Living in a house with an insecure dog and two confident cats creates lots of opportunities for disruptive behavior. Grace is fiercely jealous of the kitties, Dodger in particular, who seems to find immense pleasure in her discomfort. Oliver moves around oblivious to Grace, unless a carrot is in the room, because for whatever the reason, they both love carrots. 

 

Dodger definitely instigates situations that he knows will pull Grace into a tizzy. He sticks around long enough to see her reaction and then finds something else more interesting to do. We chuckle at the antics and try to console Grace, but don't do much more as we figure there isn't a lot we can do to train good manners from a cat. 

 

Lucky for me and my husband, the animal kingdom is much more skilled at working through their conflict than most people are. We do our best to stay out-of-the-way of their skirmishes unless absolutely necessary. 

 

Managers should not take this approach. Sitting back and watching the tension, conflict, and disruption is not a productive leadership tactic. The situation will get worse, not better, over time. And the other unfortunate consequence is that more people get pulled into [...]...»