Totally. In the not-for-profit world, people place high expectations on themselves and each other about behaviour. It’s as if because we are working for the social good we must be exemplary. Being in conflict doesn’t fit with this image of ourselves and our work, and when we encounter it we can start making excuses for it.
What is so hard for so many of us is getting past the fear of upsetting the other person, which is both fear for the other person’s sake (our ‘niceness’) and fear for our own safety and comfort. There’s also the fear that our own understanding of events might be brushed aside or even shown to be erroneous.
Not knowing how that person might respond, together with the assumptions we make about what the other must be thinking or feeling, tends to freeze us up. That self-protective freezing may help keep us safe in the short-term. But it gets in the way of moving through the conflict. Working through conflict involves vulnerability.
I use ‘we’ and ‘us’ purposefully here. Being a mediator does not make me immune to conflict-aversion myself. I find conflict in my own life difficult and challenging. I can’t mediate my own conflicts.
This can be so painful. When it happens in the nonprofit world it can snowball into a nightmare if it’s not addressed.
Totally. In the not-for-profit world, people place high expectations on themselves and each other about behaviour. It’s as if because we are working for the social good we must be exemplary. Being in conflict doesn’t fit with this image of ourselves and our work, and when we encounter it we can start making excuses for it.
What is so hard for so many of us is getting past the fear of upsetting the other person, which is both fear for the other person’s sake (our ‘niceness’) and fear for our own safety and comfort. There’s also the fear that our own understanding of events might be brushed aside or even shown to be erroneous.
Not knowing how that person might respond, together with the assumptions we make about what the other must be thinking or feeling, tends to freeze us up. That self-protective freezing may help keep us safe in the short-term. But it gets in the way of moving through the conflict. Working through conflict involves vulnerability.
I use ‘we’ and ‘us’ purposefully here. Being a mediator does not make me immune to conflict-aversion myself. I find conflict in my own life difficult and challenging. I can’t mediate my own conflicts.