In his book titles, Managing Conflict in the Church, David Kale lists five levels of conflict; 1”Awareness of Differences, Confronting the Differences, Power Struggles, Fight or Flight, and Intractable.” As I offer the following explanation, I’ll attempt to do so parallel to Prochaska and DiClemente’s six stage transtheoretical model of change. This model consists of the following levels or stages of change, pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and relapse. Kale describes the Awareness of Differences level as when people first become aware that there are differences of opinion, or people have different perspectives on an issue but there has been no communication directly regarding the differences.
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He suggests that during this level of conflict the consideration of differences moves into positions to be held, defended, determined to be right or wrong, consistent with one’s position or inconsistent. The same is true of individual’s facing change. They go through a process of becoming aware of other’s perception of the need for change, may talk with others, explore the “right or wrong” of other’s and their own thinking, but they eventually choose a path and pursue either change or maintaining their current status, or position. I find that at this point, either in conflict or change, once a position is determined to be “right or wrong” the idea of differences gets lost, individuals become less flexible, less tolerant, more emotional, and less capable of hearing or seeing from a perspective other than their own. It seems to me that this is the level of actual conflict. I appreciate Kale’s pointing to Muzafer Sherif’s research demonstrating the idea of having people focus on what he called “superordinate goals.” This is also something I do when talking with couples involved in conflict, pointing to, reminding them of, getting them to focus on the superordinate goal of their marriage and God’s plan, purpose for them as Husband and Wife. This seems more effective the earlier you can interject the re-direction or after …show more content…
Similar in relationships, people decide to leave or suggest the other leave. Often the emotional intensity of the power struggle continues and/or is heightened during this level of conflict, again resulting in less ability to successful resolve, restore or maintain mutually satisfying relationships, church or otherwise. As tensions mount and positions solidify, Kale describes the next level as intractable. What occurred to me as I read back through these five levels of conflict when compared to the stages of change was that the change stages can be cyclical and so can the levels of conflict. They aren’t necessarily progressively linear, there can be stops and starts, abandoned levels or stages and returns to previous levels or stages. But what is missing in Kale’s levels of conflict is a level for resolution, a level for a return to rational discourse, a recognition of the super-ordinate purpose of the church or it’s membership. The stages of change might call this return to contemplation or preparation the relapse stage. Maybe Kale should have called his 5 levels of conflict the 5 levels of “unsuccessful” conflict. Differences and conflict are inevitable and can be healthy, as long as people don’t lose focus on the purpose of working together for a common goal, the
He suggests that during this level of conflict the consideration of differences moves into positions to be held, defended, determined to be right or wrong, consistent with one’s position or inconsistent. The same is true of individual’s facing change. They go through a process of becoming aware of other’s perception of the need for change, may talk with others, explore the “right or wrong” of other’s and their own thinking, but they eventually choose a path and pursue either change or maintaining their current status, or position. I find that at this point, either in conflict or change, once a position is determined to be “right or wrong” the idea of differences gets lost, individuals become less flexible, less tolerant, more emotional, and less capable of hearing or seeing from a perspective other than their own. It seems to me that this is the level of actual conflict. I appreciate Kale’s pointing to Muzafer Sherif’s research demonstrating the idea of having people focus on what he called “superordinate goals.” This is also something I do when talking with couples involved in conflict, pointing to, reminding them of, getting them to focus on the superordinate goal of their marriage and God’s plan, purpose for them as Husband and Wife. This seems more effective the earlier you can interject the re-direction or after …show more content…
Similar in relationships, people decide to leave or suggest the other leave. Often the emotional intensity of the power struggle continues and/or is heightened during this level of conflict, again resulting in less ability to successful resolve, restore or maintain mutually satisfying relationships, church or otherwise. As tensions mount and positions solidify, Kale describes the next level as intractable. What occurred to me as I read back through these five levels of conflict when compared to the stages of change was that the change stages can be cyclical and so can the levels of conflict. They aren’t necessarily progressively linear, there can be stops and starts, abandoned levels or stages and returns to previous levels or stages. But what is missing in Kale’s levels of conflict is a level for resolution, a level for a return to rational discourse, a recognition of the super-ordinate purpose of the church or it’s membership. The stages of change might call this return to contemplation or preparation the relapse stage. Maybe Kale should have called his 5 levels of conflict the 5 levels of “unsuccessful” conflict. Differences and conflict are inevitable and can be healthy, as long as people don’t lose focus on the purpose of working together for a common goal, the