I spent last week in New York City, visting family and taking a mini-holiday.  I walked long distances.  Everywhere I walked it seemed half the people whose paths I crossed never saw me.  Their eyes were on their mobile device.    Of course, this scenario is happening everywhere, not just in NYC.

As a conflict manager, it got me thinking though; about conflict, its’ source, and appropriate ways of addressing it.   Today, and tomorrow, that source is more and more likely to be social media from a mobile device.  It’ll be where conflict is initiated and it’ll be where we, as conflict managers, might best respond?   The long tail of conflict prevention is calling us; the sooner we respond to conflict, the greater the benefit of our intervention.

The medium is the message

Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message”, 50 years ago.  Context trumps content.  His insights around the electronic age are brilliant and still largely hold true.  And he put forth his ideas with great mirth; e.g., in this 1967 Canadian Broadcasting System Q&A clip (on YouTube).

Given social media is the new medium of choice, what is the conflict manager to do?   How can we better respond to conflict initiated from social media?

For the conflict manager

As a conflict manager, here’s 5 strategies you can use to become that social media conflict maestro… (the quotes are McLuhan’s words):

1. Feel it: We sense the world through media.  Social media plays more on our right brain. “Our right hemisphere has no bottom line, it’s only interested in quality”. If conflict is coming from those who are living and feeling it (social media), how well are you empathizing, with those you serve?
2. Incorporate the tribe: Social media escalates “our move from ‘individual’ to ‘tribal’ man”.  How can you incorporate the tribe into your practice?  Modria has one approach.  Learn everywhere.
3. Open up to it. Social media is participatory by design. It shifts our expectations.  We want to be more involved in the process. How can you make your conflict management process more participatory?  Maybe your collaborative self is the answer?
4. Use it to reframe the core.  And speaking of process… “The old medium is the content of the new medium; the real roughing up and massaging is done by the new medium.”  How are you peeling the social media conflict onion?   How are you adapting to the new language, the core of how you deal/resolve conflict?
5. Your point of view doesn’t matter.  “You can’t have a (static) fixed position in the electronic age…  it’s impossible.”  Social media is “a field”.  It’s not a “line” (e.g., hardcopy book). It’s all at once, not one at a time.  This has big implications if your current conflict resolution style is highly directive.

It’s more than we think

Personally, I sense social media is part of a technological wave just reaching shore now.  And when the zenith of that wave hits, it’ll not only change, big time, how we deal with conflict, it’ll change how we think about conflict, and our basic relationships to each other.  Do you feel the same way?