Raymond Zeuschner interviewed by Emma Taylor on January 5, 1996 "Conflict is a skill that will last a lifetime." Tripod: How do you define conflict? RZ: Four elements are usually associated with conflict (identified by the scholars Joyce Frost and William Wilmot). It is an expressed struggle involving at least two interdependent parties. They perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from the other party. Popular usage equates conflict with anger and arguing -- while these can be part of a conflict, they are not the same thing from a professional, academic use of the term. Tripod: How do one-person and two-person conflict differ? RZ: As you can see from the definition, it is difficult to think of one person conflict in formal terms. Indecision? Turmoil? Self-doubt? Tough choices? All those are more accurate, although you can easily see many of the elements of conflict at work -- scarce resources, for example would mean that you have choose between spending money (limited for most of us) on rent or food or vacation or car or gifts or CDs or computer or clothes. If you spend it in one place, you indeed have created an incompatible situation where the others choices are no longer viable. The "two independent parties" is the element missing when it's just yourself. Tripod: What are the drawbacks of conflict? RZ: If you handle your conflicts without any thought about what you are doing, each conflict is an independent event, and you are likely to repeat rather than resolve the conflicts. If you fail to recognize that there are two parties, both of whom have a stake in the outcome, then you remain stuck in a self-centered, adolescent stage of development. Tripod: What are the benefits of conflict? RZ: You can solve problems! Most realistic situations in life involve choices which need to be made. Avoiding those choices doesn't make them go away, it just gives the decision-making away to someone else, or to another time. Conflict allows you to sort through priorities and needs and distinguish them from wants and wishes. The best benefits are that you begin to create criteria -- systems of principles to render judgments -- if you manage your conflicts thoughtfully. Tripod: When should we avoid conflict, and we should we embrace it? RZ: It all depends. Avoid conflict over things that are low on your priorities, about which you have no criteria for judging the outcome, for which you have no need, or which you have nothing to gain or which you cannot win or resolve. If you are unarmed and get held up by a Uzi-wielding mugger, and all they want is your wallet (all of the contents can be replaced), hey, no conflict here! Embrace it if you are thoughtful about it, can use it to help you grow in your knowledge and appreciation of yourself and others, it concerns something important, you are clear about what you want, and you have the potential for satisfactory resolution. Conflict is one, perhaps the major, route to development. That is why healthy, mature people can manage their inevitable conflicts -- they have had a lot of practice along the way, so their experience in previous circumstances prepares them for current ones. Tripod: So there are some situations better suited to conflict than others? RZ: Sure, as above, with some emphasis on being about what you want and why. To resolve a problem is a good situation, to get revenge or to show off or to put down or hurt another is juvenile. Both parties in the conflict must recognize the situation and both need to part of the resolution for it to be well-suited to conflict management. Tripod: As technology has developed, and communication has become less and less about face-to-face contact, how has conflict been affected? RZ: Conflict is neither better nor worse in my opinion as a result of technology. It may be different. In interpersonal situations, a person who may be reluctant to confront someone face-to-face, may feel able to initiate conflict via mediated communication. This option has always been available, however, such as writing notes or memos or anonymous letters. The advance with technology is that we might have the conflict directly, in real time, but just "in your face" with the emotional loading that can occur when you are present directly. The down side is that because it may be easier, more people might be tempted to engage in not-well-thought-out conflict, or hide behind technological screens to engage in bashing or ego-boosting types of communication interactions. Tripod: What do you think about the current budget conflict? What are they doing wrong? RZ: The parties have failed to agree upon criteria. Ego, "I want you to lose as much as I want to win" attitude, inability to predict the exact consequences of actions. Will returning welfare to the states help people move off that system, or will the states divert the money to pork barrel projects and just discard millions of poverty line children and families? It's hard to predict the future when both possibilities exist. Tripod: What is the biggest mistake people make when dealing with conflict? RZ: Conflict for the wrong reason -- no real incompatibility, but a perceived one, lose-lose outcome, clear goals and criteria absent. Tripod: Okay. Here's a situation. My room-mate and I have different views about how tidy our house should be. How should I go about dealing with this? RZ: Give a ranking, scale of 1 to 10 -- how big a deal is this? Break it down into manageable units -- the bathroom is 9, but the living room is a 6. Trade a 6 on your priority for their 10, and vice-versa. Explain your reasons for ranking items. Be specific! Not: I'll try to be neater. But: Okay, I agree every Saturday before noon to vacuum the whole apartment and pick up all my things from the living room." Then they say: "Okay, and I'll quit nagging and keep my pantyhose out of the bathroom shower. If I forget, you can take them and put in my room and I won't get disturbed." Tripod: If conflict can be so beneficial, why do we view it so negatively? RZ: We use the term so generally -- to include every confrontation. Conflict is like listening -- it can be learned well or poorly. Most people confuse "hearing" with "listening" -- not at all the same thing. Many also think "argue" and "conflict" mean the same thing. We adopt a "win-lose" mentality from our sports and games, our business practices, our grading, and in our self-concepts. Indeed, you can manage conflict, if not solve every problem or win every argument. Management is a process. Tripod: So, in conflict, is the process more helpful than the anger? RZ: It could be the anger release, although I recommend a visit to the gym or a sushi lunch or a shopping trip. The result may or may not be what you want, so it is not a guarantee. The one which you'll always get is the process if you manage your conflict with thought. Each time you carefully go through the process you prepare yourself to do it better next time. Tripod: How do you distinguish between useful and useless conflict? RZ: Useful conflict helps you to become more self-aware, create empathy with those you are in conflict with, help to clarify your goals and criteria and priorities, and sharpen your communication skills, and sometimes get resolution or the results you need. Useless misses on most of these, even if you get your results this time (as in intimidation or threats or deception). Conflict is inevitable, so learn to manage it and you have a skill that will last a lifetime and be useful daily, if not hourly!