I was at retail store recently and got into a very short but robust conversation with someone who worked there when she discovered I was a mediator.
She told me about a friend of hers who attended a mediation but the other person in the conflict didn’t show up.
She said her friend was quite frustrated and believed that the other party was “just trying to spite” him. My new friend said she told him she didn’t think that was a good theory but she wasn’t sure about that or about what else to say.
So, firstly I validated her observation and let her know that her friend’s theory about the other person’s intentions is known as attribution error – defined as an individual’s tendency to attribute another’s actions to their character or personality. We tend to think the worst of people when their behaviours impact our own negatively.
I also shared that our intentions are hidden unless we express them and are often a complex range of intentions anyway, mutable even according to our level of hunger (ever heard of “hangry”?).
Although we don’t know what another’s intentions are unless we ask, after listening to thousands of people in conflict over the decades of my practice, I was able to tell my new friend with some confidence that a more likely and more helpful theory about why the other person didn’t show up was that the person was probably afraid… of something.
Thinking of what the other person might be afraid of can give a more constructive direction than thinking they are trying purposefully trying to spite us. That could also be true, but it’s a matter of expanding the possibilities and our preparation.
I told her that if her friend wanted to get the other person to the table, he could try to reflect on what that other person might be afraid of. If we don’t have a reason to engage in a conversation, if we don’t see any benefits for ourselves, we generally don’t participate. I also offered that he think of persisting – with love. Not persistence with force or persistence with focusing on the most negative intentions of the other person. But, persistence with love.
My new friend concluded by saying how she and her whole circle of friends are often left trying to figure out how to deal with conflict on their own – without the skills or education. She said they simply share stories of what they think might work or not.
Lived experience is powerful – her intuition told her that it might not be helpful for her friend to think only of the worst intention of the other person.
And, education also helps. She left our conversation with the courage of her convictions and new ideas like attribution error and what else to advise her friend about how to increase the chances of bringing the other person to the table.
As I left, she said: “I’m trying to remember everything you just told me!”
Now that was a satisfying conversation.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” … Nelson Mandela