Stop Avoiding Conflict

If you move toward the conflict, you can deal with it when it’s easy.

Conflict is inevitable. It is a natural part of every system on the planet, and it is inherent in all relationships. In fact, conflict is a good thing. Without conflict, nothing ever changes, you never learn anything new, and you don’t grow and develop as a human. The problem isn’t conflict—the problem is that we avoid it.

Think about a time a colleague sent you an email that made you mad. Maybe they did something that you thought was wrong, or they ended up giving you a bunch of headaches on a tough project, etc. The point is, upon receiving that email, you were clearly in conflict with this other individual. How did you respond?

If you’re like most, you did one, some, or all of the following things:

• You ignored it.

• You complained to your friend about it (or multiple friends).

• You gave it some time (maybe they would realize their mistake and fix it on their own?)

• You started building your case by drafting a long email (but hopefully you didn’t hit send).

These are the most common responses, and what do they all have in common? They all avoid the conflict. In none of these responses are you taking steps to resolve the conflict. The problem with that is that every day you wait to resolve a conflict, it has a good chance of growing more complex and nasty. The easiest time to deal with a conflict is when it first emerges.

So next time this happens, send an email back to the person saying some version of “Hey I think you and I are in disagreement about this issue in a pretty significant way, so can we schedule a meeting in person (or a video call or, last resort, a phone call) to talk it through?

Move toward the conflict. It’s one of the basic rules of conflict resolution, and one that is ignored frequently. It’s also a lesson I cover in my conflict resolution training (and coming soon, online course). [And, side note, NEVER try to do conflict via email. It’s guaranteed to make it worse.]

—

For more about my speaking and consulting, visit JamieNotter.com