I hate conflict… I hate fighting… At an overall level, I am very bothered by any serious discord.  I don’t like being at odds with people, even if I’m not a particular fan of their views or behaviors.  If I have that sense of imbalance, it can sit with me for quite a while, and it’s difficult to shake sometimes.  I suspect there are a decent number of people who feel that way as well, some of whom then take the additional step towards avoiding conflict.  That’s the part where I generally don’t follow along. This isn’t to say I would purposefully seek out a conflict, but I also believe that some fights are worth fighting.

When I was in junior high, I had a very intense experience that had me and a few others in physical harm’s way.  Not really knowing what to do, I ended up right in the center of an intense situation that ultimately ended ok, but put me in the position of both having to think and act very quickly in the interest of protecting loved ones.  While the purpose of this note is not to talk about that experience, I did take away a couple things that have stayed with me since.

First is that we have the ability to speak our truth in life, whatever it is, and have our views understood.  We don’t have to be right, and no one ever is all the time, but we can be true to ourselves and live into our values.  One of our teachers at Notre Dame High School had two expressions that stuck with me related to this.  The first was that we should “have the courage of our convictions” and second was that “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll stand for anything.”  The latter is an expression that I’ve taken very much to heart over the years, especially in the work environment, where so many people say what they believe others want to hear (and take the safe road) rather than say what they actually believe is correct.  What we don’t condemn, we then ultimately condone and become complicit in the outcome.

Having spoken up on various issues over the years, it’s an odd phenomena that, after doing so (and sometimes getting blasted for it), people would come up to me privately and say “thank you for saying that”…”I was thinking the same thing”.. and so on.  To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about these moments.  I’ve been in that situation enough times where I’m both annoyed with the bystanders but then happy to just be someone trying to make a difference and do the right thing in the face of that adversity.  It has landed me on an island a few times over the years, but I’d rather be there than reinforcing the status quo when people may be in harm’s way as a result.

An analogy that I’ve used over the years is: You’re in a room with 10 people.  Someone is standing at the front, talking about a problem they are struggling with or trying to solve.  Eight of the people leave the room not having said anything.  Of that set, half of them think nothing of it, and the other half may comment to someone outside the room about how it sucks to be that person.  For the other two people in the room, it’s possible one of them says “You might want to try this…” and the other says, “I’m willing to help you if I can.”  While it’s a hypothetical situation, I’ve certainly been in plenty of discussions over the years to say this does happen.  The question I ask is who do you want to be?  Many people fall into the 8 who do nothing and walk away.  A select set of people fall into the other two.  My wish is that more people would engage long enough to try to help.  Thinking about it, I believe it might go back to that very early experience from childhood where I didn’t have a choice not to participate, but what I did made a very significant difference. I feel a compulsion to engage and, while it’s not always easy, it feels necessary and important to me.

The second thing that came from the experience relates to dealing with aggression.  Something about being in a position of having to protect others at a very young age really burned the notion of standing up to aggressors in at a deep level.  Bullies are way too tolerated in society, and especially within the work environment.  Knowing there are many states with pending anti-bullying legislation that would make it similar in nature to other forms of workplace harassment, my sincere hope is that is does eventually pass and helps improve conditions for the many people subjected to de-humanizing behavior on an ongoing basis.  This is where I’d come back to my original point on conflict: I hate it and don’t want to be a part of it.  That being said, someone has to be willing to step into the fray at times and keep others out of harm’s way.

There’s a scene in the movie The Guns of Navarone (one of my favorite war movies) where Gregory Peck and David Niven are arguing about how to deal with a traitor discovered among their group.  Niven’s comment is that he would never let the Army make him an officer, to which Peck responds “then you’ve had a free ride, all this time. Someone has got to take the responsibility if the job is going to get done.  Do you think that’s easy?”  It’s a powerful moment and Peck does a wonderful job bringing out the struggle and pressure he feels in making difficult decisions necessary to accomplish the mission he inherited through circumstance.  Having watched that scene countless times, it always fires me up.  It represents the burden that comes with leadership.  It’s not easy, it requires a lot of humility, courage, work, thought, compassion, and so on.

In any event, in dealing with aggression, I hate conflict but I’m not conflict avoidant.  I’d rather not have disagreement at all, but will disagree if I believe there is a better choice to be made.  That’s a difficult and lonely line to walk at times, but it’s also a rewarding one when you can look yourself in the mirror at night and know you’ve done what you believe is right.  Not surprisingly, its amazing how many paper tigers exist in the form of bullies, who aren’t actually strong or particularly tough, they are just used to getting no resistance.  The number of people with good intentions far outnumbers those who have these sort of behaviors, and yet the balance of power is sometimes shifted out of whack because there aren’t enough people trying to do something to address it.  It’s easier to look the other way, to not take on that responsibility for change, to want someone else to deal with it.  Our collective challenge is to make a difference, by taking action and speaking up, in the right ways, at the right times, to try and create a safer and more respectful environment for everyone.

There will always be a bully on the proverbial playgrounds of life, but there don’t need to be so many of them, and every once in a while, it would be really nice if the larger, well-intentioned masses rose up and beat them into submission for a change, and sent a larger message that it’s not ok, the good people of the world outnumber them, and human dignity, rights, and respect are worth fighting for…

A lot more came out here than I expected, but I’ll finish as I began.  I’d rather step into the ring and fight for what I believe in than be a passive spectator on things that matter.  It’s a lesson I learned the hard way a long time ago, and I don’t expect to give up on it any time soon… though it would be nice if one or two more people joined in that fight from time to time. 🙂

-CJG 01/19/2014