The Importance of Recognizing Conflict

The title of this entry is "The Importance of Recognizing Conflict." It's probably not something that keeps you up at night. Frankly, I can't remember laying in bed thinking about how important it is; at least not until last night. Okay, not really. In reality, I believe that our ability to recognize conflict is one of the most key aspects to managing it. Here's why...

• Conflict is a natural consequence of being with people
  If you work with, live with, love, hate, in any kind of relationship with, anyone...there will be conflicts. You might think that you can avoid the conflicts by just being the most sweet, agreeable and lovable person ever. And that may prevent some confrontations, but it won't stop the feelings of frustration, anger and resentment. In other words, an unwillingness to recognize conflict won't keep it from existing.
• Conflict is neither good, nor bad
  I know that our society treats conflict as some kind of social ill. But the gut wrenching truth is that our failure to recognize and deal with conflict does much more damage in the long run. As I said earlier, the feelings of frustration, anger and resentment don't just go away. Instead they build up, until eventually it does real harm. Real harm, like...

  • School and workplace shootings
  • Abused children and spouses
  • broken homes, marriages and people

  All because we've allowed ourselves to persuaded to believe that it is the conflict that is bad.

Recognizing conflict is important because until we can see the conflicts around us, and until we are willing to acknowledge that they are there, we cannot hope to to manage them successfully.

A brief note about this post...
The first time I started to write this entry, something didn't feel quite right. I knew the topic I wanted to cover, and I thought I knew what I wanted to say. But what I wrote seemed to stiff. So, I left it to sit overnight. This morning, I woke up knowing what was making me feel so uneasy... I've been writing these entries like I was lecturing to a class. I've been trying too hard. I've been so wrapped up in using just the right words, or formatting the text in just the right way, that I've left out my passion for helping people be better managers of conflict.

I've rewritten every aspect of this entry, except the title. I hope that in my desire to help you understand the idea of this entry, I've not alienated anyone by not "saying it just right". And with that, here we go...