Conflict resolution and fishing have a lot in common. To honour Father’s Day I asked people to send photos of their Dad and the response was fantastic! We’ve preceded our Leadership Tip, Fishing Close to Bottom with a slideshow of your Dad photos. Thank you to everyone who sent a picture.
Being a father is both a great responsibility and privilege. Parenting often requires some deep, meaningful and challenging conversations with all parties involved. To help create stronger families and raise resilient kids, we need a foundational understanding of the importance to work through relationship ‘snags’. I’ve written a thought provoking message and created a video called “Fishing Close to Bottom” as a metaphor for making time and having patience to work through conflict in families, and workplaces. Whether it’s a virtual visit or a ‘reel’ fishing experience this year, I wish you all rich relationships.
Anglers know that it’s important to fish close to the bottom of the lake, because that’s where the fish are, even though we get snagged on rocks, branches and logs. That same idea relates to workplace relationships, productivity, profitability, peace and harmony.
Imagine that fish are a metaphor for the goals you have. Perhaps it’s more sales, productivity, conflict resolution, staff retention, or even greater success in the quality of personal relationships, (more sex) … Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s look at the similarities.
My Captain (Dad) encouraged us to let lots of line out so that our bait would sink and move along the bottom of the lake. “That’s where the fish are,” he’d say. The challenge we’d encounter is that there are obstacles along the lakebed, so we’d often get snagged, and then, the boat would have to stop; everyone had to reel in before he’d reverse the boat to release the snag, hopefully without breaking the line and losing the tackle and bait. It seemed like such an inconvenience, and I’d hate causing that trouble for everyone in the boat.
But, this got me thinking about going deeper for the things we want to have.
• Deeper conversations to approach conflict resolution
• Deeper effort into making more sales, improving systems or safety
• Deeper focus on personnelle development, retention and training
• Or even just deeper clarity to understand a problem, challenge or new circumstance
When we find ourselves snagged on something that needs resolution… there are two choices.
The inconvenient one … Stop, reverse, get unhooked and move forward with continued chances for best fishing, or continue forward with the snag and risk losing everything. The inconvenience is just a perception. “That’s where the fish are.” My captain taught me that conflict resolution and fishing have a lot in common.
Like the lakebed, the workplace and family environment is rich with obstacles to get snagged on but it’s much more lucrative in these zones rather than the easy ones. It just takes more patience, communication and teamwork to play at that depth.
Snags validate we’re fishing in a committed and courageous place. Position yourself for the greatest chance of achievement. Before you know it, you’ll hear “FISH ON!” and maybe even experience a double or triple header— that’s when many people in the same boat hook some big fish at the same time!
Where do you feel you’ve been snagged but haven’t yet gone back to the source to unhook yourself? Your greatest leadership day could be fishing, with Penny Tremblay. 705-358-3396
