The Magic Bullet Store is Out of Business

Very often, during a conversation, an email exchange, or following a workshop, the question of “Now what?” comes to the forefront.

Usually in talking about motivation, morale, or in creating the conditions that will make our workplaces better, a participant in the conversation will desire advice on how to get people to care more.

The response is that the magic bullet store is out of business.

And it has been for a while.

The real issue is that the current systems we have for education of our children (school), getting money to adults in an exchange for labor (work), and in taking care of both the Earth (capitalism) and the people on it (healthcare), grew up over the last 100, 200 or 500 years.

And no amount of hand-wringing (“It’s just terrible that this is happening?”), or desiring it to be better (“Can’t we all just ‘get along’?”) is going to change those systems in real, meaningful ways in the world we are currently living in.

The systems as designed are the problem.

Who organized the systems and what they believed is a problem.

The outcomes that benefit a few people philosophically, emotionally, and even spiritually is the problem.

The response to this is not to get mad, give up, or just ignore the problems in the systems and hope that they go away.

Or that someone else will come along and save us from ourselves and put everything “right.”

The response is to act to put your own hands to the levers of the systems in the sphere of influence that you can control (family, work, community, finances, social life, etc.), and begin to intentionally, purposefully, and deliberately push the levers of change.

And to do so with winsomeness, kindness, and grace.

But to do it tenaciously.

Persuasion, conflict management, active listening, responding to advance the conversation rather than to advance yourself, engaging without judgment to pull allies to your side—these are all skills that can be learned, taught, and passed on hand-to-heart, generation-to-generation.

Until we are thriving in the systems that we want to have, individually and corporately.

If the prospect of doing even 1% of that is too daunting for you as an individual inside of your sphere of influence, then you should be asking not “Now what?” but “What is it that I really want to accomplish in this limited life I have now?”

Fortunately for all of us, we were born at the beginning of a revolution in human affairs, human systems, and human motivations.

And all revolutions are scary and destructive before they are enlightening and hopeful.

Look for work first, and the hope will come.

The Privacy of Memory

We lose a little of ourselves when we outsource our memory to Google.

But not in the obvious way that we think of.

What we lose in the privacy (some would say inaccuracy) of memory is the ability to forget.

And to be forgotten.

The privacy of memory and the palaces that we build in our minds of truths, facts, lies and stories is more valuable than we know to preserving the best parts of our fragile humanity.

In the rush to electronically preserve the truth in non-debatable, and factual ways, we are losing the pleasure (and the privilege) of the privacy of choosing what we want to remember—and what we have the grace, forgiveness and ability to forget.

When we can call out each other using facts we like that work for us (and avoid or dismiss the facts that don’t), our social media communications and interactions become about expressing the rawest of emotions with immediacy, in the face of overwhelming facts that are preserved as eminent, and indisputable truth.

Google can’t help us here. Neither can artificial intelligence. Neither can another social communication platform.

Only human beings can preserve the privacy of memory in relationship with other human beings.

The Hard Thing About The Hard Questions

The hard questions aren’t ones that you just need to think about harder, to get to a binary answer.

Binary answers.

“What the other party wants to hear” answers.

“Feel good” answers.

Wrong answers.

Right answers.

The compelling issue is not that the questions are hard, or that they are scary.

The issue is that the answers frighten you because of their implications around responsibility, accountability, safety, and security.

But the only way out of a conflict is to go further in.

Thinking harder about a binary answer isn’t the way to get to more resolution.

Neither is thinking about how to structure the answer to get the other party on your side.

Sometimes, answering the hard question really requires you to pick an answer, stand up, and courageously defend it.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 3 – Bathabile Mtobmeni

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 3 – Bathabile Mtobmeni, Ombudswoman, Activist, Thinker, PeaceFinder

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode #3 - Bathabile Mthombeni[powerpress]

Greatest comment on a podcast episode ever: “Cliffhangers on a podcast episode?”

Yes.

Cliffhangers.

And now, the return of the Omsbuddy…

This is part two of our interview with Bathabile Mtobmeni that we started in late January/early February, and we cover the tough stuff in part two. Such as:

  • What road are we putting ourselves on?
  • How can we plan for the future?
  • Where do we put our anger and hurt when things don’t work out the way that we expect them too?
  • What can we have?

There can be truth and justice and civility in a civil society.

For if we sacrifice any of the three—in service of achieving any one of the others—the pillars of civil society fall apart.

And then, we become the very monsters of oppression we are fighting to destroy.

Connect with Bathabile all the ways you can below:

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bathabile

BU Announcement of Appointment to Ombudsman: http://www.binghamton.edu/inside/index.php/inside/story/10329/stenger-appoints-university-ombudsman/

Bathabile’s Podcast: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bathabile

Bathabile’s Website: http://www.123untangle.com/

ADRHub.com Profile: http://www.adrhub.com/profile/BathabileMthombeni

Mediate.com Profile: http://www.mediate.com/people/personprofile.cfm?auid=1506

If The Process Doesn’t Interest You Too Much…

If the process of resolving a conflict doesn’t interest you too much…

If you just want to “be done with it’ already…

If you “just don’t care how it stops” just that it’s over…

If you have “no dog in this fight”…

If you are “just a disinterested observer”…

Then in reality you are a spectator and your behavior of standing around (metaphorically) observing the conflict and its results, and not adding to either getting to resolution, reconciliation, or management of the conflict at hand, is causing more harm than good.

We don’t need more gawkers at car wrecks.

We’ve got enough of those already.

We need more people willing to stop by the side of the road of a conflict and help to get the parties to their best selves.

Or, at the least, be willing to dial 911 as they fly by on their way to other, more pressing issues.

What We Can Have

There can be truth and justice and civility in a civil society.

For if we sacrifice any of the three—in service of achieving any one of the others—the pillars of civil society fall apart.

And then, we become the very monsters of oppression we are fighting to destroy.

Leaving Workplaces

Studies show that people don’t leave workplaces, they leave bosses.

And at a deeper level, people don’t leave workplaces, or bosses, they leave the conflict cultures that are developed, tolerated and supported in the organization.

We can argue all we want for better workplaces (that certainly happens in this space) and we can all argue for people trapped inside of organizations to be more intentional and use better strategies to address the conflict cultures they are already in (that happens here as well) but what’s tolerated, developed, and supported must change first.

Or else, we must come to the realization that we pick the conflict culture of the organizations we’re working for.

And we pick to stay there, in spite of them, as well.

Grace from Here to the Moon

The steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation include the giving of—and getting of—grace.

We don’t often think about grace (other than maybe as a person’s name, in light of physical attributes, or as a ritual that some families perform before a meal) but the fact is, there used to be public, shared discourse around grace, regardless of politics, emotions, educational attainment, or material situation.

This was grace in the Christian conception of such a term, meaning “God’s unmerited favor.”

Webster’s New World College Dictionary provides this theological definition of grace: “The unmerited love and favor of God toward human beings; divine influence acting in a person to make the person pure, morally strong; the condition of a person brought to God’s favor through this influence; a special virtue, gift, or help given to a person by God.” This definition is based in virtue harkening toward a strong moral core.

Another way of framing grace is that it is getting what we least deserve, when we least expect it, through no effort of our own.

Getting grace implies faith and surrender.

Giving grace implies forgiveness and reconciliation.

Understanding and appreciating the depth of the need for grace and the skillset to give grace is implanted in people through developing a strong moral center.

This is deep and dark waters though, because moral centers (and the ballast that undergirds them) are so very rarely considered by individuals at depth, much less by societies at scale, in countries where the Church is no longer as powerful a moral force as it once was.

We outsource parts of our emotional life to politics that we used to outsource to the Church. The Church used to be a bulwark of morality—even in the face of conflicts so detrimental and consequential that they used to escalate to World Wars.

But the skills that undergird giving grace—such as humility, obedience, and discipline—are harder to acquire now than ever before both individually and corporately. And when the skills that undergird giving grace are lacking, getting grace seems as unattainable as going to the moon on the back of a cardboard rocket.

Grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation; these are what the world—and our civil discourse—need now.

On Holiday

Taking a holiday from conflict—either from managing them or resolving them—is something too many of us are engaged in too regularly.

A holiday is supposed to be a break and a time of renewal, yes, but it is also to be a time of mindfulness, refocusing, reframing, and rededicating ourselves, our behavior, our thoughts, and our feelings toward the future.

As has been recently said, holidays are a time on, not a time off.

Holidays are also a time for genuine celebration.

Celebrations come with different traditions, but practicing traditions (such as taking a day off) without understanding or appreciating the deeper meaning behind them, is hollow religion of the worst kind.

With that being stated work (or at least our modern conception of work) is considered a practice that a holiday is a break from.

But some of the best work is performed when a person is engaged with mindfulness, refocusing, reframing, and rededication to the outcomes, people, and relationships that matter.

Taking a holiday from conflict management, or from pursuing resolution, is a practice worthy of being abolished.

Go to work.

The original founders behind holidays—particularly those focused around renewal, unification, and reconciliation—would want you to go to work.

Strategy is a Skill

It is important to note that strategy in managing people in conflicts is still considered by many to be a talent, rather than an attainable skill.

In a conflict, thinking about how to manage it effectively requires exercising all the same planning and engagement that engaging in the conflict in and of itself does.

However, the pushback against this type of thinking most often comes in the form of the complaints that “strategy is too hard” or that “people are unpredictable.”

Individual people may be unpredictable, but general human behavior is predictable, and outcomes from such behavior are even more predictable depending upon which conflict management behavior it is that a party chooses.

Good, effective strategy, that produces satisfactory outcomes requires intentionality.

To plan strategically, understanding three points intuitively begins the process:

  1. Know what you can manage in a conflict around stress, anger, fear, and failure. Without knowing yourself, knowing the other party becomes that harder.
  2. Have the courage to care and be curious. The number one reason negotiations around conflicts fail, is due to genuine lack of curiosity by one party, about the other party’s motives, opinions, and desires for resolution—or management—of a conflict scenario.
  3. Realize that the conflict process is messy and, unlike a chess game, if you plan one step ahead of the other party (rather than two—or seven) your conflict goals toward management and resolution have a greater chance of success.

There is strategy involved in attaining the skills of humility, self-awareness, responsibility, and even empathy.

Almost as much strategy as is involved in letting things “just go,” not paying attention, focusing on issues in the conflict that don’t matter, and not understanding the nature of the conflict (and the other party) that you’re in the arena with.

Strategy to manage and resolve conflicts is a skill that can be learned. Almost in the same way—and at the same level—that extending and not resolving conflict is a skill that is learned.