Learning from a conflict!

Letter-9

 

Dear Friends,

 

Greetings and good wishes for a good week ahead!

 

I watched these two cocks fight, while I was on my way to work a few weeks ago. They reside in two adjacent houses. Ever since witnessing that this scene has been on my mind. I have had a difficult season while involved in the affairs of an organization about three years ago. It brought enormous disturbance within me from which I have not fully recovered as yet. What occurred to me while watching these two cocks, is that both of them took time to come to a fight and seemed to gauge whether to fight or not to fight! 

 

This interim time is the golden hour to resolve conflicts. I have had an experience of doing two courses few years ago, on Alternate Dispute Resolution and Family Dispute Resolution, both of which introduced the value of seeking to resolve a dispute during this ’golden hour’ when the disputants might be amenable to dialogue and resolution. I have an awful feeling that I could not exercise this opportunity well, when I was in the thick of a dispute. 

 

Later in the evening on the same day, I was taking a walk in the paddy field below our property. I noticed a Pond Heron and a Smaller Egret not far from each other (I get the identification of birds wrong sometimes). The Pond Heron was seen moving in different directions initially. It soon came close to the Smaller Egret and was seen together till I left the paddy field. They both had a restful and vigilant look. These two birds, although different in species, habitat and behaviour were seen together. They looked comfortable and relational.  

The sight of these two birds finding each other gave me the hope that differences or difficulties are superficial; relationships and belonging override the circumstances or feelings.

As I write this confessional note of regret because I could not negotiate a difficult situation, I wonder whether we can focus on working to build relationships in order to be optimal in our service to the community we serve. In the picture of the cocks, it was one cock which was provoking the other for a fight! Unfortunately, the other yielded to the provocation. 

 

Let me suggest that all organizations require a conciliatory group closely watching the events within, to ease strains and tensions and initiate negotiation. 

 

As I look back over the events and happenings in the organization that I was involved in, I realize that the spirit of conciliation was weak and fragile although the efforts to find a middle path was active. I feel it was still a possibility although it was a difficult situation. It is in difficult situations one ought to be even more perseverant. That is the regret I have now. The message and learning experience from this disappointing engagement shall live with me.

 

I make this public confession because I have been able to write during the last six months to all those who were part of the difficult situation. I am ready to move on in life offering forgiveness and hoping to receive forgiveness!

Since experiencing an intensely difficult relationship with colleagues with whom I was involved in that organisation, I took time to converse with people working in thirty five organisations, who too confessed to me that difficulties or misunderstandings strain and separate relationships, the result of which is a slower or disrupted momentum in the life of the organisation. 

I write this in the hope that we would seek for a reconciling path whenever possible in conflicting situations!

M.C.Mathew, (text and photo) 15.6.2020.