Another Reason to Welcome Conflict

Imagine if our courts were uncomfortable with conflict.  Imagine if--to avoid conflict--they didn't give everyone a chance to present their side of the story, to disagree with each other, to get emotional and confrontational.  Imagine if the judge and jury only heard one from one side--maybe just the prosecutor--before declaring a verdict and a sentence.

Chip and Dan Heath make this powerful example early in their book Decisive-How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work to illustrate one of the key requirements of good decision making:  seek out a variety of viewpoints before making a decision.  They say that the quality of your process for seeking out different points of view is more important than the quality of your THINKING!  How logical you are, how analytical, how clever--none of that matters if you don't make sure that people with different points of view get a chance to speak their minds.

So this is another reason we should be happy when other people disagree with us, when other members of the group have different ideas.  Just as we expect our courts to give all sides a hearing because we know that this increases the odds of a good decision, we should welcome conflict and objections to our points of view at home or at work.

What's working?

Another thing I learned from the training from Verus Global (verusglobal.com) that I took a few weeks ago is to focus on what seems to be working.  What strategies or techniques are getting me what I want?  At work, dealing with a challenging relationship, am I getting better responses with emails?  Text messages?  Phone calls?  At home, are some strategies leading to harmony while others lead to conflict?

This is an important subset of positive thinking and focus.  It isn't gratitude.  It isn't thinking of all the good things that have happened recently--all the good outcomes.  It isn't optimism.  It isn't imagining myself achieving my short and long term goals.  It isn't affirmation--thinking about my best qualities to strengthen my self image.  All of these are extremely important aspects of positive thinking.  They all support mental health, happiness, and success.  But this isn't what it means to think about what is working.

Thinking about what is working is the aspect of positive thinking that focuses on PROCESS.  What METHODS are working. What HABITS and APPROACHES are getting me what I want?

This is where I think about my volunteer work and say, "Good things seem to happen for my neighborhood when I ask for help from Cincinnati government officials."  I think about a very tough relationship at work and realize, "He cancels our meetings, gets irritated by text messages or phone calls, but I've had SOME luck with short, polite emails.  Need to do more of those."  At home, I think about balancing my personal goals, my volunteer work, the needs of my wife, and the needs of my kids.  Then I realize, "There's more harmony when I start each weeknight or each weekend day with an all out focus on wife and family.  Afterwards, I sense that my family feels supported, and that they believe I have 'earned' time for my other priorities.  As long as I cycle back and forth between full focus on their needs and full focus on my own needs, everybody seems happy."

Awareness of what's working and what isn't may be easy for some people and difficult for others.  For me, it is NOT automatic.  It's an awareness I need to apply consciously and with effort.  But when I do it well, I find that it makes life a lot easier.  Becoming aware of and emphasizing those things that are working is like becoming skilled at finding shortcuts--finding the easy way out--so that I can get what I want in life with less effort and struggle.