Respect
Seth Godin is "the man" these days when it comes to business experts. Anyone who does business online has likely seen one of his quotes, or followed a social media link to one or his blogs or webpages. Even this "slow hedgehog" of a digital immigrant reads his work fairly frequently.
Recently I came across one of Godin's pithy blogs -- the man has truly mastered this online communications form -- that I thought spoke directly to the conflict in The United Methodist Church. With his permission, I reprint it here in its entirety. Take from it what you will.
Two questions behind every disagreement
By Seth Godin
Are we on the same team? and
What's the right path forward?
Most of time, all we talk about is the path, without having the far more important but much more difficult conversation about agendas, goals and tone.
Is this a matter of respect? Power? Do you come out ahead if I fail? Has someone undercut you? Do we both want the same thing to happen here?
The reason politics in my country is diverging so much from useful governance has nothing to do with useful conversations and insight into what the right path is. It's because defeat and power and humiliation and money have replaced "doing what works for all of us" as the driving force in politics.
If you feel disrespected, the person you disagree with is not going to be a useful partner in figuring out what the right path going forward might be. If one party (employee/customer/investor) only wins when the other party loses, what's the point of talking about anything but that?
Deal with the agenda items and the dignity problems first before you try to work out the right strategic choices.