Conflict Is Normal: Keep It Creative

Environments and stakeholders are constantly in flux. When one thing changes everything around it needs to adjust in response to the friction created. Change creates conflict which is sometimes easy to resolve, sometimes extremely difficult.

Change is a normal state. Therefore, conflict is also normal. We cannot choose if there is conflict.

But we can choose whether we make conflict a creative process or a destructive one. Conflict signals there is opportunity to adapt for the purpose of surviving and ideally thriving.

• If we try to suppress conflict, or we don't have the competencies to work through conflict, it will become destructive.
• If we accept that conflict is normal, we become comfortable with it, and develop new competencies, we can make it creative. And it can even become fun at times.

Change is Continuous; Our Response is a Choice

Our world is constantly changing. Even before climate change, the climate was constantly changing. So are the tectonic plates of the earth. Flora and fauna have gone through well documented evolutions to survive their changing environment, and to develop a competitive advantage for thriving.

Many beautiful flowers and animals are extinct because they could not or would not evolve to suit the conditions of their environment. Many powerful regimes and companies failed because they could not or would not evolve to survive in the new social, political, or economic conditions.

And the opposite is also true. There are many groups and individuals that thrive, sometimes against all odds. They develop unique competitive advantages, when others will not or can not.

Everyone must choose whether they will adapt appropriately to changes in the systems we are all living in.

Surviving and thriving are not due to randomness or luck. They are the result of people learning to navigate the emerging environment and to build their competencies to navigate better.

For example, many people were angry about profound injustices. But the leaders who actually created positive change (eg Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King) learned how to navigate the extreme conditions so they could align radically opposed people. They constantly adapted themselves and their approaches to their environment to achieve their goals.

The people who are willing to learn how to effectively navigate environments with conflict are the ones who are most likely to 'win'. The ones who are unwilling or unable to learn how to navigate conflict effectively will lose. Creativity is required to create win-win scenarios rather than 'winner-take-all'.

Our world is now increasingly chaotic as a result of accelerating climate change, increasing geopolitical tensions, and opposing interests between the 'haves' and 'have nots'. The stability so many of us grew up in in the western world is disappearing (has disappeared) in politics, business, societies, and our communities.

Despite the coming challenges, surviving is possible. And so is thriving. If we choose to develop the competencies of creative conflict.

Conflict is Not the Opposite of Peace

The first thing most of us need to do is to evolve how we think about conflict.

Many people consider 'harmony', ’peace’, or lack of conflict to be a measures of success. And they consider the messiness of conflict to be undesirable.

• 'Harmony' is defined as people or music coming together pleasantly.
• 'Peace' is defined as equitable power relationships that transform conflict and ‘forestall future conflict’.

When there is no conflict, we should savour that time. But it is not a natural state. The fear of all conflict - the desire to forestall it - is when we create the conditions for destructive conflict.

If we accept conflict as normal - and recognize that it does not need to be destructive, we create the conditions for creative conflict. Creative conflict is where we create the opportunities to right previous wrongs and to make things better.

• Meaningful harmony in music is a process of creating and navigating tensions.
• If we think of war as active, and peace as passive, then they are opposites. However, peace is very active.?- Ralph Albertson (1941). Peace requires work.
• The?United Nations?defines peacemaking as creating an end to destructive conflict.

A great definition of peace is:

• "the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice;
• the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer;
• the act of finding a third way that is?neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice.
• It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.”

- Shane Claiborne?

Martin Luther King Jr. distinguished between 'counterfeit peace' and 'true peace'. He described

• a ‘counterfeit peace’ as the calm that exists when people are unwilling (pacified or distracted) or unable (too exhausted and tired) to fight for what is just and fair.

• True peace does not exist until there is justice, restoration, forgiveness, and growth.

“Peace is not the absences of tension, it is the presence of justice.”

?- Credited to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi & Ronald Reagan

We live in a world where everything that works at some point in time will become outdated or worn out. People who are comfortable with the status quo - regardless of how outdated it is - will fight to maintain what is. But the people for whom the status quo is not working will become increasingly agitated.

We can choose the 'counterfeit peace' of the outdated status quo. And then deal with the inevitable destructive conflict.

Or we can choose an active peace-making process, the creative process of resolving conflict so we increase the changes of surviving and thriving.

We Are Taught To Avoid Conflict

We also need to challenge how we respond to conflict.

Despite the importance of creative conflict, many people are very uncomfortable with it. As Lindsay Ell, a childhood sexual assault survivor?recently said?'society rewards ignorance (not 'rocking the boat') far more than standing up for what we believe in'.?

• We have been taught to 'go along to get along'.
• We have been taught not to challenge authority or people with more power.
• We have been taught to not fix something that people with power say is not broken.

Destructive conflict starts brewing when those voices are ignored or silenced. The 'problem' with 'counterfeit peace’ and false ignorance is that everyone reaches a breaking point. At some point in time, the people whose needs are being supressed will fight back.

People with power might win a few 'battles' of maintaining the status quo. But they will lose the 'war' because they miss the opportunities to adapt (ie renew and realign).

We can choose to avoid conflict (and therefore we choose destructive conflict). Or we can choose to engage with conflict so we can make it a creative process.

We are Taught Force Wins Conflicts

We also need to challenge our beliefs around power and force.

Often when people think about power, they really think about force. The people who control resources, or the people who are stronger, are often expected to win.

However, throughout history, there are many examples of people with little formal power (eg force) who won against much more powerful people. Having lots of resources can actually be a disadvantage.

The people with less formal power can win when they understand what power they have (formal and informal) relative to others, and they learn how to build and leverage their power. They figure out what works and how to amplify the advantages they can build. They are strategic and creative:

Most people have more power than they are aware of.

Creative Conflict is Personal

Learning to engage in more creative conflict is a process of personal growth. We need to develop new competencies. And we need to challenge our assumptions and beliefs - a process of internal conflict.

As with all conflict, we can avoid it and eventually end up in a destructive situation. Or we can work with our internal conflicts and figure out how to strengthen ourselves and grow.

Personal growth is never elegant. And it can be very difficult. There are a few sayings to keep in mind:

• Easy now - hard later. OR Hard now - easy later.
• We can choose the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

Fortunately, if we are willing to put in the hard work now, it really does get easier (and a lot more fun) later.

The Competencies of Creative Conflict

The difference between destructive and creative conflict is in our approach to conflict. Creative conflict requires us to work in different ways than we've been taught.

If we focus on conflict rather than possibilities, it will be a tough road. However, if we focus on possibilities rather than conflict, The more proactive and strategic we are, the better off we will be. We will make mistakes - but that is where real learning happens.

Engaging creatively in conflict is an ongoing process of increasing:

1. ??????????????: Understand how and why things work the way they do, to find the real opportunities for change.
2. ??????????????: Engage the right people the right way at the right time to leverage those opportunities.
3. ??????????????: Experiment to figure out what actually works, in the current context, in real time.

Conclusion

Everything around us is constantly changing, which means conflict is a natural state. The question we need to answer is whether we are willing to engage in conflict destructively or creatively.

People with power who are playing a zero-sum game, and people with little power and wisdom, will often choose the destructive path. This does not bode well over time, even for the ‘winners’.

The creative conflict path requires thinking about conflict differently and developing new skills. To engage in conflict creatively, we need to commit to continuous learning and growth. This path is challenging. But it is also incredibly satisfying.

?

Which type of conflict will you choose?

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