Conflict is participatory
Even if you’re not part of a conflict, you’ll have an opinion about it. Your brain pays attention to keep you physically safe.
It’s like when you’re watching friends play ball. One of them drops the ball. What’s your first thought?
Probably, you formed an opinion about the toss, the attempted catch, and their reactions.
It’s the same with conflict. Thoughts lead to opinions about what you observe.
Others may try to draw you in, get your support, or ask you for comfort. So, whether you enjoy or avoid conflict, you want some skills for all situations.
Level up your skills
All skills start with basic learning and practicing. No one is born with an instruction manual, or a hot line to tech support.
From baking cherry pie to handling conflict, you learn basics and improve with practice.
T. I. P. (Thoughts, Inventory, Practice)
Once you have the basics, you level up your skills to do conflict better.
That’s your brain, keeping you emotionally safe.
You use conflict competence in your daily life
You might not recognize that you’re using conflict competencies. Here’s how to own them.
1. Think about the skills you use in conversation. Use good times and relaxed interactions as a model. Consider how you’d keep using those conversational skills when your emotions are hot and high.
2. Inventory your conversational competencies. List which conversational skills you want to use in conflicts, because it’s hard to remember your good conversational skills under pressure.
3. Watch fictional conflicts . They’re everywhere as you read, watch TV, go to movies, scroll kitten videos, listen to podcasts, enjoy songs, or follow celebrities or politicians’ antics. Whether it’s bombs-exploding or minor tension, any conflict is useful practice.
4. Put yourself in a fictional conflict. Ask yourself: what’s happening, and how does it affect me? Then, think about the conflict competencies you use in daily life. How can you use those when you are being affected by the fictional conflict?
Practice intentionally using your conversational competencies, and you’re practicing your conflict competencies.
That’s the T. I. P. outline.
Think about a conversational model that works.
Inventory the conversational skills you want to keep handy to use in conflict.
Practice those skills when you’re calm so you can use them when you aren’t.
Silence is a response in conflicts
Being silent is a conflict skill in three different ways. One point of clarification. I don’t mean “the silent treatment” or ghosting or the cold shoulder.
Conflict isn’t a spectator sport
No one’s born with an instruction manual for conflict, or a hot line to conflict tech support. When you practice intentionally using your conversational competencies, you’re practicing your conflict competencies.
Biblical book of Jonah and climate change
It’s hard to prove what didn’t happen. There’s no do-over to prove that if you’d done something else you’d like the result better. How do you measure success or evaluate outcomes when you cannot prove what didn’t happen?
5 steps to reading a conflict map
Question: A parent asked about his child’s recent public meltdown. As the Conflict Doctor, I squirmed, anticipating a parenting question that I’m not qualified to answer. Instead, he admitted his immature overreaction was the low point of the scene.
A conflict analysis of AI
Move over Margaret Atwood and George Orwell. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is another imaginer of future history whose sci-fi story parallels unfolding news. Player Piano, published in 1952, anticipated today’s hopes and fears. In this story-world, algorithms replaced decision-making and AI replaced workers.
What you see depends on where you stand
Are you tempted to be aggressive towards an adversary in hopes of achieving your preferred conflict outcome. In the podcast, I suggest other approaches that are more likely to get the result you want.
