RE: conflict resolution process
From: Rob Sandelin (floriferousmsn.com)
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 13:23:00 -0700 (MST)
For your group I would recommend hiring a local outside family counselor who
has training as a mediator. The advantage of this is that it solves the
issues NOW, and it is really important to have success solving issues.
Things that drag on unresolved for long periods of time undermine the group
confidence, and also its relationships. It can hang a unhappy, unhealthy
cloud over the whole community. YUCK.......

Conflict training is a whole group activity that takes several months to be
successful. First you need to learn about conflict styles, you need to have
people identify their conflict styles, then you need to learn how each style
works with resolution process, then you need to practice, practice,
practice.  It is naive to think there is one process that works for
everybody, or that you can adopt some community process and its going to
work. Sorry, different styles of conflict require very different approaches.
The most common conflict style is avoidance, and this  style requires a very
different process than the "erupter" style does. A very common mistake is
groups put into place a process for the erupter style, and the conflict
avoiding style do not resolve their issues because that process will not
work for them. I once spent several hours on a flight with a trained
mediator. She knew 42 resolution processes, 3-4 for each style of conflict.
Your group will not be able to come up to this level.

It is to your groups advantage to build a relationship with an outside
mediator. Many groups try self mediation. My observation is that this fails
most of the time primarily because the mediator is not well trained  enough.
Only if you have PROFESSIONAL TRAINED mediators in your group will you be
likely to succeed in self mediation.

One thing that groups can do very successfully is spend time looking in the
shadows for behaviors that are not helpful for the group. Identify actions
that cause people to lose trust. Identify actions which build trust. Make
this clear, so people who act in ways that undermine the group are put on
notice that people are paying attention. And of course, when actions happen,
call it on the spot, put the light on the action. If one or two people
continually hold this action, by putting the light on the action it is a
great way to help them modify their behaviors. And the ultimate end result
usually ends up they change that behavior because they realize they can't do
that anymore, or they leave. But  focus the light on the action, not the
person. There is a whole set of intervention ideas in some writing I did.
You can find it at http://www.ic.org/nica/Book/Cover.htm



Rob Sandelin

-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org]On Behalf Of Kate Nichols
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 8:17 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_conflict resolution process


Our community has no process for handling conflicts or grievances. We
are in a spaghetti of a mess right now and need a process. I looked
up conflict resolution in the archives, but kept running into
messages that were no longer available. Could I please get processes
from other groups or resources. thank you, Kate Nichols, Bellingham
Cohousing, Bellingham, WA
--
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