One of the most frequent complaints I hear about is the constant fraying of our social contract. As the narrative goes, our increasingly amount of time with layers of technology and algorithms between us and other humans has made us less kind and agreeable. Perhaps that is true, but I find myself increasingly focused on what you might call the complete opposite.
Confrontation is a life necessity. If it wasn’t, I’d guess that most of us would hardly ever do it. Constitutionally, I think human beings are designed to be confrontation averse. That is, we are all more or less “pro-social”. Our extent as a species rely on the fact that we have found ways to cooperate with each other at a very high level.
That level of cooperation is something we often take for granted, because our mind naturally biases toward negativity. It blows conflict out of proportion in order to elevate it and prevent threats. In our current political climate, you’ll find scant coverage of the things that opponents of our current president agree with him on. Those are all taken for granted.
For example, I have reasonable confidence that Donald Trump believes Zebras have black and white stripes, that our country is called the United States of America, or that Andrew Jackson was our 7th president. I could go on but you get the point. Our overriding focus is on the disagreements, of which if you’re keeping score at home, I have many.
That is all an aside from the true point of this conversation, which is to discuss the lost art of confrontation. Somehow, there is seemingly more conflict than ever and less confrontation. So for the purposes of this post, I want to discuss the difference between conflict and confrontation, and why it’s crucial to understanding how to counteract some of what we’re all living through today.
Conflict Vs Confrontation
As usual, the following is just how I think of these two terms. The point of how I think about it is in order to understand and organize what kinds of situations you are dealing with and how you, as an individual, are going to act.
Conflict to me is wherever two or more people find themselves in disagreement. So rather than working together, they are arguing, fighting or worse.
Confrontation can be a part of conflict, in fact it is a necessary predecessor to conflict. However, people don’t always know how to confront. Often they mistakenly believe they are confronting someone else when, in my opinion, they are not.
The distinction I want to draw is that I believe that confrontation involves committing to wanting something. That is crucial, because confrontation without some positive orientation towards a future resolution can mean endless conflict. And thus I don’t think it is truly confrontation at all.
Imagine your favorite moment in a movie where the main character finally stands up for what is right. The plot has been building to climax of this confrontation. It’s a fork in the road moment!
Now imagine you had no idea what they were fighting for. Would you be emotionally invested in their confrontation? Or would you view them as needlessly combative.
We’ve all found ourselves in conflict with other people and realized at certain moments that we have no idea whatsoever what the other persons wants out of the conflict. They may be ranting and raving at you, but repeated attempts to discern what they’re actually after reveal no true motive.
This brings me back to our current climate. Right now we have (most of us) submitted to letting algorithms dictate our casual consumption. Most of these algorithms feed off of conflict. They show us things that elicit an emotional response (especially one that pushes us towards conflict).
At the same time, it is weakening our ability to confront. Because “confrontations” in the internet age often take place between several layers of technology, it is much easier to purposely conflict. Tell me you haven’t had an incredibly stupid fight online and I’ll check your birth date.
People then learn to disengage, but that also leads them to be less confrontational in their “real life”. Which leads to many being unused to being confronted. With almost anything, practice makes (near) perfect, and lack of practice makes you an absolute novice.
It was something that came up on my most recent podcast with Dave Denniston, which is fantastic and you should absolutely listen to. Dave is somebody I would love to have by my side whenever I’m giving a lecture on Positive Psychology, because he is absolutely putting it into practice.
In the context of tough roster conversations, he also pointed out empathetically that many student athletes are reaching college with little to no practice being confronted with a hard conversation. It is no wonder that many don’t comport themselves well in that situation. You would find similar level of performance were you to race the 1650 one week into your swimming career.
The good news about that is that the skill of confrontation is absolutely something we can practice, train and master. All it takes is being a leader who knows what they want to do and putting it into practice.