{"id":158,"date":"2009-07-14T21:43:31","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T01:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/?p=158"},"modified":"2009-07-14T21:43:31","modified_gmt":"2009-07-15T01:43:31","slug":"quakers-and-conflict-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/quakers-and-conflict-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Quakers and Conflict Transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past\u00a018 months\u00a0I have been getting more and more involved with the “Conflict Transformation Committee” of the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends<\/a>.\u00a0 That’s like Quakers<\/a>.\u00a0 Like the oatmeal<\/a>.\u00a0 And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.<\/p>\n

Quakers are pacifists<\/a> — most of them anyway.\u00a0 But they don’t shy away from conflict.\u00a0 In fact, a core testimony of Friends is that “there is that of God in every person<\/a>.”\u00a0 So Quakers are urged to find the “Light” in their neighbor, and in themselves.\u00a0 When the Light shines, Quakers have a tendancy to follow it.\u00a0 And how.<\/p>\n

Talk about party autonomy!\u00a0 Here we have folks who are sure of their “leadings” and usually feel compelled to voice them.\u00a0 There’s no Pope and no Priest so the “truth” is what the Meeting of Friends discern it to be.<\/p>\n

And then there’s this Committee.<\/a>\u00a0 Its job is to be available to the various Meetings in the region, helping them to respond to conflicts in a way “that can support reconciliation and spiritual growth.”\u00a0 The first step, of course, is to help a group to identify that they, indeed, may have a conflict they need to address.\u00a0 The second is to transform that conflict into an opportunity for growth.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m a business mediator and arbitrator.\u00a0 I deal with fiduciaries who are charged with maximizing shareholder value.\u00a0 In general, I have found that shareholder value is most immediately benefited by (1)\u00a0minimizing outside legal bills and other costs of prolonged legal disputes by addressing problems early, and (2) reforming a troubled commercial relationship in order to make it more economically efficient, commercially rational\u00a0and\u00a0mutually beneficial.<\/p>\n

But in business, nobody thinks they’ve been told what to do by God.\u00a0 No one is divinely inspired.\u00a0 (Well, there have been a few exceptions<\/a>, but in general<\/em>….)<\/p>\n

This is going to be interesting.\u00a0 Two\u00a0principles seem to be inviolate in this context.\u00a0 First, have absolute respect for the seed of the “leadings” giving rise to the conflict; they are, by Quaker tradition, divine.\u00a0 Second, don’t fix it —\u00a0transform it into an opportunity for growth.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, is that so different from what I usually do?\u00a0 How about it?\u00a0 Any thoughts?\u00a0 Should be an interesting trip….!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working with Quakers to “transform” conflict is an interesting experience for someone accustomed to “managing” (or, worse, “resolving”) it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,32],"tags":[12,15,31,27],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-religion","tag-culture","tag-mediation","tag-negotiation","tag-teaching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}