How to Guide a Team Through Conflict

Yesterday morning I caught the news story that the minors trapped in a Chilean mine will likely be rescued this week. It has been two months since the accident that trapped the miners more than a mile beneath the earth. They've been living in tight, extremely uncomfortable quarters ever since, while multiple attempts to rescue them have been underway. Families of the trapped men have set up camps around the rescue effort, cooking food that is sent down in small tubes through tiny shafts drilled for supplies.

If everything goes as hopes, the men will be freed this week. A small rescue vessel will be lowered so the men can be freed one at a time. There will no doubt be difficulties, and likely their rescue will take days, perhaps even weeks. And yet according to reports, the men have not been arguing and fighting about who will go first, but rather, who will go last. The news report said the men have bonded in their time together, and a brotherhood has been created amongst the workers.

It reminded me of that age-old truth in narrative, that character is only molded in conflict, and if you want your characters to bond, you have to put them through hell. While it's nice to go on a vacation to rest with friends, likely the people you will bond with most are the people you've experienced mutual hardship.

In narrative, when a protagonist or group of protagonists are overcome by conflict, the result is a tragedy. But when the protagonists overcome the conflict, the result is a comedy.

Few of us are experiencing the kind of conflict the Chilean minors are experiencing, but every family, team or community will encounter trouble. Groups that stay together while under fire will bond, and the result will be better than if the hardship were never to have befallen them.

Here are some keys for a team to survive conflict:

1. Invite God into the conflict. Structured, daily prayer will give people a sense of hope. Bring God into the conflict and trust that He is there with you

2. Commit to having patience. It's going to get tough, and nobody is going to get what they want out of the situation, so settle in and have some patience.

3. Have compassion. Some people register pain more than others, but resentment is an open door for the conflict to win. Don't resent somebody else's pain, even if you suspect they are playing the victim. Give them what they need for much longer than you might need it yourself.

4. Take some time to grieve. If there's conflict, it's likely because somebody, or something (a vision or a desire) has died. Moving on to quickly is not helpful. Give yourself a great deal of time to grieve what has been lost. Giving yourself permission to grieve will stop the voices of condemnation for feeling so weak. Weakness after a loss is part of the healing process, and so it should be associated with strength.

5. Serve one another. If it helps, go to a calendar and find a date a month or even a year out. Commit to serving everybody in need until that date. Of course we should always be servants, but pointing to a date on the calendar breaks up  a tough commitment into an actionable step, and will stop you from trying to overly control the situation, a mistake a lot of people make when times get hard.

6. Listen. Listen to everybody involved. Make a list of names if you have to, and make appointments with everybody experiencing the conflict, and simply listen to how they are feeling. Try to formulate their thoughts and repeat it back to them so they know you understand. Share your own feelings with them. Much of the pain involved in a tragedy is the feeling of being alone and not having people in your life that understand. Listening will help people not feel so alone.

7. When the grieving is done, map out a vision and process to rebuild what was lost. Give yourself permission to slowly move forward.

8. When the time is right, write down all God has developed within you because the conflict took place. You'll be amazed at His ability to redeem a tragedy and make something beautiful grow as a monument to the beautiful thing that was lost.

Have you been through a very hard season? What helped you make it through the conflict in your story?