An Appreciative Approach to Conflict Styles and Dynamics

An Appreciative Approach to Conflict Styles and Dynamics

We each carry different default responses to conflict, shaped by our temperament, our family and cultural background, our previous experiences, and our social location. Rather than judging these differences as right or wrong, an appreciative approach invites us to understand each style as carrying both gifts and limitations, each appropriate in some contexts and less helpful in others.

The classic Thomas-Kilmann model identifies five conflict styles, each representing a different balance between assertiveness (pursuing one's own concerns) and cooperativeness (attending to others' concerns):

• Competing (high assertiveness, low cooperation): Direct, decisive, willing to advocate strongly for one's position. The gift: Gets things decided, brings passion and conviction, doesn't shy away from difficult stands. The limitation: Can steamroll others, may damage relationships, might win the battle but lose the war.
• Accommodating (low assertiveness, high cooperation): Yielding, relationship-focused, willing to set aside own needs for group harmony. The gift: Maintains connection, shows generosity, keeps group cohesion intact. The limitation: Own needs may go unmet, can build resentment, may deprive group of important perspectives.
• Avoiding (low assertiveness, low cooperation): Withdrawing from or postponing engagement with the conflict. The gift: Provides cooling-off time, picks battles wisely, maintains neutral space. The limitation: Issues don't get addressed, may allow problems to fester, can be experienced as checked-out or uncaring.
• Compromising (moderate assertiveness, moderate cooperation): Seeks middle ground where everyone gives something up. The gift: Gets to resolution, honors both sides partially, demonstrates fairness. The limitation: May settle for "lose-lose" rather than discovering "win-win," can result in solutions that don't fully satisfy anyone.
• Collaborating (high assertiveness, high cooperation): Seeks solutions that fully honor all parties' needs. The gift: Discovers creative third ways, strengthens relationships through the process, generates genuine buy-in. The limitation: Requires more time and emotional energy, may not be appropriate for low-stakes decisions, demands high trust and skill.

Notice how different this frame feels from judging styles as good or bad. Each style is intelligent in certain contexts. The competing style might be exactly what's needed in an emergency when quick, decisive action is required. The avoiding style might be wise when emotions are too hot for productive conversation. The accommodating style might be a generous gift when the issue matters much more to others than to you. The compromising style might be appropriate when time is short and the issue is relatively low-stakes. The collaborating style is worth the investment when the issue is important and the relationships need to be preserved.

Our work as facilitators is threefold: First, to develop our own flexibility—our capacity to access different styles depending on what the situation calls for rather than being locked into one default. Second, to help groups understand these differences so they don't pathologize each other ("You're too aggressive!" "You're too passive!") but instead appreciate the diversity of resources in the room. Third, to intentionally design processes that invite the group toward collaboration when that's what's needed while also making space for other styles when they're more appropriate.

The Crucial Role of Power and Privilege in Conflict Dynamics

We cannot talk honestly about conflict without naming the elephant in virtually every room: power. Who has it, who doesn't, how it shapes whose conflicts get taken seriously and whose get dismissed as "drama" or "being difficult." An appreciative approach to conflict doesn't mean being naively positive or avoiding hard truths—it means being willing to see and name the full reality of what's happening, trusting that awareness itself is the beginning of transformation.

Here's what we know: In any group marked by difference in social location—race, gender, class, ability, age, sexual orientation, immigration status, and more—the playing field is not level. People from dominant groups often have the luxury of seeing conflict as an interesting intellectual exercise, while people from marginalized groups may be navigating conflict that carries actual threat to their safety, belonging, or livelihood. As Audre Lorde powerfully stated: "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."

What does this mean for facilitation? It means we need to examine how power shapes whose voices get heard, whose concerns get prioritized, whose anger is seen as legitimate versus threatening, whose withdrawal is respected versus pathologized. When a woman of color expresses strong disagreement, is she more likely to be labeled "aggressive" or "angry" in ways that white men expressing similar intensity are not? When a person with a disability requests accommodation, is it framed as a reasonable need or as a burdensome demand? When someone challenges the status quo, do we see them as a valuable source of disruption or as a problem to be managed?

Tema Okun's groundbreaking work on "white supremacy culture" identifies several organizational norms that profoundly shape how conflict gets handled: perfectionism (mistakes are personal failures), sense of urgency (we need to decide now), defensiveness (questioning is experienced as attack), quantity over quality (more activity is better), worship of the written word (documentation matters more than oral communication), only one right way (there's a right way to do things), paternalism (those with power know what's best), either/or thinking (things are good or bad, right or wrong), power hoarding (power is finite and must be held tightly), fear of open conflict (conflict is bad and should be avoided), individualism (people succeed or fail alone), progress is bigger/more (growth and expansion are inherently good), objectivity (emotions are dangerous and shouldn't influence decisions), and right to comfort (those with power have a right not to be uncomfortable).

Notice how many of these norms actively suppress healthy conflict or create environments where marginalized people bear disproportionate risk when they raise concerns. An appreciative approach means recognizing that these norms, while often invisible to those they privilege, are not neutral—and that creating truly generative space for conflict requires actively challenging them.

Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun offer us antidotes to these cultural norms: value learning from mistakes, create realistic timelines, understand that discomfort is part of growth, appreciate multiple ways of doing things, recognize that those most impacted are often the experts, understand that there are many ways to get to the same goal, facilitate leadership development, embrace both/and thinking, facilitate inclusion in decision-making, name and work constructively with conflict, value collective accomplishment, define success in meaningful rather than measurable terms, acknowledge emotions and lived experience as valid forms of knowledge, and understand that discomfort is necessary for authentic transformation.

This is what life-giving facilitation of conflict looks like: creating conditions where everyone's full humanity is honored, where power differences are named and actively addressed, where the group develops capacity to stay with hard conversations rather than prematurely rushing to resolution or avoiding altogether. As adrienne maree brown writes in Emergent Strategy: "What we pay attention to grows... If we can focus on what we're moving towards rather than what we're fighting against, we embody the future we want to see."

Frameworks and Practices for Transformative Conflict Engagement

Now let's explore specific frameworks and practices that can help groups engage conflict in generative rather than destructive ways. Each of these approaches is grounded in deep respect for human dignity, trust in the possibility of transformation, and commitment to discovering the creative potential that lives in tension.

1. Conflict Transformation (John Paul Lederach)

John Paul Lederach, who has worked with communities emerging from violent conflict around the world, offers us the distinction between conflict resolution (focused on ending a particular dispute) and conflict transformation (focused on changing the patterns and structures that generate ongoing conflict). Resolution asks: "How do we end this?" Transformation asks: "How do we use this as an opportunity to create better relationships and more just structures?"

Lederach identifies four dimensions of transformation that conflict can catalyze:

• Personal: How are individuals changed by the conflict? What new awareness, capacities, or commitments might emerge?
• Relational: How are relationships affected? Can they deepen through the work of navigating difference?
• Structural: What do the patterns of conflict reveal about underlying systems and structures? What needs to change at that level?
• Cultural: How do cultural patterns and narratives shape the conflict? What new cultural stories might emerge?

As facilitators, we can use these questions to help groups zoom out from the immediate content of their disagreement to see the larger landscape. We might ask: "What is this conflict inviting us to become? What new capacities is it asking us to develop? What structures or patterns is it revealing that need attention? What story about who we are as a group is trying to emerge?"

This reframe immediately shifts energy. Instead of feeling stuck in an intractable problem, the group begins to sense possibility. As Lederach beautifully puts it: "Transformation does not wish away or eliminate conflict. It acknowledges that conflict is a normal part of human relationships, and that it has the potential to create constructive change processes." Hope enters not because the tension disappears, but because we recognize we're being invited into something larger, into our own becoming.

2. Nonviolent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg)

Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication (NVC) offers a remarkably practical framework for navigating conflict by helping people distinguish between observations and evaluations, between feelings and thoughts, and by connecting feelings to underlying universal human needs. The core insight: virtually all conflict stems from unmet needs, and when we can get beneath our strategies to the needs level, we discover shared humanity and creative possibilities.

The four components of NVC are:

• Observations: What actually happened, free from evaluation or judgment. Not "You ignored me" but "When you didn't respond to my three emails..."
• Feelings: The emotions arising from the situation. Not "I feel like you don't care" (which is a thought) but "I feel worried and disconnected."
• Needs: The universal human needs beneath the feelings. "Because I need reassurance and collaboration."
• Requests: Specific, actionable requests (not demands) that might meet the needs. "Would you be willing to set up a weekly check-in so we can stay connected about the project?"

What makes this approach so profoundly appreciative is its fundamental assumption: everyone is always trying to meet universal human needs (for safety, belonging, autonomy, meaning, celebration, etc.), and our conflicts arise not because people are bad or wrong but because our strategies for meeting needs are bumping into each other. As Rosenberg writes: "All violence is a tragic expression of unmet needs." And conversely, all healing begins when needs are seen, understood, and honored.

As facilitators, we can teach NVC principles and support people in using this language. Even more importantly, we can model it in how we respond to conflict in the room: "It sounds like you're feeling frustrated because you need to be heard? And you're feeling defensive because you need to be trusted to do good work? Both needs make complete sense. Let's see if we can find a way forward that honors both."

The practice of empathy—really working to understand the needs beneath someone's words, especially when those words are expressed in ways we find challenging—is at the heart of NVC. Rosenberg reminds us: "When we give empathy, we heal. When we receive empathy, we heal." This is the medicine groups need when they're in conflict: someone who can hold space for all the needs in the room with genuine care and without taking sides.

3. The Drama Triangle and Alternatives (Stephen Karpman & David Emerald)

The Karpman Drama Triangle describes a common toxic dynamic in conflict where people rotate through three roles: Victim ("Poor me, this is happening to me"), Persecutor ("It's all your fault"), and Rescuer ("Let me fix this for you"). This drama is familiar to most of us—we've all played each role at various times. The trouble is, while it creates a lot of heat and activity, it doesn't actually resolve anything. It keeps everyone stuck in disempowered positions.

David Emerald offers a beautiful alternative he calls "The Empowerment Dynamic" or TED:

• Instead of Victim, step into Creator: taking responsibility for your experience and choices
• Instead of Persecutor, step into Challenger: offering feedback and accountability with genuine care for growth
• Instead of Rescuer, step into Coach: supporting others' capacity rather than doing for them

As facilitators, learning to recognize the Drama Triangle in action (including when we're playing a role in it!) is incredibly valuable. We might notice: "It seems like we're stuck in a dynamic where some people feel powerless, others are being blamed, and still others are trying to save the day. What if we shifted? What if we approached this from a place where everyone here is creative, resourceful, and whole? What would become possible then?"

This intervention names the dynamic without shaming anyone, and it invites the group into a more empowered stance. As Emerald writes: "The antidote to drama is living a life characterized by presence, power, and purpose." We're helping people reclaim their agency, their capacity to respond rather than react, their creative potential even amid difficulty.

4. Bridge Building and Dialogue Practices

When groups are polarized—when people have retreated to opposite corners and hardened their positions—sometimes what's needed is not problem-solving but genuine dialogue: the practice of listening to understand rather than to rebut, of allowing yourself to be changed by what you hear, of discovering the humanity in positions you find deeply challenging.

William Isaacs, in his book Dialogue, describes four practices essential to this work:

• Listening: Not just waiting for your turn to talk, but genuinely opening to another's perspective
• Respecting: Honoring the inherent worth of the other even when you disagree with their views
• Suspending: Temporarily setting aside your certainties to make room for new understanding
• Voicing: Speaking your own truth while remaining connected to the group

Notice these aren't techniques—they're ways of being, stances toward each other that create space for transformation. Isaacs writes: "Dialogue is a conversation with a center, not sides." As facilitators, we're helping people find that center—the shared purpose, the common ground, the possibility of discovering something together that no one could access alone.

Essential Partners (formerly the Public Conversations Project) has developed powerful protocols for bridging deep divides. Their approach includes careful design of questions that invite storytelling and vulnerability, agreements about confidentiality and non-attribution that create safety, and structured turn-taking that ensures everyone is both heard and challenged to truly listen. They've facilitated dialogues between people on opposite sides of abortion, gun rights, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and other seemingly intractable issues—and documented remarkable shifts in understanding, though not necessarily agreement.

The key insight: we don't have to agree to understand each other more deeply. And that deeper understanding—the recognition of shared humanity, the glimpse of why someone holds views we find incomprehensible—is itself transformative. It doesn't erase real differences or power imbalances, but it creates new possibilities for how we engage them. As the poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes: "Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing." Understanding another's experience, even when it's radically different from our own, expands our capacity for both compassion and discernment.

5. Restorative Circles and Practices

Restorative justice practices, drawn from indigenous traditions and adapted for contemporary contexts, offer profound alternatives to punishment-focused approaches to conflict and harm. Rather than asking "What rule was broken and what should the punishment be?", restorative practices ask: "Who was harmed? What do they need? Whose responsibility is it to meet those needs? And how do we create conditions where this harm is less likely to happen again?"

Restorative circles bring together those who have caused harm, those who have been harmed, and the broader community affected, in facilitated processes focused on: understanding what happened and why, acknowledging harm and impact, taking responsibility, making amends, and creating plans to prevent future harm. The process honors everyone's humanity—including those who caused harm—while maintaining clear accountability.

As facilitators, we can adapt restorative principles even when we're not doing formal restorative justice work. We can ask questions that invite people to reflect on impact rather than just intention: "Even if that wasn't what you meant, how do you imagine it landed for others?" We can create space for people to acknowledge harm without making excuses: "Can you take in what they're saying about how they experienced your actions?" We can support groups in thinking about repair: "What would it take to mend this? What do you need in order to move forward together?"

The power of restorative approaches is that they refuse to write anyone off as unredeemable. They insist that even people who have caused significant harm are capable of transformation, that accountability is about taking responsibility rather than being shamed, and that communities become stronger when they develop capacity to repair rupture rather than simply exiling those who make mistakes.

As Fania Davis writes in The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: "Restorative justice seeks to repair the harm of crime through cooperative processes that include all stakeholders. Rather than prioritizing the needs of the state, restorative justice focuses on the needs of those harmed, those who caused harm, and the affected community." This is profoundly life-giving work—refusing to reduce anyone to their worst moment while also insisting on genuine reckoning with impact and harm.

6. Indigenous Peacemaking Wisdom

Indigenous traditions from around the world offer profound wisdom about conflict and peacemaking that challenges Western assumptions about individualism, punishment, and resolution. These traditions, while diverse, often share some common themes:

• Understanding that conflict affects the entire web of relationships, not just the individuals directly involved
• Recognizing that healing happens in ceremony, ritual, and sacred space as much as in rational discussion
• Taking time—days, weeks, months—for genuine resolution rather than rushing to closure
• Centering the wisdom of elders and those who carry traditional knowledge
• Using story, metaphor, and symbolic action alongside direct communication
• Seeking harmony and right relationship rather than determining who was right or wrong
• Understanding that accountability includes restitution to the community, not just the individual harmed

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Great Law of Peace offers the practice of "putting aside the weapons"—literally and metaphorically laying down what we use to defend or attack so we can speak and listen from a different place. The Navajo principle of "hózhǫ́" encompasses harmony, balance, beauty, and right relationship—and recognizes that conflict is fundamentally a disruption of hózhǫ́ that must be restored not just between individuals but in the entire system.

As facilitators (especially those of us who are not Indigenous), we must approach these traditions with humility and caution. We should never appropriate practices or claim authority that isn't ours. But we can learn from the principles and allow them to challenge our Western assumptions. We can slow down. We can recognize the relational dimension of all conflict. We can create ceremony and beauty even in difficult conversations. We can trust that healing sometimes requires approaches that Western rationalism dismisses.

As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass: "In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us." When we understand everything as interconnected—when we recognize that conflict between two people affects the entire ecosystem—we approach peacemaking with different reverence, different patience, different hope.