Memorial Day/Veterans Day and Workplace Conflict – Making the Connection

November 11th in Canada is Remembrance Day; November 12th in the U.S. is Memorial Day. The headline in the Vancouver Sun read: "Since World War I more than 100 wars and civil conflicts have been fought. 160, 000, 000 have died." That is a lot of people. Mankind has fought over women and property, differing religious beliefs, desire to control and utilize power over others for gain, fear that someone might attack first (with dogs they call it fear and territorial aggression) and the list goes on.

When facilitating leadership training with my colleague and good friend Dennis Cherenko, he used an animated film called 'The Big Snit' to dissect the escalation of conflict in a domestic situation. The story told in the Big Snit could have taken place in any setting. The discussions amongst managers and supervisors always gave insight into the biases, the assumptions, the misunderstandings that are at the genesis of the majority of conflicts.

Information posted on http://www.workplace-violence-hq.com notes "workplace homicide as the fastest growing category of murder in the U.S. And homicide is now the leading cause of on-the-job death for women (and second leading cause for men). However, the real danger (and staggering cost in both human and financial terms) is the mountain of physical and verbal violence, of which murder is just the peak (representing only 0.05% of the 2 million victims of physical workplace violence / year). [Source: U.S. Department of Justice, BJS, 7/28/98]".

There is far more than a lack of conflict resolution skills going on. A certain amount of violence can be attributed to deeply held fear but we also know that many corporate cultures have not made the shift to an enlightened state where the leadership comes from all levels. Many authoritarian figures rely on their ability to control as a management style which in turn suppresses the creative contribution of their employees. Whenever expression is suppressed one of two things happens. Either the anger is turned inward to form depression or the pressure builds up until it is released as aggression or violence. It does not help that employees go home and watch how many ways there are of murdering people, nor does it help to watch shows which show how manipulating and controlling others will get you the top spot.

Until we understand how to recognize aggression and violence as a signal and an opportunity to see and relate to each other differently we will continue to see those statistics in the workplace rise. Now is the time to use a wider angle lens to see what is really going on and what can happen when conflict is used to create rather than destroy.