I have been thinking about relationships this morning. Relationships between family members and co-workers tend to have a huge impact on all of us. Sometimes we are members of other groups and those relationships play big roles in our lives as well.

Whenever conflict arises -- people tend to take one of two stances. One option is to dig our heels in and be a dog in the fight (or support a dog in the fight which usually means we are a dog in the fight too). Oftentimes, there is plenty of fight in the dog in the folks who choose this route. It is usually a "win at all costs because I'm right and you're very very very wrong" approach.

Or we can seek consensus. It sounds a little wimpy to phrase it this way but I call it a "go along to get along" approach. This approach seeks a middle ground but also realizes that ultimately in life we must choose our battles carefully; not win all the battles at the cost of losing the war; and we must fully understand what the war is. Often the war is to achieve a lifelong relatively harmonious relationship but fighting dogs usually don't see this.

Thinking about these two options, then, got me to wonder which one is easier to follow.

The fighting dog approach tends to follow our instinctual survivalist humanity. The "go along to get along" approach requires restraint and holding oneself back.

You can probably guess which side of the fence I usually fall on in terms of how I approach conflict. It's not easy but I do try to err on the side of restraint, choosing battles, realizing there is ultimately a war to be won and the tactics for winning it are far different from winning every battle.

Being a "go along to get along" person in the middle of a bunch of fighting dogs is stressful. Fortunately, that is not my whole life but it has been my life at times. It puts you in constant internal conflict when you're dealing with folks whose behavior you feel is totally irrational and not leading anyplace good.

A good question to always ask oneself is "where do we want to end up at the end of this?" and figure out how you will best get there. This is a simple example but it came up at work this week where a couple of departments were squabbling over a situation with the customer, trying to decide whether to side with the customers or dig in our heels. The final outcome is still being worked out but I pointed out that there was one immediate puzzle piece that had to be taken care of. The customer ultimately had a need which was still going to have to be met even long after any dust settled from the internal disagreement. Meeting that need immediately had to be our action ... sorting out the other stuff later.

Anyway, I didn't really intend to use that as an example in this post. It is not a particularly good example of what I am writing about.

Can anyone else, though, share stories from what it's like to be on either side of the fighting dog or "go along" fence?