Insight Whether conflict is personal or professional, local or global, we need to be reflective and search for insights to help us become better conflict resolvers. The following are generic conflict resolution insights because they only generally apply to actual cases of conflict. The difference between general cases of conflict and specific cases of conflict is that actual cases may have unique features that defy generalization.
Conflicts can surprise the most experienced conflict resolvers.
This does not make the situation hopeless. Rather, this means that conflict is an opportunity for everyone to learn, whether they be disputants, or conflict resolvers, or both. The somewhat mysterious nature of conflict requires humility on the part of the conflict resolver. This humility, in the form of open-ness, allows the conflict resolver to listen for novel ways of working with disputants. We too easily avoid conflict because we feel that we do not have the skills to resolve conflict creatively and nonviolently.