General Ideas

One way of seeing a fight / argument is two people expressing with neither person listening.

What to do when fighting/arguing starts ?

Sections

- One way to see verbal fighting / arguing

- Expression and Hearing:

- Group Changing

- Talking in terms of “we” with proposals

- Balance

-------One way of seeing a fight / argument

Is two people expressing with neither person listening.

------ Expression and Hearing:

Expression and hearing are equally important. If there is talk without being heard, nothing gets worked out. If there is no talking, nothing gets worked out.

If there is allot of talk and nothing is getting solved, intentionally take turns expressing and listening.

A 5 minute conversation in which people hear each other is far more effective at enjoying sharing and getting things done than 1 hour of talking in which no one hears each other.

I believe when a person experiences being heard, often this leads to more expression.

----- Group Changing

A group is a collective of individuals. If the individuals are willing to change, the group changes. If individuals are unwilling to change, the group stays the same. Often the key determining factor for group change is critical mass. Are they enough individuals in the group willing to change ?

---- Talking in terms of “we” with proposals

I was at a house meeting. Someone proposed we buy a Christmas tree for the living room. Everyone said great. Someone asked, who is willing to get the tree, put the tree in the living room, maintain and dispose of the tree ? No one said yes. We loved the idea but no individual was willing to take action to get it done.

Getting people to do things they don’t want to because we passed the proposal, creates many problems.

Having these in the proposal helps things go more smoothly

Who – name the people who will take the actions

What – what are they doing.

When – if timing is important

Which community resources are involved or is someone using personal resources

---- Balance

Running a house takes balancing getting things done and interpersonal relationships. If you only work on interpersonal relationships and ignore decisions, then electricity might be turned off, maybe there will be no food, maybe you get evicted. If you only work on getting things done, then there is to much fighting and or power struggling and or everyone doing their own thing, results in things not getting done.

The need for efficiency and effectiveness in meetings and decision making could become as important as the need for connection around issues that have deadlines with negative consequences. It may not be practical to work out all of the interpersonal issues among everyone before making a decision. In such a situation here are some things to consider.

- What do we have in common around the issue, instead of our entire relationship.

- Make proposals that are short in duration, have an end time. The shorter the duration, the more likely you can find something that works for all or most people. An example is do we raise the monthly utility expenses by $25 a month. What if the increase ends in two months, unless another proposal is passed. So, if no agreement is reached, the monthly cost returns to what it was. This could enable the bills to get paid for the next 2 months, while a long term proposal is worked out.

- Treat proposal as a temporary experiment, include an end date to experiment and what does group return to after experiment ends

Another factor for getting things done is evaluating are we succeeding or not in our goal. This is where developing ways to give feedback, in terms of behavior and goal met/unmet is critical. A healthy feedback system allows for “dynamic steering”. The group can adjust as it goes along, instead of trying to figure out every detail ahead of time, or being stuck with a plan that isn’t working.