Page 30 - IDF Journal 2023

IDF – Study Weekend IDF News – Spring 2023
Conflict Resolution
Dr Emma Loveridge
Conflict resolution is hugely helpful to wellbeing but is often a key feature in the workplace that gets ignored as we think that we can be adult enough to put it aside and continue with the work. At the study weekend, Rafan House presented on the state of mind of people in conflict, considered two case studies, and looked at how to achieve resolution.
Conflict is a universal state
of mind that occurs often across human teams. What
is fascinating is that if you remove the person that you think is the troublemaker in the group, somebody else will unconsciously step into that role, usually someone who seemed like a homogenous team member. Therefore, you cannot usually resolve team conflict by composing a team with homogeneity. Rather, it is better to understand the reasons why conflict has arisen.
The Slip
To understand conflict, we must understand how the unconscious mind can collapse. Every day we all slide up and down a state of mind continuum, from being a baby to a toddler to
an adolescent and an adult. It is an unconscious state dependent on our external circumstances.
Here is an illustration: A mature, highly professional person arrives to give a talk to a large audience. As they arrive, if they trip over the doorstep and fall, their state of mind would be changing as they fell, from competent adult to a very different state of mind once they hit the floor. It could be a baby-like state, where they would like someone to help them off
the floor. Or, it could be a toddler state, where they get themselves up without a hand because they feel the need to be independent.
Every one of us in this situation would slip to a different state of mind, but what matters is not that we have fallen down that trajectory, but can we recover?
What does conflict look like?
Most conflict happens at the point when several people in the group have fallen down the emotional ladder and are
of a different age inside. It is that gap that often causes conflict. It is also the complexity of different perspectives from the different roles. For example, often in the workplace there is an unconscious belief that those at the top of the hierarchy are perfect or infallible. When expectations of the perfect parents/ leaders are not upheld, this is when
we see conflict arise. If you do get this unconscious family dynamic in the system, the hierarchy then must find a scapegoat; a team member who strives to be perfect but feels they can never
be. There is a downhill spiral then of the hierarchy seeing only the imperfection in that person and that person seeing only the imperfection in the hierarchy. The hierarchy usually wins because they hold the power and the purse, but they don’t win in the sense that they often lose good people.
Most conflict happens at the point when several people in the group have fallen down the emotional ladder and are of a different age inside.
Case Study 1
A middle grade eye surgeon, who
is working his way up to consultant
level, feels constantly at odds with the consultant group. He is intelligent and has brilliant surgical skills. However, he constantly feels misunderstood and
there is a prejudice against him for who he is. He cannot understand why a man of his caliber is constantly being hauled up for his administrative failings. He rebels against engaging with it, so he moves jobs a few times in his career, having come close to being asked to leave and been told that he is not fit to become a consultant. At this point, what is unknown, but is later diagnosed, is that he is at the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum and has ADHD.
A person who has some difference about them, in whatever form, can struggle in an engagement with most of a team.
We have picked for our example a clear neurological difference in the way the surgeon’s mind works and in the conflict that ensued repeatedly in the pattern of his life. Although the hierarchy did not help accommodate his needs, there was also a provocation on his part as he failed to engage with his own internal struggles and look to overcome them.
This is an extreme case to achieve clarity, and could equally apply to race or gender differences, but the next example will show states of mind which are invisibly different.
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