Day Eight: Practice Personal Courage to Participate In and Resolve Conflicts

Oooohhhh, this one's a biggie. And one I would have to admit I'm not very good at. Conflict is one of those things that is so easy to create yet so hard to destroy. When I'm faced with conflict of any kind, I get hot and flushed and my heart starts racing. I also tend to cry. I know, not a good situation. There's no crying in academia.

However, how do you get anything done without ruffling a few feathers? At least that's what I tell myself. Here's my recent experience with conflict. I was put in the position of doing a child abuse evaluation for which I felt woefully unprepared and completely overwhelmed. I've had no specific training in forensic pediatrics and although I can handle straightforward suspicions of abuse, I didn't feel equipped to deal with a complex trauma patient. Yet, there I was on a Saturday night, listed as the person on call for child abuse. After handling the consult, I wrote an honest, professional email detailing the issues I found and ways to improve them. Little did I know that the email would activate a chain of events leading to the removal of our hospitalist division from the child abuse call pool. This was a victory for our group, many of whom felt uncomfortable with our presence in the call pool without any training. However, when one group pulls out of call, another group has to pick up the calls. The woman who is now handling all the calls that we previously handled stopped by my office to "chat" after the fact. Even though I felt justified in speaking out the way I did and satisfied that my actions actually resulted in positive results, when she left my office I still felt a sense of fear and shame that I might have made someone else "mad" at me. It was a disquieting feeling and stayed with me for days.

I wish I could let go of that sense of needing everyone to like me and not making anyone else even remotely unhappy. Because not everyone is going to like me. One of my favorite quotes is "What people think of you is none of your business." I remind myself of that when I'm feeling paranoid that I'm ruffling too many feathers. Engaging in productive conflict is the only way you can be successful in reaching your goals both in your career and personal life. The goal is not to eliminate conflict, but to learn to manage it constructively (and without crying!) while maintaining your integrity and your relationships with others.