Ways to Avoid Conflicts Continued...

Previously, I’ve discussed transcribing oral understandings, sharing “bad news” early and misrepresentations. The hint I will share today deal with misperceptions.

Without being too technical, perception is understood as occurring in several steps beginning with sensation. It’s easy to recognize that we vary greatly even in our sight and hearing ranges. Some of us don’t have the hearing ability we once had, for example. The next step is selection or only attending to some stimuli. In a busy airport we might notice an announcement about our flight number while others around us wouldn’t pay attention to it.

Next is organization of how we attribute meaning to perceptions by how we group them with other perceptions. For example, if shown pictures of a cow, a chicken and grass, which two would you group together? Some would group the cow and chicken together as animals; others would group the cow and grass together because cows eat grass. So some perceive the cow first of all as an animal; others as a member of the group of “grass eaters.”

But it is the final step in the perception process that leads us to conflict. That step is interpretation or attaching meaning to the perception. For example, is a horse an animal to be raised for work, sport, recreation and valued as such or is a horse an animal raised to be eaten by humans. Those who value horses as work and sport animals have some pretty strong feelings about those who eat horse meat.

I once mediated a “neighbor vs. neighbor” dispute in an upscale mountain community. One of the neighbors on her daily jogs frequently passed by her neighbor’s house when he had his garage door open. On display and easily seen from the street was a Nazi flag. One day she confronted her neighbor demanding he take down and destroy the flag. He refused and they got into a heated conflict. Police were called who referred the parties to mediation.

In mediation the woman told her story. Her grandparents had been Nazi camp prisoners and, to her, the flag represented the horrors of the extermination camps. The very display of the flag, to her, was not only disrespectful but criminal.

I asked her neighbor if he wished to respond. He first apologized if the flag made his neighbor uncomfortable. He went on to explain that that flag had been brought back from World War II by his grandfather who had fought and been wounded on Normandy. To him, the flag brought feelings of pride for what his grandfather had accomplished in bringing down Nazi Germany. 

They both had very different interpretations or meaning of the flag. Their rather intense fight had been over those interpretations and had led to heated words, threats and police intervention. In mediation they were able to share those interpretations and learn that they shared important values. In short order they were able to put the dispute behind them and work out a mutually agreeable solution.

As a mediator I often find myself encouraging people to consider how others might have different perceptions to their own and, just possibly like in this example, those alternative perceptions are understandable and valid.