Power, Conflict, and Complexity

Hi All,

Last Friday, I presented a workshop at the Step Up 2025: Moving Equity Forward virtual conference, put on by Leadership Snohomish County. It was called Navigating Conflict Across Differences of Privilege and Identity, and it drew somewhere around 90 participants from various organizations across Snohomish county and beyond.

Although I've offered a workshop with the same title before, I made some changes. And this was the first time I presented the updated content. (Click on this IG video if you'd like to see how I framed my purpose for working with conflict.)

Although I felt good about the workshop overall, I also felt I could have framed the complexity of the topic better.

Conflict between people of similar identities can be difficult enough. When it happens between people who have very different identities and privileges, it can feel excruciating.

How to frame the complexity of this so that my content can land?

Although I prepared for this challenge going in, I was still left with the feeling that I could have done more.

After the workshop was over, a concise framing came to me. I think I can sum it up in a sentence:

Encouraging individuals to navigate big conflicts across differences of identity and privilege without culture work is often a recipe for abuse.

Conflict work and culture work go hand-in-hand. We cannot do one without the other. (I say more about this in my free Generative Conflict Starter Kit.)

Why is that?

Because the foundational questions on which conflicts across differences of privilege often turn are those of power and safety.

And it's often far too much to ask for two people (or even two groups of people) to wrestle with such difficult issues all by themselves - that is, without the support of a generative conflict culture.

In my workshop last week, I compared common conflict behaviors of people with power and safety to the common conflict behaviors of those with less power and safety. And I offered some suggestions that might be helpful for people on both sides. But I'm not sure I emphasized the importance of culture enough before going into that.

Luckily for me, I have an upcoming workshop happening this Saturday, May 3 called A Deep Dive Into Power, which is part of my four-part workshop series, Use Conflict to Change the World.

On Saturday, we'll explore the definition of power as well as the various sources it can arise from - one of those being culture. Hopefully, that will create a strong grounding for exploring strategies for groups, organizations, and individuals navigating conflict across different experiences of power and safety.

If this sounds interesting to you, there's still time to register for this Saturday's workshop - or all four workshops in the series.

I've greatly enjoyed working with wonderful participants over the past two Saturdays on Self Awareness and Essential Skills for Supporting Your Side and the Other's Side.

What do you think about what I've written here?

What are the best resources, guides, or teachers you've found to support your own conflict practice across differences of privilege and identity?

Email me at james.boutin@mailfence.com to share your learnings and questions with me.

Lots of Love,

James
www.jamesboutin.com
james.boutin@mailfence.com

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Upcoming Events

Use Conflict to Change the World
A four-part virtual workshop series
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May 3, and May 10
10am - 12pm Pacific