What Personal Challenges, Tragedy, and Conflict Can Teach Us
by Carol Bowser

Perhaps some of the greatest personal challenges we can deal with is grief.  Grief over world events.  Grief over unexpected turns in our lives. Grief over challenges at work.  Grief over relationships.  Grief over loss.  Many people experience grief over the holidays.  Many people experience conflict over the holidays too.  So, I thought it appropriate to talk about grief  and conflict.

"What?!?"  You are likely thinking.  "Grief, Loss and Holidays.  What is this?"   Well, there is a really important link.  A link that once you are aware of, it will make the some of the really big stuff more manageable.  Things like how we respond to events as big as death or as seemingly trivial as who sits where at the holiday table.

We will start with some important background on grief. 

You might be familiar with the work of Dr. Elizabeth Kuber Ross.  She wrote the book on Death and Dying.   Even if you don't know the book you might be familiar with  the 5 stages of grief:

Denial/Isolation

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Kuber-Ross explains that the stages are really not linear.  People dance into and out of each stage at different times and at different intensities.  There is often a triggering event that causes the grieving to start or to restart.

Conflict at work or at home is no different than grief.  There is definitely anger and often feelings of isolation.  Some folks minimize the problem or minimize the person bringing forward the concern.  I see bargaining in the form of attempted and failed problem solving and collaboration followed by feelings of depression and frustration over wasted time or potential unrealized.

Acceptance, I find comes in two forms. Form 1: people have really come together to attempt a solution that they can live with maybe even a solution that makes the whole working or living environment better.   Form 2: people have given up and given in and are not happy about it.  In Form 2 people become depressed or complain a lot or leave or become depressed and complain a lot and stay.  During family events this may look like pouting, grudging participation or complaining.

It can be a Pandora's box-grief and conflict.  But, like Pandora's box, the underlying and overlooked element is hope.  Hope that things will get better. Hope that their point of view will be heard, understood and acknowledged.  If you can discover what people are hoping for, you can move through the stages of conflict and grief.  

So as you prepare for the holidays, take a moment to ask yourself "what am I hoping for?"  "What is it the others might be hoping for?"  Then begin to talk about your hopes for the times spent together.  Try this as a conversation starter either at home or at work  "We are all investing time and energy in this.  What do you hope might happen as a result of us spending this time together?"  After all this is the Season of Hope.  May your holidays be conflict free.  Cheers.

 

Organizations hire Conflict Management Strategies, Inc. to increase productivity by easing workplace conflict and tension, to train employees in conflict resolution skills, to evaluate internal conflict resolution processes, to coach key employees to higher levels of performance and to facilitate tangible change within the working environment. 

Have a conflict-management question for Carol? Ask here. Your question/answer may be printed in a future issue.