I've written before about my natural aversion to conflict. But I think what's really going on is different. I deal pretty well with conflict when I'm faced with it. My problem is that I imagine there will be conflict, and then tell stories to myself about how it will unfold, and then second guess taking the actions that I imagine will lead to the conflict.
Such a thing came up today. I had decided to reassign one of my division's people to a new supervisor. I was fully confident that this was a good move for the division and for the employee. And, I imagined that the current supervisor would be upset at the move. Because of my assumption about how they would react, I spent some time over the past couple of days running my imagined dialog and their reaction, and my response to this imagined reaction, over in my mind.
Not nearly to the extent that I would have a few years ago, but still enough to be distracting and make me think about what I was doing.
I went to work this morning, with a meeting scheduled to discuss the issue. It had occurred to me that I was responsible for my decision, and it wasn't my place to be responsible for the supervisor's reaction, but I still carried a little bit of anticipatory anxiety into the meeting.
I stated my intention clearly and without apology, and the reaction I got was, 'that makes sense, I'm OK with it.'
So, the conflict that I imagined was only that - and whatever time and energy I spent preparing for it was for naught. I know that conflict will occur - perhaps the reaction would have been negative - but I learned that the place for me to invest my energy is in making choices that I truly believe in, and accepting that the other affected parties are responsible for their reaction. I do not make their choices, and there is no point in my thinking that I know what they will be.
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