What conflicts can I resolve by letting them be?

An example

As I thought about my recent newsletter (link) about letting conflicts just sit, I realized I had had a recent positive experience doing just that. Here’s my story and why I think it worked.

I was in a leadership role in my church during a building project. One of the members felt passionately that changes should be made. He had been involved in the project for a while, but he didn’t raise his objection until the last minute. His idea wasn’t bad but implementing it would cost lots of money by redoing work that had been approved, delay us by a minimum of several months and had the potential to derail the entire project.

In preparing for the congregational meeting required to approve the project, I felt it was important to address his objection. Not wanting put him on the spot, I came up with a second alternative to consider, and I fully explained both of these to the congregation. One thing you need to know to understand this story is that Quakers follow a different type of process than most meetings, one that requires that no action be taken unless everyone agrees.  The congregation unanimously approved the building project, including the member with the objection.

But that wasn’t the end. The following Sunday, that member brought in a letter addressed to me and several others in leadership roles resigning the various positions he had held. In the worship service, he didn’t sit in his regular spot, instead, he sat in the back of the room. And he sat with his feet up on the bench, his hands wrapped around his legs.

Clearly he was unhappy with the decision. But he didn’t talk about it. And I didn’t follow the advice that I have been giving here and ask. (This was before I started working on this topic, so I hadn’t yet discovered these techniques.) The method I used reflects my default conflict style, conflict avoidance (see this post on the various styles). 

What I did instead was to consult with various congregational leaders on what to do. And we decided to pray for him.

No one mentioned his behavior. We kept asking him to help with things, even though he turned us down. Eventually, he started responding and participating and, within a few weeks, had become an enthusiastic contributor in the building process.

So, why did this work? And why did the story I told in a previous newsletter on letting conflicts be also work?

Three things I can think of. One, in both cases, there were strong preexisting relationships. Second, these were one-time events, out of character of the relationship. And third, the way forward included participation in events. As I have written about before, doing things together is a crucial way to heal relationships. I doubt this conflict avoidant technique would work if it kept happening.  

All conflict styles can work, depending on the situation. But the more styles that we have available to us, the more likely we are to be able to heal the relationship.

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