legal sanity

Conflict is a big part of everyday life, especially for lawyers. This article, raises the interesting point that understanding our own attitude about conflict is integral to building solid conflict management skills. Launching from the premise that people typically see conflict as “something undesirable,” the piece asks us to view it through the metaphor of fire. Like fire, conflict has the potential for destruction, but also for creating great opportunity. If we approach conflict situations with knowledge of this duality, we’re less likely to run from them or to immediately try to extinguish them. We realize that we have more options than that. And we also learn that, like fires, not all conflicts are sustained and snuffed out in the same way. Acknowledging these differences, we become more open and able to navigate conflicts through to optimal resolutions.