How do you feel about having a conversation that may lead to conflict?
Give it a number on a scale of one to ten. With one being cold sweats and a frantic, wild-eyed, ‘Run! We’re all going to die horribly!’ And ten being a muscle-flexing, steely calm Clint Eastwood drawl, ‘Go ahead, make my day’.
Now imagine the fate of the world hangs on the conversation you’re about to have.
Oh, and you each happen to believe that the other person is the living embodiment of all that is corrupt, sinister and despicable. Not to mention your conversation is being monitored, recorded and broadcast to everyone on the planet.
No pressure.
During the 1980s, just such a conversation took place. Political differences and a massive buildup of nuclear weapons saw the world sliding towards a black hole of global annihilation. In November 1985, U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met for the first time to discuss a less disastrous way to resolve their differences.
Tony Robbins has separately interviewed Gorbachev and Reagan about their summit meetings. He was curious to know how two self-declared enemies were able to find a way to speak with each other as equals and safely bridge the gap between their opposing world-views. We may never be playing for such high stakes, but there’s a lot we can learn from how they found a way forward through conflict.
Tim Denning describes a pivotal moment in the conversations between Gorbachev and Reagan. Both men were berating each other about the respective evils of communism and capitalism. Neither was giving ground and the angry mood was growing darker and more intense by the minute.
Suddenly, Reagan stood up and began to walk away. He took a few steps, then stopped, paused, and turned back to face his nemesis.
Smiling like a six-year-old meeting a new friend in the playground, he held out his hand, ‘Can we start fresh? My name’s Ron. Are you Mikhail?’
The warmth in this playful action broke the tension between the two world leaders and opened a space for more authentic communication. It was then that Reagan asked Gorbachev if they could abandon the meeting room and go for a walk together.
This walk became famous. Instead of sitting across the table from each other, they were side by side, walking together. It helped shift their focus and changed the pattern of their conversation. Instead of staring each other down and arguing their entrenched positions, they were shoulder to shoulder looking outwards together at common interests and potential solutions. On that walk, they made the first agreement in the history of the world to destroy long-term nuclear weapons.
Conflict is often seen as a negative. Yet as M. Esther Harding notes, ‘Conflict is the beginning of consciousness’. It is conflict – opposing opinions and ideas – that can lead us to innovation and improvement. If we choose to embrace conflict as an opportunity for learning and growth, we gain clarity and better understanding of each other and our situation. We come up with new ways to improve, adjust and adapt.
‘Conflict is the beginning of consciousness’
Conflict is like a chemical reaction. Different substances when brought into contact with each other, produce something that didn’t exist before. Bread, cheese, wine, beer, the boiled eggs you had for breakfast, the electricity powering your phone, all these are outcomes of chemical reactions. They are emergent properties of the original substances. The process may be costly, messy or time consuming, but the benefits and outcomes are worth the investment.
So too with conflict. If we trust the reaction phase will lead to positive emergent outcomes, we can relax and help the process unfold as it needs to.
Let’s face it, conflict often gets a bad rap. And negative past experiences can also temper our perceptions. So let’s consider some upsides to conflict.
Biologists tell us that species at the borders of two competing ecosystems tend to evolve and adapt more effectively than those that face no habitat competition. In the same way, conflict is an ‘edge effect’ to help us adapt, innovate and unlock our hidden potential. As Gandhi said, ‘Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress’.
Name a superhero or Disney favourite who doesn’t have a tragic back-story and a present day nemesis. Would Harry Potter have known the full extent of his powers without a Voldemort to oppose him? Could Neo have become The One without Agent Smith? Would Sarah Connor have become a post-apocalypse legend without the Terminator? And where would Simba be without the nefarious plotting of Scar? Circle of life anyone? The Hero’s Journey is never a simple one. And conflict is always a given.
‘Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress’
That said, let’s look at three ways to reframe conflict. Because it’s not what we look at that counts, it’s what we see.
Enjoy the Dance
In any episode of Dancing With The Stars, dance partners move in opposite directions, take different actions and hold opposing positions. Yet it is these very differences that produce an outcome that is entertaining and enjoyable. Both dancers hold their own positions, but allow the energy of their interaction to create something delightful. Either one performing these same moves alone would look pretty weird. But together, their opposition to each other becomes a graceful work of art. In the same way, we can relax and see conflict as an invitation to dance. If we engage gracefully with people who hold different opinions from our own, the entire experience can produce a much more positive outcome. And may even be fun.
Join the Game
Great rivalries lead to excellence. Think Fischer-Spassky, Evert-Navratilova, Borg-McEnroe, Rousey-Holm, Red Sox-Yankees, Real Madrid-Barcelona. In sport, we expect opposition and plan for it. And the stronger the opposition, the more we learn and the better we become. Our rivalries revive and revitalise us. Opposition opens us to new opportunities – we win or we learn. Faced with new and unexpected challenges, we reinvent and innovate. Having the courage to step into conflict situations rather than avoid them helps us learn more about ourselves and others. We can value and appreciate our opposition because they are the ones helping us find new opportunities to improve, refine and develop.
Hold the Tension
Tension is when opposing forces stretch something and pull it tight. It’s a very useful force. Without it there’d be no Harbour Bridge. Without tension we couldn’t parachute, sail, ski, yo-yo, trampoline, play tennis, start a chainsaw or hang the clothes out to dry. Tension is what holds two opposing objects in place and produces something useful in between. Think of a suspension bridge. Too little resistance and the bridge is unstable. Too much tension and the bridge snaps. Like a good suspension bridge, we need just the right amount of tension. We need resistance from opposing ideas and perspectives to create good connections and bridge the gaps in our thinking. Conflict is an opportunity to hold the space between and create something new and useful to bridge the gap.
‘Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood’
When Rosa Parks said ‘no’ to giving up her seat, when Martin Luther King declared, ‘I have a dream…’ it was not consensus that opened a space for change. The real catalyst was conflict.
Folks like Copernicus, Galileo, Earhart, Einstein and Malala Yousafzai all encountered opposition and were vilified and ridiculed before they changed the world. Marie Curie faced unbridled hostility and opposition in her pursuit of an education and was denied entry to Warsaw’s male-only university. Undeterred she persisted and eventually became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (physics), and her later win in Chemistry made her the first person ever to claim Nobel honors twice. Her research led to the discovery of polonium and radium, she championed the development of X-rays and pioneered the first steps in treatments for cancer.
Curie saw conflict and opposition as a call to curiosity. ‘Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less’.
Like Curie, Brené Brown sees conflict an invitation to be curious. A reminder that it’s time to say, ‘Let’s have a real conversation, even if it’s tough’. In her excellent book, Dare to Lead, Brown describes the process as a rumble:
‘A rumble is a discussion, conversation, or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary, to be fearless in owning our parts, and, as psychologist Harriet Lerner teaches, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard’. (For more of Brené Brown’s ideas go HERE, and for a cheat-sheet on ‘rumble language’ go HERE)
We may not be saving the world from nuclear war, overturning social injustice or paving the way for a new field of science, but we never know where our courage may lead if we pause, turn back, and ask, ‘Can we start fresh?’
Next time we’re challenged, critiqued or contradicted, let’s remember the game. Let’s hold the tension, and find a way to build a bridge.
We’ve just been invited to dance.
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