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We, as religious have interpersonal and fraternal
relationship problems which are often given inadequate attention by
communities. Each friar in a community has a particular and unique personality
style that has been shaped by the lifetime of their experience. After you have
been working together for awhile, you can find out that there are driver types
and quiet folk, expressive, analytical, reserved, shy, reactive friars in our
community. As the community gets into conflicts, the elements of group dynamics
and personality style need to be taken into account by the superior of the
community.
It is important to make, even at
a surface level, some determination about yourself and how you are likely to
affect the community. Ask yourself: Do I talk a lot, or very little? Am I
confident about myself and my ideas? Do I listen to others well, or am I
impatient having to listen to others? Am I empathetic to others or do I care
mostly about getting the task done? When others speak, am I listening to what
they say, or thinking about what I am going to say? Am I quick to anger? Am I
defensive or accepting when someone talks about my behavior? Do I ramble or am
I a bulleted list sort of person? What makes me annoyed? What makes me feel
good?
One of the most common sources of
conflict and angst in community is the friction between “the doers and the
talkers". This dichotomy between task and process is very common and is
often a source of conflict and frustration in community. A healthy community has a balance between
task and process. Think of task and process like the wings of a bird. If one
wing is shorter than the other, the bird flies around in circles. If there is
mostly task and little process, the frictions between people will erupt into
communication problems and the resulting conflicts keep tasks from moving
forward. However, when task and process are balanced, both wings are working at
maximum efficiency to carry the community in the direction it wants to go. You
need process to determine the direction to go and how to work together; you
need task orientation to accomplish all the jobs needed.
There can be undercurrents of bad
feelings in our community which don't get talked about. One technique that can
bring this out is to do a feeling-circle, in which everyone in the community
expresses how they are feeling. The way feeling-circles work is for members to
simply state whatever is on their mind. For example, a member might say: "
I'm feeling disappointed because no one else helped me work in the garden
yesterday." This helps focus the group on feelings and also can define
some larger issues for discussion.
Another important point that we
need to keep in mind is that active listening is a skill which enhances
communication. In active listening you listen carefully, then paraphrase back
what you heard, with the goal of supporting and drawing out the feelings of the
speaker. When this is done well it validates a persons feelings and encourages
him or her to fully communicate. The goal of active listening is to help
clarify the feelings and thinking behind the words. When active listening is
applied it creates a supportive bond between the speaker and the listener.
Because there is no threat of criticism or judgment, the speaker is encouraged
to express feelings honestly.
When members get into conflicts
with each other, one of the fine arts of conflict is to use triangulation to
bring people to your side of the issue. The goal of triangulation is to degrade
the person not present by talking negatively to third person. This kind of malicious
gossip can occur very easily and spontaneously, you may not even realize what
it has done. Malicious triangulation is very dysfunctional behavior and is one
of the worse things that can happen in a community. Malicious gossip and
character assassination undermine relationships in a huge way. They poison
people’s perspectives of each other, fill voids of understanding with
misinformation and deceit, and create an atmosphere of distrust, disrespect and
paranoia.
Conflicts and miscommunications
occur. They are part of life. Not everyone thinks, acts or responds in the same
way and members come under stress at different times which causes differences
in tolerance and patience. Not everyone has the same level of commitment,
honesty, or even integrity. It is important to define a process that resolves
problems and encourages members to talk about the issues under conflict in a
controlled and reasonable way, even if those issues are intensely personal.
Many people are conditioned to avoid conflict at any cost, that conflict is
bad, a failure. Conflict is healthy and a normal part of any human
relationship. Sometimes conflicts can't be resolved and must simply be
respectfully accepted as differences. Vegetarian versus meat-eater can be such
a conflict within a community.
If you ignore conflicts between
individuals, it is common to find these conflicts coming into meetings as
hidden agendas. Sometimes meetings become really intense, and negotiations and
discussions become counterproductive. The whole meeting environment becomes too
emotionally charged to reach a solution. Conflicts can be emotionally draining,
and in meetings dealing with conflict can leave you feeling wrung out and
exhausted.
- Learn to identify what is needed by another person
and learn how to gracefully ask another person to define what they need.
- A very key question in working with conflicts is
"why?” Why do you feel so strongly about this? Why are you shouting?
Why do you have such angst over this issue? Why do you think that way?
Learn to ask for clarification when an issue becomes a conflict.
- Having someone within the group who is trained in
mediation skills, or hiring an outside trained mediator can be very
useful. Having an outside opinion can do wonders for a stuck process.
- Determine whether the disagreement is over facts or
the respective feelings about the facts. Ask questions to discover the
underlying assumptions, values, and attitudes. Separate feelings from
facts by using the phrases like: "To me", "in my
opinion", "it appears to me".
- Create a special group meeting environment where
members can argue, disagree, yell, cry, stomp around, get mad, hug, or
whatever it takes. Part of the sense of community is feeling safe enough
to let real feelings out; these kinds of expressions, as uncomfortable as
they may be to some, will help the community to grow.
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