Matt's Muzings

The Need for Conflict

I have to confess that I don't like conflict. I get a knot in my stomach and my upbringing quickly reminds me that the safest way to deal with conflict is to withdraw, to hide within myself and not reveal what is happening in me and wait for the conflict to go away.

I also have to confess that I love to learn. I long to understand and grow in wisdom. I want to help others grow as well. This is what brings me my greatest pleasure.

I will explain my wrestling with these feelings over the next couple of emails. In essence it is what I did my Ph. D in. It was and is a learning process God is taking me through. (I still get a small knot in my stomach when I have to deal with conflict but I am learning).

A quote from Kenwyn Smith and David Berg make it clear that conflict is here to stay, "It is impossible to have a group without certain types of conflict"

If this is true, what is the purpose of conflict and why did God make it this way? They go on and say, "the wish to have those conflicts "resolved" stems from imperfect understanding of the meaning that conflict has in the life of the group."

TWO TYPES OF CONFLICT

I grew up with a wrong understanding of conflict and how a group learns and grows together. Here is what I am learning.

There are two basic types of conflict between people in a group:

PARADOXES - Two or more good values that in a sense are opposed to and yet connected to each other.

PROBLEMS - Something is wrong and it needs to be fixed. There is a right way to do it and once it is solved, it doesn't have to be dealt, at least for a while. A simple problem - there is no toilet paper and we need to get some.

I grew up thinking all conflict was a result of problems. You just solve the problem and the conflict goes away. But healthy conflict as a result of paradoxes is actually the life of a group, without them the group dies.

PARADOX

Let me give an example of one common paradox found in any organization facing those in leadership: the challenge between vision and reality.

This is a paradox, as it contains two elements that are at odds with each other and yet directly connected with each other. Without a vision the people perish is a Biblical value. Yet the first question God asked man, (Adam) was "Where are you?" He wanted him to know what was reality in his world and how he got there. You have to know where you are going but in order to get there you have to know where you are now.

These two areas are 'in conflict' with each other. As the leader holds them in tension with each other the group moves forward and has life.

We are struggling with this right now here at the U of N in Kona. We are clarifying our vision and direction and focusing on where we want to go. It is our emphasis yet it must be connected to reality and the importance of dealing with what is happening now in our midst. It is not an either/or, but a both/and.

SOLUTION VS RECONCILIATION

So what is the difference between a paradox and a problem? A problem has a right answer and is solvable. A paradox doesn't have one right answer, and it must be reconciled over and over again.

The single most common way of dealing with paradoxes is to make them problems and to try and solve them so you don't have to deal with them anymore. People do this by saying that reality is all that matters, or vision is all that matters. If you only emphasize one, all the time, it is like cutting off the wing of a bird. It takes two wings to fly and as Tozer said, truth has two wings.

Leaders must often deal with paradoxes. Managers must often deal with problems. Both leaders and managers are needed. A person can be both, but one has to be aware of paradoxes and problems and deal with them differently.

RECONCILIATION

One of the major mistakes a leader can make is to change a paradox into a problem and then try and solve it once and for all. That is, to say there is only one right answer.

Leaders are called to reconciliation. On any given day they may focus on one side of the paradox or the other, but they are always aware of the tension in the paradox and the different areas connected to it.