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A short piece about disputes
As the good book * says
Like the man who seizes a passing dog by the ears is he who meddles in a quarrel not his own
In other words, when others are in dispute, it is best not to assume that they need help in sorting out the subject of the dispute.
In fact, the problem with disputes in relationships is that they are never about what the people in dispute think the dispute is about.
It’s a sad fact that so few people have any knowledge or understanding of psychology and so are unaware that disputes—power struggles—are an inevitable part of all relationships.
People would have a dispute about the price of fish if there wasn’t anything else to dispute over.
Power struggles occur when the people in a relationship make their anxieties that their needs in the relationship aren’t going to met more important than the relationship (with all the potential it contains) itself.
This is as applicable in a relationship between two directors, or between a manager and a team member, or a business and its customers, as it is between two people in a marriage.
The psychology of relationships which has been developed by studying personal relationships is 100% applicable to business relationships: all relationships are relationships between two people, or groups of people.
What we need to learn is how to get through the dispute stage of the relationship, not to assume that the dispute signals the end of the relationship.
It’s not the dispute that needs resolving; it is the relationship that needs resolving.
(Of course, the subject of the dispute may also need resolution but it is a problem, not the problem.)
The way through is for both parties to commit to the relationship.
Related material:
> Stages of a business relationship
* Proverbs, 26:17. I have chosen the wording used in the New American Bible, as it is the version used by Michael Torke in his Book of Proverbs, and I bet he chose it because it scans well.
by Jeremy Marchant . © Jeremy Marchant Limited . added 24 april 2015 . image: Free images
