Conflict is not an accident: it is a revealer!

Conflict is not an accident: it is a revealer!

In organizations, we treat conflict like a mechanical breakdown:

--- we isolate the defective part, we “repair” it, we close it up again.

Conflict is rarely the cause. It is very often the visible symptom of a system that is no longer able to communicate clearly.

Three layers always coexist:

1. The apparent disagreement — what we talk about

2. The emotional charge — what is circulating

3. The implicit narrative — what no one dares to mention

As long as we remain at the first level, we are just tinkering.

I have seen:

– committees tearing themselves apart over indicators when the real issue was a leader's loss of authority;

– partners invoking legal clauses to avoid admitting a breach of trust;

– teams blaming “communication” when it was the strategy itself that was no longer credible.

De-escalation is not primarily a technique... it is a work of translation.

You have to know how to translate 

1. Emotion into need.

2. Reproach into boundaries.

3. Anger into strategic information.

I am guided by a simple principle:

---you never resolve a conflict at the level at which it is expressed.

Treating it as a simple relationship problem is condemning it to return.

Reading it as a signal gives the organization a chance to grow.

So I ask you: what information are your current conflicts trying to convey to you?