Human nature teaches us to avoid conflict. Natural law (God) teaches us that conflict is a necessary part of life and can bring us closer to God.
Consider the following study conducted by Boulding in 1964 on conflict.
Boulding brought together managers from across multiple industries—forming them into teams and telling them that their problem-solving techniques would be analyzed. What Boulding didn’t tell these managers, however, was that a “devil’s advocate” or critic would be planted in half of the teams. The critic’s role was to challenge the team’s solutions, and push them to consider additional ideas throughout their problem-solving process.
What Boulding discovered, was that the teams having a devil’s advocate all performed significantly better in their tasks, and produced multiple options for successfully solving a problem.
Then, halfway through the experiment, Boulding allowed each team to expel one member. Every team having a devil’s advocate chose to expel that critic.
Boulding then observed that the quality of those teams’ analysis and problem-solving abilities rapidly declined. Boulding concluded that, ironically, the highest-performing teams ended up eliminating their competitive advantage—because they didn’t like how the critic’s comments made them feel.
Intellectually, it is easy for many of us to buy into the idea that competition and confrontation can indeed cause others to perform better, and can spark creativity within an organization—but on a personal level,we don’t like how conflict feels.
Being willing to take, and learn from, criticism is an important skill in becoming an effective leader and communicator.
God places before us a constant stream of conflict to temper our capabilities and mold them into God-like characteristics.
We can either avoid the conflict and regress or prioritize the conflict, meet it head on and progress.
What a great way to explain/teach this principle! I will try to appreciate and express gratitude for the critics in my life more! The “process” of a “head on” approach can be very enlightening … if it is done “in” the light.
What a great way to explain/teach this principle! I will, with more awareness, try to appreciate and express gratitude for the critics in my life. The “process” of a “head on” approach can be very enlightening … if it is done “in” the light, “with” light.
This is a difficult principle to accept occasionally. Many times we accept in theory that conflict is good for us, yet our jerk reaction is to eliminate, avoid, and suppress critics and conflict when it stares us in the face.
Charles produced an interesting question when I heard this story: “can you question solutions and introduce conflict but do it in a way that people aren’t trying to get rid of you?”