Confront before you conflict.  Only way to avoid conflict is to confront. As human beings we are different and hence,  conflict is inevitable.

A forest can exist because the trees learn to confront. Trees, as they grow up, realize that if they do not learn to confront essentially their air space, they cannot exist. There are trees which grow within 6-12 inches from each other when they are seedlings. Only one gets beyond the others, and the little ones eventually die in the shadow of the big one. Then, the seedling 12 feet away from this one, will eventually come into space where they have to give in to each other. The forest can appease this whole series of confrontations happening.

And that is essentially what we need to do—learn from nature. Confront before you conflict. And you have to confront early, so that even when the tiny little branches from two opposing trees come close to each other, the saplings touch each other, they recognize each otherand that is a confrontation.

 
Confrontation is never personal, conflict is always personal.

Confront issues.

One doesn’t confront the person. One is in conflict with the person.

It is not about addressing you. One can confront on one’s methodology, one’s philosophy, one’s psychology or any of this without confronting the person. A confrontation should be as beneficial to the confrontee as it is to the confronter. If the issue to you is relevant to you as a learning process, you don’t care where you learn it from.

It is like learning a language. You want to say it right, and in that process if you have someone saying to you…”No, that is wrong. You have to say dosti and not doste, the t is pronounced this way.” Are you insulted by that? It will be foolish of you to be insulted by that. You have to recognize that you do want to say it right, your goal is to say it right. The more you use the language the more people can correct you.

In confrontation it is always about the issue. You present your issue and say: “Do you think this is right?” Then you must be open to the fact that it could be wrong. But not to speak up and confront will always lead to conflict. The more you keep you keep quiet, the longer the time bomb is ticking.

But, you have to do your homework. Otherwise you will find that in every confrontation, you are proved wrong. You basically sit back and wonder – ‘why is it that I am always wrong?’  If you don’t do your homework, naturally every confrontation is a battle you are losing. That is the first aspect in the art of learning.

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