Patrick Lencioni discusses a Catholic approach to dealing with conflict, emphasizing most of all the need for humility and the desire to learn the truth rather than to win the argument.
Transcript:
Host: John in Wilmington, North Carolina, listening on Wilmington Catholic Radio, you are on with Patrick Lencioni, what’s your question, please?
Caller: Yes, I wanted Patrick’s opinion about a strategy for dealing with conflict. And here’s what I would suggest. It’s kind of a general thought process, is that through the clash of differing opinions comes the spark of truth. And a way that I’ve dealt with, in consultation, with others when we have differences, it could be personal issues between two people, it could be, let’s say social issues in the Catholic Church where people differ in their opinions about things.
And one–the steps I would say, and I’d like your feedback on this and your thoughts and then I’ll hang up once I share these. Number one is: first identify what are the spiritual principles that various people feel are related to whatever this issue might be; number two, agree that those are relevant principles that could be taken from Scripture, they can be taken from the Magisterium, can be taken from a personal experience; and number three, consult about those after you’ve agreed on them, and then begin to deal with what the real truth is, whatever that matter might be.
And the reason I say this is that if you identify spiritual principles and can agree on them, it’s kind of taking the ego out of the picture and now you have the essence of what are the issues that relate. Maybe you’re talking about how to deal with the poor, and happen and how we deal with the poor in our community for example.
Host: Okay John, let’s let Pat take a shot at that.
Patrick: That was great, John, I mean I there’s a lot of wisdom in what you said. And so I’ll just add some things to that. I think that that’s–when we talk about building trust before we engage in conflict, it’s about getting people to be vulnerable enough, and if you’re a true Christian and a follower of Jesus you can’t be anything but. This is what humility is, it’s like “I am NOT God, and I just want to serve God,” and we have that in common.
So if you do that, and if you start with prayer, and like, when you–when a church goes to have a difficult conversation about something going on in their parish, or if two people, priests or otherwise, want to have a good theological conversation because they’re not on the same page, goodness gracious, if two bishops sat down and said “I think you might be off on this,” if they prayed hard and said, “God send us your spirit and your truth, and take away our egos, and let us do what you want,” and they’re both eagerly seeking that, well you’ve got to figure that most of the unhealthy conflict is gonna go away.
And I think two things that I would say to people is, one, think about St. Francis of Assisi, who said “Seek to understand more than to be understood,” and we’re called to do that. And if we go into these situations seeking to understand where the other person is coming from, rather than trying to win the argument, we’re much more likely to do that. And then one of my favorite prayers is the Litany of Humility, that was written by a pope years ago, I wish I can remember which one, but which is just asking God to give you the grace to let go of the desire to be considered and understood, and to overcome your fear of being…it’s just to be truly humble.
And if you–if two people can sit down and agree that they’re here to serve Jesus, they pray together, humility is at the center of this, and they want to understand one another, this is–conflict is only gonna become the pursuit of the best answer in truth. The problem is when we engage in that without trust, without humility, without prayer, and without seeking to understand.
So I think what I’m saying to you, John, is your thoughts are great, and I think it’s completely, completely about our faith, and that’s why churches should be better at making decisions than anybody because they should be calling on God to intervene for them every single time. So you’re right John, that’s my short long answer way of saying you’re right.