The New Crop: Issue #69
designing a conflict protocol for your team + "little dog's rhapsody in the night", a poem by Mary Oliver
What’s in this issue:
💭 Thought: Designing a conflict protocol for your team
📚 Read: Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night, a poem by Mary Oliver
😆 Today’s Laugh
We’re traveling back in time to 11 years ago, when a technical glitch resulted in a fireworks show being over in only 15 seconds. 🤦♀️
💭 Today’s Thought
If you and your team can design together how you’d like to operate during times of conflict, the easier those times will be to navigate.
I call this a “Conflict Protocol”, and prefer to create this with my teams before we actually experience conflict…
When the stakes are low.
When we’re breathing deeply.
When we have greater access to rational and creative thought.
Answering the following questions* as a team gives us the permission and confidence to take actions that feel hard to take (including not acting):
Think about your ideal team. How would that team handle conflicts and disagreements?
What is the team leader/manager’s role in resolving conflict?
What are some behaviors you want to have happen when conflict occurs?
What are some behaviors you do not want to have happen when conflict occurs?
How will we hold each other accountable for following these agreements?
I’ve dropped these questions into a Conflict Protocol worksheet you can copy and fill out with your team, or for yourself.
And while conflict may never feel easy, with a protocol in hand, you’ll likely spend less energy sorting through what you could do in those moments and more energy doing what you already agreed to do.
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict.
- Dorothy Thompson
*adapted from a framework by CRR Global
🖊️ Today’s Reflection
If you’re new to journaling, I highly encourage you to read Nancy Adler’s article: Want to be an outstanding leader? Keep a journal.
This week, find a quiet place and gift yourself 10 minutes to reflect on any of these prompts (or invent your own!):
What belief(s) do you hold about conflict? How did those beliefs come to be?
How do your beliefs about conflict play out in terms of how you show up during conflict?
What other difficult or uncomfortable situations would it be helpful for you to proactively design a protocol for? Who else might need to agree to that protocol?
📚 Today’s Read
Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night by Mary Oliver
Today’s read is a short poem by Mary Oliver about dogs, but also about love:
Take a moment right now to tell someone that you love them, even if they’re not present with you. 💜
See you next week!
xo,
Anne