Conflict Engagement

What Is Conflict Engagement?

Avoidance or Engagement?
Most people would rather avoid a conflict than engage in it.  Sometimes avoiding a conflict is appropriate and sometimes it is inappropriate.  For example, if an issue is so trivial that the effort of engaging in conflict would not be worth it, avoidance is appropriate.  However, if the conflict involves a relationship and issues that you care about, engagement might be appropriate. 

Temptation of Premature Resolution
One of the most tempting ways of avoiding conflict is to attempt to resolve it prematurely.  Difficult conflicts often involve deep emotional factors and may require a substantial infusion or change in resources.  Individuals, including managers, facilitators, mediators the disputants themselves must decide how deep to go into the conflict and when to address various aspects of the conflict.  Therefore, complete resolution of such a conflict is rarely possible.  These complexities mean that it is not necessarily beneficial to decide early that resolution is desired or even appropriate.  

What is Conflict Engagement?
It is essential that conflict specialists and people who wish to deal with conflict constructively become aware of the process of conflict engagement. According to Bernard Mayer:

Engaging in conflict means accepting the challenges of a conflict, whatever its type or stage of development may be, with courage and wisdom and without automatically assuming that resolution is an appropriate goal (Mayer, p. 184).

Conflict Specialists and Conflict as an Adaptive System
Mayer likes to see conflict as an adaptive system, sort of like a living organism.  Conflict specialists can play many roles.  But ultimately what they are trying to do is to help people engage in the tasks of a conflict such as helping people to: become aware of the conflict, give voice to the existence of the conflict, mobilize resources to carry on the conflict at the level of intensity desired by the participants, and help parties connect and interact with each other.  
           
The roles Mayer envisions are different than mere mediation or other forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution.   He believes that constructive conflict engagement is what conflict specialists' work should be all about.  It involves helping to decide to engage, to fight by developing legitimate power, to understand their interests, and to examine their values.  Conflict specialists can be present as people move through the engagement process, and to consider when and if resolution is desirable or possible.  

Most of the above information is based on:
Mayer, B. Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution, 2004. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 181-214