The Generative Potential in Conflict
"Yes, my team needs to address some issues, but it's not conflict."
"Our misunderstandings have piled up on each other and time has passed and now it feels daunting to touch. It's not conflict anymore."
"I am not the problem, they are, so there is no conflict."
It is true, not every challenge we come across is a conflict. But often it is.
Why is it so difficult to call something conflict?
The simple answer might be that we don't like our relational experiences put in categorical buckets, and there's more to it.
Here's a quick exercise.
Take a moment and think of a conflict in you have been part of or experiencing recently. Connect with the conflict in your mind, feel what it feels like relationally. What are some words that quickly come to mind?
Do your words sound like these?
If your answers largely reflect those above, then you will see that the words have a negative connotation. The invitation in this exercise was not to recall negative experiences specifically. Yet, in any group setting where I have asked this question by and large, the responses are this way. Instinctively and reactively, we tend to associate and register conflict as negative.
Now, if I invite you to reflect on words associated with that same conflict, that are NOT negative, what else might come up?
Perhaps words like these?
Our brains are wired, (our habit muscles in modern western culture) are built to interpret and categorize conflict as bad or negative. This is so, because we have the amygdala. The amygdala are two almond shaped masses at the base of the brain that controls our fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses.
In short, the amygdala's function is to keep us alive. If we see something threatening... a spider, a bus comes towards us fast, a snake afoot, our brilliant brain activates the amygdala function and hijacks almost all brain capacity and focuses our energies towards getting out of the way of the threat.
As seen in the diagram, a set of reactions are set into quick motion. The external stimuli activates the amygdala and our brains focus becomes singular, geared towards safety and survival. And how wonderful that we have such a mechanism in place.
The complexity lies in the fact that whether a threat is real or perceived, our amygdala does not know the difference.
A boss who yells reactively can feel the same as a fast approaching bus - to our amygdala. Our fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses activate, and we are left often unable to discern a real threat from a perceived one.
Negative responses flood us and it feels almost impossible to see beyond that. So, how do we mitigate this? How can we shift?
Remember this acronym: SWAT: Space, Water, Air, Time.
When we can take space/give space, drink some water, get some air, and let some time pass so the heat of the conflict goes down, then we can leverage the positive potential in conflict. Relief, clarity, ease, understanding become a part of our experience of conflict.
This gives us a different vantage point. Conflict can be both destructive and constructive. If we build practices to lean into the constructive elements of conflict and leverage its positive potential - then conflict can be generative.
With this frame of mind, it may not be so difficult to call it conflict.
