Karen Valencic’s Blog

Misunderstood, avoided, and talked about - if this were a person we’d want to help him! What I am describing is ‘conflict.’ Sure there is talk about how necessary and natural conflict is, yet it still remains something most people would just like to eliminate from their lives.

The typical manager spends 25-40% of his or her time dealing with workplace conflict (Washington Business Journal, May 2005). This translates to 1-2 days a week. Finding ways to re-capture this time for something creative makes good business sense. How much money does 1-2 days of a manager’s time cost in your organization? What about other indirect costs: interrupted work, loss of sleep, time spent talking about it, absenteeism, and employee distraction? Can you afford this?

The first step is to understand conflict. Conflict comes from the root words: strike together. Take your fist and push it against your other fist or some other object - this is conflict. When you feel this tension you have a choice: to keep pushing long or hard and be destructive or recognize the tension and make a choice to move with it and influence what happens next. One choice increases struggle and destruction; the other creates movement and solutions.

Our current economic climate is pushing many people and organizations. Those who are succeeding recognize the push and move with it in a variety of ways. This is a time when innovation and creativity are a must for survival. Innovation requires conflict and our performance peaks when we are challenged. Without the initial push or tension we don’t grow because there is no desire to change things. Learning to push ‘just right’ is the key to Using Conflict Creatively.

In the business world the words conflict management are frequently used. This makes me shutter! Managing conflict is like trying to manage children or spouses. You can manage your money or production line, not conflict. Things are managed; people are lead. What is needed is to learn how to lead creatively through conflict. This requires personal development and awareness; there are no short cuts.

Conflict is a mind/body/spirit phenomenon. As I’ve worked, consciously, with conflict for almost 2 decades I have found sharing tools that are visual, tactile and auditory provide for the best learning transfer to begin to understand conflict and then use it for innovation.

A spiral is the most powerful tool for transforming conflict. When that initial push happens learn to spiral with rather than pushing against creates almost automatic influence and diffusion. The analogy of using a hammer and nail versus a screwdriver and screw illustrates this beautifully. A hammer requires a focused large force. If it doesn’t hit its target - someone gets hurt. Where a screwdriver and screw requires less force, is more stable, and ultimately gives you a better long term result. Applied to conflict, I call this Spiral Impact.

Let’s not make conflict out to be a villain! Learn to understand conflict, use it creatively and you will have an endless opportunity to innovate.
Karen Valencic
President, Spiral Impact
Copyright 2010

Walls are made of many things: bricks, mortar, logs, stones, plaster, boards.

But the toughest kind of wall is made of a thousand little things; I call it the invisible wall. This wall is often made up of our reactions to: Slow responses, no response, too much information, not enough information, no acknowledgement or thank you, balls dropped, looks, snappy comments, undefined glances, unwanted-unanswered e-mails, misunderstandings, understandings, assumptions to name just a few.

Brick walls separate physical things.

Invisible walls separate our spirits.

A big hammer can tear down a brick wall.

It takes something more powerful to tear down an invisible wall. It takes a spiral to impact this wall: Becoming the calm eye, shifting our position for understanding and connection, sharing stories, sharing values, agreeing on a common on a credo of how to be together, and knowing who we aspire to be.

To live united, this is what is required.