Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Conflict Resolution & Training

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

> Can any of you share either good or bad experiences you've had with 
conflict >resolution techniques you've tried at your communities?

We brought in a local family counselor who had us role play active 
listening. This seems to be rarely used, largely forgotten or ignored.

 We also have a family counselor who lives here who also does 
mediations between members when asked. This has been very helpful.

We have a communications committee which has the function, among other 
things, to be the resource for the community on conflict resolution.  
All conflict resolution seems to come from communication or lack 
thereof and so figuring out communications issues seems to be the key.  
This committee has not been very effective yet.

We do a special meeting, once a month called a sharing circle, which 
uses a round robin format and where people can talk about how they feel 
about anything.  This is not required and is sometimes not very well 
attended.  This can really clear the air, but only if the people who 
need to clear the air are there.

We have put out a personal style survey to try and get members to 
become more aware of their personality and its impacts on others.  Not 
sure if everyone took the time to fill this out.  There was no 
follow-up to it other than a discussion about the things that don't get 
talked about, but should....

I have encouraged and promoted direct behavior feedback, but this has 
not been widely adopted.  People seem pretty unwilling to call each 
other on their negative behaviors, especially in the heat of the 
moment.  Using "when you do this it makes me feel like this" sort of 
transactions can be very positive.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood