Using Conflict to Advance Personal Mastery

 If you came to this page to read the next two chapters of The Backyard Portal they will be up in another week. I am preparing to present to the International Association of Facilitators Conference next week and so need to focus on that. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read the story and provide feedback. Meanwhile, this article pretty much sums up what the lead character in The Backyard Portal gets challenged to do: Grow. Will post at the end of next week.

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When was the last time you had an argument with someone? Not the kind of argument that is more for entertainment, a form of mental gym, but the kind where shouting and emotion flew about leaving a wake of misunderstanding and regret behind.

 

As we enter into a period where personal and professional growth propels management to expand and use more adaptive and effective change strategies there is a subsequent opening to use collisions and conflict to deepen competencies and capacity.

 

Conflict is an opportunity to see ourselves and our world differently.

 

When presented with an apparent conflict usually cause-effect thinking is applied to find the root cause and treat that. There are a couple of challenges with this approach. First, rarely does the thinking go deep enough. It is more effectively applied to fixing leaking buckets than to the complexity of human dynamics.

 

Second, people react unconsciously to pressures felt on deeper levels. You, as the change agent, manager and culture builder, cannot help people past a point you have not gone yourself. For example, if your strategy is to repress your emotions, you will freeze, flee, or fight when conflict presents itself. To master and advance your competencies requires a dedicated commitment to achieving higher levels of personal mastery especially as they relate to dealing with apparent contradictions.

 

Companies who see their employees as a line item on the balance sheet (as replaceable and requiring direction) unconsciously create cultures where creative talent is repressed while aspiring to innovate.

 

Repression of that talent creates aggression or depression. In other words, stress-related illness is a direct by-product of the management style derived from underlying assumptions imbedded in the corporate or organizational culture.

 

The answers lie within. By shifting competencies at all levels of the organization, there is an opportunity to expand thinking, see the inter-connected relationships and use collisions to advance personal mastery. By doing so, the mental models that created the clash are exposed and can be altered.

 

Tips for Developing Personal Mastery with Conflict

1. Listen to yourself think or speak. If you find yourself sorting out (or drifting toward right or wrong) who is right and who is wrong then you probably need to step back. There is no right or wrong (unless it is an ethical issue, in which case look at the system). There two different interpretations, perceptions serving to inform. Seeing into the heart of the matter starts with asking questions before arriving at a conclusion.
2. Strengthen your questioning skills so you can assess the emotional temperature. In rapid fires times where results are rewarded people become trained to take action before thinking. Jumping to conclusion before understanding the situation can develop into an organizational habit which must be converted into curiousity before real progress can be made.
3. Monitor your own reaction or response. To really elevate your own level of personal mastery requires engaging your ‘witness.’ This is the same witness mentioned above who is holding the movie camera only this time you are the main star in your own movie. Notice what you do in different situations. 
4. Ask: What are the things that sit beneath the surface impacting personal safety and security? Short answers would be fear of….. These are the underlying triggers for conflict used destructively.

 The ideal state to move toward in dealing with conflict is FLOW! This is where you are using powerful energy of difference and diversity to fuel creativity.

 

Personal Mastery Guidelines:

Utilize the four principles from The Four Fold Way by Angeles Arrien. These are universal principles that serve as valuable touchstones for mastery.

1. Show up. Choose to be present. [This informs your listening.]
2. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. [This informs your intuition.]
3. Tell the truth without blame or judgment. [This informs your capacity to detach emotionally and see things from a caring and objective place.]
4. Be open to outcome; not attached to outcome. [This informs your own ability to flow, let people be who they are, empower versus direct.]

 There is immeasurable value in applying the principles of cultural anthropology to managing business cultures. The simple effect of listening with the intention of understanding can alter performance. We honor the people in our life by how we listen to them. 

 

Radical innovation is powered by diversity and more often than not we associate diversity with conflict and the need to fix or resolve it. In our haste to resolve it we miss the opportunity to use the conflictual creative tension to power a much more innovative solution. Deepening personal mastery is not an option; it is an imperative.