I was in a training class for advanced coaching skills recently. One of the things that I got out of the class was the idea that conflict is a signal of something new trying to emerge in a system. The system could be a marriage, a work team, or a small business.
I remember when I was in my twenties. My sister’s husband, an in-your-face New Yorker, tried to provoke me to see how I would react to conflict. I politely tried not to disagree with him, preferring to side step our differences. He said to me, “You’re not like your father. Your father was a man who addressed conflict head-on.”
I thought of my father, already dead for several years by the time I had this conversation with my brother-in-law, as someone who had a volatile temper. I didn’t see his way of handling things as productive or desirable. I couldn’t understand my brother-in-law’s admiration for a trait that I considered to be unpleasant to be around.
Now, many years later, I can see the value of conflict. I’m still not completely comfortable with it but I am able to be with it more. Last week, I was on a three-way call with two colleagues who ended up in a heated, even bitter argument. Inside, a voice was saying, “Please, just stop the yelling.” I kept returning to this new image of conflict as a marker for something new trying to happen between people. It surprised me that being in such an emotionally charged atmosphere, I felt okay afterwards. I would not die from getting too close to conflict.
This reminds me of a quality present in healthy marriages—partners know how to fight, how to handle conflict so that no one “dies.” Spouses in good marriages let conflict arise naturally. I’m now able to let conflict be a natural course of events as opposed to something to be avoided or suppressed. What doesn’t get expressed doesn’t go away. It just builds up. People need to move through strong emotions. Otherwise we can get stuck—not expressing, not moving on, building up a head of steam over time.
As a coach, part of my value is to provide a safe place for conflict to play out, where no one dies from it. As a wife, I have a new sense of appreciation when my husband brings up something I did that rubbed him the wrong way.
I’m curious to hear your views on conflict.
I’ve been meaning to comment on this post since you wrote it, but was in the
middle of too many things at the time to stop and put my thoughts together, so
I’m back.
I’m a #9 (peacemaker) on the enneagram. I abhor conflict. It’s actually not so
much conflict itself, really … I’ve become more comfortable with that over the
years. It’s the way in which some people express it that I have a problem with.
Whenever two or more people are involved in anything, there are going to be
diverse opinions and viewpoints, and therefore ‘conflict’ to some degree, but I
think there are so many more respectful and mature ways to surface it and work
through it than raising voices, being disparaging, attacking with words,
storming off, etc. So, while I’ve grown more comfortable with the idea of
conflict over the years, if I find myself in a situation where people are
yelling at each other, arguing, etc., I become really uncomfortable. As I was
reading about your experience of being an ‘observer’ on the call with the two
colleagues, I wondered what I would do, and it was pretty clear I would want to
hang up, or, if I was feeling particularly ‘evolved’ that day (which is rare
:-), I might try to mediate in some way.
I grew up with my parents arguing a lot. They were no different than other
couples in that culture … I figure maybe that was just a cultural thing …
vent and get it all out. They’ve been married 50 years now. I know other couples
who swear by that ‘just get it out’ philosophy. If it works for them, I say,
great, but a big part of me believes that somehow one of the parties is being
wounded in some deeper way in those exchanges that isn’t obvious at first. In
fact, I’m certain of it.
So, how interesting that I would end up with a lawyer, huh? Lawyers are trained
in arguing and conflict at law school. They’re trained to win, and they’re good
at words and working with semantics to make their argument, even if they know
they might be twisting some things around. Well, it was certainly a learning
experience in our first few months together, to say the least. John is not a
litigator, and he’s really not a lawyer at heart, but that law-school training
was still pretty deep. Over time, though, after recognizing that our ‘style’ of
arguing and resolving disagreements was not productive or effective for us
(i.e., didn’t create the result we wanted, which was harmony and understanding),
we’ve learned to develop a way to air disagreements and discuss things in a more
dialogue-based way, and it makes a huge difference. This was a bigger adjustment
for him, I think, but one that he’s been really good about making. One of our
cornerstones now are what we call weekly ‘board meetings’ … usually on
Saturday mornings when we wake up early anyway but don’t want to get up, we’ll
talk about anything that’s on our minds that we didn’t have time to discuss
during the week … could just be mundane logistical stuff, or little slights or
disagreements that we don’t want to see build up into bigger things. It’s good
… really works for us. I guess what I’m really saying is that conflict is
inevitable, but there are a million ways to deal with it, and I much prefer the
peaceful ways, and being around people who are like-minded that way … not that
you can always avoid the ‘hot-heads,’ but I do so as much as possible.
Finally, I saw the Dalai Lama live two weeks ago, and his talk was about ‘Peace,
War & Reconciliation,’ so this whole topic has been on my mind. He spoke about
how the only way to have a peaceful world is not only through external
disarmament of weapons and bombs, but through the ‘inner disarmament’ in each of
our hearts and minds so that we’re not being ruled by strong negative emotions
that hurt not only other people, but our own health. To that I say a loud
‘YES!!!!!!’ :-). Life’s too short to fight, even if conflict does mean that
something new is trying to emerge. That’s a good thing, yes, but it’s the 21st
century and we should be evolved enough by now to give birth to those new
changes in more healthy ways. I know I’m an idealist and that it is not always
possible in some situations (i.e., terrorism), but it is possible in a lot more
of our everyday dealings than we currently see … in traffic, in lines, in our
homes, etc.
Peace 🙂