the conflict prism
If you’re a federal worker terrified to open your email inbox each day, a nonprofit exec wondering how to stand up a diverse funding strategy, or someone whose body and existence is suddenly politicized in a (shockingly unshocking) new way – you’ve been bracing yourself for an onslaught of conflict.
definition from Oxford Languages, via Google
After the election, I shared a rough draft of the framework I’ve used with all of my conflict mediation clients over the last year. I woke up that November morning in an unsurprised horror, and I jotted down the version I found myself scrawling at the top of flipcharts, on PDF worksheets, in surveys, even on Jamboards (RIP).
I think everyone needs support working through conflict.
So, here’s the updated version.
Sometimes the conflict we face is on the global geopolitical scale – but more often than not, it’s just as simple as a triggered attachment wound – the kind of childhood relational patterns we all share. Who doesn’t remember staying up past midnight pulling all the weight on a group project? (Shoutout to the eleven minute voice note I got back in response to this question in my middle school besties group chat last week:)
the conflict prism
My clients all share one thing in common – the conflict they are navigating involves hidden power dynamics. A leader accused of anti-Black racism, a maybe-not-quite experience of gender favoritism, generational patterns of colonialism and genocide…
My job is to help them uncover how those power stories are influencing each of their experiences within the conflict, as well as how we might be able to address them in the possible resolutions.
Before we start our mediation process, I ask each individual person to take twenty minutes to write down their own experience – on their own, with pen and paper, away from the antagonist, separately from any kind of circle process.
I tell them: Use the prism, and consider each element of conflict separately. Take them out, examine them from all angles, describe them in your own words and to the best of your ability. Interrogate the words you choose – are they the most faithful words to your lived experience?
this exercise gives us SPACE.
There’s space to separate fact from fiction, to tease out what actually happened from our interpretations of what happened. Do I know he hates me, or did I just see him roll his eyes behind my back when I started nerding out about Czech philosophers? Do I need to justify my activist history, or can I sit with the idea that I too am capable of anti-Blackness given that I grew up steeped in American racism?
make the implicit EXPLICIT.
Last but not at all least on this framework is the hierarchical. What are the power dynamics at play? How do we untangle who holds privilege, who holds marginalization? How does our oppression influence the choices we make? How do our trauma histories affect our ability to take accountability when we cause harm?
A necessary caveat! Conflict and abuse are not the same thing. A prerequisite to mediation involves ensuring abusive dynamics are not present. While this framework can be used to help untangle individual stories, I do not recommend this as a tool for working through abusive situations.
I find myself using this CONSTANTLY.
A silly little argument with my mother? Go back to the framework. A gnarly change management support call with a federal team in chaos? Go back to the framework. A potential conflict mediation about anti-Zionism with up to fifty participants but also maybe a hundred? Definitely go back to the framework.
so what now?
I’ve found this framework helps people move from conflict avoidance to conflict resilience – a renewed ability to navigate through the tense, terrifying, fraught intensity with radical grace and gentle accountability. One participant told me:
“[Your] encouragement for acknowledging of harms and actionable future steps made this entire process feel intensely positive. I'm hopeful for the future of my organization, and the ways that we work together and address issues.”
As I wrote last time, conflict is terrifying – and we cannot imagine new worlds from our fear. So I want us to have the tools you need to navigate it well. I want us to be well resourced to dream defiantly, to move relationally, to live abundantly.
If you try this out with your own conflicts, please report back! I’d love to hear what’s working well or not-so-well as you experiment. Drop me an email to let me know how it goes, or bring a story to next month’s Conflict Clinic (stay tuned!). And if you want some tender support around a thorny question you’re facing right now (do we keep or drop our DEI work? how do we make decisions in an unknown funding landscape?), book a free inquiry call with me here.