Comprehending Conflict:

Conflict is defined as: “a sharp disagreement regarding principles, methods, interests, or ideas, which leads to emotional disturbances and incompatibility.” Conflicts often lead to quarreling, when verbal strife and angry emotions rule and the people involved spend all of their time explaining their reasons and positions, instead of listening attentively to each other, endeavoring to understand each other, learn from each other, and come to some profitable and beneficial compromise.

Components of Conflict:

▪ Thinking – beliefs, ideas, worldview and opinions

▪ Expectations – desires and dreams, goals and plans, what we expect others to be and do

▪ Attitudes – how we feel, bitter roots and emotional wounds or positive feelings and mindset

▪ Behavior – how we act and react

Creating synergy through conflict:

Actions are choices:

We all have ideas and plans. When others have different ideas or disagree with our plans, we may react in ways that cause conflict. When our opinions or methods are different, we can choose to listen and learn from each other and improve our relationship and effectiveness. Or we can let strife and contention develop into conflict, destroying our relationships and damaging our organization and effectiveness. We often begin relationships, organizations and projects with many great expectations, until people don’t live up to our expectations, we become angry with them, and conflict begins. In order to resolve and prevent conflict, changes must take place in our thinking, expectations, attitudes and behavior. Conflict develops and continues because we do not want to change. We don’t want to change because we think that we are right. When we exert all of our efforts in supporting our ideas and positions, justifying ourselves, and blaming others, how can there be any energy left to truly seek and hear what others are saying, learn and grow in unity, and come to some solution?

Reactions are choices:

Conflict is something that we all experience at times, but the most important factor is how we react when we are faced with it. Often in conflict, people tend to defend themselves and attack and criticize each other. They excuse their own actions and reactions, while blaming each other for the contention and conflict. These negative reactions only magnify and compound the problem. When we handle conflict in a positive way with humility, we can actually learn from it, strengthen our relationships, and build teamwork.

Three types of conflict:

▪ Moral – Right verses wrong; issues involving morality

▪ Management or methods – better or worse; issues involving opinions about how we work

▪ Manner – “us versus them”; issues involving differences in preferences or personalities

Whenever we are experiencing conflict, we should endeavor to discover the root causes and then determine which type of conflict we are facing. Understanding this will help us to know which steps we should take to resolve the conflict. Understanding how conflict happens and is resolved empowers us to learn, grow, and even create synergy from the growth of the group through the conflict.

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