EyeWorld is the official news magazine of the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
Issue link: https://digital.eyeworld.org/i/111385
76 EW Ophthalmology Business February 2013 Averting and resolving partner conflicts by John B. Pinto ���Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.��� Ambrose Bierce ���If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather, the ability to resolve conflict without violence.��� C.T. Lawrence Butler W hen you work with partners in a practice, even with colleagues you otherwise like and admire a great deal, the easiest and most human thing to slip into is a conflict. The hardest thing���at least in some practice settings���is to resolve the conflict and restore good relationships. As has been said of marriage, partnering involves expectations, and expectations beget conflict. Conflict, whether between nations, neighbors, or eye surgeons, is a side effect of proximity. As one business wonk once observed, partnerships get into trouble in only two situations: when the business is doing quite well, and when it is doing poorly, which is to say that all practices undergo conflict. The most harmonious practices are superior to the extent that they actively pre-empt conflict through better rules and communication, and manage conflict formally and in a conscientious, stepwise fashion when it occasionally arises. Avoiding con���ict Communication about difficult issues, which is often avoided out of a misplaced fear that talking about your differing views will ignite conflict, is actually the key to conflict avoidance and de-escalation. In my consulting rounds throughout the country, I have found conflicts are at their most ac-