Peacemaking means asking the questions and addressing the issues to either initiate or restore communication.
It was my responsibility as a leader to initiate the difficult conversation. My failure to act created the larger problem down the road. We were stuck in a ditch of my creation… My failure to have the difficult conversation destroyed crops, damaged a vehicle, compromised our position, and nearly killed some of our companions.
Takeaways of Note:
“Keep it between the ditches”– stay on high ground, avoid extremes. Communicating effectively helps avoid pitfalls …when communication shuts down, ditches come calling.
Ditches of complex issues are dangerous …they can become ideological trenches in a war of ego & opinion.
When we focus less on winning and more on trying to understand one another, we find the will to have a difficult conversation, to understand sincerely, and to align on common purpose, even if we don’t agree on everything.
We often have much to agree upon, and disagreement by itself is not inherently good or bad. And disagreeing with each other is a far better outcome than disagreeing without one another.
All over modern America today, relationships are damaged by a lack of difficult conversations. I see people jumping into their ditches in fear or pushing others into ditches not of their own choosing on critical issues that need to be addressed with care.
Difficult conversations are the rope holding us together in tension between the ditches. We all have memories of the damages in the ditches, but are we willing to learn from those experiences and change before we suffer more losses?
Accidents happen. When they are avoidable and happen on our watches, they become crucible moments in our formations as leaders.