Is it OK to disagree? Learning from the discomfort of conflict
Humans may think of themselves as rational creatures, but when we feel threatened, emotions often take over. How do we ensure that we don’t become polarised and paralysed as a community when tension and conflict arise?
I do not love conflict. And my instinctive reaction to people angrily disagreeing with me, is to back off. Unlike some colleagues and friends, my initial reflex is to not reciprocate with visible anger. I am not exactly sure why that is. My past experiences of forcefully trying to ‘win’ and not getting anywhere may have contributed. As my career progressed, I started to realise my attitude to conflict needed to change. Not by me becoming more aggressive, but rather by employing a different approach altogether.
“What happens when we move between withdrawal and aggression is that we stop listening, connecting and learning.”
I believe it is only natural that as humans we enjoy it when others agree with our point of view. What is not to like? But, clearly, it is unrealistic to expect a life without disagreement or conflicting interests. And there actually is a lot of evidence that different viewpoints and a certain level of tension are needed for growth, stability and sustainable innovation, both in the workplace and in personal relationships. The question then is: how do we deal with those tensions well?
The problem lies with our natural tendency to either lash out or zone out when we feel threatened. What happens, when we move between withdrawal and aggression, is that we stop listening, connecting and learning. We are so busy protecting our own interests and defending our own position that we can no longer afford to see nuance and entertain the possibility that the other party may have a point. The path to further and further escalation and alienation, to hardening and more extreme points of view, is subsequently wide open. I don’t think I need to illustrate the principle with real life examples. You can find plenty in this morning’s newspapers, and even larger quantities among today’s tweets. Unfortunately, as we are busy with intensely disliking the position of the ‘other’, we are wasting time and opportunity to resolve issues and build robust and sustainable solutions for all.
“If we want to deal more effectively with discomfort or conflict in our communities, we need to stop closing off to different opinions.”
If we want to deal more effectively with discomfort or conflict in our communities, we need to stop closing off to different opinions. We need to listen, dare to be vulnerable and even be open to the possibility that at times we ourselves are plain wrong. That’s really hard, much harder than instinctively going into fight or flight mode. However, if we don’t try, we will miss valuable opportunities to gain insights, strengthen relationships and sustainably resolve the knotty problems that make us all unhappy.
Most people in leadership positions sooner or later have to deal with conflict and anger, especially in times of large scale change or crisis. When that happens, we have a choice. Either we increase the distance between us and the colleagues that are angry, or we get closer by trying to connect. The latter starts by attempting to truly understand the cause of the anger. Too often, all we try to do is win the argument, while forgetting that without openness, honest communication and an authentic human connection, we will not persuade ‘the other side’ to soften their position. We all have a tendency to believe that if we clearly and rationally outline our own position, we will ‘win’ because of the sheer beauty of our arguments. What we forget is that, if there is no connection and no trust, the other side will simply not be able to believe us, because there is too much suspicion of our motives.
“With a different effort, and with patience and careful practice, we will be more likely to reach a long-term situation of stability, collaboration and mutual growth.”
The difficulty with the connecting approach, apart from the fact it can be quite scary in the beginning, is that it takes time. More time than declaring war, and parking our tanks on the lawn, or retreating into the trenches. But once conflict has fully escalated, it easily appears that we are too busy for careful communication and figuring out which human emotions and problems caused the issue to begin with. Also, in the middle of a heated situation, we often subconsciously or consciously choose to feed the simple dichotomy of right (us) and wrong (them), which further enables the high pace, breathlessness and intensity of full blown conflict.
We can break the dangerous cycle once we understand we cannot enjoy the primitive pleasures of always being right that our conflicts provide us with, while at the same time nurturing nuance, compassion and self-reflection. Those primitive pleasures are risky for our own happiness and that of others in our community since, if we want them to continue, we have to become ever more extreme in our positions. And while keeping the short term conflict alive, we inevitably lose sight of the fact that with a different effort, and with patience and careful practice, we will be more likely to reach a long-term situation of stability, collaboration and mutual growth. If we use conflicts not to harden our stance, but to deepen our understanding, to define common goals, to reach out and to nurture a sense of shared humanity, we will all gain. At the very least we will not waste our valuable time on senseless feuds with other fragile humans just like us.
