Conflict Competence

A client experiencing a sudden conflict among a work team called an emergency meeting. She identified one person as a source of the problem. She asked me if the “problem person” should be invited to the emergency meeting. It was a fair and good question.

My response was: “Yes, please do invite him to the meeting, and let him know that everything is up for discussion, so he can have his say, and ask his questions, and vent if he wants to.” Naturally, the client was concerned that blaming and accusations would derail the meeting. Indeed, blaming and accusations might have happened. But, that would not necessarily derail the meeting. Instead, the client could listen to this “problem person” in a new way. I urged the client to stop thinking of him as the problem and listen for the content.

I coached the client to hear within his words all his emotion and passion in order to understand his position, his expectations, his interests, and his disappointments. During the meeting, we came to understand what was creating the situation. As that happened, the situation was less frightening, threatening, and intimidating, and he was able to decrease his contribution to fueling the conflict.

People tend to be uncomfortable in and around conflict, because of how we perceive conflict. Conflict, however, is data. Seeing the conflict as information about how people are interpreting a situation makes a conflict more understandable. Conflict, then, is evidence that people care enough to engage with each other about a topic they have in common. 

I’m referring to a specific type of data, because some uses of data can make a conflict intensify and last longer. The three recurring ways that data are used in conflicts are:

1. Data offered as objective probative facts that ought to ‘win’ the conflict.

There is a theory that facts are objective. If this were true, people would not disagree about what facts mean. However, facts have an element of subjectivity. Facts do not speak for themselves. People interpret facts through their personal fears about potential harm, risk assessments, and belief systems. Usually, even scientifically robust information is interpretable through the different values and worldviews of each side. This type of data can be seen as information about values and worldviews.  

2. Data that entrenches people in their conflict

Conflict resolution is only partly about sorting through whose version of the facts is correct. Determining ‘who said what’ is generally not the path to a solution in conflict resolution. Each side will be able to find facts to support a position that they already believe to be true. Then, they will reject the facts that the other side believes to be true. The conflict becomes focused on which of the competing and inconsistent facts ought to be accepted as accurate, and whose facts ought to be rejected. When everyone deeply believes s/he is correct, and the others are incorrect, adding more facts adds information to disagree about. This type of information can be seen as data about temperaments.       

3. Data that can help move people to a solution

The fact that ’someone said something’ is often a useful bit of data in conflict analysis. The data was not what was said, but - more importantly - how people interpreted it, how they felt about it, what emotion it brought up for them, and how it motivated them to take their next steps. Rather than fighting over whose facts are correct, we discuss the interpretation of the facts, how the people interpreting the facts assess the risks associated with the facts, what beliefs underlie the facts, how the assumptions that support the facts might be variables, where fears apply to the facts, gaps in information about the facts, and so on.             

Conflict analysis and resolution is about how people interpreted and felt about those facts. So, every one who had data was welcome at the meeting. In fact, we needed their data to formulate the messages, plans, strategies, agendas, and solutions to go forward as a happy, productive team in a healthy workplace. The “problem person” contributed his facts and that data was included in the meeting outcomes. That was how we came up with a plan to address the client’s emergency situation. The “problem person” was transformed into a part of the solution.

If you have ever been disappointed in, embarassed by, or amazed at how out of character you behaved in a conflict, take heart. Humans generally are hard-wired for sub-optimal conflict incompetence. By understanding this, you can become conflict competent.

 Our brains and bodies instinctively view conflict as a threat, like invading armies at the borders and germs on our hands are threats. Under threat, we revert to the most fundamental of drives – to survive. Our bodies get us physically ready by optimizing what we need to protect the vital functions of strength, speed, and agility. Our minds get us mentally ready by focusing narrowly on the crisis and rejecting extra information. However, this sacrifices higher level brain functions that are less vital to the immediate success of survival, such as memory, sense of time, and cognition.

How we adapted to the threats of conflict began millennia ago. Adaptation is an evolutionary strategy for continuing to thrive on a fitness landscape. Those who do not adapt can perish. We adapted to shut down anything that diverts blood, oxygen, hormones, chemicals, and energy from their essential functions of saving us. And it is all done automatically by the amygdala, the original limbic brain that operates basic feelings. The adaptation to extreme emotions and data overloads is to shut down feelings such as empathy and collaboration.

The design worked incredibly well during the time period in which it was bred into our species, say, about the late Pliocene period, when the humanoid population was walking – more or less upright - around the Afar Depression of present Ethiopia. The design was not given a test run in crowded urban communities, which is either perverse entertainment at human expense, or insufficient prescient to anticipate globalization.

The Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed Lucy, who may or may not be our indirect ancestor, had very different threats to deal with than we do now. When a predator was bearing down on Lucy, if she lacked these automatic responses to threat, and was contentedly enjoying the day, was slow to run, was easily distracted, or did not fight, she would not have survived to contribute to the gene pool. When a saber–toothed tiger was charging was no time to be thinking what to have for dinner or she would be dinner. We inherited the genes of the fleet-footed, the narrowly focused, and the fierce. Feeling compassion for their adversary rarely led to good outcomes for Lucy or her related tribes.

It is a side effect of human biology that clear strategic thinking, when most needed, can be an early casualty of conflict. We still have, despite our sophistication, the same limbic responses to basic threats to hunger, thirst, procreation, and comfort that kept Lucy and her kin alive into their old age. Although feeling threatened or attacked affects our  higher brain functions, we make decisions in conflicts without questioning whether our operating systems have full capacity. We narrowly focus on threats we fear, when conflict competence would entail thinking clearly about strategies for making the most of conflict-laden problems. 

From Neanderthal to now, we read into threatening situations what we need to see in order to explain our emotions. If we feel fear, we will perceive a threat in the other person’s behaviour to explain the source of our emotion. We attribute to others what helps us make sense of our feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. That person’s words and actions become the way that we seek to understand our emotions. The cycle made sense in Lucy’s time.  Now, we do a cycle of attributions, assumptions, and belief systems. By the time we think of alternatives to the conflict, often a conflict cascade has already escalated. Has a limbic response that was originally a fail-safe mechanism, become a design flaw? Not really. Threats still exist and the immediate automatic response to danger still keeps us safe. However, not all conflicts need to be reacted to as threats. Sometimes, becoming instinctively defensive and aggressive can be counter-productive. Then, it can require different conflict analyses and resolution strategies to work with the decisions that want to flow from natural limbic thought processes. The irony of teaching conflict competence is that if higher brain functions were not affected in conflict situations, people likely would not need assistance with their conflict-laden problems.  To be successful in imparting conflict competence would work me out of a job. I am okay with that.