Chapter 5: Process Attributes
Constructive Conflict
Constructive Conflict
Constructive conflict within group deliberation can catalyze learning (Kaner 2014) and surface perspectives and ideas that contribute to enhanced decision-making. In practice, this means being intentional about providing opportunities for stakeholders to differentiate between contentious positions and common ground or areas of agreement (Schusler et al. 2003). Taking steps toward fostering dialogue in areas of disagreement can allow new perspectives to emerge from within the group, from new stakeholders, or voices at the table.
For many engagement projects, and certainly, for ours the priority of bringing together diverse groups can invite tension between participants’ world views, priorities, experiences, or perspectives. While this diversity can be a strength that opens up the discovery process and can lead to more broad-based solutions, it can also pose threats to intra-group relationships and, if not managed effectively, between conveners and participants.
The challenge for conveners is to use this conflict constructively to create more representative and effective solutions while minimizing the risk to relationships and trust. There are a wide range of facilitation tools and strategies available to you to accomplish this balancing act (See Chapter 7), but it will require developing an approach and relationship with participants that is adaptive and flexible.
Constructive Conflict in Pennsylvania
The experience of one Pennsylvania site provides a good example of how constructive conflict can enhance group learning and inform decision-making. In discussions related to forces shaping the future of water and agricultural issues in the county, the prospect of increased weather events due to climate change was raised. Amongst a relatively conservative group in an increasingly politically polarized era, this held the potential to create conflict harmful to the relationships the group had previously established. Instead, owing to the ground-rules the group had established for itself and careful facilitation, the group thoughtfully explored the issue and the projections highlighted in the available data. Through this dialogue, they came to a consensus that increased rain frequency and intensity was an important consideration that needed to be incorporated into the outlook for future water quality and subsequently outreach regarding best management practices in susceptible sub-watersheds as well as careful future crop selection.
Practice Tip: Constructive Conflict
From a facilitation perspective, fostering constructive conflict is often where art and science come together. While the objective is to use divergent perspectives around an issue to inform dialogue and decision-making, that same divergence holds at least the potential risk of rupturing relationships and group cohesiveness if managed effectively. The goal is to incorporate and respect all perspectives to the maximum extent possible while maintaining the trust and relationships you have developed up to this point. Chapter 7 highlights a number of strategies to help you achieve this careful balance.
Tools & worksheets
Process Attributes Worksheet
Helps you identify and plan for the process attributes most appropriate for your engagement initiative.
Additional resources
Stakeholder Engagement Process Attributes
This slide deck addresses the following questions related to stakeholder engagement process attributes: (1) What are they? (2) Where do they come from? and (3) Why are they important?
The World Café: Overview slides by WorkshopBank
“The World Café is a 20 year old workshop activity for engaging your participants in conversations that matter. It draws on 7 design principles to create a simple, effective and flexible format for hosting large group discussions for between 12 to 200 participants.”
A Quick Reference Guide for Hosting World Café
A manual and reference guide produced by the World Café Community Foundation for hosting World Café Conversations.
The Role and Importance of Boundary Spanners – Fact Sheet
Describes the role played by “boundary spanners” – individuals who manage complexity and interdependencies and seek to establish new alliances, collaboratively develop innovative solutions, and encourage the transfer and translation of information – in engagement processes.