The Benefits of Fear, Conflict, Failure, and Resistance

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CoCreative helps people who don’t know each other (and often don’t even like each other) solve complex problems and co-create better futures together. 

We support deep collaboration across organizational, sectoral, political, and culture boundaries, across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

We do this by designing and supporting collaborative innovation networks and training and supporting system leaders.

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Context

• Let’s work together to develop our collective knowledge and awareness around these things
• We’re separating these things to talk about each but there are clearly relationships among them
• We recognize diverse orientations toward these things based on culture and personal experience (e.g., we called these bad but that can be a dominant cultural perspective on something like conflict)
• What we’re sharing is only part of the picture of fear and conflict, for example. Sometimes, you have to be a bit crazy in a dysfunctional system in order to stay sane (and alive).

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Generating Working Definitions

Let’s agree on some definitions of fear, conflict, failure, and resistance that are good enough for us to work with in this session.

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What is Fear?

An emotion that arises when we believe that someone or something is threatening or likely to cause us pain, loss, or embarrassment.

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Fear is also:

• Energy
• A forecast
• A signal from our past
• A source of insight

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What is Conflict?

Two mutually exclusive world views, i.e., perceptions of reality, occupying the same place at the same time (Edwin Nevis).

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Conflict is also:

• The assumption that those worldviews are mutually exclusive
• A source of insight
• The foundation of breakthrough

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What is Resistance?

A way of protecting and managing boundaries.

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Resistance is also:

• Interest
• Engagement
• A source of wisdom and insight

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What is Failure?

When we don’t get the outcome we expected.

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Failure is also:

• Disruption
• Reorientation
• A source of learning

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Let’s Work Together…

We’ll create 4 breakout groups, each with a facilitator.

Each group will take an experience (e.g. fear) and flesh out the following:

This happens when…

The resulting impact on us is…

Work in the shared Google doc:

Group 1: Slide 12 on Fear

Group 2: Slide 18 on Conflict

Group 3: Slide 24 on Resistance

Group 4: Slide 30 on Failure

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Exploring Fear

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When We Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Fear

This happens when…

• We try to repress or ignore the fear
• We feel overwhelmed or ungrounded
• We associate the issue with our entire identity
• We carry low self-esteem, low self-confidence
• We have excessive pride (which can be brittle when challenged)

The impact on us is…

• We shut down or spin out
• We perceive less choice
• Look for an enemy or adversary
• Think we’re the only one
• Sweaty palms, feel it in gut, buzzing head
• Unable to make any decision, freeze, procrastination
• Look for safety, comfort in what’s familiar

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Benefits of a Healthy Relationship with Fear

In being fully human, fear can:

• Indicate that we care
• Connect us with others and build empathy
• Cue us in to repressed parts of ourselves
• Make us alert and focused

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In learning, fear can:

• Disrupt the status quo
• Indicate fundamental new learning
• Help us pay attention to new threats or risks
• Alert us to when we're trying to predict the future
• Alert us to when we’re reacting to the past
• Alert us to extremes in our thinking
• Tell us that we're being selfish

In being more effective, fear can:

• Help us focus
• Help reduce risk
• Compel us to prepare
• Compel us to act
• Build efficacy and confidence as we work with it
• Catalyze growth

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Developing a Healthy Relationship with Fear

1. Center yourself on your greater purpose (in life and work) or intent (in the project or situation).
2. Breathe, meditate and observe the stimuli and your reactions (to build equanimity)
3. Empathize with the other (empathy can help moderate fear).
4. Ground yourself to the earth—literally and less literally.
5. Catastrophize by (mentally) playing out the worst scenario.
6. Have a Courageous Conversation.
7. Beware of “Courageous Conversations” that are really forecasts and projections.
8. Clarify the threat by turning a general fear into a specific fear that you can respond to concretely.
9. Go to your gut, not your mind. Your gut has a healthier, more experienced, and more ancient relationship with fear than your mind does. Your mind is too good at imagining things and telling stories. When you can’t overcome a fear, tell your brain to shut up and follow your gut.
10. Experience Awe in nature to place our experience in perspective.

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our existence is�evidence�of more�than we can imagine; much�we can’t see�is working right:�let’s celebrate�that part of our�ignorance

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From A.R. Ammons’ �Tape for the Turn of the Year

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Exercise: Stuck in Fear? Balance Your Response

South

Body

West

Spiritual

West

Emotion

Spiritual Service, Awe, Wonder, Gratitude

Heart Chakra Meditation,

Empathy, Support System

Grounding or Creating Space Meditations, Physical Activity

Rational-Emotive Practices

General Semantics Practices

Chakras (4 of 7)

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Exercise: Stuck in Fear? Another View

North

Spirit

East

Mind

South

Body

West

Spiritual

West

Emotion

Spiritual Service, Awe, Wonder, Gratitude

Heart Chakra Meditation,

Empathy, Support System

Grounding or Creating Space Meditations, Physical Activity

Rational-Emotive Practices

General Somatics Practices

Balance

Anishinaabeg Medicine Wheel, 4 of 7 directions

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Exercise: Stuck in Fear? Balance Your Response

South

Body

West

Spiritual

West

Emotion

Let’s try working here.

Chakras (4 of 7)

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Exploring Conflict

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When We Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Conflict

This happens when…

• We equate conflict with dislike or disrespect
• We fear losing the relationship
• Miss opportunity for relationships
• Take things personally
• Withdraw
• Immediately acquiesce
• When the ego is present, a lot
• When something seems small, but builds over time
• We ignore conflict

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The impact on us is…

• We get into fighting mode
• We perceive a win-lose situation
• Can reveal the impacts of our behavior on others that we might not be aware of otherwise

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Benefits of a Healthy Relationship with Conflict

In being fully human, conflict can:

• Build self- and other-awareness
• Shift our and others boundaries
• Increase our adaptability and flexibility
• Build more authentic and resilient relationships

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In learning, conflict can:

• Reveal our and others latent assumptions
• Reveal unrecognized needs and interests
• Indicate a desire to have a say
• Reveal our needs for safety, comfort, and respect
• Prompt us to clarify definitions

In being more effective, conflict can:

• Build courage
• Build energy
• Sharpen intent
• Drive more resilient solutions.
• Exercise our negotiation, mediation, and collaboration muscles
• Support the development of better, more robust, more resilient ideas

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Developing a Healthy Relationship with Conflict

All the practices around Fear can apply here, plus:

1. Count to 10 (this old practice helps to calm your amygdala)
2. Differentiate between productive and unproductive conflict (e.g. “Is this worth it?”)
3. Differentiate before you integrate – dive deep into the unique needs and interests of each person BEFORE attempting to reconcile them into a solution
4. State observations and impacts rather than inferences and conclusions
5. Work from interests rather than positions
6. Work from values rather than interests
7. Look for the underlying polarities or values tensions and find the interdependence
8. Learn about your preferred conflict mode (e.g. Thomas-Kilmann)

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“We have nothing to �fear but an unhealthy relationship to fear.”

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Jennifer Hamady �The Art of Singing�

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Exercise: Seeing Ourselves in Others

1. Fold a piece of blank �paper into thirds like this:

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• On the top of the center panel, write the name of a person who annoys you because of the way they show up.
• Below that person’s name, while holding your feelings of annoyance, quickly list as many adjectives as possible to describe that person. Try to be as specific as possible in the items you list.
• Now fold the right panel in and write your name (or just “me”) at the top and, without overthinking it, quickly write down a list of qualities you aspire to have more of.
• Now open the right panel again, on the left-most panel,  write down the positive corollaries of all the negative items you listed in the center panel. That is, turn all the negative things about that person who annoys you into positives on the left panel.
• Finally, close the right panel and compare your list of aspired personal qualities with the positive qualities of that other person.

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Exploring Resistance

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When We Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Resistance

This happens when…

• We frame resistance as something to overcome
• We are working from urgency
• Resistance is almost always a signal that something important has been missed in our work. It can also be a reflection of irreconcilable differences.

The impact on us is…

• We suppress wisdom and experience, especially during change initiatives
• People are disenfranchised
• Getting more resistance
• Withdrawing one’s contribution in all forms to the situation

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Benefits of a Healthy Relationship with Resistance

In being fully human, resistance can:

• Help us be more open and inclusive, less rigid
• Help us manage boundaries & practice self-care
• Help us differentiate our needs and experiences

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In learning, resistance can:

• Help us clarify our own intent or goal
• Help us clarify everyone’s interests and values
• Help us slow down, reflect, & analyze more fully

In being more effective, resistance can:

• Help us learn from the past
• Help ensure real ownership
• Help us weed out bad or unworkable ideas
• Help reveal design criteria for good/workable solutions

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Developing a Healthy Relationship with Resistance

All the practices around Fear and Conflict can apply here, plus:�

1. Learning to facilitate the inherent wisdom in diversity
2. Clarifying the greater shared purpose or intent that can help focus the difference
3. Learn about your preferred resistance style (the Battle-Klein-Battle Resistance Style Inventory)
4. Do inquiry before advocacy, possibly using an empathy interview

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“Any resistance is not only normal but necessary— it is part of the creative process.”

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- Paulo Coelho

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Exploring Failure

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When We Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Failure

This happens when…

• We hold a linear view of progress
• We’re trying to protect and idealized self
• Take it personally
• Fear of looking incompetent
• We allow it to define us
• We will never take a risk
• We assume that this is the final moment
• Debilitating, stops me from progressing
• Stops me from starting

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The impact on us is…

• We fail to take risks commensurate with the challenge
• We get locked into habitual forms of action
• We stick with the familiar things we’re comfortable with
• Not speaking up, showing up
• Overlearn lessons from failure
• My cultural baggage puts a premium on success. Cuts me off from my creative and healthy source, which comes from a much deeper humility
• Limit our chance to grow or learn to explore possibilities
• We absorb failure as a core part of our identity

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Benefits of a Healthy Relationship with Failure

In being fully human, failure can:

• Help us let go of perfectionism (I loosen up �that idealized picture of myself)
• Help minimize doomsday predictions
• Model both vulnerability and grit

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In learning, failure can:

• Help us find our true advocates and allies
• Make me a better mentor to others

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In being more effective, failure can:

• Help regain beginner’s mind (Steve Jobs)
• Inspire creativity
• Clarify the requirements for a successful approach or solution
• Build resolve (or at least test it) and commitment

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Developing a Healthy Relationship with Failure

The practices around Fear can apply here, plus:�

1. Get up and keep moving!
2. Fail early and often, while keeping costs and risks low early on
3. Do low-cost, low-fi prototyping first
4. Put a version number on everything
5. Iterate, iterate, iterate…and test, test test
6. Go for good enough, not perfect
7. Ask diverse stakeholders for feedback
8. Create value as you go with minimum viable (or valuable) products
9. Don’t overlearn from failure

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“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

- Maya Angelou

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Themes & Practices

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Common Themes

1. When we try to subordinate these things, they only grow (e.g., if you try to avoid failure, you'll likely get bigger failures)
2. Each is part of a larger natural process (e.g. resistance is really about boundary management and retention of lived wisdom)
3. Each can build on itself: We start fearing fear, resisting resistance, getting into conflict around conflict, and we fail bigger and badder because of our lack of risk taking.
4. Anything out of balance is unhealthy--this principle applies to both "good" things like humility or accountability and "bad" things like fear and conflict.
5. Our experiences of these are highly culturally relative.
6. The unhealthy dynamic often arises from the dominance of white values: perfectionism, sense of urgency, defensiveness, only one right way, either/or thinking, power hoarding, fear of open conflict, individualism, i’m the only one, objectivity, right to comfort (Tema Okun et al)
7. Each of these can be out of whack at any level of system.
8. Each has an element of projecting from the past into the future, rather than being present here and now
9. Each relates to safety and risk and how we perceive those, especially risk to our sense of self

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Themes: Equanimity (or Taoist-Buddhist Party Time!)

In ancient China, there was a farmer who had saved enough money to buy a horse. �“You are so lucky!” his neighbors said, “You have a horse to pull your wagon.” �“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

One day he forgot to lock the gate and the horse ran away. “Oh no, that’s terrible!” his neighbors exclaimed. “Very bad luck!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

A few days later the horse returned and brought with it a wild horse. “How wonderful! You are very lucky!” his neighbors said. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next week, the farmer’s son was breaking-in the wild horse when it threw him off. He landed on the ground and broke his leg. “Oh my!” the neighbors cried. “Very bad luck again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next day, the emperor conscripted all the young men in their village to fight in the war. Because of his broken leg, the farmer’s son was left behind. “You are very lucky!” his neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

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‘‘…there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

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William Shakespeare�Hamlet

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Some Practices

• Disrupt the immediate response by counting to 10 or slowing breathing.
• Move toward the feeling, not away, and allow it to become fully present (while taking care of yourself).
• Shift attention from your mind to your body.
• Focus on what you’re physically experiencing-breath, jaw, chest, shoulders. That can be your “tell” for that experience.
• Describe your experience, not your judgement or accusation.
• Seek your patterns of interpretation and reaction and experiment with shifting these.
• Sometimes, scream and shout.

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Free tools and materials on our website:

www.wearecocreative.com/tools

Training courses:

Collaborative Innovation Essentials

Introduction to Collaborative Innovation

Facilitating Collaborative Innovation

Championing Systems Change

Leading with Purpose and Awareness

Leveraging Diversity for Innovation

More learning, tools, and resources

5 Key Design Principles for a New Normal from the Work of Donella Meadows

June 30, 2020 2:00-3:30 pm EDT | Cost: Free

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Fear, Resistance, and Conflict from a Polarities Perspective

Fear 

Fear arises from the belief that we are going to lose something we deeply value and gain something that repels us. We are also driven by a deeper fear that we share with those with whom we seem to be in conflict (like ultimate failure), even if we can’t agree on how to get away from that fear successfully. 

Conflict 

Conflict is two seemingly mutually-exclusive things attempting to occupy the same space at the same time. When we see two values, like individual liberty and collective good, as being an either-or choice, we implicitly assume that we can’t have at the same time, so we perceive conflict rather than interdependence in that tension.

Resistance 

Resistance often arises from those who believe that the change being asserted will result in the loss of the upside benefits of their values (including the values of stability and continuity) and the realization of the downsides of the values being asserted in the change initiative. If we can recognize and bring forward the upsides of the currently-held values, we can reduce resistance and develop more resilient change strategies. 

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