Cooperating in spite of (or thanks to) conflict
At a time when irrational conflict is breaking out everywhere, learn how to defuse toxic binary clashes. That way, you’ll be able to channel positive energy towards constructing collective solutions that ensure that everyone’s a winner.
Globalization, deregulation, climate change, the health crisis – just four of the upheavals that are fueling rising concerns and the need for certainty. The collective capacity to consider a problem from different angles is diminishing: Ambivalence and shades of meaning are becoming less tolerated, debate is increasingly polarized and tensions are on the rise. What’s more, the pandemic has dented our emotional energy and cognitive space, both of which are vital for dealing with the fresh outbreak in conflicts linked to returning to face-to-face work.1 Your employees are expressing new desires that don’t correspond to the new rules of your organization, and your teams are experiencing tensions related to their diversity. To come out on top of these bad conflicts, channel the positive potential of differences to serve collaborative efforts.
High Conflict
Amanda Ripley, (Simon & Schuster, 2021).
Choose good conflict over bad
A world without conflict is an illusion – and would even be dangerous. “Good” conflict is vital. It transcends disagreements and enables you to reach a common solution. “Bad conflict,” on the other hand, is a negative spiral that fuels tension and antagonism. When you’re trapped in a bad conflict, your behavior goes off the rails: Your brain reacts by emitting a spike in cortisol, the stress hormone. You’re more and more confident that you have “the” truth, you’re disturbed emotionally and you become angry with your opponents and intolerant of difference. Your confirmation bias becomes inflamed with any new information that corroborates what you already believe. You lend selfish intentions only to others, without trying to understand their perspective. In reaction, your interlocutors go on the defensive, speak less and simplify their thinking, which exacerbates misunderstandings. Bad conflict is like a magnet: It attracts and stultifies, slowly contaminating your entire mental space, defining your existence and becoming an end in itself.
Cultivate your listening skills
Constructive conflict is based on attentive listening so you can identify the implications of a disagreement. Take time to let the other person speak: You probably tend to interrupt too quickly.2 Be explicit when communicating your intentions and wishes. The illusion of communication gives you the impression that others are reading you openly, but your motivations are obvious only to you.3 Once everyone has the sense that they’ve been listened to and understood, they will feel empowered to look for solutions and find options they didn’t consider before.
Avoid the trap of polarization
Bad conflict is based on a binary, unquestioned “them against us” logic. Fifty-two million years ago, Homo sapiens formed groups to survive. In their footsteps, you instinctively put people into categories from a very early age. This classification – which is practical, simple and quick – stimulates your sense of belonging and makes intragroup cohesion easier. Your group protects you from the painful feeling of being excluded (the worst feeling for human beings)4 and boosts your self-esteem. In return, you are much less likely to cooperate with people from another “tribe,” even if your own is a purely imaginary construct.
When teenagers are distributed artificially according to their alleged artistic preferences, they immediately begin to show preferential attitudes towards members of “their” pseudo-group.5 In addition, nothing strengthens a group more than defining a common external enemy: Even NASA astronauts, carefully selected for their exceptional cooperative abilities, invariably end up sticking together against the people in the control center.
Break the power of “binarism”
Never form groups that aren’t necessary. When these groups do exist, make sure you “mix” their members by regularly encouraging them to take the place of others (via an immersive experience in other departments, in the field, etc.). When making decisions, avoid all-or-nothing alternatives and referendums, always offering more than two choices and asking participants to rank them in order of preference.
Keep a tight rein on “firebugs”
Stamp out anything that leads to irrational conflict: 1 – The contagion linked to group identity: If one of “your own” is assaulted, the signal for your neurons is the same as if the assault concerned you directly. You experience the emotion by proxy. The more conflict spreads to a large number of people, the harder it is to control. 2 – “Conflict entrepreneurs” fuel tensions, spread rumors, give the green light to every complaint and sweep aside nuances. They also make people less flexible, more “addicted” to conflict and push them into battle. 3 – Humiliation, the emotional nuclear bomb. Shame, a lack of respect and being the object of ridicule can all lead to violence.
Contain the fire
Put your money on multiple loyalties. If one of the groups you belong to is attacked, refocus on the others to bring down the pressure. Gang members who end up “falling into line” do so for their families. Identify and marginalize conflict entrepreneurs, who often go unnoticed because they can be kind, persuasive, knowledgeable and seemingly essential to the survival of your group. But there’s a surefire way to recognize them: They use warlike vocabulary. Never put your opponent down and, at the same time, don’t overinterpret the harm done to you – humiliation is partly subjective.
- Hoist the white flag
In the midst of a bad conflict, there’s always a saturation point. This is also an opportunity to develop an identity that competes with the conflict-related identity, meaning you can gradually abandon it. It’s essential, therefore, to have physical and psychological distance so you can redefine yourself, and find new roles and objectives.
At the same time, spending time with your “opponents” helps bring the flow of prejudices, misinterpretations and reductive visions to an end.6 Your daily interactions change you profoundly. The Seattle Love Lab, which has studied thousands of couples, has shown that a ratio of one negative interaction to five positive interactions is the best predictor of a stable relationship capable of healthy conflict.
Desert the battlefield
William Ury, a leading expert on negotiation, recommends keeping your calm by using “the balcony technique”: Position yourself high above difficult situations you’re going through. Meditating, playing sports, gardening or listening to music all reduce your anxiety and train your brain to be more reflective, even in the midst of conflict. Bringing rival groups together is all the more effective if the individuals involved (i) have equal status; (ii) are supervised by a third-party authority; (iii) work together on a joint project and (iv) are motivated by the process.
2. Cultivate curiosity and openness
Curiosity is the best antidote to negative conflict. When observing discussions between strangers who disagree, social psychology researchers at the Difficult Conversations Lab (Columbia) have shown that the most fruitful interactions occur when people ask the most questions. Curiosity creates resilience to conflict. It teaches us how to tolerate tension and cooperate with people who have views different from our own.
Although it doesn’t miraculously solve problems, curiosity makes you more attuned to their nature. And, from that moment on, each disagreement no longer seems to be like guerrilla warfare but a fascinating puzzle to be solved.
In one experiment, two articles were given to people to read on a controversial subject: The first was simplistic and “biased”; the second was more subtle, leaving room for different points of view. Readers of the first article were more negative and less creative than those who read the second, with the latter generating more good-quality ideas on the theme. Accepting complexity is a prerequisite for innovation and creativity.
Make your scenarios more complex
Beware of overly simple stories. Complexify your narratives, amplify the shades of meaning in your stories and encourage those around you to do the same. Recontextualize conflicts to encourage fresh points of view to emerge. In a team, set up a conflict infrastructure to investigate sources of disagreement. The result is worth the effort. Although no one will change their opinion overnight, discussions with trusted opponents may bring about advances.
Memo
- Conflict is never a bad thing in itself: At the same time, the highly polarized nature of debate can derail progress, provoking irrational reactions that harm all parties.
- Don’t let yourself be carried away by group behavior that’s beyond your understanding, and keep the “warmongers” or “conflict entrepreneurs” at bay.
- Be curious about your opponents, and respect them, accepting differences as interesting challenges to overcome, cultivating nuance and embracing complexity.
1 “9.7 Million U.K. Employees Need Conflict oOn tThe Board Agenda” (Forbes, October 2021).
2 The study “Eliciting the Patient‘’s Agenda – Secondary Analysis of Recorded Clinical Encounters” (Singh Opina et al., 2019) showed that doctors listen to their patients on average for only 11 seconds before interrupting them, while they need 17 seconds to be heard.
3 3 If you beat out the rhythm of a well-known song, only 3 percent of the people listening to you will be able to identify it. Unlike you, they don’t have the melody in their heads.
4 The cyberball paradigm shows that very short episodes of ostracism cause intense social pain.
5 This experiment involvingon 48 teenagers from Bristol, which demonstrates the phenomenon of pro-ingroup bias, was performed in 1971 by Henri Tafjel, a psychologist who developed the theory of social identity.
6 The theory of intergroup contact, put forward by the psychologist Gordon Allport in 1954, is still one of the most widely used in public, national and international decision making.
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