Conflict Zen

My mother, who was born on the fourth of July, told me when I was little that everyone in the country celebrated her birthday. I decided she must be very famous and much loved. While age brought understanding of her joke, the image of my mother as someone who deserved love and fame never diminished for me. Harriet Bell MacDonald Lenski, whom I lost when I was in my twenties, would have been 84 this week and I will always miss her.

Because of my line of work, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect on the lessons I learned from my mother about conflict and its resolution. Some of them have been powerfully helpful—and a few have been powerfully unfortunate.

A strong woman of Scottish descent, with an assertive streak a mile long, she was also deeply kind and compassionate. She taught me that I should engage conflict willingly and as kindly as possible, and that I should stand strong, especially when advocating for those who were less able to advocate for themselves. The way I understood these messages has been a mixed blessing: I am assertive in my own conflicts but have had to work hard to fully learn that not all conflicts need engaging at full strength!

My mother was raised in a family and in a generation that prevented her from spreading her wings as she wished. She attended Katharine Gibbs instead of a four-year college, though her grades and ability would have gained her entrance anywhere she sought if she were college-bound today. She regretted those closed doors her entire life and, I think, wished she’d pressed the issue when she was 18. From my earliest memories, she taught me that the sky is the limit and that, as a woman, I am equal to any man and to any challenge. This independence, while freeing in so many ways, has also been my Achilles heel during conflict—I’m always tempted to over-assert just how capable and independent I am, sometimes to my own detriment.

She taught me compassion, to look for the equal human in front of me, especially when I’m tempted to judge others harshly. Somehow, I spent much of my younger years judging others harshly anyway. I have often reflected on how long it took me to find and truly employ my mother’s lesson in compassion. The work of becoming a mediator forced me to look this one straight in the eye, because the mediator’s work is one of compassion and non-judgment. Mom would be proud.

She was quick on her feet in a fight and verbally nimble. Some have suggested that her fiery Scottish heritage and upbringing was the cause. She worked in the New York State Legislature for much of my life and loved a good debate. I remember going to work with her on school snow days, and she’d encourage me to go to the visitor’s gallery and watch the floor debates. This was another gift—to be able to see both sides in an argument and to value verbal jousting as a way to thoroughly chew over a problem. And sometimes such verbal jousting has been ill-chosen on my part, when quiet listening would have served me and others better.

In a phone conversation the week before she died unexpectedly, she gently reminded me that truly strong people know when not to use their strength. I still work on striking that balance and I wish she were around to guide me, though I feel her legacy with me daily and am generally thankful for that.

So I leave you with this: What did your mother (or father) teach you about conflict? What of those lessons should you continue to carry and what should you let go? And what are you teaching your own children?

This article was originally published in my regular column for The Monadnock Ledger.

When Women Don’t Ask co-author Linda Babcock was director of a Ph.D. program, "a delegation of women graduate students came to her office. Many of the male graduate students were teaching courses of their own, the women explained, while most of the female graduate students had been assigned to work as teaching assistants to regular faculty. Linda agreed that this didn’t sound fair, and that afternoon she asked the associate dean who handled teaching assignments about the women’s complaint. She received a simple answer: ‘I try to find teaching opportunities for any student who approaches me with a good idea for a course, the ability to teach, and a reasonable offer about what it will cost,’ he explained. ‘More men ask. The women just don’t ask.’"

In subsequent research conducted by Linda Babcock as a result of the surprising comment from the associate dean, she discovered that "women were much less likely than men to see the benefits and importance of asking for what they want." Reasons for this pattern include societal messages that "nice girls don’t ask" and historical patterns of women’s contributions to the workplace being valued less than men’s. As a result, Babcock and Laschever argue that women expect less than men, have more difficulty assigning value to their work than men. They also cite other research demonstrating that women tend to have a more "external locus of control" (perception that their fate is influenced more by external factors than internal factors) than men, also likely due to historical and cultural influences associated with women’s place in society. What’s a woman to do?

• Start by re-evaluating the strength of your position or value in the negotation, re-consider what you might be able to achieve, and begin to develop better awareness of when you should be asking for more instead of settling for less.
• Research suggests that women are uncomfortable in conflict and competition—and therefore in negotiation—because we have a strong urge to foster and protect relationships. There are ways to negotiate that minimize or eliminate damaging conflict and don’t damage the relationship. You can change the negotiation game!
• Educate yourself in the practices of "integrative negotiation" and practice the key mindsets and skills. Take a workshop or do some reading (start with Deborah Kolb’s Her Place at the Table and William Ury’s Getting to Yes and Getting Past No).
• Keep in mind that integrative (win-win) negotiation is hot now and has gained respect in the corporate and political world as an effective way to negotiate everything from employment packages to business-to-business contracts to household responsibilities. Because integrative negotiation places value on the relationship during the negotiation, there are some who suggest women actually have a leg up in this kind of negotiating, since it more naturally fits our more cooperative way of bargaining.
• Find a negotiation coach who’s well versed in conflict resolution and strategic negotiation, as well as women’s leadership and workplace issues. If you’d like to discuss the negotiation coaching services I offer, I’m always just a phone call or email away.