I think most people can agree conflict is not fun, but something I have learned since being on the race is how much, in my attempts to avoid conflict, I act as a creator of false harmony.
On the race every Thursday during our team time we have feedback. The purpose of feedback is to strengthen the body by encouraging one another in what we are doing well and show each other areas where we can grow. This sounded kind of like a nightmare when I first heard about it. I pictured it as weekly confrontation and awkwardness.
I was so worried going into the first night of feedback, and I think most of my team was too. Our team leader, Olivia, could tell so she encouraged and reminded us that this is done out of love and a desire to see each other grow. We realized a lot of us have been hurt in the past by people not handling feedback well and using it as a weapon to tear us down, and that hurt has formed a fear. Even though our goal is not to hurt people during constructive feedback we talked about how it would still be uncomfortable because receiving constructive feedback feels like being exposed – even if this is a good thing it’s hard at first. Another part of feedback is that you are not supposed to defend yourself when on the receiving end of feedback (I find this part especially difficult), but I will say, I see how much this helps when giving and receiving feedback. Even when you receive feedback that you don’t think is true or you have a reason to justify whatever it is, not being able to defend yourself enables you to really listen to what the other person sees and how it makes them feel and then take it to the Lord. Our squad leader Kate put it like this: even if 99% of the feedback someone gives you is untrue, instead of fighting the 99% take the 1% to the Lord.
So after we discussed all these things and assured each other of our love for each person, we opened the floor for feedback. Week one feedback was all encouraging feedback which was awesome because we got to celebrate everything we were doing well! Also at the time I considered it a good thing that nobody had constructive feedback. The next couple weeks roll past and still no constructive feedback (maybe just one small piece or something constructive for the team as a whole but that’s it). I thought this was completely normal until I was talking with two friends on two different teams who said they’ve had a lot of constructive feedback and it’s been hard but really rewarding. They voiced concern about my teams situation and thought I should say something, but of course, not wanting to rock the boat and letting my pride get in the way, I tried to convince them and myself that the reason we didn’t have so much constructive feedback is because we get along better and we are just a really great team (which we do get along great and are a great team but that just was not the real reason we hadn’t had constructive feedback).
The next day I kept thinking about what they said and started to realize it was an issue so after talking with my team we decided to have a second round of feedback that night. It was hard and scary but we did not want to be a team of false harmony, we want to be a team of authenticity, love, and support. We were willing to fight for it. That night we gave hard feedback but it has made such a difference in the culture of our team. It cut out tension and allowed for genuine relationships to continue being
built. Everyday is another opportunity to choose in, set the culture for our community, and fight against false harmony. Long story short: never settle for false harmony!
