The Three Conditions Required for Good Conflict to Happen

Earlier this year I wrote about what good conflict feels like—that it feels alive, has traction, stretches you, has texture, feels creative, and draws you in. That post struck a nerve, and I think I know why: most of us have had just enough good conflict in our lives to recognize the feeling when it shows up, even if it’s not too common.

But feeling something and making it happen are two different things. After the good conflict post, I dove deep into writing my Conflict Systems Essay (paid subscribers only), and that went to the other end of the spectrum—the systems level—and identified capacities, processes, governance rules, and accountability systems you could put in place inside your organization that would facilitate the existence of good conflict.

That’s important, but I realized recently that I skipped over the middle level that describes what good conflict actually is and how it works. It’s important to understand what good conflict is made of, and the real difference between good conflict and conflict that has a negative impact. The good news is, it’s not that complicated.

All conflict has three basic components: the issue, the process, and the resolution. It’s what we are fighting about, how we engage in the fight, and how the fight gets resolved. For good conflict to happen, each of those components requires certain conditions to be present. If you fail to sustain the necessary conditions in any of those three areas, you’ll end up with conflict that disappoints you or does damage.

The Issue Condition: RELEVANCE

Obviously having a conflict over an issue that is totally irrelevant to the parties will never be good conflict, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Relevance in this context isn’t just binary (relevant/irrelevant); I’m trying to hold the bar a little higher. In good conflict, the issue must truly matter to the people involved.

The issue, for example, should have a genuinely significant impact on the parties or the system they are in. It should be of roughly equal importance to the parties, and the issue should be addressed at the right time. The issue should also be something over which the parties actually have some control (something I wish more people would consider before they start arguing about politics on social media).

I’m wrapping all of that into the word relevance, and if your conflict issue fails the relevance test along any of those variables, it will not be a good conflict. If the issue matters a lot more to you than it does to your colleague, you’ll be fired up and they will be wondering why you’re even having this conversation. If the senior team spends an hour debating word choices in an email marketing campaign (which has very little impact), it’s going to feel frustrating.

The Process Conditions: TRUTH and MOVEMENT

As you engage in the process of attempting to resolve a conflict, there are two conditions required: the process must bring out the underlying truth, and the process must maintain movement and momentum.

“Truth” here doesn’t mean the Truth, with a capital T. This is not about people “not lying” or being their “whole selves.” Truth is about ensuring that the stuff that must be on the table for you to truly solve the issue actually gets on the table. That could mean bringing more data and experiences into the conversation to ensure everyone has a shared picture of what has happened or is happening. It could be pulling out the deeper interests that underlie a position during a negotiation. It could mean sharing a conclusion that you’ve been holding back for fear of the reaction it might produce. This isn’t about everyone sharing everything they are thinking all the time. It’s more strategic than that—it’s the specific data, positions, feelings, opinions, and insights that have the most bearing on finding a solution to the issue. That’s why the truth part is harder than it sounds.

Movement is about momentum and progress. The process in good conflict must ensure that the conflict doesn’t get stuck or spin its wheels. Continuous progress (even if it is sometimes slow) is required in good conflict, and that requires movement of the parties during the process—avoiding circling back to old points, or re-entrenching in positions that have already proven to be untenable.

Note, by the way, that these two conditions sometimes require some balance. Uncovering the truth often slows the conversation down, and pushing for movement will sometimes tempt you to overlook the truth and just decide. A good process holds both—which is exactly why it produces good results.

The Resolution Condition: GENERATIVE

Finally, good conflict has to land somewhere worth landing, and not all resolutions are created equal. In good conflict, the resolutions are generative—they bring you someplace new, they transcend the previous state, and they set all the parties up for success.

It’s not only about reaching agreement. An agreement that leaves out key issues is one that will need to be relitigated in a few months. An agreement that is fundamentally unfair to one of the parties will damage the relationship, leading to new (and probably worse) conflicts. Agreements that are unclear or too high-level will almost always break down during implementation. Generative resolutions avoid all these pitfalls.

Connecting the Dots

Remember, you need all three conditions for conflict to be good. A conflict about something that truly matters, with a process that maintains momentum, ending in a resolution nobody will honor? Not good conflict. A brilliant, generative solution to an issue that has little impact? Not good conflict either. This is why good conflict isn’t ubiquitous—it’s a higher bar to maintain the conditions needed for all three pieces.

But now we have some indicators to help us improve our conflict. I told you what good conflict feels like, but if it doesn’t feel like that, then start thinking about which condition is missing. Is this even the right issue? Are we being honest and getting somewhere? Are we going to build something that lasts? This can help you adjust real-time and perhaps save a conflict from going bad.

And to tie this back to the Conflict System essay: the three conditions don’t happen by luck. When your organization consistently lands on relevant issues, handles them honestly, and generates resolutions that hold, that’s not because you got a room full of unusually mature people. It’s because you have a system that produces those conditions on purpose.

In the end, conflict is sort of like culture. Conventional wisdom tells you culture is vague and squishy and hard to manage, but, in fact, it’s a tangible business tool that you can manage directly to produce better results.

Good conflict is the same. Good conflict produces results. It’s conflict that works, and it’s more within your reach than you realize.

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For more information on my speaking or advisory services, visit JamieNotter.com.