Principal #6- Consider Contribution
My mentor and hero, Dr. J. Robert Clinton notes that one of the five practices that distinguishes those who finish well is a commitment to life-long learning. If learning is central to life, it is critical in times of turbulence. Trouble is, the way most of us behave in conflict closes down the possibility of learning very much at all.
As humans, we want life to be tidy. Yet, life is seldom tidy—and conflict never is. To benefit from conflict—which I believe is always God’s intent – you need to take learning into hyper-mode. One almost-irresistible practice that undermines learning is to look to assign blame. 
Think about it: as soon as the culprit is identified, the energy is focused on building a case against the villain… proving just how wrong he or she is. Evidence is piled up. The case is closed. In this mode, learning shrivels.
The well-rehearsed cultural practice of racing to decide who’s at fault, who’s to blame, who is responsible for the breakdown ignores this startling reality: each person in the conflict has a contribution.
I challenge you to honestly review the details of any conflict you’ve been in to identify how you contributed – however small or great – to the breakdown. You may have contributed by not taking action that might have mitigated the hurt. You may have contributed by not being clear enough — however well-intentioned you may have been – such that the other party mistook your motives. You, like me, may not have cared enough to notice your impact on another, even when no malice was intended.
The opening provided by a conflict is to learn: to discover what you didn’t know beforehand. Get this, and you’ll never be in a conflict the same way again: there’s a gift in every breakdown; it’s the opportunity to learn what you don’t know you don’t know!
Failing to learn from your conflicts keeps you vulnerable to stumbling in the same ways again. Stumble into conflict often enough and you’ll see your impact diminished… greatly. Maybe worse, you’ll find people avoiding you, rendering you alone. As a leader, you cannot afford to be alone. Leaders champion those who welcome their influence to agreed-upon greatness. So, ignoring the provision of God to discover the ways you invite conflict and misunderstanding is deadly.
When you are called upon to referee a conflict, employing the concept of contribution can have dramatic results. For one, when everyone has agreed to banish the idea that one person is to blame, both parties are freed to look—really look — to see how they played into what didn’t work. When it is agreed that each party to the breakdown has a contribution, the judgmentally arrogant posture so common the “innocent victim” is stymied. At the same time, the self-deprecatory, subservient attitude of the identified wrongdoer is also thwarted. What results can be an honest inquiry into the nuances that provoked, cultivated, and prolonged the standoff.
When the community views conflict as a problem, a failure, or a sin, there is scant willingness to dig into the details to optimize learning. No, the press is to quick-fix it, with a rush to judgment, the dispensation of consequences, and far too often, the distancing of the designated scoundrel from the community. So seldom have the specifics been sufficiently studied, that any distinctive discoveries are embraced.
Frame a conflict as an opportunity for each participant to learn, and you’ll set the stage for real repentance and change.
Note: For more on contribution, I recommend the fantastic book: Difficult Conversations, by Stone, Patton, & Heen. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=difficult+conversations&sprefix=Difficult
Kirk,
Thanks for keeping in touch. This is interesting reading. May I suggest you give examples of how such a conversation would go for those in conflict, sort of a model. You write like you talk, which is really helpful. Please give examples, friend.
As time allows I will be reading the other sections of this series. Thanks for taking the lead.
Thanks Gary, for the request.
OK, let’s say Kirk & Gary are in break-down. Kirk failed to show up for a meeting with Gary– one that Gary agreed to at Kirk’s request. Gary had to arrange his life to be there, even driving up from San Diego to Orange County specifically to meet with Kirk. Gary’s other OC appointments (which made meeting with Kirk relatively easy) for that day had cancelled. Gary, waiting at the restaurant for almost an hour, is chapped. Finally he’s able to reach Kirk on his cell phone…
K- Hi this it Kirk, can I help you?
G- Uh, this is Gary. I’m here at Cheesecake Factory for our meeting…
K- Oh… (sheepishly) you’ve got to be kidding! Gary, I totally and completely blew it! Gary, I am SO sorry! How long have you been waiting?
G- An hour and 15 minutes, Kirk.
K- Oh shoot! I have us down for next month, on the 10th, at 11:30am.
G- No, no. It’s definitely today: March 10th. … Look, Kirk, I don’t think we’re right for each other. I’ve been giving this some thought. I just doesn’t make sense for me to hire a coach this far away. And, I don’t think you really “get” my denomination’s culture…
K- Yikes! Holy cow, Gary… Let’s step through this one bit at a time. Would that…
G- No. Look, I’ve wasted 3 hours already and have a 90-minute drive ahead of me… and I haven’t eaten anything…
K- Gary, please would you forgive me… for not caring enough about you to have confirmed our appointment, please?
G- Wha…
K- If I value your time and your friendship as much as I say I do, I would’ve sent you a confirming email…
G- No, you have us down for April. It makes no sense for you to email me a month out…
K- Well, yeah, I get that, and what I could have done was to send you an email confirming our lunch just as soon as you and I booked it. I have a friend whose secretary does this every time he and I schedule something. Gary, there’s no reason for me not to have done that…
G- Hey look, I could have confirmed with you before I drove all the way up here…
K- Oh, geez. I thought you had a bunch of other stuff up here today… which doesn’t make me missing my commitment with you any different.
G- Yeah, well each of them got called to St. Louis… they let me know over a week ago.
K- So you drove all the way up here for this meeting with me today??
G- Ah, yup.
K- Oh, man. I am sick about this. You mean so much more to me than my actions today indicate, Gary. … and you’ve been waitting there… trying to reach me on my cell. I’ve been tied up on a conference call since 10:30 this morning…
G- Look, Kirk. Anyone can make a mistake. Hey, I may have put it down wrong…
K- No, I’m pretty sure it was March, ’cause we wanted to meet before Easter… Look at this! April 10th is a SATURDAY! I know you love me, but there’s no way we’d do this thing on the weekend…
G- Well look, I also could have confirmed… I even thought about it last night. My wife even said to me: “before you drive all the way up there, don’t you think you should double-check with Kirk?”
K- Whoa, you’re kidding…
G- The thing is, she’s always double-checking everything and it kinda drives me nuts. Actually, my regular practice would’ve been to fire off an email to you last night… but after her suggestion, I guess I decided “to heck with it”… I figured I’d show her how ludicrous it is to check and double-check every thing, as if everyone else is incompetent…
K- Well, in this case, for sure I am! … and it probably would have served us both…
G- Hmmm. I wonder where else I do this…
K- Do what, Gary?
G- You know, interrupt what I know to do, just to be right about something… to make a point.
K- Like, with your wife only, or other people, too?
G- Well, I maybe… probably do it most with her, but I do do it with other people too.
K- Man, that’s AWESOME!! What else do you see??
G- Huh?
K- You’re doing some really, really good work here, Gary. How amazing that God would bring something good out of my blunder.
G- Whaddya mean?
K- Well, for me, I see that to value people the way I say I do, it would be appropriate to send a confirming email whenever I book a meeting… and for you, you’ve discovered that in order to be “right”, or prove someone else “wrong”, you sometimes undermine your own effectiveness. Right??
G- Yeah. That’s a lot to think about…
K- Hey, I just pulled into the parking garage at the Spectrum. OK if we have that lunch after all?
G- It would if I was still there… I’m passing San Clemente now…
K- How ’bout we meet in San Diego next time? What’s the week after next look like…
Gary, let me know if this helps at all. In this case, “Kirk” owned his contribution and, in so doing, made an opening for Gary to explore his. While it’s hypothetical, my bet is the friendship, and maybe even the coaching relationship, was preserved.
-Kirk
I followed the link Tod posted on FB. Good stuff, Kirk. Keep up the good work.
Steve!!
Thanks for commenting. How ’bout we get coffee next week? Any openings?
Hey Kirk,
As a Leader I had a situation in the past where two guys on the team were ‘in conflict’ – they literally wouldn’t talk to each other unless they had no other choice. Both of these guys were in their early 50’s and had known each other for a long time – even been very good friends at some point.
After about 2 months of ‘counselling’ and trying to make things work – to no avail – we got to a point they were either both going to leave the company (I was going to let them go) or we would solve this thing. In this case, I was able to rely on the fact they had once been good friends, so there was some level of care and association.
So, we went into a room, shut the door, set some ground rules (anything that is said in here will never leave here) – explained that it was time to open the books and let them roll. Took us over 2 hours of both saying ‘well you do this’ and ‘you do that’ and ‘wow, I didn’t realize’. Tears, frustration, anger, all was there, but the problem was solved in the end.
Yes, it took a few more months to get right back on track, but the ‘sharing session’ set the groundwork for the relationship to grow again, and them to work as a team again.
They weren’t able to do this on their own – they needed a leader to come in and help them through the process. In the end though they were able to learn more about each other, understand more about each other, and move on in their relationship – both personally and professionally.
Drewe
Hey Drewe,
Thanks for the great example. My guess is that when you three got into that locked room, you created a space where — eventually, each guy began to see how his actions, or inactions, contributed to the standoff. A leader gets to “hold” the tension until God provides the resources the conflicted parties need to see what they’ve been unwilling or unable to see… Your vision for their reconciliation calls you through the discomfort of setting up and brokering the conversation.
Way to lead, Drewe!!
Good stuff, Kirk – Can’t imagine that folks interested in improving their relationships wouldn’t be positively motivated by these messages. Keep going!