Healthy and Unhealthy Conflict

04/28/2003

Healthy and Unhealthy Conflict

"The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he is born."
–W.R. Inge

HEALTHY AND UNHEALTHY CONFLICT

Twenty years ago, Robert Townsend, writing in Further Up the Organization: How to Stop Management from Stifling People and Strangling Productivity (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1984), observed that conflict within an organization is healthy. . .up to a point:
"A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. Conviction is a flame that must burn itself out—in trying an idea or fighting for a chance to try it. If bottled up inside, it will eat a person's heart away. If you're the boss and your people fight openly when they think you're wrong—that's healthy. If your people fight each other openly in your presence for what they believe in—that's healthy. But keep all the conflict eyeball to eyeball."

For ideas on dealing with conflict in early childhood settings, go to the Exchange Article Archives at https://secure.ccie.com/catalog/cciecatalog.php?cPath=50 and type in the keyword "conflict" in the search tool.

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