The other morning I was listening to an At the Table Podcast episode entitled, Artificial Harmony, and was deeply struck by the statement: “When we fail to have conflict around ideological issues - when we disagree on things - it eventually ferments into conflict around people, and that’s how we crush human beings.”

For instance. Imagine sitting in a room of fellow educators - teachers, admin, whomever - with the task of solving the problem of attendance. If someone (Jim, let’s him) throws out an idea that is perhaps bad or incomplete, and the group doesn’t acknowledge it as such because there they fear ideological conflict, they invite the more dangerous and destructive future conflict that will be centered around people.

Because no one challenged or questioned Jim’s idea but instead encouraged it with a, “Yeah, that might work,” even though everyone knows it won’t work, or at the very least has some questions about it, two things happen:

One, if the idea is never implemented because everyone outside of Jim knows it won’t work, suddenly Jim feels like his coworkers - his boss - don’t care about his opinions. “Why does Mr. Miller ask for my opinion anyway, he never hears it.” Because no one engaged in his idea, he now has a conflict with the PEOPLE he works with. And if we avoided engaging in Jim’s idea because it was considered uncomfortable, why would we engage in the people conflict? And the snowball of conflict and division gathers speed.

The other potential problem that could arise is that Mr. Miller and the staff actually do implement the idea, but because everyone was too concerned with avoiding the ideological conflict and therefore didn’t push in, ask questions, or refine the thinking, it doesn’t go great. Mistakes are made because of oversight, people are frustrated because of confusion, and suddenly - and rather naturally - people are to blame (either Jim, Mr. Miller, or both) and the conflict becomes a personal conflict rather than an easier more manageable ideological conflict.

I have seen this happen, over and over again. And if I am honest, it often occurs because I am too cautious about saving the group from the discomfort of ideological conflict or I’m too nervous that I won’t be able to navigate the staff safely through it. Both of which are fair concerns, neither of which is best for the culture of my school, my marriage! or my friendships.

Appropriate conflict is good and we need to have more of it. We also need to ensure that it is intentional conflict, safe, and beneficial. And to do that, we need to do our best to engage in conflicts about ideas rather than people.

Idea conflicts talk about the problem, the task at hand. They are constructive and help us grow and change and improve. They are uncomfortable but they are also more manageable and most often productive.

People conflicts are destructive. They are personal, deep, and often unfair because the task is no longer about solving the problem at hand, it’s about defending our pride, our pain, and the fear of being misunderstood.

Idea conflicts are external; people conflicts are internal. Idea conflicts solve problems; people conflicts create them.

And I need to be better at engaging in idea conflicts to help save and protect my staff (and myself) from having to survive people conflicts.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week.

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