Things began to change rapidly however, after I became a mother of seven and a full time care-taker. Those who knew the ins and outs of my life continued to treat me with love and respect. I must say that unfortunately society on a whole was not as kind to a woman with seven young children. As a result I began to experience a decline in my self worth.

Every negative encounter would make me feel a lot worse. I had one of my worst encounters at the pinnacle of my sliding self worth. On that day I momentarily forgot the lessons taught me as a child: important lessons which included forgiveness, kindness and the greatest fruit of the spirit, which was love. The realization of this came to me after I started to reflect on a comment a woman at my daughter’s dance school made. She called my daughter “a little black girl.” Dance class was just finished for my three-year-old. Some of the mothers were having idle chatter in the hallway. Two other moms and I were changing our children’s clothes in a waiting room/ playroom. I was on one side of the room; the other mothers were on the other. One mother had a little boy and the other had a girl. The mother with the boy had him give the girl next to him a candy. It was Valentine’s Day and this was the customary thing to do. I was not cognizant of the events that followed. I did however, hear the little girl’s mother telling her child in a voice loud enough for me to hear, that my daughter was a little black girl. My daughter was very light skinned, enough so that the other child would not have been able to tell the difference between them.

I looked over in the women’s direction after the remark was made. The boy’s mother looked shocked. She then instructed her child to give my daughter a candy. The child walked over immediately and handed my daughter the candy. She thanked him and he walked back to his mother.
Strangely enough I was not even offended. I just continued doing what I was doing without the slightest change in my demeanor.

Just as I was about to walk out the door with my three children, the girl’s mother’s said to me, “Do you home school your daughter?”

I had my seven-year-old daughter and my fourteen-month-old son with me. “Yes,” I replied quite politely.

“How is that for you?” she questioned.

“Tedious at times but I need to spend time with her. When she was younger I had someone helping me with my children and I did not get to spend as much time with her.”

“Oh, you were working?”

“No. I never worked”, I said sharply.

“When I lived in South Africa I had a maid.” She was now on the defense.

The little boy’s mother tried to come to my defense at this point. “How could you expect her to work? She has three children.”

“No,” I said pointedly. “I have seven children. Three birth children and four adopted children.” I could tell that my response shocked the woman who had tried to come to my defense.

“There are seven children in the house?” she questioned. I did not respond. She took her son and left the room. The girl’s mother did not. She inquired about my adopted children’s mother. She then continued to tell me about a number of black women she came in contact with in South Africa. The women she talked about had numerous children. They were very poor and oppressed by their husbands. One woman who worked on this woman’s parents’ farm was tied up by her husband. She was then forced to watch on helplessly as her children starved to death. Another woman had eighteen pregnancies and only one child survived. Men had countless wives with many, many children. The families all had only one income. Her family, she stated, helped numerous black African women obtain sterilization at no cost to the women. On many occasions their husbands were unaware and their consent was not obtained.

As if the picture she was painting was not vivid enough she paused and asked, “Have you ever been to Africa?”

“No,” I replied and went on to tell her about some of the countries I had visited and some of the cultural problems I had encountered. Her response to what I was saying was that those were very common problems.

“Because something is common does not make it right. These kinds of behaviors have profound effects on people’s lives,” I said to her. I was more passionate about issues that directly involved children.

She frowned at me and said, “You can say that because you understand.” She took her child by the hand and exited the room. Her demeanor appeared rather unhappy. I must admit that I was confused. What was her point? Why be resentful of me? Was it because of all the sufferings she had seen in other black women lives and here I was living as leisurely as she? Did she interpret my silence as approval of her statement?

The silence was in my children’s best interest. The whole thing went over their heads. As we talked, her daughter ran around the room and played with my children. This could have been the whole reason for her unhappy appearance and her choosing to change her child on the other side of the room. It certainly did not have anything to do with candy but more to do with changing her child along side a black one. Her child did not fully get the message that day. Had I made a fuss both her daughter and mine would have learned the apartheid lesson.

I learned about her family background in the short exchange we had. I was more saddened than impressed. The remark she made to her daughter had somehow clouded my mind. I see my daughter, as being more than just another little black girl. She is a precious gift to me from God. God in His infinite wisdom created all of us for His enjoyment. How colorless the world would be if he had made it all green. We need to take responsibility for our folly. There was no benefit in poisoning the mind of our children all in the name of protecting them from other innocent children.

As I ponder over the events of that day it reminded of a poem I had written several years ago based on a similar experience that I had. I called the poem There’s More to me. It says:

When I am out there on my own,
No one knows about my home.
Some only care about the color of my skin,
And my knowledge doesn’t mean a thing.
They judge me by what they see,
And there’s no mention of the real me.

There’s more to me than meets the eye.
For I have a heavenly Father in the sky.
He even cares about the birds,
And in spite of what you’ve heard,
He knows my heart and very thoughts,
And all about the fights I’ve fought.

There was a lot more to my daughter. She was a little girl who can say that she was the pride and joy of both her parents. She was a child whose parents were willing to take time out to invest it in her. Yet on that day as her mother I felt I had to defend my position. I had also learned the lessons by which society sometimes judge us. Outwardly I was very controlled, but inwardly I was beginning to doubt myself worth. I had years earlier made a conscious decision to put aside my career in order to raise my family. Having a profession was as equally important to me as having a family. I did not expect to have had sacrifice one for the other. That woman’s words would have had very little effect on me if I had been able to come to terms with my new role in society. My precious role as a fulltime wife and mother was becoming obscure. I could not help but feel that I was being compared to those helpless women.

A lot has changed for me since that encounter. I am now a published author. I gleaned from all my emotions that resulted from my challenges. I used them to create a poetry collection. The poem “There is more to me” is also a part of that collection. Appropriately named “Fantasy/Controversy or My Reality,” the anthology was dedicated to hurting children everywhere. It is not only about adversity, but also the good, the bad, the happy and the sad. To continue my dream to make a difference in the lives of hurting children, a part of my royalties from this book will be contributed to agencies that provided services for abused children. For more information about this visit my web-site at http://home.earthlink.net/~rgarnes

About the Author

Ruth Andrews Garnes was born in Belize the second of six children. She moved to New York City at age eighteen. After studying nursing she worked in the emergency room in Bellevue Hospital.Having always had a heart for hurting children she adopted four sisters. Through her writings she hopes to be able to make a difference to hurting children everywhere by giving a voice to their struggles.

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While many people don’t think about it in this respect, it really does play a huge role in how happy you are while you work, and consequently what your level of productivity is.

There are many little things that you can do to make sure that you are being respectful of your co-workers, but I’m just going to list a few that I think are some of the more common points of contention at the office.

And the candidates are:

• Personal phone calls – This can potentially cause massive problems at your office. While making personal calls at work is often necessary, that doesn’t mean that you should be on the phone constantly with your girlfriend/boyfriend, or the neighbor who lives across the street. This kind of behavior is distracting to your peers as well as frowned upon by your supervisor, who will no doubt catch you in the act. Also, make sure that when you’re on the phone, you are cognizant of who is around you. Repeating a dirty joke loudly over the phone is inappropriate and might offend someone. This is especially true in today’s workplace where we work in a very open environment (read: cubicles). If not managed, these kinds of incidents can even cost you your job. My office has separate booths where private phone calls can be made, I recommend that you take advantage of such amenities, or even go outside or an unpopulated area to make a longer or more private call.
• Office Roaming – We all need to take a five minute break every once and awhile to stretch our legs and clear our heads. However, you should be careful about where you take this break. If you go over to your buddies cube and start talking about the NCAA bracket, make sure you are aware of who is around you. Personal conversations can be very distracting to the person working next to you. This is related to the Personal Phone Calls topic above, as it can cause the same kinds of problems. If you need to roam, take a walk to the water cooler, or maybe grab a cup of coffee at the Starbucks across the street. The key things to remember are to always be cognizant of who is around you and how much time you are taking on these breaks. If you’re never around, that can mean nothing but bad things for you.
• Clean Work Area – This is true not only for people who share a work area (such as a double cube), but also for people who have a single work area (such as a desk) and share some common areas with their co-workers. If you are putting together a bunch of binders, and have materials all over the place, make sure to clean up after you’re done. In the case of a shared desk, try to keep your materials (such as papers, folders, etc) on your side and in an orderly fashion. This is good because it makes it easier for other people to work, more often than not converses and organizes group supplies (see missing pens), and also makes your office look better if your clients just happen to stop by.

The above are just some of the ways to show courtesy to your co-workers, and they really aren’t that hard to implement as part of your regular work routine. In summary, some easy tips to remember are: always be cognizant of who is around you, try to contain your water cooler runs to a reasonable amount, and if you can possibly help it organize your desk into something resembling “clean”. Additionally, try to look for other things at your workplace that you can do to make it that much better for everyone else, I promise they will all appreciate it.

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And nothing seems more difficult to productively address, until now.

According to Dan Dana, Ph.D., mediation consultant and principal of the Mediation Training Institute, “The vast majority – 99.999 percent or more of interpersonal conflicts that occur in the workplace — will be dealt with in the workplace, for better or worse. They’re not going to be referred to a mediation expert and they don’t need to be.”

These conflicts can also be carried to the dinner table when they involve family members in a family or privately-owned business, unfortunately affecting every aspect of peoples’ lives.

And yet we struggle on – either unwilling or unable to get a grip on the situation, have a meaningful dialogue, or do anything about it.

What we learned during our interview with Dr. Dana was that using conflict resolution techniques Dan has created and tweaked over the past thirty or so years, we can actually defuse major problems before they build to a point of no return and become angry, heated exchanges. During our telephone call with Dan we were taught that the most prevalent situations – two people in an interdependent situation (co-workers, partners, husbands & wives) that a simple four step process is all that’s required.

The process also works when a third party, such as a supervisor or manager, is part of the discussion.

And most importantly, when everyone in the organization embraces these principles – an atmosphere free of conflict emerges. The best possible situation.

Listen to the streaming audio recording of our interview so you can learn how to resolve conflicts through a series of simple steps that will help participants feel positive about the outcome. Listen to Dan’s valuable and practical tips that you can immediately implement in both your business and home life.

Dan Dana’s discussion is part of a monthly series of insightful interviews sponsored by Strategic Conversations co-creator, Henry Barbey.

Strategic Conversations is an interpersonal communication skill process designed to produce valuable, clear and meaningful conversations in your professional and personal interactions. Its application is wide-ranging, from business meetings and group process, to sensitive professional conversations, and highly charged emotional encounters.

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Well, lawsuits and litigation have their appropriate place and function in our society, but in some instances, such as preserving on-going relationships, suing someone is like trying to remove a fly from a person’s head with a hatchet. I am often asked what are the benefits of resolving a dispute through mediation versus traditional litigation.

Here is a list of benefits that mediation can provide.

It’s A Reality Check. Individuals, business, and organizations often use the tactic of playing deaf when you have a complaint, hoping that you will lose interest over time and go away. Mediation is the bridge between direct negotiation and the legal system. It lets the other side know that you are serious and that you want them to come voluntarily to the negotiating table while they still have a chance. By asking them to attend mediation, you are building them a golden bridge towards agreement and all they have to do is choose to walk across.

It’s Safe. The legal system awards unfair and aggressive tactics, making the playing field unequal. In mediation, you are in complete control throughout the process. The mediator will not permit any unfair tactics, so the playing filed is equalized. Mediation is voluntary, so you always reserve the right to proceed with litigation if you want.

It’s Affordable. Hiring an attorney can cost thousands of dollars for even a simple case, without a firm guarantee of proper resolution. Mediation provides an affordable alternative to costly litigation.

It’s Fast. Lawsuits can take years off your life in waster time, frustration, money, and emotional pain. Mediation usually takes only a fraction of the time that the legal system takes.

It’s Confidential. Cases handled in court are typically open to the public, so anyone can listen in on your private life. Confidentially in a mediation is protected by law, so you can resolve your dispute with privacy and with dignity.

It’s Empowering. Traditional litigation is hostile, adversarial, and aggressive. It focuses on assigning blame and punishment. Mediation doesn’t assign blame or punishment—it seeks to invent solution to a mutual problem through cooperative problem-solving.

It’s Emotionally Healthy. The legal system rarely takes the psychological or emotional factors of either party into account. Litigation is cold, hard, and uncaring. Both parties are instructed not to talk to each other and neither side gets to voice their concerns. Mediation uses the psychological power of empathy to create mutual understanding between parties to address concerns, promote emotional healing, and preserve ongoing relationships.

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Step one: Assess the situation. Ask yourself three key questions

1. Is there a real issue here? Or am I making a big deal over nothing? Could I be misinterpreting or overreacting to the situation?
2. What’s the issue? Sometimes the overt disagreement is not the same as the underlying problem. Dig deep enough to discover the true issue.
3. Is it worth pursuing? Is this a one-time situation or a chronic problem? Is it disruptive to my work or merely annoying? Maybe I should simply let it go.

Let’s use a real-world example to bring this concept to life. Several years ago, I was sitting in my parked car in the lot of a local shopping mall. I happened to have a sleeping child in the back seat. (For those of you with children or grandchildren, you know the sage advice: Never wake a sleeping baby!) As I waited for my daughter to finish her nap, I suddenly heard and felt a scraping across the passenger side of my car. A station wagon had pulled into the spot next to mine – and taken a line of paint off the entire side of my car in the process. For some undisclosed reason, the driver of the car refused my request to write down her insurance information. When I walked to the front of her vehicle to see her license plate, she stretched her arms across front of the car in order to block my view. Strange, I know, but true.

So, let’s assess the situation.

1. Is there a real issue here? Yes, without a doubt. This is not a case of me overreacting or making something out of nothing.

2. What’s the issue? Someone has damaged my property and refused to take responsibility for it.

3. Is it worth pursuing? Yes, absolutely. I need the other driver’s information so that she or her insurance company can cover the cost of repairing my vehicle.

Step two: Make a choice. How can you best handle the problem? Possibilities include:

1. Let it go. Maybe it’s not a big deal after all. Perhaps it’s minor in the context of your overall relationship with the other party. Or hey, maybe the other guy was right after all.

2. Work it out. Talk to the other person. Get her side of the story. Be receptive and respectful. Look for areas of agreement and seek out a reasonable compromise.

3. Enlist the help of a third party. This is the right approach when you’ve been unsuccessful in your efforts to work it out with the other party and you aren’t willing to simply let it go. In this circumstance, you may need to involve someone with the authority to mandate a solution.

In the incident described above, I ultimately chose to enlist the help of my local police department. I wasn’t willing to let it go, couldn’t work it out directly with the other driver and needed the assistance of someone with the authority to mandate a solution. A report was filed, my car got repaired and the damages were paid by the other driver’s insurance company. Conflict resolved.

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Well when it comes to managing workplace conflict being lucky is all we often have going for us. What if our luck runs out?

Let’s say that everything seems OK, no confrontations and no harsh words so we assume everyone is happy and working at optimum effectiveness. So, using the time honored tradition of “letting sleeping dogs lie” you just go on your merry way.

Since the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” rule is being applied the last thing you want to do is engage your managers and employees in honest communications. And you sure don’t want to try to institute a conflict resolution and management strategy. Hey, why rock the boat – things are fine the way they are.

However, every company has a conflict management strategy in place, on purpose of by default. In the default program you just assume that when there is no smoke there is no fire. This could be the death of your company and your happy home.

Here are three business killing problems that are the result of this unseen quiet conflict.

First are the costs associated with a gradual lowering of productivity and motivation. Rather than coming back from their car and opening the store when someone swings into the parking lot just after closing, they pretend they don’t see them and drive away – leaving the customer (or now ex-customer) fuming in the parking lot. Instead of coming in early to meet a customer, skipping lunch so a package can be ready when the UPS driver makes his pick up, or volunteering to work after closing on the month end report. Subtle, “it’s not my job” feeling begin to spread around the business. What is the cost of this to you, to them, your customers, etc.? How can the trend be reversed?

Second is the real money out of your pocket costs associated with employee theft, damage, or even vandalism. Someone leaves the keys in the back door “accidentally” and a bunch of kids trash the place. One of your “trusted” employees leaves a truck in gear when they get out to check how close it is to the building, and it crashes into a customer’s car in the parking lot. Or someone “carelessly” mislabels an entire shipment that must be replaced and overnighted to the customer at great expense. i think you get the point. Each of these examples could have been an accident or not. Each of them took money right out of your pocket.

Finally the worst possible scenario – decisions made by silently disgruntled managers. You may never know the actual cost. You trusted them to use their best judgement. You looked to them to investigate alternatives. You counted on them to put the company first. And if they didn’t you won’t know which decisions were flawed intentionally, even after the fact. Decisions that drastically impact performance and profitability are often so buried in the labyrinth of actions that make up the steps leading to the final decision – the one you signed off on, that you’ll never know it.

So, what can you do?

Well you could buy a book, I know a couple of really good ones. You could do nothing, hope for the best and be willing to live with the results you’re achieving until something boils over so you can confront it. Or you can begin a campaign of communication between yourself and your managers and employees.

In my experience this simple, yet often difficult process is the first step. About 100% of the problems we’ve seen in the workplace are the result of assumptions and expectations about the present and future of the individual – based on mixed messages and untested assumptions arising from those mixed messages.

Lewis Carroll, in “Alice in Wonderland” said it perfectly, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” It makes me wonder if he ever worked in the family business.

Open communications up and down the chain clear the air, establish real expectations and have the result of getting everybody on board.

The second step in the process is to get outside help, not advice – help from your peers. Other people like you in situations like yours and in your industry are the folks perfectly positioned to be a sounding board and an advocate. These peers will help you and you them as you all deal with the issues that will make a huge difference in your future.

So, just because everybody seems happy, doesn’t mean there is no hidden deadly conflict brewing.

Wayne Messick, Family Business Consultant and Peer Group Facilitator, is the publisher of http://www.iBizresources.com If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our web site. If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential, here are the strategies we are using to generate 3/4 of our new business.

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David’s dilemma made me think of Jennifer, who worked for two bosses, Blue and Green. Blue would give her an assignment to be completed by noon. Green would call five minutes later with another assignment – you guessed it – to be completed by lunchtime. Jennifer was stressed and frazzled all day long. We helped her negotiate with her internal customers – her management team – to set up a service delivery schedule that would be fair to everyone.

Whether your customers are internal or external, the key is to design consistent policies to avoid conflict. Here are some suggestions that worked for my clients.

1. Train your customers from the get-go.

Clients typically are nice people who have no clue about what it takes to deliver your service. For example, one client sent me a project, along with a ten-page single-spaced set of “notes.” When I called with a question, she asked, “Can’t you just read the notes?” I explained that I might spend an hour searching for the answer to my question — and I would have to charge accordingly. Sometimes clients will pay the fee as long as they get to remove themselves from the fray – but sometimes they’ll prefer to become more involved. It’s up to you to give them that choice.

2. Develop a conflict resolution plan before you need it.

As you face conflicting demands, develop a system so you won’t have to play referee every day. You can insist on 24 hours notice, command extra charges for rush jobs, or adhere strictly to first come, first served rules.

Working for a company? Get everyone to agree on a rule for setting priorities. Match your communication style to your organization’s culture. If nobody wants to negotiate, or if you’re working late on everybody’s projects (while the folks who assigned those projects left hours ago), your challenge becomes, “how to deal with unreasonable bosses.”

3. Design your promises ahead of time.

When a client’s on the phone, it’s so tempting to say, “You only want to pay X dollars? No problem.” Or you invite everyone in a class to send questions, which you promise to answer within 24 hours.

Off the phone, you realize you’ve just committed to an hourly rate that’s a fraction of your normal fee. (We’ve all done this at least once.) Either you deliver a half-baked solution or you put in lots of unpaid overtime. And either way, you’ll find yourself resenting the client and wondering why you got into this business in the first place.

Lessons learned: Conflicting demands? You’re not facing a time management challenge. You’re looking for a new strategy — a way to mesh your preferred working style with the needs of your clients – and a set of policies to protect you from your own generosity.

About The Author

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, who helps midlife professionals ceate their own mid-career makeovers. Your Next Move Ezine: Read one each week and watch your choices grow!
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http://www.cathygoodwin.com
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Contact: mailto:cathy@cathygoodwin.com

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