Where people work together, tensions arise.
That is not the problem.
The problem begins when organisations behave as if tensions do not exist.
Many workplace conflicts do not start with an open clash. They start with silence. With issues that remain unspoken. With small irritations that quietly accumulate. With teams where everyone stays polite — while gradually drifting further apart.
In a recent conversation for my podcast series Kom Maar Dichter, I spoke with mediator and organisational coach Ingrid Larik, co-author of Conflict Mediation at Work. One idea from that conversation stayed with me:
“Ideally, the mediator should become unnecessary.”
Not because conflicts disappear.
But because organisations learn how to deal with them themselves.
Not every disagreement is a conflict.
According to Ingrid, a conflict emerges when a situation gets stuck. When people remain fixed in their positions and no longer see a way forward.
In teams, this moment often becomes visible through subtle signals:
· conversations are avoided
· positions harden
· people talk about each other rather than with each other
· collaboration starts to slow down
At that point, the issue is no longer only relational.
It begins to affect the functioning of the team and the organisation.
Conflicts are therefore not just interpersonal matters.
They are organisational matters.
Many organisations try to prevent conflict.
They invest in procedures, structures and clear roles. All important — but none of theseremove one fundamental reality:
difference.
Teams consist of people with different personalities, rhythms, expectations and frames of reference. When organisations try to smooth over those differences, another dynamic often appears: surface harmony.
And surface harmony is more dangerous than conflict.
Because when everyone always agrees, organisations stop learning.
As Ingrid puts it:
“Conflict can be necessary. Imagine if everyone always said yes — nothing would everchange.”
Friction can create direction.
Provided organisations know how to handle it.
This is where leadership becomes crucial.
Managers are often trained in strategy, finance or performance management. Yet acapability that is just as essential often receives far less attention:
conflict competence.
Conflict competence does not mean solving every conflict for your team.
It means making tensions discussable.
That requires a specific set of skills:
· naming tensions early
· listening without rushing to solutions
· making different perspectives visible
· ensuring that no one dominates the conversation
At its core, the work is simple and demanding at the same time:
creating a space where differences can exist without breaking collaboration.
In conversations about conflict, empathy is often mentioned. Yet the concept is frequently misunderstood.
Empathy does not mean literally “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes”. That is often impossible. Each person brings their own history and lived experience.
Empathy means something more modest — and more powerful:
the willingness to listen sincerely without immediately judging.
It shifts the question from:
How would I feel in your situation?
to:
What matters to you in this situation?
That recognition alone can already change the dynamics of a conversation.
When people feel heard, movement becomes possible again.
Ultimately, conflict competence is not only an individual skill.
It is also a matter of organisational culture.
Teams that deal with conflict constructively usually share a few characteristics:
· feedback is normalised
· leaders name tensions early
· different perspectives are welcomed
· conversations are given time
In such environments, conflict is not seen as a failure of collaboration.
It becomes part of collaboration itself.
And that isprecisely what makes organisations more resilient.
The real question may therefore not be:
How do we avoid conflict?
But rather:
How do we prevent conflicts from becoming stuck?
That requires no perfection.
But it does require attention, skill and a culture where difference is not immediately seen as a threat.
Or, as Ingrid Larik put it during our conversation:
“It is never too late to learn these skills.”
If reflections on dialogue, difficult conversations and organisational culture resonate with you, you are welcome to join The Conversation Layer.
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