How do you get out of a seemingly-irreconcilable debate or circular argument?

In this series of blogs I'm looking at how teamwork is affected by Jung's principle of compensation, and particularly how the unconscious can prevent two people from resolving a conflict constructively.  This is because if we take a strong, conscious stand on something, there is usually something uncontrollable that happens in the unconscious that works against that standpoint.

The example I gave yesterday might be that of a road safety campaigner who argues with an SUV driver against driving her family to school in an SUV.  This results in a unconscious disregard for the parental role of protecting the family.  As a result, the unintended, unconscious message to the SUV driver is "take greater risks with the safety of your family", which is an unpalatable, emotional message.

There are therefore two levels at which a conflict sometimes needs to be resolved: at the conscious and unconscious level.  It should be noted that emotional messages from the unconscious are incredibly powerful and, if the unconscious parts of two people are in direct conflict, it will be very difficult to resolve the problems between them.  Attempts to consciously resolve any differences will have limited impact.

To be honest, when I encounter such a situation in a team building situation, depending on the depth of the conflict, I sometimes ask whether the two individuals can be separated, that is, given different roles so that they don't have to interact.  This may sound like a 'cop out', and in some ways it is, but it often works.

For example, I worked with a computer help desk of just six people where two people were at loggerheads.  The conflict was primarily unconscious - the reasons they gave for their arguments were trivial or flimsy - but the conflict was intense and deeply personal.  To resolve unconscious conflict can sometimes be straightforward, but it can also be very labour intensive, and in some cases it cannot be achieved, or at least not without extensive therapy for one or both individuals.  So I gave the team leader a choice: either separate the two people or pay for a programme of coaching and workshops which may be lengthy and could not be guaranteed to work.  In this instance it was easy for him to split the duties so the two people did not have to interact, which he did, after which the team was then able to function pretty effectively.  This may not have been the best theoretical outcome, but it was good enough, and the best in the circumstances, meeting both his team/job objectives and sticking within his budget and time constraints.

On the other hand, another example was a senior management team that had repeatedly found themselves in conflict for a number of years.  Although they managed to run the company profitably, they did so despite their differences and there was a general feeling that things could be so much better.   When I observed them working as a team for the first time it became clear that there were unconscious problems, related to personality differences and a tendency towards "violent agreement" (ie: even when they agreed on a point, the tone of voice they used to express agreement was argumentative, which tended to lead them back into disagreement).  Therefore, I used three techniques with them:  I raised awareness, pointing out the violent agreement when it occurred;  I facilitated their discussions focusing on agreement (only allowing them to say what they agreed on);  and I took them through a workshop using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® questionnaire.  These techniques freed them from the unconscious conflict and allowed them to start focusing on the conscious differences that needed to be resolved - that is, company strategy and policy.

Some conflicts are straightfoward - they are differences of (conscious) opinion and just need to be worked through to a win-win solution.  But in some cases unconscious conflict prevents a productive, conscious dialogue from taking place.  In such cases, when two or more people are in conflict, they need to be able to resolve their conflict at a deeper, unconscious level so they can be free to find a conscious resolution.  This can take time, money and lots of emotional emotional effort, which is why in some extreme cases it may simply be best to split up the warring factions.

I'll post some more on resolving unconscious differences in the next blog.