Responding To Organizational Conflict

By Will Hall

An old friend phoned me in tears: a grassroots organization she started was having serious internal conflict. Founded with high values and a beautiful vision of change, the group had gone from a journey of inspired friends to a battleground of weary enemies. Personalities were clashing, work was at a standstill, and everyone was caught in searing emotional arguments. People who had collaborated together selflessly now felt betrayed by each other and the failure of their dream. My friend was at the point of leaving entirely, but had put so much into the group that the thought of letting go was unbearable. She was feeling suicidal.

The extraordinary hope we invest in idealistic projects can even sometimes make things worse: the more we believe our group is the answer to a world gone wrong, the more our world does go wrong when the group unravels. As we feel circled by enemies and victimized by mistreatment, we spawn a terrible shame: the feeling that there must be something basically at fault with us and even our movement. Our core values are shaken, and we risk giving up our aspirations for change. We can  burn out, turning our backs activist organizing entirely.

I’ve learned tremendously since I began community organizing at age 17. While I’ve seen extraordinary highs of human excellence in activist work, I’ve also seen — and painfully been part of — difficult situations of desperate conflict. So when my friend called me with the story of her failing organization, I felt a sense of familiarity. The feelings of panic, embarrassment, and powerlessness echoed some stories of my own from the past three decades.

Why do good organizations plunge into chaotic conflict? How can we respond to a community around us that has descended into fighting, blame, and painful feelings? What can we do when groups turn on themselves and start to self-destruct?

I didn’t have answers to give my friend. Crisis stretches us to the breaking point, and I was by no means confident I could handle things any better than she was doing. At the same time, three decades of activism has given me some experience and ideas to offer, as imperfect and limited as they might be. Here’s what I told her:

Responding to Organizational Conflict

1. Give yourself some perspective. Organizational crisis can leave us on a hunt for what went wrong, which risks becoming a hunt for who to blame — and then blaming ourselves. While we do need to learn from past mistakes and find new ways to do things, let’s also have some perspective: conflict and group crisis are inevitable parts of human life. Pretty much everyone runs into group conflict some point or another. Tragic and painful – and also human.
2. Don’t blame mental illness. Groups that include psychiatric survivors are especially vulnerable to bigotry and shame when they are in conflict. An organization in crisis can easily see itself as sick, and turn the language of pathology into a weapon. The reality is that every kind of group, not just those that include mental health survivors, is vulnerable to conflict. I’ve seen just as many non-mental health groups get into trouble as I have other kinds of groups, and psychiatric survivors are even sometimes better equipped to deal with crisis. So don’t put groups that have people with diagnoses or mental health issues in a special, worse-off category. They aren’t. Group crisis is a universal problem, not a problem of some disordered people or subgroup.
3. Look at the social context. Groups fighting social oppression often tackle huge visions the world may not be ready for. Obstacles from the larger society — such as scarce resources, lack of recognition, internalized oppression, outside criticism, dynamics of discrimination, even sabotage by opponents — can fuel a group’s conflicts. Remind yourself and everyone involved that your organization’s problems may also reflect the enormity of the issues you are working on.
4. Pay attention to self care. Sleep, food, friendship, taking breaks, creativity, being in nature – it all evaporates when we are consumed with group conflict. Everything seems to depend on resolving the crisis. A good night’s rest will do you more good than staying up late replying to the email list; the memo you’re composing to the Board will likely be more coherent after you’ve had some breakfast and gone for a walk.
5. Focus your concern on behaviors, not personalities. Conflict quickly drives us to attack others and see ourselves as not-like-them. Labeling someone with a mental disorder — or just deciding they are a bad person or fundamentally flawed — can feel satisfying, but it reflects more our own intolerance and vengefulness than anything else. When people do bad things, what they do may be worth rejecting. But leave room for the person as a person, because their behavior is not the entirety of who they are. People who are condemned for who they are have no room to change, and nowhere to go — other than continue to fight. When we focus on what people do instead of who they are we create an opening for future forgiveness and change. We can begin to understand their choices in context (such as the context of being a trauma survivor), and maybe even stay connected with them. Even the worst behavior can have many understandable causes behind it, so resist the temptation to analyze and diagnose the other person’s actions as signs of some deeper flaw or negative quality. If someone needs to be made to leave the group, or you have to separate from someone, go ahead and do it — but make it clear the behavior is the issue, not the person.
6. Watch for indirect communication. During conflict, email, forums, texts, status updates, and other tech media fuel misunderstanding to an astonishing degree. Many, many conflicts can be traced to  runaway escalations of the internet echo chamber gone berserk. A phone call will often avoid save hours of distress. Gossip and third-party triangulation also waste energy and spread confusion, so communicate directly, in person or by phone whenever things start to get out of hand.
7. Work it out directly with your opponents. Is the other side open to a frank discussion? Or have things gone too far? Is a neutral third party mediator possible? Are you open to it — or are things past that? If the situation is volatile, try not to be alone with any resolution effort, as you may be vulnerable to attack. Don’t wait too long to seek facilitation from a mediator, and find someone who is a neutral party, not an interested ally or part of the same organization or movement: they may themselves get pulled into the conflict.
8. Stick to procedures and let go of understanding. If direct conflict mediation hasn’t gotten anywhere, do you need to let go of the need for resolution? Being desperate for the other person to see your point of view is a sure recipe for making conflict grow. How do you work together anyway? If you need reassurance that your perspective is not crazy, don’t seek it from your opponent. Find it from other people in your life. If the other side hasn’t agreed with your analysis of the problem, they probably never will. Drop it. Focus on procedures and policies instead. Renew your familiarity with the structures, legal and procedural, of your groups governance, how your group is facilitated, and how you get things done. Make a concrete proposal, not a sweeping analysis. FInd the steps for getting along by doing the work. You are trying to go from point A to point B, not get people to reassure you or agree with you. Many group conflicts can be eased with solid facilitation, set procedures, and a positive focus on the work tasks at hand.
9. Speak on everyone’s behalf. Conflict may have cast you as a problem individual plagued with personality clashes. You might be contributing by making your case in terms of all the mistreatment you have endured. Instead, offer new proposals that appeal to the collective good of the organization, framed as part of its mission. “We need a mediator to make the other people stop taking over the organization” is not as convincing as “We need a mediator to keep this group going, the community needs us and our mission.”
10. Get angry in the right place. Depending on the unique organizational culture of your group, expressions of anger risk scaring people and throwing more fuel on the fire. Some groups welcome a spontaneous and natural role for anger, but not most. Find the right place to express your anger, whether it is in your car, at a music show, or venting to a close friend.
11. Avoid multiple relationship roles in friendships. Community groups, especially activist groups, can become the focus of our lives: social movements carry dedication to a cause that can absorb us completely. It’s wonderful to feel part of something bigger than yourself — until you become trapped by it. Be careful for how mixed up it all becomes. Make sure you have close friendships for support that are outside of the movement and group you are part of. Don’t put people around you in binds of multiple roles and conflicting loyalties. If your friend, co-worker, activist comrade, support group buddy, roommate, lover, co-writer, community garden partner and business associate are all the same person, it’s wonderful if you can make it work — but it’s also volatile mix that could combust.
12. Watch your trust. We would love to open up completely with our activist co-workers through perfect transparency and total trust. Our meetings can start to take on the intimacy of support groups and family meetings. Real connection between people grows gradually and freely however. Trust can’t be instantly created just because we all share a mission statement and show up to meetings together. It may be wiser to hold yourself back until you start to be sure of the person you are with, rather than just trust them and open up too fast — and then get hurt later.
13. Be honest about power. Most of us have been terribly mistreated by leaders, teachers, authorities, and hierarchies. The initial inspiration of good feelings and activist zeal is a needed antidote to the wounds of power, but formal power and hierarchy can’t just be banished away with high principles, an alternative structure, and some inclusive facilitation. While putting equality into practice is a worthy aspiration, power and authority are dimensions of human experience to be faced honestly. Structurelessness, anti-leadership, and loose systems in the name of leveling the playing field don’t eliminate power, they just mean power is being wielded informally. Informal power is less visible — and less accountable. Seek ways to recognize power and ensure it is used accountably. Just trying to get rid of hierarchy and power will likely drive it into the shadows.
14. Beware committee sprawl and procedures inflation. Bureaucracies flourish when conflicts are unresolved. Putting things off into a committee, or coming up with new guidelines or drafting new documents, may feel like a solution. But is it just dragging things out? Try to address what is really going on instead of putting hope in more meetings and more documents.
15. Be on the lookout for “we.” Meetings can become a soup of group identity and blurred individuality. Planning spins into mysterious discussions about what the group as a whole will do, while individual inspiration and clarity get lost. Everyone has an opinion about what “we” should do because it doesn’t cost anything to chime in. Think about what you want to do, what really inspires you to act, then share it with the “we” of the group – rather than the other way around.
16. Be trauma-sensitive. Many people carry stress from past traumatic experiences that makes them vulnerable to being retraumatized and hurt again. Over the past ten years, the mental health system has embraced the idea of “trauma informed care,” which means understanding the effects of trauma and embracing organizational procedures for accommodation and sensitivity. At it’s best, “trauma-informed” policies promoted through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provide practical changes to help trauma survivors feel more understood, safe, and in control. Many grassroots groups routinely plunge ahead with practices that are not trauma informed. Dogma about being being productive for the cause — or dogma about being nonhierarchical and open — can lead to retraumatization. To be trauma informed, groups need structure, accountable leadership, focus, sensitivity, openness to feedback, safety, and procedural transparency.

This list I made for my friend puts the emphasis on things to do on the outside. But what about inner change we can do inside ourselves? I’ve found that the following conflict resolution technique can be very helpful, and I use it frequently to address outside situations inside myself.

1. State your own side in the conflict clearly and concisely. Go to the root charge or accusation you have against the other side, the real essence of the problem you have with them.
2. Come up with a clear and concise statement of the other side’s position, the essence of their accusation against you. Take your time as this may be challenging!

Sometimes just clarifying these two sides can create distance and new openings for change. Or you can also continue with the exercise…

1. See if you can find some degree of truth in the other side’s position. Even a small degree? There must be something true about it, maybe in a more feeling way or more generally. Stretch your understanding. You don’t need to see yourself as the same as an abusive opponent – but is there anything you can validate from their perspective? When done honestly, finding truth in your opponent’s position can be extraordinarily helpful in conflict; we tend to keep fighting when the other side completely invalidates us.

And if you want to take it further and you are open to ideas of mutuality and reflection in human relationships, ask yourself this:

1. How is my accusation towards the other side also, to some degree, even a tiny part, true of myself?

Addressing organizational conflict humbles us to the enormous challenge of social change. There are deep reasons, rooted in human nature, history, and learned habits, why the world careens along in self-defeating ways. The “system” we oppose is also to some degree inside of us: overcoming this paradox is the task of humanity itself, a struggle embarked on by many people across time and leading to some great triumphs, as well as great catastrophes. We can’t really solve it all in our organization and activist projects — though we certainly try. In a society too enmeshed in materialism and fear, idealistic grassroots efforts defy the path of least resistance. When our groups do well, we need to celebrate the enormity of success against the odds. And when we discover that grassroots groups aren’t perfect — and find ourselves in a big mess today where there was big hope yesterday  — I believe it’s all worthwhile. We just need to find a way to hold on to our humanity while we move forward to our ideals.