What if both sides are wrong?
This could get political, but it’s not going to…
Let’s start with the equally fiery world of NHL hockey instead.
On Saturday night the Toronto Maple Leafs were losing a hotly contested to their old rivals the Ottawa Senators. After pulling their goalie for an extra attacker in the final moments of the game a rookie Ottawa player, Ridly Greig, got loose on an open breakaway to the unprotected Leafs goal. With no one in the way the usual play would be to calmly tuck the puck into the net for a goal that seals the victory. Instead, Greig wound up for a slap shot from 20 feet and hammered it into the net. In hockey this is widely considered poor sportsmanship, showing up the opponent and showboating.
Longtime Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly, known for being a quiet leader who takes very few penalties, chased Greig down and levelled him with a cross check that connected with the side of his head well after the whistle had blown for the goal. It was undeniably a cheap shot.
Yesterday Rielly was suspended for five games by the league.
Predictably, Leafs fans defended their player. They went so far as to say Greig deserved the attack for the empty net snapshot and that he was the real offender.
Senators fans dismissed any critique of their player and compared Rielly’s hit with some of th most egregious violent acts in hockey history.
I am a moderate Leafs fan, but not a passionate one, but I do watch a fair bit of hockey. And while I don’t buy into the part of hockey culture that reveres the unwritten “code” of supposed sportsmanship that often justifies on ice violence, I understand why the Leafs felt they couldn’t ignore what Greig did.
Here’s the thing: Sometimes no one is innocent.
That doesn’t mean they are equally in the wrong.
Rubbing your opponent’s face in their failure is much less severe than a blindside smash with a carbon hockey stick. And the suspension reflects that.
As human beings we prefer to see things in simple terms. We want there to be a good guy and a bad guy. And we very much want our side to be the good guys.
It’s true in sports, in politics, in religious debate, in relationships, and it’s true in your organization. Whenever conflict is present there is a tendency to commit to one side uncritically and condemn the other.
Occasionally that is justified. More often it isn’t.
In leadership on of the best ways to check our own vulnerability in these situations is to try to identify how our side (or ourselves) have contributed to the problem and how we can take responsibility for the ways we’ve been wrong.
This isn’t false equivalency. It isn’t “both sidesism”. It doesn’t mean blaming ourselves for the offences of others.
It is about understanding nuance, being accountable, and valuing others even when we disagree. It’s healthy, emotionally mature, and effective.
And it seems to be in short supply.
Jesus said “take the log out of your own eye before reaching for the speck in your enemy’s eye”. Even if we’re the ones with the speck in a particular case we should deal with it first.
Conflict is inevitable and often a sign of organizational and relational health. But how we handle it makes the difference between becoming more effective and further ingraining distrust. Hockey teams don’t need to resolve their differences; in fact many fans prefer if they don’t. But your organization (and maybe our world) can’t be healthy or effective if we don’t learn to acknowledge our own failures as a precursor to addressing the failures of others.
The Leafs and Senators don’t meet again this season. Maybe by the time they do next year cooler heads will prevail; but I doubt it.
Contact me if I can be helpful to you and/or your organization.
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