Conflict is a Creative Process
Getting good at approaching conflict requires confidence. Most people fear conflict because of the challenges it presents. These challenges usually fall into three categories:
Not knowing how to prepare
Not knowing what to say.
Not knowing how the other person(s) will respond.
These unknowns can keep you up at night, stuck in the spiral of catastrophic thoughts. What starts as a simple misunderstanding about a project turns into something much worse in your mind.
Sometimes, we have to reframe our thinking completely. I'll ask you to do that often, and it starts now.
Conflict is a creative process.
Read that again. Conflict is a creative process. This is the first reframe I challenge you to adopt. So often, conflict keeps us stuck. It keeps us from more productivity and better relationships and, ultimately, can rob us of our best collective ideas.
When we see conflict as an opportunity to craft something new, we can have more of what we want.
Think about a time you've been in conflict with someone you have a close personal relationship with that you are committed to repairing. Perhaps things escalated to a point where you decided to take some space to cool off and reflect.
Sure, you might initially vent to others about what happened, asking for advice and fuming. Once that phase is over, though, you enter a creative space. You ask yourself, "What happened?" and "How can we fix this and keep it from happening in the future?" You are doing your own work generating ideas.
When you come together with that person, they've likely done this same work. They also generated ideas for overcoming the situation, and together, you begin to enter a creative space where you work together to craft a new shared reality.
That's creativity!
In workplaces, the idea that conflict is a creative process is transformative because it is filled with possibility and not driven by fear alone.
Fear needs a buddy.
Fear always needs something to accompany it. You've heard the phrase, "Many things can be true at once." This is especially true of fear. If our fear of the unknowns in conflict is left alone, it drives us crazy.
When we give fear a buddy, such as possibilities, options, or momentum, we put our fear to work for us instead of letting it drive us.
It goes like this: "The things I don't know are scary, and I know we can create something new together." This internal statement will impact how you approach tough conversations. Your tone will shift, your shoulders will soften, and that pit of nervous energy in your stomach will lessen.