My aunt died recently and in typical Celtic fashion the family sat round telling stories about her – some funny, some sad. I was reminded of a time about 20 years ago when I was a strict vegetarian and we dropped in on Aunty Peggy unexpectedly.

We’d just had lunch but it didn’t matter, Aunty Peggy insisted we eat. The scene played out like one of those in Father Ted “Go on, go on, go on – just a bite” repeated till we crumbled. Well Aunty Peggy didn’t understand vegetarianism and ‘just a bite’ turned into half a cow on a plate with some lettuce and tomato. My dilemma – to tell her I was veggie, or to shut up and eat up.

I chose the latter.

We’re often faced with challenges to our personal values at home and in the workplace, and its often a painful experience choosing which value to honour. We do little (often subconscious) internal negotiations with ourselves to reach a conclusion. There are lots of things we balance off before we make our decision:

• How upset would Aunty Peggy be?
• How big a deal is it to eat meat just the once?
• What would my mum say if she found out I’d eaten Uncle Leo’s dinner?

What’s interesting is how we react when other people compromise our values or their own. We don’t witness that internal negotiation so we often assume it hasn’t happened and judge them accordingly. That’s when we enter the thorny area of conflict and conflict resolution is rarely easy.

It requires us to be able to step into the other person’s shoes; to understand and respect their values system even when it differs from our own. It might mean acknowledging out loud to the other person the values that are in conflict and our own internal negotiations and compromises.

Conflict might then be headed off at the pass.