CONFLICT RESOLUTION BASIC TRAINING

I’ll start with a common conflict that needs a few rounds of conflict resolution.

Let’s say you have a pile of composed bark dust and six wheel barrows and six shovels and six Scouts doing community service.

They signed up for three hours and know how to tell time.

The early teens wanted to work, but weren’t sure how to get it done. And that’s where conflict resolution comes in.

The huge pile of bark dust is the conflict, getting it into the far reaches of park flower beds resolves it.

Conflict Resolution #1

Find a good loader and start sending wheel barrows out to the spreaders. Break labor down to its essential elements:

Load

Deliver

Spread

Repeat

But these are kids at work so why not make it fun. I commented on how fast one of them was and they all got faster.

Finally one of them said they’d like to shovel, then another, and the process hit its pace.

In three hours, six young scouts moved a mountain of dirt and felt good about it. Instead of pointing to a shovel and rake and saying go at it, I conducted a seminar.

It was all about communication and yelling. That’s right, yelling. I called it the Bark Dust Barker when the Runners yelled out with their full loaded wheel barrows and the spreaders called them over to dump it and return.

On the job training for shovel class included good athletic posture and switching lead hands and footwork. By the end of the day they were experts instead of sore backed kids who never want to do it again.

Rake class explored the many sides of raking and pulling and pushing bark dust.

My advice was use as few muscles as possible for each task.

The rule of the day from one worker was, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

Conflict Resolution #2

Aging humans need certain things to validate themselves. Although some take it too far, the general idea is do things that build new expectations in yourself instead of falling back on the ‘same old same old.’

The ‘same old thing’ is routine and sometimes routine is a death knell. I’m thinking of Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump and the montage of his family members dying in battles through history.

Lt. Dan was set to join them and got angry when Forrest packed him out of the kill zone after he lost his legs.

Too many folks take a seat and never get up. Life is hard, then harder, and finally too hard. Call it depression or anxiety, but it’s paralyzing to those who’ve got it and don’t know it. Is part of the life process feeling paralyzed?

If it’s possible, why not take a step in another direction? I’m not saying join a book club, hiking group, or a gym, but I am saying make a moment in each day for one thing:

Listen to music for five minutes. Any music. Find a song and force yourself to hear each instrument, the vocal timing, and why any of it matters.

Here’s a trick to make it matter: tap your foot and snap your fingers. Now you’re in the band, not a passive music consumer. Those five minutes create a new space in your brain, according to science.

If the conflict is paralysis by analysis, the right song will break through; the right song might turn you into a private dancer.

Conflict Resolution #3

Sports fans the world over carry certain bitterness toward their favorite teams. Long term sports fans have it broken down to eras of the same team.

Take the Dallas Cowboys for instance. Beginning as an expansion team in 1960, the Cowboys rose quickly but couldn’t quite get out of the NFL for the first two Super Bowls. The Green Bay Packers made it instead.

By the Seventies they learned how to win big, which happened in the 90’s too. Big winners back then.

The big conflict is why they haven’t won more. It’s the same conflict as the Portland Trail Blazers, except it isn’t about winning titles, it’s winning enough to show Portland isn’t some backwater, small market NBA franchise where aging players go to sign their last contract before retiring.

For too long Portland felt like a revolving door of has-beens. After a great European career one of the most acclaimed talents in a generation finally showed up in Portland a decade too late.

Those Jail Blazer teams still made the Western Conference Finals. Twice.

Despite the bad light cast on Portland, fans were ready to canonize them if they won a title to replace your 1977 NBA Champion Portland Traaaaaiiiiil Blaaaaaazers.

But they didn’t and we’ve had to hang the Blazer Blanket over the players of the 1999 and 2000 teams as the standard for twenty years.

But, not anymore.

The conflict was rewarding players who didn’t give a damn about Portland except CTC, cut the check, or our fanhood. And they were good teams of retreads and malcontents.

The resolution is the Lillard-era where the core group works to draw players to Portland. Come to Portland and play with an All-Star who shares the light; come play with the only guy drafted from his school to make the NBA.

These Blazers know the game, play like they’re on fire, and show a side of Portland to a world with a short attention span.

Next up, the Western Conference Finals with good guys to cheer for.