Thank you for everyone who visited last week for the Long and Short Review Wednesday Blog Hop. This week our topic is our weaknesses.
My greatest weakness, which is common among women, is that I prefer to avoid conflict. I hope that something difficult will just go away if I ignore it long enough. I suppose the oddest thing about this being my greatest weakness is that I am action oriented. I’m really good at getting things done. In fact, I’m in my groove when deadlines are tight, problems emerge and we have to move forward, solving problems until we get to the deadline. I am head driven–rational, focused, practical, sensible, willing to challenge any intellectual idea or assumption. In other words, I tend to tackle most things head on.
Until the things that don’t work are people things – where you have to have those thorny, difficult conversations where you know defensiveness will show up, feelings dominate rational thinking, and we can’t always understand the lens or back stories that underpin people’s motivations in the situation. Then I will put it off, when the best thing to do is to tackle it head on. Its not procrastination but an ever present hope it will get solved without the difficult parts. But it never does. So with Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen, (the team that brought us Getting to Yes) by my side, I soldier on. Maybe tomorrow.
Thanks for dropping by. Please visit all the other bloggers participating on the blog hop.
In person I tend to avoid confrontation, but when I’m on my fb pager or blog I tend to speak my mind.
Social media is the 21st century Dutch courage. It also allows folks to be nastier than they might in person. Like most tech, its a double edged sword.
That does seem to be a common issue, though in general I think that wanting to get along is a good instinct. Still a lot of those situations would be so much easier if people would more of an effort not to be jerks!
I agree that wanting to get a long is a good instinct. The difficulty is knowing when to dig into that, and when you have to take on the difficulty. Lots of people are jerks, but I try really hard (don’t always succeed) in trying not to judge. Life is hard, and we don’t know what other folks are carrying.
I don’t love conflict, but I don’t avoid it either… though I think I’m in the minority here, judging from many of the posts!
Dealing with conflict is a good skill to have. I envy you that.
We have very similar weaknesses! You’re not alone.
My post: http://lydiaschoch.com/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge-my-greatest-weakness/
Thanks, Lydia. Appreciate it.
You aren’t alone… I’m very nonconfrontational myself… thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for visiting.
I loathe confrontation too. I think the toughest part is knowing when you should do it. Especially on online based communication, when it’s hard to judge true intentions or express yourself clearly.
You are so right. On-line adds yet another dimension to an already difficult thing to do.
I’m not good with conflict, either. I tend to talk too much trying to a- work out the problem on my own and b-fill the silence void. I’m not good at coming up with the right thing to say in the moment when there’s a conflict, either. I wish I could. Good post.
I do the talk-too-much response as well. As if by saying things over and over again, I’ll eventually figure out what to say. But I never do.
I’ll admit it, there’s a part of me that loves conflict. After so many years of dealing with the public, I’ve had plenty of it, too. I’ve learned there are less aggressive ways to handle it, though.
I envy that. Its a good set of skills to have.
I definitely feel this! I’ve gotten better at standing my ground as I’ve gotten older but I still get the nervous sweats if I have to have an uncomfortable convo with someone.