Anger and Contentment

"The man being interviewed by CNN was a CEO of a major conglomerate. He works endlessly and thrives on pressure. The interviewer asked, 'What makes you run?' He said, 'I grew up hearing from my father that I would never amount to anything. I've done this to prove the [blankety-blank] wrong.' His anger propelled him to the top and kept him going.

"In his book, Healing Grace, David Seamands said, 'I have yet to counsel a performance-based and perfectionistic Christian who was not at heart an angry person.' I agree. I have met many perfectionists who either do not recognize or admit to being angry. Somewhere in their experience they were taught that the expression of anger was wrong or dangerous. So they swallowed anger--and became performers to overcome it, hoping that they would finally gain the approval they desired so badly."

adapted from: Time Out. Daily Devotions for Workaholics by Gary E. Hurst, Mike Kachura, and Larry D. Sides, February 10

Conflict Causes

Some things that cause conflict:

1. Scarce Resources
2. Complexity
3. Unresolved grief
4. Getting too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired
5. Obeying God (Doing what God wants you to do is not always popular.)

Give peace a chance. Hire a good mediator!

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The Great Debaters

A great movie, by the way!

“There is further evidence that conflict leads to better and more innovative decisions, as well as increased group productivity. It was demonstrated that among established groups, performance tended to improve more when there was conflict among members than when there was fairly close agreement. The investigators observed that when groups analyzed decisions that had been made by the individual members of that group, the average improvement among the high-conflict groups was seventy-three percent greater than that of those groups characterized by low-conflict conditions. (Hall, J. and M.S. Williams. A Comparison of Decision-Making Performances in Established and Ad-Hoc Groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Feb. 1966, p. 217) Other researchers have found similar results: Groups composed of members with different interests tend to produce higher quality solutions to a variety of problems than do homogeneous groups. (Hoffman, R.L. Homogeneith of Member Personality and Its Effect on Group Problem Solving. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Jan. 1959, pp. 27-32; Hoffman, R.L. and N.R.F. Maier. Quality and Acceptance of Problem Solutions by Members of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Groups. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Mar. 1961, pp. 401-407) The preceding findings suggest that conflict in the group might be an indication of strength rather than, in the traditional view, of weakness.” (176)
- Robbins, Stephen P. 1997. Essentials of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

"Conflict has the marvelous effect of keeping me from becoming proud, thinking I don't need God. I'm reminded in these situations where my strength comes from--Jehovah Jireh."
- Henry, Jim, "Character Forged from Conflict," Leadership. Spring, 1998. p. 26

"Conflict needs to be mined for its nugget of truth. My ministry has been positively shaped much more by the hundreds of criticisms I've received than it has by a thousand compliments"
- Ficken, Jock E., "Shielding Your Heart from Strife," Leadership. Spring, 1998. p. 29.