MINDFULNESS MONDAYS

Conflicting Mindfully

By their very nature, human beings have different backgrounds, values, personalities, needs, interests, motivations and opinions. While these dissimilarities add spice to life and make our interactions interesting, they also create breeding grounds for conflict. In this regard, conflict can be viewed as a natural part of humanity to be acknowledged, explored and properly managed.?

Conflict is defined as a clash between individuals arising out of a difference in thought process, attitude, understanding, interests, requirements and perceptions. Conflict arises at an individual and group level and can be functional and dysfunctional. Functional conflict is a healthy, constructive disagreement between groups and individuals. It promotes healthy exchange of ideas, creativity and innovation and general awareness and mutual understanding within the group or between the individuals hence improving relationships. Conscious and progressive leaders promote functional conflict by encouraging and engaging dialogue between themselves and people with dissenting opinions without victimization and judgement.

Dysfunctional conflict however is negative and often leads to destructive consequences. From an organizational perspective dysfunctional conflict between individuals and within groups in the work place leads to low morale, reduced productivity, high turnover, poor collaboration, reduced customer satisfaction, psychological problems and poor mental health and disunity and mistrust. In the business environment, dysfunctional conflict between corporate entities often leads to protracted legal battles and failure to close business deals and build continuous beneficial relationships.

The 6 obstacles

Leornard L. Riskin in his Annual Saltman Lecture: Further Beyond Reason: Emotions, the Core Concerns, and Mindfulness in Negotiation presents 6 obstacles fostering positive outcomes in negotiations which are briefly discussed below:

1. Excessively self-centred perspectives whereby an individual shows excessive concern for only ones needs and wants and does not consider other peoples interests or want to foster them.
2. Strong negative emotions get in the way of clear thinking and encourage a narrow, positional focus leaving little room to accommodate other interests even if they may eventually be beneficial to the individual. Actions such as shouting or aggressive tones on email may also put the opposing party on defense mode and reduce the chances of resolving the conflict.
3. Automatic, habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving and perceiving opposing views as a threat. This also involves a tendency to overvalue the strength of one’s position.
4. Sensitivity to emotions (too much or too little). This is a deficit in sensitivity or skill to recognize or acknowledge one’s own emotions as well as those of others.
5. ?Insufficient social skills prevent a person from withstanding the challenges emanating from a conflict or efficiently communicate their position.
6. Inadequate focus. The neuropsychologist Richard J Davidson identifies “attentional style” as one of the six traits of a person’s “emotional brain.” It is determined in part by one’s DNA, but can be changed by experience, and by mindfulness meditation practice. A person’s attentional style can range from “focused” to “unfocused.” Davidson describes two forms of attention — “selective attention” and “non judgmental” awareness. Selective attention means screening out distractions so that you can focus on one thing. Non-judgmental awareness is “the capacity to remain receptive to what might pass into your thoughts, view, hearing, or feeling and to do so in a noncritical way. Strong emotions can interfere with both of these, so one’s ability to deliberately focus often depends on being able to deal skillfully with emotions.

Mindfulness in the Heat of Conflict

Mindfulness can help in overcoming the obstacles listed above and improve clarity in decision making in conflict related situations. In the article Mindfulness in the Heat of Conflict Leonard L. Riskin and Rachel Wohl set forth tools of awareness that can quickly establish and sustain mindfulness and foster appropriate behavior in conflict related situations. In this series we will consider the STOPSI and STOCK tools of awareness

1. Before an activity likely to trigger conflict (e.g., a negotiation, a hearing, or a difficult meeting), set an intention using STOPSI

·??????Stop

·??????Take a breath

·??????Observe Body Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions

·??????Proceed to

·??????Set a clear and simple

·??????Intention(s).

2. During the Activity Take STOCK:

·??????Stop

·??????Take a Breath

·??????Observe

·??????Body Sensations, Emotions, Thoughts

·??????Consider

??????????????????????????????????i.????????Have you been following your intention?

????????????????????????????????ii.????????Do you want to change it?

??????????????????????????????iii.????????What are the positions and interests of the key person or persons?

???????????????????????????????iv.????????What are your own positions and interest?

????????????????????????????????v.????????What Next?

·??????Keep Going

Continuous and deliberate practice of the tools above may not guarantee you of living a conflict free life but will enable you navigate heated situations in a calm manner and develop a mutual understanding between yourself and those around you.