I suggest a framework for reviewing motivations and goals under four key headings.

In practice these goals are not always explicit, intentional or separated out from each other. This often creates confusion and conflict because antagonists find themselves at crossed purposes by having different but unstated goals that add further interference in an already difficult situation. For example, one party may simply want the pain to go away while the other is trying to re-establish a relationship that continues to trigger pain and suffering for the first party. It is difficult to see how this can be achieved without re-experiencing the pain, or without the relationship appearing to get worse before it gets better. Attempting to achieve these different outcomes appears to drag both into experiences they may rather avoid.

Furthermore, I would suggest that these four goals are sequentially more challenging and demand higher levels of development and capability from the parties in order to be achieved. Each goal may require learning of new skills but the 4th. goal implies something of a different order – expansion of capacity. For example, transforming self and situation may mean having the ability to tolerate one’s own and others pain and suffering while engaging in the transformative process, postponing or foregoing gratification of ones needs or desires, or repairing damage done to relationship at some personal cost. It means working on the situation rather than just in it.

In order to understand the framework and its implications, let’s expand our view of each goal.

1. Relieving pain and suffering
Here we are concerned with the emotional costs of being in conflict. Being in conflict is painful for a whole range of different reasons that we may or may not be able to analyse or articulate. Our natural instinct is to avoid, prevent or gain relief from these painful emotions or even physical pain and suffering where violence is a factor. When we are in pain the tendency is to get out or get rid of it as fast as possible. This may result in us giving in, trying to wipe out the perceived cause of our pain or avoiding contact. For example we may avoid asserting our needs or interests for fear of retaliation or damaging a relationship or we may prevent painful interactions between people by keeping them apart.

The difficulty with knee-jerk reactions or even tactical moves is that while they may help us to escape or avoid pain and suffering the relief is often short lived and tends to recur as the difficulties which gave rise to the pain and suffering are not resolved. The unfulfilled needs or interests that drive the painful emotions remain unfulfilled. Perhaps the threat to one’s interests or reputation continues or if the relieving action is avoidance of contact then it may be accompanied by the loss of a previously nurturing or valued relationship. The side effects of relieving the suffering may be harder to bear in the longer term.

Sometimes we just assume that one has to deny, tolerate or transcend the emotional suffering but we need to remember how immensely difficult this may be for some people. We become instinctively defensive when under attack and may not even be aware of the source of pain or vulnerability that we protect. What ever the methods, and there are many, they must help us bear the emotional distress, find meaning in it, and get beyond the defensive barriers so we can attend to the underlying needs, values and beliefs that generate the emotional suffering.

The ability to contain our pain and suffering rather than act it out destructively is a major challenge when dealing with conflict. Awareness of and responsibility for our emotional states, respect for the value of emotions like fear, grief, anger, jealousy, etc., and ability to identify and understand the needs, values and beliefs generating them, are core to the capability to tolerate and constructively use such emotional experience and suffering in particular. This often requires empathy, support, time and perhaps assistance to process and see the value of such painful emotions for those who are struggling to gain relief or move on to the next challenge.

2. Reaching a settlement /getting what I need
This challenge is concerned with how we meet our needs and look after our interests. Getting what we want or desire, achieving our goals is primary here but this will entail engaging with the needs, values, interests and beliefs of others where they are in conflict with or appear to interfere with the realisation of our own. As well as being clear what we need, value or believe there are many different ways of realising our own interests or goals and each has its own methods, which in turn tend to have fairly predictable side affects. What is common to all is an awareness of the impact of the other in terms of impeding or assisting in the achievement of one’s own interests and needs. The common goal is to reach a settlement that enables all parties to meet their needs, resolve conflicts of interest/ interference.

For some, the achievement of goals will be without awareness or consideration of the impact of their strategy or actions on others. Other’s approach will take account of the actions or goals of other parties in so far as they might impede the achievement of or as an instrument to aid achievement of their own goals. Others again will see opposing parties as also having valid goals or interests that may require mutual compromise where they are experienced to be in conflict. Finally there are yet others who see the achievement of all parties’ equally legitimate needs, interests and values as being inextricably interlinked and more effectively achieved when framed as a joint or collaborative effort rather than an adversarial contest.

The strategies, assumptions and side effects of the methods used to strive for the type of settlements above are different. For example, achieving my goals without consideration or concern for the impact of my actions on others may damage my relationships with others or even set up cycles of revenge and retaliation if the experience of interference by other parties is significant and if they believe they ought to have been considered. More powerful people may be able to impose their will on others but gaining their voluntary cooperation in the future may be nigh impossible as a consequence or the result may require continued and costly use of coercion to sustain it. Solutions to conflicts that are jointly generated tend to be more sustainable even where these are reached by compromise.

Collaborative settlements that are both voluntary and non-adversarial have the added value of maintaining workable if not fulfilling relationships. However the third goal exceeds even the collaborative processes of communication and problem solving that are apparent in such a process. While such processes acknowledge the interdependence in relation to the problem at hand, the 3rd goal focus on relationship explores the nature of relationship more deeply and its capacity to contain and transform more complex conflict as intimated in the 4th goal above. So let us take a closer look at what might be entailed in the relationship and communication goal.

3. Repairing/ maintaining/ enhancing relationship and communication
We are communal beings and have strong affiliation or belonging needs that serve our survival, development and productivity. Conflict can be a painful experience because our need to belong is often threatened. We may also experience conflict between our needs for dependency and for independence and individual expression. Single-minded drive in pursuit of individual goals may disregard or lead us to neglect the expectations of others and so lead to communication or relationship breakdowns. Healthy relationships require that we be aware of the needs and interests of others and of the impact of our actions and our differences on each other.

Mismatch of power and the misuse of power often leads to relationship breakdowns. The rebalancing of power, power sharing or distribution - the exercise of power “with” rather than power “over” are key goals in sustaining healthy, collaborative relationships. Closely related is the challenge to move from dependency in relationship to freely chosen interdependency. This usually has to be achieved via independence – the ability to meet one’s own needs and establish one’s own identity. Many get stuck at independence and fail to value or choose mutual interdependence while often creating exploitative or instrumental relationships.

The time and effort entailed in building mutual understanding and strengthening relationships is often seen as a distraction from or even a barrier to getting the task done efficiently and effectively. Relationships are often sacrificed in pursuit of goals but potential side-effects include and revenge and retaliation cycles and overt or covert non-cooperation. Surfacing the damage, repairing the relationship and healing wounds inflicted tends to be a complex task – often taking longer than the time it would have taken to build a robust relationship in the first place. Without cooperative relationships we cannot take on great challenges. Emotional competence, empathy and compassion underpin cooperative relationships. Building such mutuality care and concern takes time and commitment.

Communication strategies vary according to assumptions and beliefs about what you are trying to achieve. In most adversarial conflicts the battle of messages predominates; listening looses out except to pick holes and identify weaknesses on which to focus the next attack. Listening with empathy and compassion can institute a more positive communication dynamic but requires that we view other parties as part of the solution not just the problem; as “them and us against the problem” rather than “them against us”. It requires we recognise as legitimate the needs and interests of others who appear to be in conflict with us rather than just viewing them as barriers to, or a means of, meeting our needs or achieving our goals. Learning to replace argument with skilled conversation, debate with dialogue and balancing advocacy with inquiry will enhance the quality of interaction and ultimately relationship.

And perhaps most importantly, to transform ourselves and our situation and to successfully take on great challenges we need trusting, robust and resilient relationships that can withstand the pressure of raising contentious issues and harnessing the energy made available by bring diverse and powerful people together in pursuit of a common goal.

4. Transforming self and situation
In the early stages and in polarised conflicts, engaging in conflict for many people means trying to blame and change the other party. Here the position is reversed to focus on self, our community, etc. Transforming self and situation requires that we ourselves are vulnerable to change both individually and collectively. Ghandi exhorted us to: “be the change you seek” - an extraordinary challenge when you think about it. It speaks to me of maturational leaps akin to stages of cognitive, moral or social development reflected in the work of Torbert, Kohlberg or Beck to name but a few.

Transforming self here might mean changing one’s belief from seeing the external world as responsible for generating our emotions to taking responsibility for generating our own emotions through our needs, values, beliefs and expectations. It could mean the leap from using others as a means of our own fulfilment to recognising the legitimacy of their independent needs and interests and holding them in awareness as we decide and act. It could mean a shift from unconscious use of our individual or group power and its impact on others to conscious and uplifting use of our power for mutual benefit.

These shifts in awareness, belief and behaviour are not easily achieved but radically expand our capacity to deal with increasing levels of complexity that we find in great endeavours and intractable conflict. Sometimes reframing a conflict within a new way of perceiving opens up possibilities that we could never have conceived of from within the old mindset or paradigm as it is sometimes called.

Einstein reminds us that problems are not solved at the level at which they are created. We need to advance to a higher order of thinking, feeling, perceiving in order transform conflict. The experience of conflict can itself provide the opportunity and the gateway through which we can make these maturational leaps of consciousness if we see the opportunity, possess the skills and value the goal.

Transformations extend capacity and not just capability and are qualitatively different from additive learning or continuous capability building. New skill learning is implicit in the achievement of the first three goals. Capacity leaps may also take place even though this was not the intended or primary goal. What we are concerned with here is the aware and intentional use of the opportunity conflict affords to transform oneself or one’s situation (relationship, organisation, community).

The challenge is far greater and demands complex skills and levels of consciousness that exceed what most of us possess. For example, it may require being willing to suffer in service of a higher vision, being able to reach settlement but willing to refuse to do so in order to surface and address generative causes, being able to create and maintain robust relationships but being willing to challenge dysfunctional dynamics, being willing to change and be changed through engagement in the conflict.

Choosing the goal and methods - will depend to some extent of parties’ motivation and capability. While successive goals continually raise the bar in terms of what can be achieved through working with conflict we should be under no illusions about what it will takes to achieve them. There is a danger in setting the bar too high because of the risk and the consequences of failure. On the other hand, success in achieving any given goal often shows up the limitations of the satisfaction achieved and the value of raising aspiration to meet higher level needs in Maslow’s terms.