How to enable conflict
No one likes conflict, and we do our best to avoid it. But what if we had the skills to enable us to face confrontation and turn it into a positive force. Neil does this by using the simple analogy of guitar riffs.
7 Responses to “How to enable conflict”
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Neil – this was FABULOUS!! I particularly liked the part about how looking at our families, partnerships at home, etc. can be blown up to increase our understanding of our relationships in organizations, the boardroom, etc. Really well done. Thank you!
Hello Linda and thank you for the kind feedback. I had not realised we had comments here on the Do Lectures site.
This notion of scaling up conflict dynamics can really help to normalise the situations that we find ourselves in and retain greater self control. It can help us to keep our balance and, having done so, make better response decisions.
Thanks again. It was fun.
Hi Neil. I had the pleasure to meet you in San Francisco at the IACP conference. Woody M. introduced us. I will be seeing Woody and Jody in late January, interning for his basic mediation training. I enjoyed your Do Lecture. It provided me valuable material to pass on the the attendees at the January training. Right now I am noting how we, as collaborative attorneys / mediators, are given the opportunity to model conversational riffs that differ from the status quo riffs that our clients find themselves in. It is remarkable how shocked the clients are when they get agreement, acknowledgment, etc, and NOT defensiveness, when they express their feeling. Then the OTHER spouse gets to witness the impact of the different way of reacting has on their spouse. Very good stuff. I look forward to seeing you here in Seattle in May.
Great stuff Neil, never seen you on the guitar before so a new added pleasure there. I haven’t forgotten an evening at the Saints soon so lets try and get that to happen in 2012. Thanks for the reminder on conversational riffs.
Thank you Kevin and Adrian,
Yes, Kevin, I remember meeting you and, likewise, look forward to working with you and your colleagues in Seattle in May
And, Adrian, yes the guitar thing is fun. One of the Do volunteers said later that evening
“It was a great idea having someone who cannot play the guitar to play the guitar as part of their talk…” He paused… “unless of course you *can* play the guitar.”
It was a sweet moment of awkwardness.
Hi Neil,
In the middle of my usual frenetic morning I decided to put the files to one side and watch this. I’m really glad I did, I thought you were great.
My perspective is that of an exclusively public law lawyer for more than a decade although I did a lot of mediation before that. I have never practiced nor been trained in collaborative law, but of course we have collaborative lawyers in the firm.
These are my immediate thoughts, for what they are worth – I haven’t yet begun to formulate answers.
1. If one person/side eschewed collaboration for persistent attack would they get a better outcome for themselves? One word you didn’t use was ‘power’, how does it fit in?
2. You say effectively, ‘go slow, it takes time’, wise words I’m sure. How does that fit in with the relentless pressure of the court process? How do we mesh human and institutional dynamics? How do you respect the principal that delay is often bad for children?
3. Our culture is hooked on ‘bad’ conflict. Eastenders would be off the air in a month if the characters started collaborating. Bad conflict is sexier and somehow drives narrative in ways respectful collaboration does not. Is there a way of addressing that?
4. Can collaboration work when there is a huge power imbalance, e.g. between a learning disabled parent and a local authority?
5. How does this approach fit in with these times of recession, litigants in person and scarcity? and lastly and forgive me……….
6. Does this play better in Bath than Hartcliffe? A law professor once said to me that mediation was for the population of inherently reasonable people who wanted an audience to acknowledge how reasonable they are being…………
These I hope are intelligently sceptical questions. More power to your elbow. If ever you are in Bristol and hungry maybe we could meet for lunch.
best wishes,
Paul
Hello Paul and thanks for the fascinating questions. I hope I can do them justice with my answers.
1. If one person chooses attack…
Contrary to popular belief, it only takes one to tango, or at least, to lead the dance.
It is not the case that both parties in a disagreement have to sign up to the same rules. Within debates, the person attacking is only successful if the respondent agrees to let that attack be the influential or dominant dynamic within this discussion. Encouragement and acknowledgements are incredibly powerful in drawing out the sting from the attack.
I have written elsewhere that the conflict is not to be found in the attack but only in the defensive response. Without the defensive stance all you have is one person speaking loudly or aggressively. Without the defensive engagement, the attack has nothing to latch onto.
Power is a very complex thing but our responses and our own choices as to how we respond to these kind of discussions can shift, preserve and assert different kinds of power and influence in very productive ways.
2. Go slow, it takes time…
How does this fit in with the court process? I am not sure it does. The court process is a distinct approach to dispute resolution and not the one I am interested in talking about or promoting.
This work is all about creating alternatives to litigious, court based dispute resolution for the very reason that court does not mesh with human dynamics but, too often, smashes them completely at great cost in financial, family and community terms.
3. Bad conflict and Eastenders?
A quote I often use in workshops came from a friend of mine. He said;
“But conflict feels so goood.”
And he, and you, are both right.
The adrenaline, sense of power, intellectual cut and thrust of legalistic debate, proving your point, destroying the other person’s assertion with a withering retort often has a strong visceral, sensory element to it.
Conflict provides arousal. It is exciting even when it is unpleasant.
Bad conflict makes for good tv. It makes for rubbish relationships.
If we are wanting to get on with our lives, our jobs, our clients, suppliers and colleagues then we need to choose the quietly productive approach, generating solutions and new opportunities and not the destructive, high-octane drama of bad conflict.
I like your “Hooked” comment as well. If I ever did a PhD in this area (and please stop me if I do) then I often say it would be done exploring the temperature of debate within media and culture and its impact on communities.
To what extent do we communities emulate conflict behaviours based on what we observe on Eastenders, Newsnight, Radio 4′s Today program, Match of the Day or the Jeremy Kyle Show?
4. Power imbalances
My guess is that there is always a power imbalance, it is just a question of degree. What is more, although I am no expert on this aspect, there will often be several power imbalances, jostling for position and impact.
Denying that power imbalances exist is dangerous and unhelpful. Openly recognising them, calling out when we think power is being deployed to influence or coerce, and being aware when we ourselves might be coercing or coerced are good places to start.
That was the long answer to your question.
The short answer is “Yes.”
5. If individuals, organisations and commmunities were better at dealing with disagreements earlier and more constructively then the cost of conflict, in money and relationship terms, would be greatly reduced.
We cannot afford *not* to get better at this stuff.
6. If the question here is “Will only the more affluent professional communities (if that is the distinction you are making between Bath and Hartcliffe) be able to, or be interested in, getting through arguments better?” then my hypothesis is no.
It cannot be right to assume that certain neighbourhoods or regions would be incapable of choosing to resolve a dispute through non-aggressive, creative dialogue, can it?
Instead I think it is about demonstrating models of good conflict in our homes and families, our organisations, leadership structures, management and performance reviews, our government, media and communities.
That is a massive task and I am not so arrogant to think that I can achieve it. It’s way too big for me and even my lifetime.
The best I can hope for is to one day look back and ask;
“What did I do, if anything to help people get through arguments better, with less fallout and less damage? Who did I get to speak to? What was I able to share with them, if anything, and were they able to pass that on into their homes, families, schools and workplaces?”
I cannot wait to find out.
Now, about lunch…