Conflict Management

I saw this on Facebook the other day:

Of course Mark Twain  never said any such thing,* but it's a great quote nonetheless.  And I chuckled out loud when I read it.**

Last week I was at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit simulcast at a nearby church.  One of the presenters was William Ury***, co-author of a book called Getting to Yes and famous Harvard guy who has been involved in handling negotiations from corporate mergers and union strikes to war in the Middle East and conflict in Northern Ireland.  So, yeah, he knows something about conflict...

You can read some notes on his session at GLS here.  A couple things stood out for me:

• Conflict is natural.  We negotiate things all the time, every day.  All major decisions of our lives require at least some negotiation and many, many small decisions.****
• In negotiation, separate the person from the problem.  This is HARD - but absolutely necessary.  I try to do this, but I admit, there are some people who just push my buttons (oddly, it's mostly people I'm very close to...hmmm).  When we make it about a person instead of the actual problem, we never get anywhere - I can't necessarily solve ME - but I can maybe solve the problem of leaving the lights on in the back room...
• Remember to focus on interests, not positions.  This one took some thinking for me, but it's about getting at the underlying interests of the people involved.  My kids fight over who gets to use what and I'm often stymied - it's a Nintendo DS and you're not using it, why CAN'T your sister use it?  But I'm not thinking of the underlying INTEREST, only the positions...  (and that doesn't make withholding the DS right, but I might begin to understand the WHY...maybe).  I have to ponder this one some more.

There's more, click on the link above.  He's primarily talking about some high level negotiations - but, the truth is, I deal in low level negotiations all day, every day.  I'm not always very good at it and I sink to various levels that I don't like (especially with my kids - I do the, "Because I said so" like because...well, I said so...but that's not good enough even for me sometimes...)

So...it's a skill.  We can develop it.  Yeah, skill number 342 on the list of requisite skills to have to navigate this thing called life.  But a skill that makes the living better for everyone involved...

*Here is a search from twainquotes.com
**Or, maybe, I chortled.  Snickered?  Hmmm, I'm not exactly sure.  I was alone, so I can't get a ruling.  I think I'll stick with chuckled.  Sounds less nerdy... unlike footnotes, which are the pinnacle of cool :)
***Turns out EVERYBODY who presents at these things isn't just a person, but they're a website too...
****Geez, at my house settling on what I'm going to fix for dinner sometimes requires a trained UN negotiation team - Navy SEALS on particularly bad days (when I make something only Lori an I like...heh).