Conflict is a word many of us either were taught or learned by experience to avoid. Fighting. Nastiness. Anger. Family Feuds. On a national level, “conflict” connotes failed diplomacy, armed warfare, environmental devastation, even genocide. My dictionary describes it as “an ongoing state of hostility between two groups.” Makes me shiver.

When you turn to contemporary peace studies, however, a broader definition begins to emerge. Not only in cases of radical disagreement or ill will, today scholars understand that conflict can also occur in cooperative situations, in which two or more parties have mutually compatible – even the same -- goals, but when they try to achieve these goals, the parties disagree about methods, and get in one another’s way.

I’ve been there. So have you. (C’mon, fess up. Nobody’s listening – except you.)

Conflict can be polite, friendly, agreeable, cool, barely civil, angry – but if there is disagreement over goals, resources, or methods – it’s conflict all the same. Social scientists – who love typologies – divide conflict into several levels of analysis – intrapsychic, between individuals, within or between groups, within organizations, among the various aspects of a community, at the level of the state as in civil wars and election campaigns, and between nations.

Systems theory teaches that conflict manifesting at any of these levels may appear “nested” in conflicts residing at larger levels of analysis. For example, conflict within a committee may play out the dynamics of a broader conflict in the organization as a whole – and vice versa.

Before your eyes and brain glaze over, let me move to what I found to be the most useful information for those inevitable times when conflict comes around:

• High concern for only the other party’s outcomes leads to backing away. The other party may ‘win’ but the conflict goes underground.
• High concern for only one’s self and one’s own outcomes leads to attempts to “win.”
• No concern for either side’s outcome leads to attempts to avoid the conflict. Let’s make nice and the conflict will go away. (Not.)
• High concern for both one’s own and the other party’s outcomes leads to attempts to find mutually beneficial solutions. The Quaker question in times of conflicted decision making is helpful here – “Is this proposal an outcome you can live with?”

Theory only goes so far. I’m still conflict averse. But it’s comforting, somehow, to know that conflict is not a sign of pathology. Conflict is natural aspect of every human community. It’s how we deal with conflict that matters. Now. Today.

© Maureen Killoran, SpiritQuest Coaching, 2005

www.spiritquestcoaching.com
mmk@spiritquestcoaching.com

Maureen Killoran, MA, DMin, is a Life Coach with a passion for helping people connect their strengths with their vision. Maureen offers dynamic individual and group coaching, work team empowerment training, teleclasses, and a free monthly e-zine, "Seeds of Change." Her articles are published on over 100 websites, and have been translated into several languages. Watch for Maureen's forthcoming e-workbook, Spirit Tickling -- a selection of her absolutely best articles, with questions to lead you further on your path of personal growth.

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