Conflict Is Normal: Keep It Creative

Environments and stakeholders are constantly in flux. Therefore, conflict and (re-)negotiation are natural states. The challenge is to get comfortable with conflict, and to develop the competencies to make it constructive and valuable.

To understand how to navigate conflict successfully in business, we can learn from the political sphere.

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

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

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Table of Contents

1. Conflict is Not the Opposite of Peace
2. We Are Taught To Avoid Conflict
3. How to Develop Creative Conflict Competencies
4. Conclusion

Conflict is Not the Opposite of Peace

Many managers consider ’peace’, harmony, or lack of conflict to be measures of success.

Too often, the messy process of conflict is considered to be undesirable, and it is described as the opposite of peace.

• Peace is defined by some as equitable power relationships that transform conflict and ‘forestall future conflict’.
• And, the?United Nations?defines peacemaking as creating an end to destructive conflict.

However, conflict is not always bad. In fact, the right type of conflict is essential to business agility and collaboration. Conflict can be messy, complicated, complex, or even chaotic. It can be destructive.

But, conflict can also be very constructive and very valuable if people know how to embrace conflict and make it creative.

Ralph Albertson wrote in 1941?that if we think of war as active, and peace as passive, then they are opposites. However, peace is very active.?

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 'the devil’s peace' and 'God’s 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.

Everything is always changing; there are always conflicts and things to be renegotiated. Therefore, peace and war are not active vs. passive, but rather constructive vs. destructive.

Attempting to prevent or?‘forestall future conflict’ is a misguided attempt to maintain an outdated status quo, and will result in destructive conflict. To avoid destructive conflict, we must be ready, willing, and able to engage in creative conflict, a process of learning, transforming, and growing in response to, or in anticipation of, changes in our environments.

We Are Taught To Avoid Conflict

Despite the importance of creative conflict, many people are very uncomfortable with conflict. As Lindsay Ell, a childhood sexual assault survivor?recently said?'society rewards ignorance (or 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 than us, as it is perceived as a threat.
• We have been taught to not fix something that doesn’t appear to be broken.

However, many things are actually broken and need fixing.

Destructive conflicts start brewing when stakeholders' interests are ignored, or when people are not engaged, and not willing to push for learning and transformation that would result in better, more sustainable approaches. The ‘counterfeit peace’ eventually ends in bad outcomes such as stagnation and obsolescence (at best), or war and possibly extinction.

Conflict Is?a Natural State: We Choose Whether it is Destructive or Constructive

Change and continuous evolution are the norm. However, it is easy to forget that given that the western world has gone through decades of relative peace (on western soil) and significant increases in wealth.

However, things are changing. In the last decade or so, it has become apparent that everything will be destabilized quite dramatically due to increasing environmental calamities, geopolitical rebalancing, social rifts, economic crises, etc.

We are entering an era of growing conflict. Everywhere. In business. In societies. In politics. In communities.

History shows us that a lack of learning and transformation eventually result in (sometimes dramatic) failures, whether it is autocratic regimes or globally dominant companies. Leaders can try to maintain their power and be?‘heroes’ … until they become victims?of the constructive conflicts they tried to forestall.

We avoid conflict at our own peril.

The fluidity of our environments means there is always opportunity for change, renewal, and transformation.

• By suppressing conflict, a false harmony, we miss opportunities to create new value.
• By embracing creative conflict, we can recognize opportunities and continuously take advantage of them.

Creative Conflict is Both Uncomfortable?and Joyful

A recent interview (I wish I could remember the source!) pointed out that having a relationship with some higher power is not a quiet, tranquil relationship. Rather, our relationship with a higher power is to achieve our purpose, and to continue growing so we not only survive, but also thrive.

Growth is a messy process of learning and transformation through which we are tested and challenged (ie conflict). The path there is not elegant as we need to wrestle with our ideas, assumptions, beliefs, identities, etc.

Our choice is not whether we engage in conflict (sooner or later we will be in conflict).

Our choice is how we engage in conflict and what we focus on.

If we focus on the conflict, then it is remarkably unpleasant. We will focus on what we can lose, the pain, and the discomfort. An outcome focus emphasizes the desired end result rather than the process of achieving it. It is similar to a fixed mindset, which usually results in unhappiness because we are measuring ourselves against things we have not yet achieved. These mindsets have been shown to frequently result in cheating and dishonest behavior. The outcome is not elegant, nor sustainable.

In contrast, we can embrace the inelegance of change, growth, learning, discovery, and developing our abilities to navigate conflict more effectively. We can take cues from hard-core skiers or big-wave surfers. There is pain and frustration in the process of learning how to stay upright on our boards. However, there is indescribably joy and exhilaration at mastering skills and overcoming challenges.

A mastery mindset, parallel to a growth mindset, is one where we are measuring ourselves against ourselves: how we compare now to who we were, how well we learned, how much we improved. Mastery mindsets and growth mindsets have consistently been shown – in multiple fields of research – to result in better results, more sustainable results, and greater competitive longevity. And a lot more sustainable joy.

Choosing to engage in conflict and to grow is a mastery-focus, and generates a sense of self-efficacy: knowing you can successfully take on greater challenges.

How to Develop Creative Conflict Competencies

The difference between destructive and constructive conflict is in our approach to conflict. Constructive or creative conflict requires us to work in different ways than we've been taught. We need to:

• be more entrepreneurial,
• analyze better,
• enhance our mindsets, and
• work with our physiological processes more effectively.

Be More Entrepreneurial

Engaging constructively in conflict is an ongoing process of entrepreneurship:

1. exploring (understanding the situation),
2. experimenting (learning what works well), and
3. exploiting (capturing value from learning).

Analyze Better

Too often we have been taught how to recognize problems (based on our past experiences), and to use approaches we’ve used in the past. However, when things are constantly evolving, the challenges we face may have similarities to our previous experiences, but they are usually unique, and require bespoke approaches.

Exploring can be done by using a range of mapping approaches that can lead to a?better understanding?of stakeholders and their dynamics, and the various systems, including the human systems and the necessary motivations, psychological safety, ownership, empowerment, and resilience.

Enhance Mindsets

Throughout the process, stakeholders need to ask – and to be asked – better questions that result in better understanding of the situation, and that question our mindsets or potential sources of blind spots and?biases?(eg assumptions, beliefs, identities, etc)

Not only do we need to question our existing mindsets, but we also need to foster mindsets that allow us to engage in creative conflict. We need a:

• holistic mindset?that allows us to work with the uncertainty and fluidity of complex systems;
• collaborative mindset?so we adopt the paradigms that allow us to truly engage with other stakeholders; and,
• growth mindset, or the desire to continuously learn and transform for the sake of improving performance.

Personal Processes

Creative conflict can create intense emotions and can interfere with our cognitive abilities. Therefore, we need to be able to work with our physiological processes (body and mind) so we can stay in?an optimal state of arousal (ie not going into fight, flight, or freeze mode).

• body wisdom?is the ability to use our physiological signals as sources of information, and to work with our physiological processes so we stay in balance; and,
• leveraging stress, having?compassion, and being able to let go/grieve?so we can move on after disappointments and losses.

Conclusion

Everything around us is constantly changing, which means conflict is a natural state. It is uncomfortable, and can result in destruction. If we avoid conflict, we will stagnate and eventually go extinct. However, if we learn to foster constructive, creative conflict, we will be challenged and made uncomfortable, but we can also derive a lot of joy, learning, transformation, and growth from it.

Despite the need for creative conflict, conflict is hard to do if it’s unfamiliar to us, and if we don’t have the competencies to keep it constructive (vs. destructive). There are a range of competencies we need to develop, including analytical competencies, working with mindsets, and working with personal processes.

The fluidity of our environments means there is always the potential for destructive or creative conflict. By embracing creative conflict, we can take advantage of the opportunities to learn, renew, transform, and grow individually, collectively, and organizationally.

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How do you foster creative conflict? What experiences have you had navigating significant change and engaging in creative conflict?

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You can accelerate breakthrough results by working with someone who can help you navigate the process and improve sustainable performance.?I would be?pleased to speak with you?to explore how I can?help you generate?your sustainable competitive advantage and?create?your breakthrough results.

Catarina von Maydell, MBA, works with leaders, individuals, and teams to facilitate sustainable breakthrough performance improvement and growth. She has helped many of her clients achieve record-breaking performance.