Re-imagining conflict: navigating fields of tension as 'working in the space between'

这一研究金将使我能够分享来自理论和实践的新的和重要的见解，了解我们如何理解和处理冲突，以及这与使协作工作方案更可持续和更有力地相关。它强调了在这种情况下早期干预的重要性，并提供了一种工具(在可视化方法中)，允许实时直观地表示群体的动态。这样的图像立即向协作团队传达出团队中哪些方面进展顺利，他们的互动中有哪些地方有颠簸。它为干预提供了一个理想的起点，以一种客观和容易理解的形式提供了不可否认的团队流动记录。从多学科团队到本地服务提供，在商业伙伴关系和解决世界上最复杂的问题方面，协作工作在我们生活的方方面面都在上升。这种范式转变需要在不同团队和非常不同的组织文化中工作的新技能，但很少有时间去理解支撑成功合作的团队动态和人际关系。从我自己在跨文化和多部门合作中多年的工作经验来看，我知道这不是一项容易的任务。随着个人和公司的不同兴趣和工作方式走到一起，提供无缝、高质量的服务变得越来越困难。工作文化的差异可能是极端的--例如，志愿组织社区工作人员的热情与财务办公室要求的细致细节--以及合作组织和交付工作的个人的期望也是如此。此外，变化和不确定性是协作工作的一个恒定特征，这要求组织和个人管理协作结构的内部动态(谁负责预算、做决策、主持会议)，以及更广泛的社会和政治变化(金融衰退、政治意识形态、全球流行病)。如果紧张局势得不到预期或解决，消极冲突的可能性就会大大增加，低程度的不满很快就会导致撤出、不遵守和大量浪费资源--金钱、时间、人员和协作的可持续性。通过聚焦于团队互动中的“热点”，并通过可视化团队动态使它们变得更加明显(见下文例子)，就更容易承认和处理不可避免地以创造性和可持续的方式出现的冲突点，并避免这种浪费。这项重要的研究将冲突重新定义为正常的，而不一定是破坏性的。重要的不是冲突本身，而是如何处理和处理冲突。博士研究的可视化例子，显示了一条被笑声打断的核心团队参与线--NB不允许我在这里添加图像。这种方法的全部原创性在于如何将个人和组织之间的空间视为一个紧急空间。这增加了测量非语言数据、可视化交流以及观察和可视化能量类型和笑点的新方法。这种方法对我来说确实是新的，至少在冲突研究方面是这样。虽然它被正确地视为一项试验性研究，并因其如此创新而对其主张持谨慎态度，但它仍具有进一步试验、测试和开发的令人兴奋的潜力。至少，这样做的前景是，我们可能会更好地理解协作冲突研究中的群体动态，为一个群体如何重新定位，以在要求苛刻的、以各级合作和冲突为特征的‘混乱’环境中提高活力和创造力提供指标。汤姆·伍德豪斯，和平与冲突研究荣誉退休教授，博士生考官

This fellowship will allow me to share new and significant insights from theory and practice around how we understand and work with conflict, and how this is relevant to making collaborative work programmes more sustainable and robust. It stresses the importance of early intervention in such situations, and provides a tool (in the visualization method) that allows a realtime visual representation of a group's dynamic. Such an image immediately conveys to a collaborative team what is moving smoothly in the group and where there are bumps in their interactions. It offers an ideal starting point for intervention, providing an undeniable record of group flow in a format that is objective and easily understood.Collaborative working is on the rise in all aspects of our lives, from multidisciplinary teams to local service delivery, in business partnerships and in tackling the world's most complex problems. This paradigm shift requires new skills in relation to working in diverse teams and across very different organizational cultures but little time is given to understanding the group dynamics and interpersonal relationships that underpin successful collaborations. From years of working in cross-cultural and multi-sector collaborations myself, I know that it is not an easy task. Providing seamless, quality services becomes increasingly difficult as individuals and companies come together with their varied interests and ways of working. Differences in working cultures can be extreme - the passion of a voluntary organisation community worker versus the meticulous detail required by finance offices, for example - as can the expectations of partner organisations and individuals delivering the work. In addition, change and uncertainty are a constant feature of collaborative working, requiring organisations and individuals to manage the internal dynamics of a collaborative structure (who holds the budget, makes decisions, chairs the meetings) as well as broader societal and political shifts (financial recession, political ideologies, global pandemics). When points of tension are not anticipated or addressed, the chance for negative conflict becomes much greater and low-level dissatisfactions can quickly lead to withdrawal, non-compliance and a considerable waste of resources - money, time, personnel and collaborative sustainability. By focussing on the 'hot spots' in group interactions and making them more visible by visualizing the group dynamic (see example below), it becomes easier to acknowledge and work with points of conflict that will inevitably arise in a creative and sustainable manner, and to avoid that wastage. This important research reframes conflict as normal, and not necessarily destructive. What is important is not conflict itself but how it is approached and dealt with. Example of visualization from the PhD research, showing a central group engagement line intercut by laughter - NB wont allow me to include image here.'The full originality of the approach lies in how 'the space between' individuals and organisations is seen as an emergent space. This adds new ways of measuring nonverbal data, of visualising communication and of observing and visualising energy types and laughter points. The approach is genuinely new to me, at least as applied to conflict research. While it is correctly seen as a pilot study and cautious in its claims because it is so innovative, it nevertheless has exciting potential for further trial, testing and development. The promise at least is that we may well be better equipped to understand group dynamics in collaborative conflict research, providing indicators of how a group can re-orientate itself to improve energy and creativity in the demanding and 'messy' environments that characterise collaborations - and conflicts - at all levels.' Tom Woodhouse, Professor Emeritus, Peace and Conflict Studies, and PhD Examiner