JustConflict is a set of tools for understanding, addressing, and resolving problems in complex adaptive systems.[i] Organizations, families, relationships, and even individuals are examples of such systems. In addition to tools related to understanding how systems function, JustConflict rests upon very specific understandings of the nature of justice and of conflict.
Justice is a quality that arises in a system when every part of the system has what each part needs. When parts of the system become aware of unmet needs, especially those needs which they look to the system to meet, they will respond in ways that generate the quality of conflict. Conflict arises when parts of the system perceive an injustice. Conflict is often experienced as a threat to the integrity of the system and so the tendency of the system is to repress or ignore the conflict, thus allowing the injustice to persist. In a healthy system, the conflict is seen as an indication of perceived injustice and addressed in a manner that transforms the system such that justice is done and the system is strengthened.
JustConflict is an approach to conflict that restores justice and makes the conflict itself safely manageable.
We find it much easier to see the presence of conflict than to know the underlying injustice that gives rise to it. Most often we see the conflict by observing that others are not as we want them to be. They aren’t doing what we want them to or believing what we believe. Or we are not as they want us to be. Or both.
Because we see the conflict in the tension between who we each are, we tend to assume that resolving the problem…settling the conflict… is about being who we each want the other to be. We want the conflict to go away even before we know what is the injustice that gives rise to it. Thus, we can “address the conflict” over and over but it keeps popping up. This may make the conflict seem “intractable.”
There are several things we routinely do[ii] to address a conflict which only sometimes work and because they don’t always work, and sometimes increase the tension, we will feel hopeless and helpless. The tools of JustConflict can get us unstuck.
One of the most powerful tools of JustConflict is seeing the validity of the other’s perspective.
When we look at an event or circumstance, we see it through the lens of our own unique experience. It will mean to us what it means because of what has happened to us before. We have a perspective on the event. And we each have different perspectives. Indeed, we can each have multiple perspectives on the same circumstance. All of these perspectives are valid, in that they all bring legitimate meaning to the event. So, they are all valid… but they are all partial. No perspective captures all of the meaning available.
However, even as all perspectives are valid, they are not equally valuable. A perspective is a tool to make meaning and some meaning may be more helpful in solving a particular problem than is another. The more relevant a perspective, that is, the more it takes into account the complexity and the diversity of the system in the place where the injustice is arising, the more valuable will that perspective be.
Finding and sharing and honoring those most valuable
perspectives is central to resolving the conflict. The honoring of each other’s perspectives is
a central task of JustConflict. It is
itself spiritual work.
[i] There is a robust science of complex adaptive systems. The entry in Wikipedia is a good place to start to learn about it. For our purposes here it is important to know that we construct a “system” in order to understand it and that reality is not simple… it is not either this or that… but chaotic. The best we can do is to understand reality in all of its complexity. Human systems are “adaptable” in that they can learn and grow to better meet our needs.
[ii] We tend to try to ignore the conflict, make the other lose [fight about it], get the other to do what we want [control them], or smooth over the conflict by taking care of them at our own expense. Each of these four strategies work in very specific circumstances, but outside of those circumstances actually make things worse insofar as they don’t create more justice in the system.