Rev Bill

The Alban Institute has a wonderful article on it’s web site about conflict resolution through remembering what the problem is — remembering the issue that is creating the conflict — instead of blaming the people that may be involved in the conflict.

Too many times people in conflict blame each other and attack each other instead of really looking at — and trying to resolve — the issues creating the conflict. If they can step back and look at the issue instead of making each other the issue solutions they will be more apt to finding solutions.

Here’s how they define what can happen:

Shifting the relationship to the problem comes only when the congregation can examine these effects and deeply and resoundingly say, “No, we don’t want to continue with these effects of the problem.” Then a threshold to a new possibility for the congregation emerges. This new threshold arises when the leader is able to ask, “What would you like instead? Where would you like to be headed?” “What would be the first sign that we are moving in that new direction?”

The article ends with this statement:

The cumulative effect of the steps outlined here allow for a conversation of possibilities to emerge in what would otherwise seem like a dead-end. Margaret Wheatley, in her book Turning to One Another, underlines the power of conversation and the role of leaders in creating the kinds of conversations that can promote deep change: “There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about. Ask, ‘What’s possible?’ not ‘What’s wrong?’ Keep asking. . . . Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.” (Margaret J. Wheatley, Turning to One Another (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2002), 145.)

Shifting the focus from people to issues.

That is indeed one way to resolve problems.

You can read the article from the Alban Institute here.

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