Resolving Conflicted Feelings About Conflict By Developing Conflict Competence
One of the most striking impressions about conflict in America is the great contradiction in the way it is simultaneouslyl valued and feared. Most Americans do not doubt the importance of the freedom to express differences. In a society that places freedom of speech as an inalienable right to all citizens, few ideas are as unassailable as the right to disagree.
On the other hand, expression of differences takes on a decidedly more negative cast when labeled as conflict. Conflict is so universally considered a problem that its field of study is called conflict resolution; it is something problematic that must be fixed, put back together, resolved.
Research shows that difficulty resolving conflict can be an expensive problem. The Institute for Legal Reform says the cost of lawsuits in the United States “totals $261 billion a year, or $880 per person”, according to a 2006 research study by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin (2006).
This is not to say that those who file lawsuits do not have legitimate grievances. It does suggest that people feel more confident having a paid professional “fight” for them, rather than engaging directly with another to resolve an important conflict. Whether it is a matter of differences in the workplace, in a marriage, or in the neighborhood, increasing numbers of Americans become so upset that they do not trust their own ability to work through a conflict constructively.
I do not believe the presence of conflict a bad thing. I don’t think increasingly levels of conflict is necessarily a bad thing. It’s our love-hate relationship with conflict that doesn’t serve us well. I belive our conflicted feelings about conflict are the real problem — not conflict itself — but our difficulty in accepting it as part of every day life.
Conflicted feelings about conflict
Look at the clichés we use regarding conflict. On the one hand, society instructs people to be nice, even to the extent that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” On the other hand, Americans are taught early and repeatedly through life to “stand up for yourself,” show some backbone, and even, that “fight makes right.”
Vigorous debate is a hallmark of American culture. An entire discipline within the field of communications is dedicated to argumentation. Most high school students can join a debate team and become proficient in rhetorical contests. At the same time, one study shows that “fear of expressing disagreement” (Conduit, 2001, p. 347) at work can be such a powerful influence that it can predict coronary heart disease. Employees can be so afraid of voicing contrary opinions that they adopt passive-aggressive strategies in which he or she “doesn’t act or speak out openly,’’ (Gaines, 1996, p. 13) but instead, expresses anger indirectly by undermining performance.
How can such diametrically opposed ideas about conflict be true at once? How can U.S. organizations be so adept at handling conflict that it improves productivity, but at the same time, be so dysfunctional that it contributes to heart disease? The answer is that Americans have conflicted feelings about conflict and old approaches to conflict no longer work.
Neither fight or flight is the best answer. Instead, we must develop conflict competence.
Neither aggressive debate nor conflict avoidance is helpfup in solving complex problems; instead, people must become comfortable with conflict to become competent handlers of it throughout their lives. It should be taught in homes, schools, and workplaces and considered an essential skill, an art, and a science for every citizen of what is likely the most diverse country in the world. It should be considered – not as conflict resolution – but as conflict competence. The ability to clearly and amicably express differences, to find ways to understand and meet the interests of many perspectives is essential to human progress in the modern age.
Our Challenges With Conflict
While watching the news one may get the impression that the only people routinely confronting differences are political leaders debating the great issues of the day. The truth is that conflict is an ever-present factor in all parts of life. Just as clichés show contradictory attitudes toward conflict, so do the volumes of published work over the last twenty years. A search of books about conflict on Amazon.com, yielded a list of more than 420,000.
Titles that demonstrate difficulty with conflict include: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths: Using Dialogue to Overcome Fear & Distrust at Work, You Just Don’t Understand, The Dance of Anger, and most tellingly, The Coward’s Guide to Conflict: Empowering Solutions for Those Who Would Rather Run Than Fight. These titles suggest that we are afraid that if we don’t fight, we’ll give in, that truth at work can be dangerous, that people don’t understand us, and that anger and cowardice are likely to accompany our experiences with conflict.
When Is Conflict Useful?
“The thunderbolt of conflict carries the power of both destruction and creation,” says Brian Muldoon (1996) in The Heart of Conflict. This quote expresses well the dichotomy of conflict.
Understanding how to harness the benefits of conflict without unleashing its destructive potential is the crux of questions on how to resolve differences. Finding ways to positively engage differences has become crucially important to employers, public leaders, educators, and anyone affected by destructive conflict. As a result, considerable research has been conducted in the last ten years documenting specific behavior, communication, attitudes and approaches that lead to effective conflict outcomes.
Research shows factors that cause conflicts in groups to be either destructive or beneficial. While earlier researchers asserted that the mere presence of conflict, or the level of conflict, or type of conflict, determined the positive or negative outcome of conflict, many researchers today say those factors do not make the defining difference.
Instead, they say, the outcome depends on the way conflict is managed. Research shows that when group participants employ an active, positive approach that welcomes differences and uses problem-solving to create mutually-satisfying solutions, they will reap rewards such as:
* increased quality of decision-making,
* deeper commitment to solutions,
* better group member relationships,
* higher levels of creativity and even improved adherence to budget and deadlines.
These findings can make a big difference to individuals, groups, workplace, and communities struggling with damaging conflict. The studies show people can learn to approach conflict not as a problem to be avoided or conquered, but as an opportunity to be realized. By developing conflict competence people become comfortable with the discomfort of conflict and become adept at strategies that yield positive results.
Conclusion
The most significant amount of empirical research and writing comparing effective and ineffective approaches to conflict appears in literature on corporate work teams. While textbooks in interpersonal communications have made theorectical distinctions between constructive vs. destructive conflict, it has only been in the last few years that studies have begun to more specifically document what leads to one type of conflict versus the other. It is this body of research that holds the most promise for developing conflict competence.
Because conflict can have such powerfully beneficial or harmful effects, and because people have yet to master its use, research findings on specific behaviors that lead to positive conflict outcomes should be taught in schools, workplaces, social institutions and popular culture.
Author’s note: This is a condensed version of a full article, with research citations, from the sources listed below. For further information on this article, please contact Beth Smith at bsmith@CollaborativeSolutions.us and see my website: http://www.CollaborativeSolutions.us
References
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