Heat is relevance (and other things I've learned about healthy heat)

I’m a conflict-averse conflict facilitator. When the heat rises and things start getting tense, my palms sweat and my heart palpitates and I just want to flee.

I tell you this because it’s how I know that holding heat is a learnable skill. I did not come to this work with a natural talent for it. And in twenty-five years as a conflict dialogue facilitator, I’ve learned something deeply counterintuitive: long-term communities need love, and they also need conflict.

The relationships that last aren’t the ones that never fight. They’re the ones that learn how to fight well.

And yet, when disagreement enters the room, many groups reach for one of two options. There is unhealthy peace: ghosting, smoothing over, quiet resentment, a breezy “No worries!” while privately seething. And there is unhealthy conflict: humiliation, domination, takedowns, cancellation, sabotage, public shaming.

We ricochet between silence and explosion. Neither is helping our groups become stronger, clearer, or more connected. Groups can be as threatened by unhealthy peace as they are by unhealthy conflict.

But the good news is — there is another possibility. I call it healthy heat.

Healthy heat is the willingness and ability to hold tension, with care, long enough for it to become clarifying and generative. Heat is energy. It is information. It tells us that something, or someone, matters.

I’ve been thinking about this idea for more than a decade, and writing my new book about it for over eight years, and on Wednesday, I taught it out loud for the first time.

Group Lifers can watch the full replay below. And if you’re not yet a Group Lifer, you can join us here for the cost of a sandwich a month. 😉