Social Means Conflict

If you know me at all well, then you know I have a master’s degree in conflict resolution. I got it twenty years ago and have been using it professionally ever since. I’ve done lots of work on conflict in organizational settings, and early in my career I was working with people in areas of ethnic conflict, like Cyprus.

One of the main insights from the conflict resolution field is the idea that conflict is a natural part of every living system. Conflict is actually required for creativity and growth and development. If everyone agreed about everything all the time, life would be pretty boring and nothing would change. We have a word in English for systems that don’t change: stagnant.

Despite all that, lots of people still have a negative association with conflict, and if you ask them, they’ll admit they prefer to avoid it. So what does this have to do with social media and organizations?

To be social means to have conflict.

Conflict is a natural part of every social system. There are literally no social systems without conflict. But traditional organizations don’t like conflict. In our upcoming book, Humanize, we touch on the issue of conflict resolution skills in several different chapters. If our organizations are going to thrive in today’s social world, they will need to be a lot better at handling conflict.

I see it in the overall fear of social media. What if there is a negative comment? What if my employee says the wrong thing? It’s often framed as fear of losing control (which is true), but there is also an underlying fear of disharmony. We worry about the conflicts that will emerge later, so we choose to not experiment, not try new things, and not innovate.

When you have decent skills in conflict resolution, then conflict doesn’t feel so scary, and suddenly your organization can be a lot more courageous.