Competing Interests Vs Conflicts of Interest

I don’t believe in ‘healthy conflict”.
In my book, every workplace micro-conflict, conflict, or global conflict is unhealthy and needs to be resolved and dissipated as quickly as possible.

Let’s tighten the wording while keeping our point sharp and neutral:

Let’s get the lexicon clear. I believe two people can disagree fairly, share their views calmly, even debate over a drink in good spirits, and that to me is not a conflict. We just disagree at the moment.
As I see it, using the word “conflict” for a mild disagreement, while in the next sentence using “conflict” to describe the rape and murder of innocent civilians that happens when two states are in “conflict”, is a serious misuse of the English language.
I think the scale of harm matters, so the language we use should reflect that difference. It’s not “just semantics”, it is semantics and it matters, I believe. And it is probably contributing to this global problem.

So, what is a micro-conflict, and a conflict, and what causes one to escalate to the other?
It is my hypothesis that all conflicts and micro-conflicts originate from conflicts of interest.

Competing interests and conflict of interest look similar on the surface, but I think they play very different roles in how tension forms inside teams. Understanding the distinction may help explain why some disagreements stay constructive while others drift into a micro-conflict and finally a serious conflict.

Competing interests occur when two people or groups want different things. This is normal. Two colleagues fairly share their different priorities. Two departments want the same resources. Two players in a soccer match fairly challenge for the same ball. Nothing about this situation is inherently unfair. It is simply a contest of preferences, goals, reasoning or strategies. Most healthy collaboration involves some level of competition like this. When behavior stays steady, competing interests do not create conflict.

I think fairness is inherent in all of us and even in other animals (another story).

I believe that micro-conflicts begin the moment someone feels their (competing) interests are being treated unfairly – intentionally or unintentionally.
• I believe that the shift from healthy competition to micro-conflict is rarely caused by the competing interests themselves.
• It is almost always triggered by a conflict of interest sitting inside one or both people.

Conflict of interests creates an internal pull. Someone is torn between what they should do and what they want to do. That tension subtly biases judgement. They might play up their own interest, play down the other person’s interest, or act in ways that tilt the field. None of this requires malice. The tilt can be unconscious, structural or situational. However, our ego and desire to be right versus the desire to learn and change is very strong in most of us, and represents probably our biggest conflict of interest.

With this in mind, it is not hard to see why so many of use get into micro-conflicts and conflict.
Depending on how big our egos are, it is not so hard for the receiver to feel it immediately once the the other’s volume and tone are raised, along with their dogmatic and absolute language entering the arena. The receiver senses that interest in their competing interest is being unfairly minimised, dismissed or overshadowed. Then it is their turn to react, not to the other person’s competing interest itself, but to the unfairness created by the other person’s internal split. That reaction to the unfairness is the spark of the micro-conflict for both the dogmatist and the dismissed.

In this sense:

• Competing interests are neutral.
• A conflict of interest is the feather that tips the scale.
• The moment someone senses the tilt, they are likely to react, and the micro-conflict begins in earnest.

Knowing each other’s motives and conflicts of interest upfront can help avoid this shift. When the playing-field is level and transparent, the behavior stays fair. But when hidden incentives or dual roles enter the picture, the risk of perceived unfairness rises sharply, along with a degree of uncertainty.

I believe this is why conflicts feel confusing and have been ubiquitous for thousands of years.
The person with the conflicts of interest, who triggered the unfairness, often feels blindsided by the reaction of the receiver, while the person who reacted feels that their anger is fully justified, “How dare they!”.

Understanding this distinction helps teams, workplace teams catch the tilt early, long before the blow-up, or use SpatzAI to address and resolve any micro-conflict that this imbalance has sparked.