An Expert on Conflict Says Your Relationships Are Doomed Without It

The Daily

In this episode of The Daily, host David Marchese interviews conflict resolution expert Priya Parker about her new book, 'The Art of Fighting.' Parker challenges the common belief that conflict is inherently destructive,

Key takeaways

• Conflict avoidance often leads to deeper relationship fractures than actual conflict.
• Healthy conflict is not toxic—it's a necessary part of building trust and understanding in relationships.

Main topics

• Conflict avoidance and its consequences
• Healthy vs. unhealthy conflict

Notable quotes

We're not taught that it's actually deeply functional. It's not immoral. It's not toxic. Conflict is actually the way we figure out who we are and how we negotiate to be part of common life together.

Conclusion

Priya Parker argues that embracing healthy conflict—through structured, respectful disagreement—is vital for

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:01) The Opinions podcast from New York Times Opinion, bringing you a mix of conversations Speaker 4 (0:07) and new ideas, featuring the voices of our writers and columnists. Speaker 5 (0:12) To me, the single most underestimated force in international relations is actually stupidity. Speaker 4 (0:18) Including... Speaker 5 (0:19) Jamil Bouhi. Speaker 4 (0:20) Tressie McMillan Cottom. Michelle Goldberg. Thomas Friedman. And many more. Find The Speaker 5 (0:24) Opinions wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (0:35) I'm David Marchese, and today I'm interviewing conflict resolution facilitator and author Priya Parker. For many of us, myself included, conflict, be it at work or at home or in society, feels like something to avoid. It's combustible, irresolvable, or just plain uncomfortable. But in her new book, The Art of Fighting, Parker argues that we should fight more and learn how to do it well. Parker, who also wrote the best-selling 2018 book The Art of Gathering, is drawing on her work mediating conflict on college campuses, at Fortune 500 companies, in cultural institutions, and within families. So how and when should we fight? Here's my conversation with Priya Parker. But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber, we have some news for you. You can now explore The Times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app, and we hope you enjoy it. Okay, on to the interview. Speaker 6 (1:41) Priya, thank you for being here. I'm very excited to talk with you about conflict. Speaker 2 (1:44) Thank you for Speaker 6 (1:45) having me. So your previous book, The Art of Gathering, which I think was published in 2018. Yep. So it's been a little while, but that was all about healthy and productive group activity. And of course, the new book is about conflict. And it's hard not to wonder if that suggests something grim about the trajectory of the world since then. So why did you feel compelled to write the new book? Speaker 2 (2:10) I am deeply interested in human connection. And the art of gathering is about human connection. And the art of fighting is about human connection. And I decided to write this book in part because as a conflict resolution facilitator, I saw that in so many of the organizations that I work in and so many of the families I work with and so many of the friend groups that I am a part of or see, they're often actually falling apart because they're afraid to fight. And so much of what I find is that organizations and friend groups basically, when conflict arises, oscillate between either unhealthy peace, Speaker 6 (2:47) conflict Speaker 2 (2:48) aversion, avoidance, people pretend everything's fine, and unhealthy conflict, right? Which is either... escalation or domination or abuse. And so I wrote The Art of Fighting to basically say, look, this is a deeply, deeply important part of all group life, of all of our relationships. And we're not taught how to do it well. And we're actually not taught that it's actually deeply functional. It's not immoral. It's not toxic. Conflict is actually the way we figure out who we are and how we negotiate to be part of common life together. Speaker 6 (3:20) You used the term unhealthy peace. I think it's possible that that term could feel like an oxymoron to some people, like what could be unhealthy about peace. Can you explain what you mean by that term? Speaker 2 (3:32) You know, maybe I'll start with a personal story. When my parents separated, I'm half Indian, half white American, both of my parents are actually very conflict diverse. And when my parents separated and then divorced, everyone was shocked because they never fought. And so... I learned from a young age that there's great loss and avoidance. And I'm actually a third generation conflict avoidant person. So like on my Parker side, on my Iowan side, on my Indian side, like when heat rises, we just like stick our head in the sand and hope it'll pass. And so much of unhealthy peace is actually the idea that if we just pretend this conflict is not there, if we just kind of like, you know, shove it under the rug and hope it'll pass, everything will be fine. But actually, when we don't. have meaningful conversations, the relationship can also end. I mean, so often when you hear it in the culture, it's like, not my labor, not my burden. I don't have time. There's too much baggage over here. Friends are supposed to just all be fun. Actually, because we're so conflict-averse, we exit before we're actually willing to engage. And so our communities and our families are fracturing in part because we're afraid of entering and we don't. Often we're not taught the skills of how to actually have those fights. I Speaker 6 (4:47) have some questions about that kind of conflict or conflict avoidance. But before I get to those, I'm just curious, what is the most common workplace conflict that you're asked to come in and help resolve? I Speaker 5 (5:00) love this question. Because Speaker 6 (5:01) you must Speaker 5 (5:01) get the same conflict over and over and over again, Speaker 2 (5:03) right? Speaker 6 (5:03) I Speaker 2 (5:03) mean, a lot of, so first of all. I'm a conflict resolution facilitator. And so by the time the phone call comes to me. It's pretty Speaker 6 (5:10) bad, right? Well, Speaker 2 (5:11) it's either pretty bad or someone has realized, okay, the way we are handling this is blocking us from progress. Yeah. Speaker 6 (5:18) And Speaker 2 (5:18) so one of the most common conflict problems that people come with me for is actually our team is too polite. Speaker 5 (5:26) I Speaker 2 (5:27) see you laughing and a knowing sigh. There's deep difference here, but we have this norm of almost toxic politeness and it's blocking us from actually having the really important conversations about what should go in our product or why do our customers hate our product or what should go on the front page of the newspaper? And so can you come in and help us get better at fighting with each other? So one of the most common sets of problems that companies come with me for is actually to help them become more. conflict competent. You Speaker 1 (5:55) know, Speaker 2 (5:56) I think it's a huge misunderstanding to think that we have too much conflict right now. We actually have too little conflict. Yeah, Speaker 6 (6:03) which is, I think, sounds crazy to people. It sounds Speaker 2 (6:05) crazy. But there is something between war and peace, which is what I call healthy heat. And healthy heat is what is actually at the center of all meaningful relationships, all long-term communities. So part of what I do is I go in and help Teams get more comfortable with heat. So I'll give a simple example. One of the things that we do is we have companies or teams, I do this with my own team, host a hot takes party. Practicing basically pro-social conflict. They're laughing, they're arguing, they're finding they're allowed to be disgusted with each other about stuff that doesn't actually matter. I saw this done at a corporate retreat. It was a tech company. They had to make really... difficult decisions at a very significant crossroads in their company. And the vice president came out on stage and he basically said, he told me this later, their conflict aversion was preventing them from actually having the fight they needed to have. So he gets up on stage and he's like, I really hate to start in a bad place, but we really need to have some really important decisions today. And like the whole room tenses up. I was in the room and he's like, so we're going to have some debates and we're going to start, we're going to start strong. And then he puts up a slide. And it literally says pineapple on pizza, yes or no. And everyone's like, what? And he's like, go in five minutes, go and start arguing. And all of a sudden the room is like a buzz, like pineapple on pizza, like, oh, that's disgusting. I'm Italian. This is offensive. People, and then the next sentence goes on. He's like, what is the perfect time for lunch? And people start arguing about it. And in that room over these 17 minutes, they start normalizing. fighting with each other. And low stakes arguing is actually preparation for high stakes arguing. So the next day they brought out the real topics and everyone is referring to like, remember yesterday with the pineapple on pizza? So part of what we do is we're starting to normalize that you can actually fight in a way that is pro-social, that's connected, that's good for the group to help expand people's comfort with being able to argue about the real stuff also. Does Speaker 6 (8:08) that sort of process also work for family conflict? Speaker 2 (8:13) I think it depends on the family. I work with a number of intergenerational families, often with family foundations or family businesses. Part of what I see in families is there's a mental model, often with the older generation, that speaking up or disagreeing is... not just impolite, but is disrespectful. Speaker 1 (8:33) And Speaker 2 (8:33) so part of working with families is shifting the mental model of disagreement from being disrespectful to actually being one of the highest forms of honor to be able to argue about what matters to a family. At my grandfather's funeral in Jessup, Iowa, when the minister came and gave my grandfather's eulogy, Lyle Parker, he basically saved his... highest compliment for the end of the eulogy. And he said, in Ruth and Lyle's 50 years of marriage, they never fought. And my stepmother, a wise woman, leaned on the pew next to me and was like, that's not a good thing. And part of what I realized in that moment was in so many circles, in so many churches, in so many families, we believe that conflict is close to sin. Right? It's immoral. And so in families, just literally shifting the belief that all conflict is wrong to actually saying the conversations we're not having is preventing us from deeper connection as a family can be a radical shift. Speaker 6 (9:37) Yeah. I want to maybe try and complicate that idea a little bit. So you talk about it and you write about conflict as sort of to do with healthy interrelationship within a group where, you know, the idea is that people are... having the conflict with the other members of the group because actually they want to be in a different kind of better relationship with the other members of the group. But I can't help but wonder if that's maybe just like a little bit pie in the sky kind of thinking or slightly... Naive? I don't know. I wouldn't say not naive, but just maybe a little, certainly more optimistic than I'm inclined to be because I think, well, actually, the fight within a group might be about one... part of the group just wanting to dominate the other part of the group or one part of the group wanting to get rid of the other part of the group. So is it the case that conflict is like necessarily generative in a good