Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: help with conflict resolution

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

Hey Susan!!
I'd love if you could send me more details (off-list at
pastorlizM [at] gmail.com) about what exactly is the aggression and who are
the people who tried to arrange the meetings. It is a great example
for my workshop on conflict resolution at the cohousing conference. If
you are willing I will change the details so it is an anonymous case
study.

The first question I would ask about this is who wants this solved? If
you have a community support or other conflict focused team, I would
begin by working with the person who wants this solved.
What are things they can do, or get help to do, that don't involve
meeting with the other person?

At Mosaic Commons cohousing all members have signed an "agree to try
to resolve conflict" statement, but that doesn't mean that everyone
actually does that. (And like most cohousing communities, we don't
have (m)any people willing to enforce consequences for not following
agreements.)

So some of conflict resolution is about people who are unhappy with
another person figuring out what they want to do differently for
themselves. Because when it comes down to it, the only person you can
change is yourself.

The team might also look at how the conversations looking for a
meeting have gone--what was the actual dialogue? What was the person
actually saying no to? I'd need a lot more detail to know what to do
next but for example, sometimes folk feel like the purpose of the
meeting is to apologize. If they don't want to apologize why meet?
If it is possible to have a meeting where one person isn't presumed to
be "the guilty party" then the chance of meeting is much higher.

Liz
Mosaic-Commons Cohousing
Berlin, MA

On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 7:44 PM Susan Rohrbach via Cohousing-L
<cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>
> Our cohousing community in tucson is having a problem with a resident acting 
> aggressively toward another resident. Several people have tried to arrange 
> meetings with the two parties to see if there is a way to come to some 
> resolution. However, the person who acted aggressively does not feel any 
> responsibility and has refused to attend any meeting or apologize in any way. 
> This has led to a very uncomfortable situation and any advice or resources 
> would be most welcome.
> Thank youSusan Rohrbach
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>


-- 
-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.ecclesiaministriesmission.org
www.mosaic-commons.org
508-450-0431