Photo by Sushil Nash on Unsplash
The tagline for Wharton Policy reads, “Is conflict costing you?”
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Conflict always exacts a cost, be it emotional, financial, relational or organizational. But let’s probe deeper: “How much conflict can my organization or community afford?” and, “ Is this level of conflict worth it?”
Set aside for a moment the notion that conflict is salutary, even cleansing for organizations, communities and nations. Even dinner partners. That an occasional row reveals new insights (“I didn’t know you felt so strongly about butter”) or evokes new ideas (“Coconut oil instead?”) or is simply a natural consequence of conflicting ideas and experiences (“Whew, glad that’s out in the open”). Conflict may ultimately have a healthy effect, but like horseradish to sinuses most people prefer less of it rather than more.
If conflict is an inevitable gusher, then how does a leader guide it, tap it, manage it, use it? With conflict all the rage these days (sorry, couldn’t resist), Wharton Policy offers practical suggestions lest our “passions” overflow their banks, if they haven’t already.
To name this week’s headaches: rising Covid cases. Masks. Racial injustice. Police funding. Statues. The issues are huge, deep and real. But persisting in conflict – seemingly more for conflict’s sake than for moving the collective mind toward solutions – has been quite costly. Blood and treasure come firstly to mind, with jagged societal scars running a close third.
In antiseptic policy terms, such passion-inducing issues are known as ill-structured problems because of the difficulty of even defining the problem, the existence of multiple diverse decision-makers and a profound lack of consensus due to competing underlying values and competing visions of the good. Freedom v. fairness, for example.
The litany of woes on the daily Twitter feed might even qualify as wicked problems, which take it a step higher. Wicked problems are thick with byzantine complexity; one problem is often interlocked with another, and solutions may be impossible to test or reverse. (They also may be wicked for real.)
Sure, there’s an election coming up, but, um, politics isn’t a cure-all. (I know you know that.) An electoral decision serves as compass rose, plotting a broad course, but wicked policy problems will still be there — hungering for solutions, even if they are only grudging incremental ones.
Stay-at-home summer seems a good time for this policy type to dust off old textbooks for forgotten nuggets of wisdom for reducing/managing/guiding conflict to useful ends. This occasional professor also tagged her daughter, recently graduated (virtually) with a degree in public administration and policy, to educate mom on more recent policy concepts and tools. Over the next month, you’ll be hearing from Lily Gates on topics ranging from policy streams and windows, intersectionality, punctuated equilibrium and evidence based policymaking. After that, she’s off to graduate school. But for now, she’s all Wharton Policy. I’m so proud she’s thinking beyond conflict. Just like her mom.
Wharton Policy helps firms, non-profits and governments reduce stakeholder conflict by finding policy space that works for them – and those who oppose them.