Every Conflict Is An Opportunity to Create Wins

October 27, 2017

The other day, I came across a tweet by Jamie Remsberg after browsing around the hashtag “Compassionate Accountability” that poses this premise and question:

Conflict is energy.

How do you use it?

I’ve talked before about using everything available to us in life, including our non-sunny qualities. Read: Unleash the Kraken of Your Soul

In The Kraken, I talk about everything–“good” and “bad”–being part of life. And I’ve written before about it being delusional to deny the less-than-preferable parts. It’s all part of life.

And it’s all at our disposal, able to be utilized. That means, even the “bad” can be used for our individual benefits.

In the context of conflict, it seems as if you have to look at what kind of conflict it is. A part of the Chi philosophy is that all of Life is yin and yang, soft and hard, feminine and masculine. I’ve transferred that to another context: the popular paradox of unstoppable force & immovable object.

So, conflict can be a passive threat, like some impediment to our progress, or it can be an active disruption to our status quo.

So, how do we come out on top?

Overcome Obstacles

There are SO MANY ways to do this one. Obstacles come in all forms, and there are as many ways to tackle them are just as numerous and unique.

Some approaches & strategies:

  • Break your goals into smaller chunks. How does one eat an elephant? Incremental stages make it easier to conquer equally-sized challenges without detailing the whole process. How does a journey of a thousand miles begin?
  • Consider creative solutions. Duh-doy. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
  • Keep an active plan. Having the end goal in mind allows those first two (and everything) to seamlessly & organically play out as you draw closer to the goal.
  • Track your progress. It helps.
  • Seek advice and support. You see, kids, before GPS and smartphones and Waze, we had to ask directions from or consult a map made by people who had prior knowledge of the route… [adjusts dentures]
  • Break bad habits. I’ve got a few tips.
  • Find your motivation. It has to be your own, whatever sets you ON FIYAH (you have to sing that last part a la Alicia Keys)
  • Hone your problem-solving skills. Never shy away from a challenge. Practice makes perfect.

Survive Disruption

The Harvard Business Reciew suggests: Develop a disruption of your own before it’s too late. And Forbes provides 4 Ways To Beat Disruptive Innovation:

  1. Acquire the disruptive force. Absorb it. Eliminate its independence. Best to do it early.
  2. Co-opt. This is why we have Disney Pixar. Pixar films were poised to kick A, so Disney was like, “Hey, don’t steal our thunder, let’s work, uhh, together.”
  3. Spin off. Ask Frasier Crane how well that can work out!
  4. Take a Bayesian approach: not so much trying to get it right, but to become less wrong over time.

Over, under, around, or through… there’s no way to prepare exactly for a clash without knowing what form it will take.

Expect the conflict.

Always keep moving forward, using it all as a way to progress and platform to succeed.