, "as long as everyone is just a little upset that's OK." Good grief!

3) The goal of any organization is to be collaborative. In this situation, tasks are just as important as relationships. Go back to my X Y graph, and this would be a one to one relationship. I am just as focused on the task (minstry) as I am the relationships (those invovled in that ministry). I like that. That's pretty cool.

I think if we were all honest with each other, it would be safe to say we don't enjoy conflict. Even me! For what ever the reason may be, we all like to get along. But instead of using a lot of energy on worrying about the conflict that is going to happen, we should be mature, face the situation, and have an open dialogue.

I finished a book by Erwin McManus, "Unstoppable Force" this week. If you do ANYTHING in a church, you should read this book. In short, he states that conflict is actually healthy for a growing system (i.e. church). On this paticular topic, he said that if you are not having conflicts, then your church is probably not growing. That is an interesting point.... A church should NOT inhibit having healthy discussions that involve disagreeing. He also mentions that having a clear focus, vision, and specific objectives also helps in dealing with conflict. In other words, "this is the direction we are going. We would love to use your energy and passion with our goals. But if you can not agree to them, then you should probably find somewhere else to worship." Wow.

I'll be honest, I am just now starting to appreciate these concepts. Yeah, I am a little hard headed. But the stuff we went over in that session was really cool. What do you think about this stuff?