Conflict Icebergs is a leaderful organizing tool allowing us to understand conflicts and find empowering perspectives within them.
Overview
Conflict Icebergs is a visual model to gain a basic understanding of conflict mechanisms and why conflicts arise. It supports thinking about transforming views around conflict towards more empowering perspectives.
How this tool supports leaderful movements
Conflict is an inevitable part of bringing together the wide range of voices and experiences we need in order to build leaderful movements. Learning to be better equipped to face and transform conflict is essential for achieving the aims of our collectives and our movements, rather than disintegrate into atomised individuals or groups.
The conflict iceberg model supports us to dig deeper and see layers of a conflict that remained invisible before, allowing us to address the conflict on a more meaningful level.
Doing so allows groups to grow stronger together and overcome obstacles to a durable and effective collaboration. Therefore it supports groups to make progress in the field of transformative collaboration.
Other leaderful organizing competence areas that benefit from the insights in conflict developed by this model are communication, as the model supports us to understand each other better and to have more meaningful conversations when it’s hard to do so, and resilience and regeneration. The latter because unresolved conflict is often undermining the capacity for resilience of both groups and individuals alike.
More detail
The conflict iceberg model illustrates three different layers that exist within conflicts. The analogy with an iceberg works particularly well, as with conflicts, just as with real icebergs, only the top 10% is immediately visible.
Positions
In this case what is visible is the positions people take in a conflict. On the level of positions it’s often hard to see each other eye to eye. The positions might be hard to reconcile, and on the level of positions it’s often hard to understand ‘the other’, let alone to feel empathy.
Interests
When we go one level down, we reach the interests that lay below the surface. Interests tell us what is important to someone in a specific situation or related to an issue.
The interests might be connected to a concern or fear as well. On this level we can start to look for common interests between the parties in a conflict. Here we might start to see a way to rebuild the relationship between these parties and maybe a route to take towards a solution.
Needs
If we dig even deeper, we’ll finally reach the level of needs. There are underlying, universal needs that we all share. Recognizing and acknowledging those needs is an important first step. Next we have to meet those needs as well if we want to create space for honest relating, increased capacity for empathy and eventually to collaborate together.
Getting to know this model supports groups to look at conflicts with new eyes. There is more space for curiosity (what are the interests and the needs behind this position?) and an opportunity to develop important conflict resolutions skills.
Access Resources
- Psychosocial Resilience and Regenerative Activism Training Manual – See pg 250 – You can find a detailed session plan for “understanding conflict – conflict icebergs”. This session plan is intended to support you when facilitating the activity for a group.
- Working with Conflict in our Groups: A guide for grassroots activists, Seeds for Change / European Youth for Action – See pgs 12 -14 for Conflict Iceberg/Triangle.
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