One of the facts of life about being a manager is that you get to observe the behavior of lots of people. Not spying, just noticing what goes on around you. Conflict is inevitable in a community association. My interest is in observing how different people react to conflict.
Living in a condominium project means that people live closer together than they do in single-family detached housing. Diverse individuals living in relatively close proximity can create the perfect atmosphere for conflict unless everyone tries to work together. Everyone has expectations about almost everything in their lives. We have expectations about how our family, friends, and neighbors should behave. When they don’t act in the manner expected, people often react by falling into a state of anger. Expectations aren’t limited just to people we know, but also extend to most of those with whom we come into contact or depend upon. We have an expectation that our leaders should make decisions that we believe to be right.
Road rage is often the result of failure to meet expectations. We expect the drivers of other vehicles to obey the rules of the road. Their failure to meet those expectations causes some people react with anger. Many times, what we expect of others is a reflection of what we expect of ourselves.
For most people, anger is not an emotion that feels good. It’s a negative emotion that disrupts your daily flow and brings out the worst parts of your personality. Anger generally makes people more aggressive and limits how they think about and treat others. It is usually directed outward towards someone else and creates distance between people. You isolate the party to whom your anger is directed, but, more importantly, you isolate yourself. Anger becomes a prison that keeps people from making better choices that reflect understanding, compassion, and caring. Those are attributes that contribute to your own happiness and the happiness of those around you.
One way to avoid anger is to transform your habit of expectations. That doesn’t mean that you allow people to walk all over you. It means you change what you expect of others. You understand that people can’t read each other’s mind, and their reasons for doing what they do usually have nothing to do with you.
Your neighbor didn’t take your assigned parking spot to make you angry; she did so because she couldn’t carry her groceries the longer distance from her own parking spot. Your neighbor didn’t let his dog poop on the lawn in front of your unit to make you angry; he did so because he hasn’t read or understood your Association’s rules. Changing your expectations to better understand other people’s positions will do a lot to disarm your anger.
If your neighbor behaves in a manner that fails to meet your expectations and makes you angry, the only way you are going to resolve the problem is by choosing to make an honest effort to remedy the situation “together” with your neighbor, not by creating an even wider distance between yourself and them through anger. Effective communication can only occur when there is a process of two-way listening. Anger prevents people from honestly listening to anything but your anger. Transforming your expectations reduces your opportunities to get angry, and puts you in a position to make better choices about how you relate to the people around you - and in turn, how they relate to you. When people work together, anything is possible!
One of the facts of life about being a manager is that you get to observe the behavior of lots of people. Not spying, just noticing what goes on around you. Conflict is inevitable in a community association. My interest is in observing how different people react to conflict.
Living in a condominium project means that people live closer together than they do in single-family detached housing. Diverse individuals living in relatively close proximity can create the perfect atmosphere for conflict unless everyone tries to work together. Everyone has expectations about almost everything in their lives. We have expectations about how our family, friends, and neighbors should behave. When they don’t act in the manner expected, people often react by falling into a state of anger. Expectations aren’t limited just to people we know, but also extend to most of those with whom we come into contact or depend upon. We have an expectation that our leaders should make decisions that we believe to be right.
Road rage is often the result of failure to meet expectations. We expect the drivers of other vehicles to obey the rules of the road. Their failure to meet those expectations causes some people react with anger. Many times, what we expect of others is a reflection of what we expect of ourselves.
For most people, anger is not an emotion that feels good. It’s a negative emotion that disrupts your daily flow and brings out the worst parts of your personality. Anger generally makes people more aggressive and limits how they think about and treat others. It is usually directed outward towards someone else and creates distance between people. You isolate the party to whom your anger is directed, but, more importantly, you isolate yourself. Anger becomes a prison that keeps people from making better choices that reflect understanding, compassion, and caring. Those are attributes that contribute to your own happiness and the happiness of those around you.
One way to avoid anger is to transform your habit of expectations. That doesn’t mean that you allow people to walk all over you. It means you change what you expect of others. You understand that people can’t read each other’s mind, and their reasons for doing what they do usually have nothing to do with you.
Your neighbor didn’t take your assigned parking spot to make you angry; she did so because she couldn’t carry her groceries the longer distance from her own parking spot. Your neighbor didn’t let his dog poop on the lawn in front of your unit to make you angry; he did so because he hasn’t read or understood your Association’s rules. Changing your expectations to better understand other people’s positions will do a lot to disarm your anger.
If your neighbor behaves in a manner that fails to meet your expectations and makes you angry, the only way you are going to resolve the problem is by choosing to make an honest effort to remedy the situation “together” with your neighbor, not by creating an even wider distance between yourself and them through anger. Effective communication can only occur when there is a process of two-way listening. Anger prevents people from honestly listening to anything but your anger. Transforming your expectations reduces your opportunities to get angry, and puts you in a position to make better choices about how you relate to the people around you - and in turn, how they relate to you. When people work together, anything is possible!
