What's Buried Under the 'Snow' in Your World?

It’s raining today and the massive snow banks are starting to melt. It’s that time of year when things that have been buried begin to reappear… wet, mucky and not necessarily in the same shape they were when they got buried… In the spring the countryside has a dirty, messy, cluttered look to it that can be depressing. Isn’t this a similar dynamic to what happens in situations where there are problems that have not been cleaned up / resolved properly? We often leave things unresolved and unfinished and then life happens… and those unfinished and unresolved ‘things’ can get buried under life’s new issues and challenges… but just like the detritus buried under the snow, they don’t go away! And unlike the garbage on the lawn they don’t just sit there waiting for the snow to melt, when it’s unresolved issues / conflicts that get buried, they will fester and grow until they burst through the covering blanket of the present…

Spring is a time of rebirth and a time of new beginnings! In order for spring to happen though, the new growth has to be able to get past all the muck left from the previous seasons… That can be a big challenge. In conflict situations, in order to get past the litter that has accumulated from all the past interactions there has to be a willingness to pick up the residual ‘stuff’ that is hidden and deal with it in a constructive fashion. Any effort to move forward without the willingness to address the underlying issues will create a shaky future – built on the shifting sands of past unresolved problems! This does not mean getting stuck in the past but it does mean creating a constructive environment in which the issues that need to be addressed get addressed and people are provided with a well set up and well run process that provides them with the opportunity to examine the factors that have contributed to the evolution of the current reality and find constructive and productive means of resolving these factors. This can be a daunting challenge when people are caught in the paralyzing negative energy of fear, frustration and angst. It is unrealistic to assume that a group can move beyond this paralysis without help! With the appropriate help and support, people have an incredible Power to Resolve the conflicts they face, providing they are willing to invest the time, energy and resources to clean up the mess and open the way for new growth and change.

The Conflict Resolution Workout:
Take a few minutes and analyze your situation as objectively as possible:
1. What is hidden under the snow in your world? (old issues, fights, assumptions, hurts...)
2. Who else is a player in these past situations?
3. What costs have these unresolved issues created for you? For others?
4. What impact has this had on you? Your family?
5. What could you do - even small efforts - to change the dynamics?
6. Do you need help to make it work?

Ruth Sirman, CanMediate International, is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at http://www.canmediate.com/.

The Slippery Slope of Procrastination

Have you ever found yourself procrastinating dealing with something that is causing you stress or angst? I found myself today putting off starting a difficult job – I cleaned up, I played computer games, I sent emails to friends, I made snacks and essentially I frittered away a good portion of the day that could have been put to much more productive use… all because I was scared to wade into something I had never done before. And so here I sit at 10:15pm doing work that has to be done but could have been done much earlier today – and beating myself up for it too!!

So why do we procrastinate? The old axiom “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” that was preached by our parents and grandparents still rattles through my brain – I have been hearing it all my life. But I still procrastinate. I have often thought about the implications of procrastination – where does it come from? why is it so prevalent? what contributes to it? and what is the cost on a personal level, a business level and a societal level?

What procrastination really comes down to is accountability for results. I contribute to my success or failure by what I choose to do (or not do) not just in the bigger picture but hour by hour, minute by minute. Whenever I am not focused and aligned with my goals, then I will not be moving forward and so I actively contribute to maintaining the status quo in my world. The movie ‘The Secret’ talks about The Law of Attraction and how we co-create our own reality. While it makes a lot of sense, it is a scary reality for many of us. It is so much easier to blame our failures on external circumstances, other people – anywhere but where the problem belongs → squarely on our own shoulders. That is not to say that we have total control over everything that happens to us. We don’t, but we do have total control over how we choose to react in any given situation. The prisoners in concentration camps could not choose to just walk away – they did not have control over whether they stayed or went. But they did have control over how they chose to respond – and they started schools and orchestras. We may be dealing with problems that are much less severe than incarceration in a concentration camp but we still have the power to choose.

Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt talk about the power of our habits in their book “The Power of Focus” and how those habitual patterns we have developed can impede our ability to achieve the results we want and get in the way of our success. Assessing our habits is not something that we do objectively on a regular basis – but there is great power in being aware and knowing when and how we get in our own way. Their process of assessment, awareness and understanding of our habits is enlightening to say the least. And their strategies for changing those patterns that are getting in our way can help us to get back on track. We have the power to change. We have the power to succeed. We only need to draw the line in the sand and say “Enough already – this is not working” and then decide. There is immense power in decision and we have untold potential to make things happen when we take that control into our own hands and use it constructively to keep ourselves in the game.

The Conflict Resolution Workout:
Success in any endeavour is typically not the result of luck, coincidence or fate, it is the result of a combination of small efforts that work together to change the current situation and create the success we want. Take a few minutes and analyze your situation:
1. What habits are holding you back?
2. What baggage is dragging you down?
3. Are you terrified? (I believe that we do our best work when we are scared stiff!!)
4. What are you doing right this minute to keep yourself in the game?
5. What small efforts / changes can you make that will bring your energy to a more positive and productive level?

Ruth Sirman is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at www.canmediate.com.

What is Your Leadership RQ? - Conflict Management for Leaders

Has unexpected conflict ever created serious problems in your organization?
Do 20% of your employees consume 80% of your time?
Have you ever walked away from a situation unhappy with the way you handled it? Or laid awake at night trying to figure out the best way to handle a situation?

Leadership is one of the most used words in the workplace vocabulary these days. But what does it mean? Is it where our name sits on the Org Chart? Is it the job classification category that we hold or the number of direct reports we have? Is it our vision for the organization and our capacity to take the organization in that direction? Is it the personal skills and attributes that we bring to the role that we have? Can one be a leader without the fancy office, the position title and the big salary? What influence does ‘who’ we are have on how we lead?

If we take a group of individuals and bring them together, give them a mandate and a job to do, provide some resources, develop policies and procedures and put someone in charge we have created an organization. But not every organization meets its mandate or achieves what it set out to do. What makes the difference between a group that efficiently gets the job done and one that limps along achieving mediocre results at best (and typically making excuses for the ongoing failure to produce results).

The level and style of leadership in the organization is often the tipping point between success and failure to achieve results. There are many factors that influence what is going on in an organization but few things have the potential to derail the group’s capacity to function normally like a good conflict. And unresolved or poorly resolved conflict can rapidly escalate a minor problem into a negative dynamic that can create unparalleled levels of dysfunctionality, stress, tension and disruption.

The style of leadership in managing interpersonal and organizational conflicts is a major factor influencing the way employees react when they find themselves facing problems. Every human being has a default pattern that defines our instinctive reactions in conflict situations. Most of us are unaware what that pattern is, where it came from and whether it is supporting our success or impeding it. As leaders, our level of influence in our organizations is significant. Thus our own personal Conflict Blueprint is a key factor in defining our leadership style, particularly in those times when our leadership is most important – in situations of crisis and conflict.

Ruth Sirman is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at www.canmediate.com.

Is Your Conflict BlueprintTM Working For You???

By Ruth Sirman, CanMediate International

As I was growing up there were many times when I found myself thinking “If I was a mom, I would never do (or say) THAT to my children..”. And then one day when I actually had children of my own and things were not going well, I opened my mouth and out came all those things that I had naively sworn I would never say. It was not one of my more ‘stellar’ moments and when I realized what had happened, I was devastated. How could I have inflicted on my wonderful innocent children the same hurtful words that had been said to me? And to be honest, it happened not once but many times throughout my parenting years.

Well, life goes on and my children appear to have survived those days – and I did too. However it started me wondering why rational and intelligent adults can find themselves saying and doing things that are not particularly wise, logical or helpful. As a professional mediator, I often work with people struggling to deal with the difficult and stressful situations in which they find themselves – at home, at work or in their personal lives. People will describe their reactions during the conflict and then say things like “Once I thought about it, I realized that I could have done things differently and it would have changed everything”, or “I always avoid conflict – and then I kick myself later for not standing up for myself”, or “I know fighting doesn’t solve anything but when my buttons get pushed, I just react”. So why do we get caught up in these habitual reactions that often do not work rather than doing what we know would be more constructively helpful?

Humans are creatures of ‘habit’ - actions or thoughts that are ingrained in our behaviour patterns through repetition. The more often we think it or do it, the more deeply embedded it becomes in our personal operating procedures. So take my beliefs about conflict and add my habitual behaviour patterns in conflict situations and that creates my default Conflict BlueprintTM that drives my instinctive (and often involuntary) responses to conflict when it erupts.

So where did this Conflict BlueprintTM come from? The short answer is that it has been carefully developed over the course of our life time. As we move through our lives we learn from each conflict situation we encounter. Each entry is carefully filed away in our brain and contributes to our Blueprint – either positively or negatively (or both!). Children are influenced primarily by the key adults in their lives – and each adult has a Conflict BlueprintTM that they will selflessly (and often unconsciously) share with the children in their care. Children are fast learners and don’t necessarily pick up on the habits and attributes adults would prefer them to choose!

However, our Blueprint has only as much power as we choose to give it and if we don’t like it, we can change it! So if I have habitually avoided conflict, always given in to the other person or aggressively defended my point of view and I now realize that this is not getting me the results I want – I have the power to make changes to that blueprint. Awareness of its existence and the ability to critically analyze it and decide what to keep and what to change is the first step. This means accepting that I choose my actions and behaviour – in all situations. This can be a tough pill to swallow, because it’s so much easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility myself. The second step is to honestly (and objectively) assess what beliefs and habits are operating. This means being totally honest about what I do – not what I’d like to believe I do. Step three is to create new and more constructive habits and beliefs and put them into action. This is tough to do and requires determination and focus plus a willingness to invest the necessary energy to change long-standing habitual patterns. A supportive counselor or mentor can help create a realistic action plan and provide support and accountability!

In our current world, the ability to resolve conflict effectively is becoming increasingly recognized as a valuable attribute. If your Conflict BlueprintTM is supporting you in your efforts to resolve conflicts constructively, then it is actually supporting your success. If not, then change is possible and it may be helpful to remember that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing again and again – and expect different results!!

Ruth Sirman is a professional mediator and trainer who teaches the same skills she has used since 1996 to help groups resolve conflicts in government, corporations, communities, churches and schools. For more information, check out her website at www.canmediate.com.

Welcome to our Conflict Resolution Blog!

Behind 'the Front' – The Cost of Pretense

By Ruth Sirman, CanMediate International

www.canmediate.com

It's Tuesday. October 30 and as I am sitting here contemplating this week, I realized that it's the end of October and Halloween is just around the corner - a time in my culture where children go door to door dressed up in costumes loudly proclaiming 'Trick or Treat'. Traditionally this meant that if they didn't receive some kind of 'treat' there would be a 'trick' played on the reluctant homeowner. Children (and adults alike) look forward to Halloween as an opportunity to put on a costume and pretend to be someone or something that is different from who we are... (and collect free stuff from their neighbours). And yet, in many ways we live part of Halloween every day. We wear masks and pretend on many levels. In our interactions with others or when something is said that upsets us, we often pretend that all is ok - while on the inside we are somewhere on the continuum between seething and devastatingly hurt.

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Rage Angry Upset Irritated Neutral Confused Sad Hurt Offended Distraught

So we portray a 'public face' when we are with others that may be very different than who we truly are... or where we are truly at.

While typically we choose to put on this good ‘front’, particularly in a conflict situation, as a means of protecting ourselves or to maintain our 'professional image', it has a cost. Pretense of any kind requires an input of energy to keep it up… and it can be difficult to maintain a pretense in the longer term as we need to continually over-ride the genuine state that is our being at any particular moment. This can lead to a build up of stress, tension and strain as we suck in all the negative emotions we are experiencing and internalize it all in an effort to present a face that says “All is well in my world”.

All that stress and tension has to go somewhere – it does not just disappear. Dr Pamela Peeke talks in her book “Fight Fat After 40” about how our traditional ‘Fight or Flight’ response to danger has been replaced in our modern society by “Stew and Chew”. As we stew about a problem, for many of us we are likely to head straight for some type of comfort food - and that can create another whole set of problems!!

It is impossible to be hurt or upset and to genuinely portray that all is well. Let's face it - you can't fake 'genuine'. There will be clues - possibly non-verbal and subtle, but still there, that all is not well. And those non-verbal clues tell a powerful tale. When the words and the non-verbals don't match - the message communicated to others is incongruent and no matter what words we say, it is the non-verbal clues that will dominate every time. And this can create a challenge for those around us – as the confusion created by our ‘mixed messages’ leaves others struggling to understand what is really going on.

In a conflict situation, mixed messages make it difficult to get to the bottom of the situation and get it resolved as people are often unsure of what problem needs to be resolved. And when there is no accurate information available, as humans, we tend to speculate. And the results of unleashed speculation are rarely accurate (or constructive!!).

When confronted by a conflict that is not resolving itself, there are several critical questions we need to pose to ourselves and answer honestly. Take the next few minutes and do this week's Conflict Resolution WorkoutTM to understand how our day to day 'Halloween' may be impacting on our lives and our success.

• What mask am I wearing today - in this situation, with these people?
• Is it the same mask that I wear regularly in this context or has it changed?
• On what level am I pretending that all is 'ok' - when it isn't?
• What might the cost of that pretense be? On a personal level? A professional level? A family level?
• What will happen if I choose not to take any action?
• Will this situation go away on its own? Or will it just percolate and grow if I choose to ignore it?
• If I could snap my fingers and resolve this situation ideally – what would that look like?
• What is getting in the way of me resolving this situation?
• How could I be honest with others about where I am at - without jeopardizing my feeling of safety or professionalism?
• Would it help to talk to someone about this who could help me develop a strategy?

De-stress your week! Resolve a conflict today…

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Ruth Sirman is a Conflict Resolution Specialist, Trainer, Speaker and Facilitator who has helped more than 50 organizations and 12,000 people deal with difficult situations in their lives more constructively. Her practical, creative and thought provoking style has won her high accolades from her clients and course participants.

CanMediate International is a full service conflict management company.
Read other articles by Ruth, check out their services and contact Ruth at www.canmediate.com.
Let us help you de-stress your life and resolve a conflict today!!