What Makes Disagreement a Conflict?
As I have been reviewing literature on the nature, causes and consequences of conflict, I have been amazed at how much emphasis there is on the types of issues that are in the center of conflict. Most authors discuss two of them - task conflict and relationship conflict, others add values conflict. The assumption is that a relationship conflict is more deep and fundamental, while task conflict is lighter or easier to resolve. That is indeed the hypothesis in most conflict research, but it surprisingly doesn’t hold true. One study on diversity, conflict and teamwork concluded that task conflict was more detrimental to the team than values conflict… Oh my… this is uncomfortable. I had also assumed that the reason for all this conflict in the world (and our organizations) is because of very deeply held sacred beliefs about what is right or wrong, moral code of ethics, unshakable spiritual views… etc. At least then, it would seem that the purpose of conflict has to do with figuring out important human dillemmas!
Well, that was not very thoughtful of me because I of course remember growing up in Poland how much conflict resulted one time from a neighbor deciding that nobody can step on a piece of land that belonged to him, even though this land was essentilly unusable, and walking through it was a much shorter path than any alternative.
As I have pondered on this more, it occurred to me that there are a lot of relationships and even marriages between people who have different political and religious views, not to mention how many times a day do we meet people with whom we disagree on the smallest things! Can the issue at stake be truly the reason for conflict?
No. It is not about religion, values, opinions, tasks, nothing…
It is fundamentally about safety. The best classification of conflict in my opinion is described in an article from 1943 by a well known scholar… Abraham Harold Maslow. He divided conflict into two types: threatening and non-threatening. Just these two types, it doesn’t matter what causes it! If it feels threatening, it can turn into conflict.
Disagreements can happen all day long, some can turn into debates, some can be jokes. People will often dismiss each other, poke fun at each other and then move on and have drinks together. If for any slightest reason though the disagreement evokes a sense of threat, strong negative feelings may emerge leading to reactive aggression, which can become immensly destructive if the cycle continues.
The catch is in the fact that the feeling of threat does not always indicate a real threat. However, because reactive aggression is reactive… the feelings can get out of control very quickly…
We will talk more about how to skillfully navigate this situation, in particular for conflict negotiators, leaders… or anyone who gets out of the house and talks to people. :)