Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Conflict Resolution

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Hmmmm. Well "conflict resolution" a big can of stuff. Like, a lifetime of
work just to understand yourself and how you bump other people. Multiple
that by the size of your group and it quickly scales to epicness. It is
common in cohousing groups that who is responsible for conflict work, is a
bit murky, and also how much dysfunction you are willing to expose and work
on is often very unclear and justifiably so. As somebody pointed out to me
recently, HEY, I DIDN"T COME HERE TO DO GROUP THERAPY WORK,OK? Yet, a
serious dysfunction by a group member disables the group in a collaborative
setting. And of course, you can spend endless amounts of group time finding
the boundaries of such things. And you are not likely to do that. Most
groups muddle along with little or NO conflict process well defined.

But don't panic, there are some basics that are usually easy to get
agreement to.

My simple answer is this: Create a process which you can all agree to now,
about how to deal with conflicts in the future. A simple form, easy to agree
to and use, is to have a "listening circle" which is just a term for
inviting a neutral third person(or small group)  to hear all sides and issue
and offer perspective. If you are lucky, someone, or a few, in your group
will have counselling or other such experience and be the obvious third
person to be involved.

Another solution many groups have used successfully is to find a local
family/marriage counselor. These folks are professionals and the skills
involved in marriage and family counselling are really usable for cohousing
groups. Often a person can be found, who will be very excited by your group,
and be willing to work on an hourly basis.

Then create a budget item for three hours of this persons time per year and
roll it over if it is not used, so next year you have 6 hours time, etc.

This way, if you get into a bad one, you have a local expert you can call,
and you have already agreed to call this person when a conflict is not
handled to your satisfaction. Often these people can teach you interesting
things as well, and I have heard many stories, from many groups, who were SO
interesting to the counselor, that s/he actually worked with them for free
or very low cost.

A brief search of the library will bring up lots of conflict resolution
books and articles and web sites. My favorites currently are:

Resolving Conflict Ginni Scott
The mediators handbook  Jennifer Beer
Non-violent communication, a language of compassion   Rosberg

Also I tend to use the term conflict surfing, instead of conflict
resolution, because, some conflicts are not resolvable, but you can surf
them with agility and understand the wave as you ride it.

Rob Sandelin
Northwest Intentional Communities Association
Building a better society, one neighborhood at a time