Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Handling conflict

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi Anna & folks,

> However, the stress and financial commitment involved in building of the 
> common house has caused some real differences of opinion among 
> residents.  Many of the members find conflict difficult and shy away from 
> any argument.  We find consensus difficult to achieve.  We are beginning 
> to search for ways to build our members confidence in conflict.  A group 
> of us thinks that 'developing' conflict is the only way to really get at 
> what people need and want from community life.  We would like for people 
> to be more comfortable with each other when there is disagreement.  Now 
> when there is a somewhat emotional meeting---some members are devastated 
> or horrified....  We were thinking that this must have happened in other 
> communities.  Can you give us any ideas on how to work with this issue?  I 
> would appreciate any thoughts or more---structured outlines, agenda from 
> meetings---any advice.

To start off with, here is another great line from Laird Schaub: "If a 
group does not have any conflicts, they are either dead, not paying 
attention, or not dealing with anything important."  Conflicts naturally 
arise when people really care about a project.  So my advice is get used to 
it, and start building your group's skill for dealing with it.

If you try to ignore a problem, sometimes it really does go away, but 
sometimes it gets a lot worse.  You need to have the skills in place to be 
able to make choices about which conflicts to actively work on resolving 
and which ones to try to let go.  If you don't have the skills, then you 
don't get empowered to make those choices, you get forced into dealing with 
things just one way and when that way doesn't work you are stuck.

Second piece of advice: learn how to welcome and integrate emotions into 
your decision-making process.  When a meeting is stuck, there is almost 
always an emotional component to the stuckness, so you need to be able to 
work with that to move forward.  Furthermore, the aim of consensus is to 
make the highest quality decisions possible, and i assert that you cannot 
reach that level of quality through rationality alone.  Mainstream American 
meeting culture is anti-emotional, it's way skewed off to the side, and 
that's part of how organizations and people are able to make decisions that 
are really bad for other people and for the planet.  Consensus process 
seeks to integrate the wisdom of the group, and feelings are an essential 
part of that wisdom.

In my observation the key skill for moving through conflicts and difficult 
emotions is reflective listening.  As a core practice it is common to many 
different conflict resolution methods, and you can get a lot of results 
just from gaining proficiency in that core skill.

To clarify what i mean by reflective listening, here are the guidelines i 
use when i give workshops:
1. Keep your attention focused on the other person (don't go into your own 
story, or get distracted with other activities)
2. Be non-judgmental (as best you can--if judgments come up, let them pass 
on by; once in a while if the judgment is so strong that you are really 
pulled off track by it, you might need to say that in order to stay 
authentic, but in that case make sure to own it as yours and not say it's 
the other person's fault)
3. Listen with compassion (all the formal procedures in the world will not 
save you if there's not at least a little genuine heart involved)
4. Seek the essence of what the other person is trying to convey (you don't 
need to say back every detail--go for the main points and especially the 
feelings)
Remember, the person being reflected is the expert on their own story; it's 
up to them to say whether or not they think you got it.

Here are some ideas for how to start practicing:
1. At the beginning of a meeting, have people go into pairs and do personal 
check-ins for a few minutes each, have the other person say back what they 
heard, and then switch.
2. Have the facilitator paraphrase what participants have said and search 
for the underlying concerns, especially when a charged statement is made.
3. Start a small group that meets regularly to practice doing reflective 
listening with each other on personal, interpersonal, or group issues.
4. Come up with your own ideas, do whatever works for your group.

Having a professional come in to do some teaching, modeling, and coaching 
is great, but make sure there is an emphasis on transferring the skills to 
your members so that things don't fall apart once the outside expert leaves.

To close with, here is another favorite quote, this one from Rob 
Sandelin:  "Cohousing is the longest, most expensive personal growth course 
you'll ever take."  By investing in your community you've already signed on 
for that course whether you realized you were or not--so try and enjoy the 
ride!

Cheers,

--Tree

P.S. You might want to check out the following article on my 
website:  http://www.treegroup.info/articles/A7-conflict.html.


-----------------------------------------------

Tree Bressen
1680 Walnut St.
Eugene, OR 97403
(541) 484-1156
tree [at] ic.org
http://www.treegroup.info

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