Re-imagining conflict: navigating fields of tension as 'working in the space between'

This fellowship will allow me to share new and significant insights from theory and practice around how we understand and work with conflict, and how this is relevant to making collaborative work programmes more sustainable and robust. It stresses the importance of early intervention in such situations, and provides a tool (in the visualization method) that allows a realtime visual representation of a group's dynamic. Such an image immediately conveys to a collaborative team what is moving smoothly in the group and where there are bumps in their interactions. It offers an ideal starting point for intervention, providing an undeniable record of group flow in a format that is objective and easily understood.
Collaborative working is on the rise in all aspects of our lives, from multidisciplinary teams to local service delivery, in business partnerships and in tackling the world's most complex problems. This paradigm shift requires new skills in relation to working in diverse teams and across very different organizational cultures but little time is given to understanding the group dynamics and interpersonal relationships that underpin successful collaborations. From years of working in cross-cultural and multi-sector collaborations myself, I know that it is not an easy task. Providing seamless, quality services becomes increasingly difficult as individuals and companies come together with their varied interests and ways of working. Differences in working cultures can be extreme - the passion of a voluntary organisation community worker versus the meticulous detail required by finance offices, for example - as can the expectations of partner organisations and individuals delivering the work. In addition, change and uncertainty are a constant feature of collaborative working, requiring organisations and individuals to manage the internal dynamics of a collaborative structure (who holds the budget, makes decisions, chairs the meetings) as well as broader societal and political shifts (financial recession, political ideologies, global pandemics).

When points of tension are not anticipated or addressed, the chance for negative conflict becomes much greater and low-level dissatisfactions can quickly lead to withdrawal, non-compliance and a considerable waste of resources - money, time, personnel and collaborative sustainability. By focussing on the 'hot spots' in group interactions and making them more visible by visualizing the group dynamic (see example below), it becomes easier to acknowledge and work with points of conflict that will inevitably arise in a creative and sustainable manner, and to avoid that wastage. This important research reframes conflict as normal, and not necessarily destructive. What is important is not conflict itself but how it is approached and dealt with.

Example of visualization from the PhD research, showing a central group engagement line intercut by laughter - NB wont allow me to include image here.

'The full originality of the approach lies in how 'the space between' individuals and organisations is seen as an emergent space. This adds new ways of measuring nonverbal data, of visualising communication and of observing and visualising energy types and laughter points. The approach is genuinely new to me, at least as applied to conflict research. While it is correctly seen as a pilot study and cautious in its claims because it is so innovative, it nevertheless has exciting potential for further trial, testing and development. The promise at least is that we may well be better equipped to understand group dynamics in collaborative conflict research, providing indicators of how a group can re-orientate itself to improve energy and creativity in the demanding and 'messy' environments that characterise collaborations - and conflicts - at all levels.'
Tom Woodhouse, Professor Emeritus, Peace and Conflict Studies, and PhD Examiner