We all develop survival responses in threatening situations.
—Norman Shawchuck and Bob Moeller
The women’s ministries board was meeting, and you could cut the tension with a spatula.
“If the church won’t provide baby-sitters for the Friday Bible study, I won’t be coming back,” Susan said, her voice trembling with anger. “I don’t need to spend my Friday mornings in a nursery, changing diapers and holding crying babies, when I can do that at home. I come here for a break, not more work. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Other young mothers besides me are planning to quit the Bible study unless the church begins providing paid child care.”
“Susan,” said Helen, an older woman on the board, “I think I understand why some of the older women oppose paying baby-sitters. They’re concerned about the costs. When we were your age, we all took turns in the nursery. None of us expected a free ride. While I don’t necessarily agree, some feel your generation isn’t willing to make sacrifices.
“But I have an idea. Why don’t the mothers care for the nursery one week, and the other week we’ll pay for child care from the dues gathered at Bible study?”
“That’s not good enough,” Susan said firmly. “It’s fully-funded child care every Friday, or we walk.”
“I think we should drop the whole issue and plan our fall retreat,” Denise said nervously, sitting at the other end of the table. “We’re all believers, and we shouldn’t be arguing like this. Someone will get hurt.”
The group paused for a moment, then went on with the debate.
“Excuse me,” Denise whispered, “I just remembered my son forgot his lunch at home today.” She stood and hurriedly exited the room, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“I think this whole problem is my fault,” Iola said. “When I was president last year, I should have started collecting money for baby-sitting. I’ll be happy to serve in the nursery, and I’ve got a little nest egg at home that would pay sitters for the rest of the year.”
The group knew Iola, an elderly woman, a “mother” to everyone in the church, lived on a fixed income and couldn’t afford such an expense. Susan and Helen agreed that letting Iola pick up the tab wasn’t the answer.
Eunice, the pastor’s wife, was the last to speak. “There’s a way to solve this problem, but it isn’t by forcing a vote today. This isn’t a battle to be won or lost; it’s a problem to be solved. We need to reexamine the goals of the group and see if there are ways to accomplish them that will also strengthen our relationships. Resolving this may take time, but we’ll be a stronger group for it.”
Seated at the end of the linen-covered table was Alice, the current president of the women’s ministries. What should she do?
Survival instincts
These women displayed a variety of conflict management styles—from aggressive confrontation to completely passive avoidance. Most likely these women follow the same style of handling conflict elsewhere, for we all develop survival responses in threatening situations.
Corporate psychologists have labeled these responses with animal names (for the solutions they seek): sharks (“I win; you lose”), foxes (“Everyone wins a little and loses a little”), turtles (“I withdraw”), teddy bears (“I’ll lose so you can win”), and owls (“Let’s find a way for everyone to win”).
Fins in the baptistry: Sharks tend to be domineering, aggressive, and open to any solution as long as it’s the one they want. Sharks use whatever it takes to prevail: persuasion, intimidation, power plays. Sharks don’t always appear menacing and may even possess a quiet demeanor, but make no mistake—they play to win, even if others lose.
Susan probably learned early in life that sharklike aggressiveness helped her survive threatening situations, and she carried that into adulthood. Though she lacked gray skin and three rows of teeth, she still approached the baby-sitting issue in Jaws-like fashion.
Her threat to lead a walkout was a classic shark tactic. Either she and her friends would get their way, or they would fold their chairs and vacate the study.
There are dangers in always giving sharks their way. When I-must-win individuals are allowed to rule the church, anger builds in others, people feel coerced, and a precarious dependency on the strong-willed individual develops.
Foxes in the vineyard: Helen was not a competitor but a compromiser. Typical of the wily fox, she hoped to slice the pie so that everyone believed they got the biggest piece.
Helen’s suggestion that they split the child care between the young mothers and paid sitters was her attempt to help everyone “win-a-little, lose-a-little.” She sincerely wanted to keep the group from splitting over the child-care issue.
Unfortunately, in the church, compromise has gotten a bad name. In some circles it’s a synonym for worldliness or moral laxity. But in organizational terms, a compromiser is defined as a person sincerely working through bargaining and conciliation to keep a group from breaking apart.
Foxes are flexible, and their primary interest is the common good. If people don’t immediately respond to their bargain, they aren’t above arm-twisting and manipulation to impose an agreement. Helen planned some behind-the-scenes negotiating to persuade both parties to accept her solution.
Sometimes a split-the-difference approach sensibly solves minor disputes. If one group likes dill pickles, and the other sweet, why not put out two dishes?
But compromise isn’t always the answer. It can leave people half-satisfied and half-committed to the solution. In that case, the problem will emerge again later in a different form.
Helen believed she was pursuing both parties’ interests. But her solution didn’t address the underlying issues of ownership and control of the Bible study. Even if others accepted her compromise, these issues would eventually reemerge.
Avoidance in a half-shell: Denise grew up in an abusive home. She now was a young mother and favored the church subsidizing child care, but she was afraid to say so. She learned as a child that when others fight, she got hurt. And if she disagreed and said so, she got hurt even more. Her response to every threatening situation was to avoid the problem at all costs. Denise had become a turtle.
Turtles are so frightened by conflict that they pull into their shell. A world without conflict is the only one they can survive in, so they flee altercation. Some actually walk out, as Denise did, while others withdraw into emotional neutrality and numbness.
Because turtles abhor conflict, they are often mistaken for peacemakers. But avoiding thorny issues simply to preserve the peace unwittingly sets up the church for major problems.
At times, avoiding conflict makes sense. Proverbs reminds us it is the glory of a person to overlook an insult. We ought to choose carefully which hills we are willing to die on. Some battles aren’t worth fighting.
But pulling into a shell as a long-term strategy for coping with serious conflict simply won’t work.
Turtles, while appearing to be peaceable and gentle souls, often are hiding great reservoirs of anger and frustration. Denise appeared calm and sedate, but inside she struggled with unresolved rage and bitterness. She never felt the freedom or confidence to confront her abusive past and carried the resentment in her soul.
Denise couldn’t accept even temporary tension to help the group reach a satisfying solution.
Cuddly and accommodating: Iola’s willingness to provide the baby-sitting herself and to blame herself for the controversy is typical of the most lovable creature in the conflict management menagerie—the teddy bear.
In a threatening situation, teddy bears readily surrender their own interests to accommodate the disagreeing party. Iola never expressed her own opinion on the child-care issue but immediately attempted to placate Susan and the young mothers.
Teddy bears will maintain peace at almost any price. They attempt to steer others away from controversial issues. They show increased personal concern for others, working to create a relaxed, easygoing, loving atmosphere.
Who could fault Iola for trying to solve the dilemma herself? Her generosity was commendable. That’s why teddy bears are often seen as super-spiritual. In sacrificial fashion, they attempt to atone for the problem in the group by bearing it themselves.
Such accommodation has an upside. Surrendering our selfish goals in pursuit of peace is often a sign of godliness and maturity. If someone wants roast beef rather than turkey served at the Christmas luncheon, though my diet won’t allow it, it’s not worth dividing the group over. I’ll bring my own lunch and microwave it.
But there’s a downside to the teddy-bear approach. Was it wrong for the young mothers to express their needs? Was it wrong for the older women to bring up their financial concerns? No. Both were expressing legitimate points of view. But Iola, like all teddy bears, believed relationships are more important than issues, and therefore any disagreement is bad.
Teddy bears unintentionally give sharks a false sense of rightness. On a personal level, though they appear cheerful and easy-going, accommodators can often struggle with inner anger over always giving in.
No one knew it, but Iola was tired of trying to keep the Friday Bible study together and planned to quit in the spring.
Spotting the collaborative owl: Eunice alone saw the baby-sitting controversy as a problem to be solved, rather than a battle to be won or lost. Her desire was to see everyone leave the table with a win-win solution.
Such collaborators “co-labor” with all parties until they arrive at a mutually satisfying solution. Their strength lies in their willingness to stay with a task or problem until it’s solved.
Collaborators see disputes as an opportunity to strengthen a group, not destroy it. Eunice wasn’t afraid of the child-care issue. She recognized it as a symptom of a generation gap in the group, an opportunity to address the larger issue of how the older and younger women would share control and ownership of the Bible study.
Eunice’s goal was not to overcome or avoid adversaries but to help them understand and appreciate each other’s needs.
Here’s how she eventually helped the group solve the dilemma.
1. Generate as much useful information as possible. Eunice arranged for a meeting of young mothers and older women. She asked the young mothers why paid child care was so important to them. As they explained their busy schedules—many had part-time jobs to help make ends meet—the older women were surprised to learn how stressful their lives were. As Susan explained how her newborn seldom slept entire nights, they could see that exhaustion, not laziness, was behind her request to be relieved of baby-sitting duties.
As the younger women heard the older ladies, several of whom were widows, explain their difficulties in living on fixed incomes, they realized most couldn’t afford higher dues on Fridays to pay for child care. They assumed it would be expensive.
Both groups learned the other brought different needs to the study. The younger women wanted a rest; the older women wanted companionship. That helped to filter misconceptions and wrong conclusions out of the discussion.
2. Help the group see where they agree. Eunice helped both sides see where they agreed and where they didn’t. Everyone agreed they benefited from the participation of both older and younger women. They all believed that sharing their struggles and praying together helped them cope with their problems. And they all agreed they didn’t want the group to split.
One major difference remained. While there was a consensus that the economic burden of child care should be distributed, the group still disagreed on how it should be done. Some continued to support the every-other-week plan, while others wanted weekly subsidized child care.
3. Bring everyone into the decision-making process and motivate them to personally commit to the final agreement. Eunice, the owl, knew that people tend to support solutions they help create, so she had the group brainstorm alternative ideas. One of the women suggested they hold a fund-raiser with the goal of raising enough money to pay for a year’s worth of baby-sitting.
They decided on a holiday boutique sale. Several older women agreed to sew quilts, which typically sold for several hundred dollars in retail shops. The added benefit of the project was companionship; they could work on them together, filling up some of the empty time during the holiday seasons when loneliness was a problem.
As for the young women, several ran home-based computer businesses and agreed to generate mailing lists and publicity for the sale. Others had talent in watercolor and pottery and agreed to sell some of their work at the boutique and donate profits to the project.
As a result the women’s ministries held the most successful fundraising event in the church’s history, and they grew closer to one another in the process.
While the millennium didn’t arrive, the shark, the fox, the turtle, the teddy bear, and the owl did learn to live with one another. The Wild Kingdom had been tamed.
Copyright © 1997
