GMO

Conflict Management for GMOs

Dressage enthusiasts have strong opinions. Here’s what to do when those opinions differ.

By Penny Hawes

In any group, occasional conflict is not unusual. When the members of the group are passionate dressage enthusiasts, the stage is set for a potentially contentious situation.

Fortunately, serious disputes among board members of USDF group-member organizations (GMOs) are not all that common, but they can and do arise. We asked GMO presidents and board members, as well as an organizational and leadership consultant, to share their advice on handling and defusing conflict.

NOT IN HARMONY: When conflicts arise, GMO leaders need to know how to handle them

That One Person…

Most GMO officials describe their boards as cohesive—consisting of likeminded folks who get along well and who serve their organizations relatively peacefully and effectively. That is, except for “that one person,” as several sources put it.

Some GMO boards, we’re told, contain one member who requires special handling. Whether it’s easily ruffled feathers (“a very good person but very, very sensitive”), a touch of social awkwardness (“people with their hearts in the right place but lacking the necessary people skills”), or a “strong personality” that can steamroll others’ opinions, that one person can be a bit of a challenge to manage—although our sources say the extra effort is often worth it. (“It’s easy to sit down with her and discuss why we’re seeing things differently than she is, and have amicable, reasonable, adult conversations and come to agreements.”)

There are, however, a few war stories. A guest at a Rocky Mountain Dressage Society (RMDS) board meeting once behaved badly enough that the GMO “sent them a letter and said if they came to another board meeting and acted that way, we would escort them out,” says longtime RMDS member and office manager Beth Geier. “We have a member who’s a police officer, and he came out to the next meeting. The person didn’t say a word, and we’ve never seen her at a meeting since.”

South Florida Dressage Association (SFDA) president Barbara Harty recalls the time that a member who attended an open meeting “disagreed with a decision made by the events chairperson. She was verbally abusive during the meeting. We called an emergency board meeting the next night. We agreed to tell that person that the rude behavior is unacceptable. She dropped off, but so did the events chair, saying, ‘I don’t need this!’—but that’s the only serious case over fifteen years.”

One GMO president who asked not to be identified recounts the tale of a fill-in board member who made “some rather nasty social-media posts. She was taken aside quietly and asked to leave, at which point she turned around and sued the club.”

Policies Are Your Friend Some GMO boards have found that written policies are effective buffers against potential conflict.

“People used to joke that I’m the policy wonk,” laughs New England Dressage Association (NEDA) president Iris Berdrow. “I wrote policy for everything, because if you’ve got a policy and it’s written down and you [receive] a question, all you have to do is pull out the file and say, ‘But here’s what we agreed to.’”

That paper trail, Berdrow says, aids in quashing conflict because the board can point to the policy and say, “No, we said this is what we’re going to do.” To the challenger, the board can respond: “‘If you want to reassess the policy, put forward a motion, but this is what we said we were going to do.’ You’ve got to have a guidebook.”

“It’s really important to have

policies and procedures and businesscontinuity plans. All of those are really critical to have in writing,” says Gregory Nielsen, a past CEO of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence who now trains boards and nonprofit executives through his Nielsen Training and Consulting LLC, Louisville, Kentucky.

However, Nielsen adds, “You could certainly have a written conflictmanagement philosophy, but a lot of it depends on the culture of the board. Just because we have something documented doesn’t mean we have effectively managed conflict in the organization.” The Role of Organizational Culture “The culture of the organization is very important,” Nielsen stresses. “When there are tension points, do we have a culture of speaking one to one outside of the meeting, or do we allow it to spill into open conflict in the middle of the board meeting? Do we address conflict by e-mail, or do we have a culture where, if you have an issue with someone or there’s a tension point, do we have an expectation that it will be addressed face to face or over the phone?” He calls these unwritten norms “the softer skills part of conflict management that’s not addressed by policy and procedure. It’s more just the expectations of the team.”

At NEDA, board members strive to ensure that decisions are missiondriven, Berdrow says.

“We represent 1,400 members, so we always come back to, ‘What does our mission say that we’re doing? What are we responsible for?’ We always come back to the fact that we signed up to do something for NEDA. So that issue of having a common goal has been really important.”

We Hear You: The Importance of Communication Our sources agree that one of the most important things a board can do to prevent or mitigate conflict is to be clear and timely in all communication. Effective communication, they say, is vital in attracting and retaining new members, and it also helps to keep long-term members engaged.

“When people are confused or feel they haven’t been communicated with effectively,” Nielsen explains, “it promotes tension; it promotes dysfunction; it allows for external tensions and fears—rational or irrational—to creep into some of those relationships.”

Making GMO members feel heard and valued can go a long way toward keeping the peace.

As Berdrow explains, “There are some people who don’t feel like they have any power. New board members can feel they’re in this position, so you have to find a way to give them power and convince them that they have a right to an opinion; they have a voice there; they can contribute.”

“I welcome everyone’s ideas,” says Harty. “If someone has an idea or would like a position, we find a way to get them in that position.”

Nielsen suggests three specific questions for board members to answer: 1. What are the expectations of the individual? 2. How will they be supported in meeting those expectations? 3. What does accountability look like for this board?

“So, as a board member, I need to be clear on these three questions,” he says. “Does the board president or chair conduct an annual review of the board to determine its effectiveness?”

Berdrow has learned that it’s not only what the communication says; it’s also how and when the information is shared.

“Rolling out the message in the right way is critical,” she says. “When you decide something, you make a record of it, and then you then have to manage the rollout—the communication of that decision. We’ve had to be very careful about that: not just the language, but also who do

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we tell first, second, third and what do we do in the meantime, because that can cause further conflict.”

Hot-Button Item: Risk Tolerance Money is a top source of conflict in personal relationships. The same can hold true in organizations.

“Some people are really averse to risk; they don’t want to take any chances,” says Berdrow. “We’ve got a treasurer who is very cautious, which is great; that’s what you want in a treasurer, right?” But then “we’ve got event managers who don’t mind spending money on great big ribbons that are taller than people, and the treasurer is going, ‘What?’”

A GMO’s budget, Eastern New York Dressage and Combined Training Association (ENYDCTA) president Corrine Spaulding agrees, can be a point of contention. “There are a lot of different viewpoints as to how much we should spend on education, or how much we can lose on education. Some people feel we should always try to break even, no matter what, while others think, ‘Well, if it’s education and we have George Williams for the week, then it’s OK to lose a thousand dollars.’”

As Berdrow points out, a difference of opinion isn’t inherently a bad thing.

“We’ve got lots of areas where there can be disagreement, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s ‘bad’ conflict. It’s just coming back and saying, ‘What is it we’re trying to achieve? What can we do, and what do we have to work with?’ It keeps the conversation going.” Will a Change Do Your GMO Good? An entrenched board may tend to repeat the same narratives with the same dynamics, which could potentially lead to frustration or worse.

Before Spaulding took over as president of ENYDCTA, some board members had been in their positions for more than seven years, despite two-year term limits, she says. As a result, “They were extremely burned out. So I think that it’s definitely a wise idea to change the board every two to three years like it should be.”

Nielsen is a fan of bringing in new blood: “I think it promotes a diversity of thoughts, ideas, and perspectives on the board, which is critically important. I think of diversity broadly—beyond age, gender, ethnicity. So I think that intentionality of recruiting, and making sure you have a diversity of perspectives and thoughts, are critical. Make sure the team is greater than the sum of its parts.”

But as we’ve discussed in past “GMO” columns, some clubs have a hard time recruiting any new board members at all. Term limits may be good in theory, but in practice sometimes they don’t work. Example: Southern Eventing and Dressage Association (SEDA) president Nicole Miller “stayed on for a second term because most of the board was retiring, and we needed to make sure there was some continuity,” she says.

New people usually bring change—fresh ideas, different ways of doing things, unique perspectives. Continually evolving technology forces us all to adapt and learn. The sport of dressage itself evolves. Some people have a harder time with all that than others.

Nielsen calls the rate of change itself “a source of friction” and suggests that boards ask themselves: “Are we moving fast enough toward that mission, or are we going too fast and leaving people behind? Are we moving in lock step? Because if one person is going faster, it’s kind of like rowing a boat: If one person is rowing faster and one person is rowing slower, we’re going to spin around in circles. We need to be moving in unison.”

For her part, Harty feels that the SFDA board has the best of both worlds: a mix of longtime and newer members who enjoy sharing ideas. (She herself is an old-timer, having served as president for more than 16 years.)

“We are such a cohesive group, but we do have new members join the board,” Harty says. “Some of the newest members have the best ideas, and none of the older members are so set in their ways that they don’t welcome it. They’re like ‘Oh, that’s great!’” The Assertive Approach A lot of people are conflict-averse— hesitant to disagree with others or to speak out, wishing to avoid an unpleasant interaction. But failure to address a disagreement can result in worse conflict down the road, according to Berdrow, who is an associate professor of management at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

“I think one of the worst things a board or an organization can do is to ignore the conflict and sweep it under the rug, because it only festers,” she says. “It’s sort of like your horse getting an abscess: You don’t know it, don’t know it, and then he comes out of his stall dead lame. And then you’ve got a lot of repair work to do.”

The key to a respectful yet assertive interaction, Berdrow says, is “to be able to differentiate the action from the person.”

“That’s one of the other things that I’ve learned through my professional life and teaching and volunteer work,” she says. “You have to be able to say, ‘You know, I really love you, but what you just did, I really don’t like.’”

Reminding disagreeing board members of the GMO’s higher purpose can be another effective way of defusing a budding argument, Berdrow says.

“In the end, why are we doing this? We’re doing it for the horses and the riders.”

Penny Hawes is a coach, writer, and experienced GMO board member. She lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter, and a plethora of cats, dogs, and horses. Visit her online at thehorseylife.com/usdf.