Conflict Intelligence and Systemic Wisdom: Meta‐Competencies for Engaging Conflict in a Complex, Dynamic World

In 2016, Jean Marie Guehenno, president of the International Crisis Group, noted that the world is experiencing seismic geopolitical shifts from United States hegemony and bilateralism, through multilateralism, to a new “crisis of complexity” (Guehenno 2016). In this new order, an assortment of legitimate and illegitimate nonstate actors – including nongovernmental organizations, corporations, billionaires, computer hackers, social entrepreneurs, and terrorist groups – wield more power in the political realm than ever before. This concern is also reflected in two recent United Nations resolutions on mediation (A/RES/65/283 and 70/304; see United Nations General Assembly 2010), which suggest that increasingly many of the conflicts that the U.N. is called to address involve a complex web of actors and objectives with local and regional dimensions that pose uniquely difficult challenges to mediators. Guehenno argued that the international conflict resolution thinking, policies, practices, and institutions have yet to catch up to this new reality, and are therefore rapidly becoming ineffectual and obsolete (Guehenno 2016).

Many of the challenging large‐scale domestic disputes in the United States today reflect similar trends, including developments in technology and social media (Lenhart et al. 1995), changes in the politicization of news media (Levendusky 1997), and population diversification (Teixeira, Frey, and Griffin 2007). A recent study of sixty leaders across various sectors found that one of their most commonly expressed concerns was the feeling of being overwhelmed by multiple, intense pressures and the proliferation of unthinkable events that challenge their basic capacities to lead (Gowing and Langdon 2000). As rising patterns of institutional distrust, political polarization, ethnic fragmentation, and intergroup violence indicate, it has never been more vital to learn to navigate complexity and conflict constructively.

Fortunately, scholars have been involved in the systematic study of conflict resolution since the end of World War One, leading to the development of a rich array of models and practices for the constructive resolution of differences (cf. Coleman, Deutsch, and Marcus 2014; Roche, Teague, and Colvin 1998). Unfortunately, much of this canon of research and practice is based on atomistic, linear, and short‐term assumptions about conflict resolution and social change, which can limit the impact of peacemaking and peacebuilding in more complex and volatile settings (Diehl and Goertz 2001; Coleman 2011; Ricigliano 2016; Vallacher et al. 2011; Brusset, de Coning, and Hughes 2016; De Coning 2016; Coleman and Ricigliano 2017).

Two cases of intergroup conflict resolution in two different school communities in the United States highlight the differences between a more standard dispute and a more systemic conflict. The first occurred in a school district in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, where a group of Latino parents had complained that their children suffered discrimination and mistreatment from both the school administration and white classmates. The conflicts had escalated in recent months, and the parents were threatening litigation. The school hired a team of conflict resolution specialists who conducted a thorough needs assessment in the community, directly mediated a few of the more contentious disputes, and then helped to design and implement a school‐wide negotiation, mediation, and diversity awareness program to begin to address the climate around intergroup conflict. By many accounts, the intervention was well received and effective and the impacts were mostly sustained when evaluated a year later (Coleman and Deutsch 2001).

Approximately two years later, the same specialists worked with a school in the South Bronx that had been experiencing recurring cycles of vandalism, theft, violence, and intimidation by gang members for years (see Coleman 2011). Many of the families, teachers, and administrators at the school felt burned out and hopeless about these dynamics after years of failed, good‐faith interventions. When the consultants began speaking to members of the community, they learned how deeply embedded and enmeshed the problems were. They uncovered not just a few grievances or conditions, but a constellation of forces that combined to drive the youth to gangs and violence. These youths were mostly poor and lived in miserable housing conditions in high‐crime areas with single parents or in foster homes. Many had been homeless and abused, and many had brutal role models and had been chronically exposed to violent video games. Many had also been around drug abuse since they were infants and had been exposed to environmental toxins like lead paint, asbestos, and other pollutants, which can reduce impulse control and impair cognitive functioning. Often, these young people were exhausted from tensions at home, or from being up all night in the emergency room with sick siblings because their family had no other access to health care. The specific gang “conflicts” that the consultants had been asked to address were fueled by many of these factors and more, in ways that seemed to reinforce one another and perpetuate the tensions.

In the context of the South Bronx, not to mention in places like Gaza, Bogotá, South Sudan, and Kashmir, the traditional conflict resolution models and methods – conflict analysis, negotiation, mediation, dialogue, problem‐solving, and implementation of conflict management curricula and programming – can seem at best like applying bandages to the compound fracture created by a complex, interrelated set of problems involving poverty, violence, and intergroup relations. These disputes require a qualitatively different set of tools and competencies.

In this article, I describe a new framework for combining conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom. This framework takes ideas and methods from complexity science and integrates them with established work on conflict resolution to develop a bi‐modal model that offers two new “meta‐competencies” for managing and transforming more complex, dynamic conflicts. The Oxford Dictionary defines meta‐competencies as “‘overarching’ competencies that are relevant to a wide range of work settings and which facilitate adaptation and flexibility on the part of the organization. ‘Meta‐competencies’ are usually said to include learning, adapting, anticipating, and creating change.”

Rooted in Dynamical Systems Theory (DST), a branch of complexity science, the framework combines insights from psychology and peace and conflict studies with the goal to broaden our thinking on conflict dynamics as they unfold across time and in more complex contexts. The resulting framework builds on findings and practices gleaned from previous research on social conflict, but seeks to help conflict specialists better comprehend and leverage their efforts in more complex, dynamic settings. After exploring the utility of DST for rethinking conflict resolution in complex systems, I will present the framework on Conflict Intelligence and Systemic Wisdom. I will then discuss its implications for educating practitioners working for peace in our increasingly complex world.

Although approaches to conflict resolution and peacebuilding have been informed by systems theory for decades (see Lewin 2013; Burton 1968; Fisher 1990; Pruitt and Olczak 2001; Diamond and McDonald 1996; Lederach 1997), most of them have employed it largely metaphorically, as a way of thinking about conflict dynamics more holistically (Coleman 2004). Recent advances in complexity science, an area of applied mathematics, however, have introduced a host of new concepts, models, methods, and algorithms that have allowed conflict scholars to move beyond systemic metaphors in their approaches (cf. Schuster 2006; Vallacher and Nowak 2010; Vallacher and Nowak 2013). One such approach involves Dynamical System Theory (see Coleman and Vallacher 2010; Vallacher et al. 2015; Coleman 2011; Vallacher et al. 2011; Coleman, Redding, and Fisher 2017a, 2017b; Fisher and Coleman Forthcoming).

According to the branch of complexity science called dynamical systems theory (DST), complex forms of nonlinear causality and varying temporal dimensions can help explain the emergence and change of patterns in systems (cf. Schuster 2006; Vallacher and Nowak 2010; Vallacher and Nowak 2013). A dynamical system is a set of elements (such as beliefs, feelings, actions, and norms) that change and evolve in interaction with one another over time, eventually settling into some form of pattern. Think of them like a high‐level view of pedestrians on Fifth Avenue in New York City during rush hour. Each individual person follows basic sidewalk etiquette and encounters different obstacles while navigating to a destination, but when viewed from afar over time, a consistent, predictable pattern emerges in the behavior of the group that returns every Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. Such complex patterns can be modeled, understood, and eventually predicted.

Dynamical systems theory (DST) offers a variety of new ways of researching (see Bui‐Wrozinska 2005; Coleman and Kugler 2014; Redding 1995), analyzing (see Burns 2007; Nowak et al. 2006; Coleman 2011), and intervening in conflict (see Ricigliano 2016; Coleman, Redding, and Fisher 2017a, 2017b; Coleman and Ricigliano 2017) using computer modeling and visualization tools (see Liebovitch, Vallacher, and Michaels 1948; Nowak et al. 2004), and nonlinear monitoring and evaluation (see Wilson‐Grau and Britt 1995). Importantly, proponents of DST encourage combining new theoretical models with dynamical data collection and model verification and computer visualization tools in a manner that can help to refine models and discover new aspects of social dynamics (Vallacher and Nowak 2013).

In general, the DST approach to conflict (a) emphasizes the longer term temporal patterns of conflict dynamics rather than episodic events or short‐term outcomes, (b) recognizes that these patterns are often affected by a complex constellation of factors (attitudes, beliefs, norms, policies, and so on) that interact over time, and (c) suggests that some conflict dynamic parameters are likely to have a stronger impact on changes to the system than others, an idea known as dynamical minimalism (Nowak 2013).

More specifically, the growing body of DST research on peace and conflict dynamics has introduced a set of new dynamical models for studying and practicing conflict resolution (see Vallacher et al. 2011). These include the following:

• optimality models, which have shown how navigating opposing goals, motives, or strategies in conflict (like distributive and integrative goals in negotiation) can prove optimal when combined simultaneously or iteratively over time (see Kim and Coleman 2004; Coleman, Kugler et al. 2017; Kugler, Coleman, and Fuchs 2017);

• adaptivity models, which have shown that more effective responses to fundamentally different types of conflicts require distinct strategies that fit the changing demands of the situations (see Coleman et al. 2012; Coleman and Kugler 2014; Coleman, Kugler, and Chatman 2017);

• complexity models, which have found that fostering more complex patterns of thoughts, feelings, group identifications, actions, and social organization in communities can prevent or mitigate more extreme forms of polarization and destructive conflict escalation (see Coleman 2011; Vallacher et al. 2011; Kugler 2005); and

• attractor models, which demonstrate how interactions among thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and so on in conflicts coalesce into change‐resistant patterns that self‐perpetuate over time (Vallacher and Nowak 2010).¹

To summarize, although decades of research have resulted in sound evidence‐based practices for the resolution of conflict, it is increasingly clear that these methods are less effective in addressing tensions embedded within more highly complex and dynamic contexts. In recent years, scholars have begun to apply ideas and methods from dynamical systems theory to conflict resolution in order to enhance our understanding of how conflict and change dynamics operate over time in these contexts. Successfully employing the conflict resolution methods that arise from DST approaches to conflict, I argue, requires developing a new set of competencies for managing conflicts in ever‐changing contexts and for transforming entrenched conflict systems in an increasingly complex and dynamic world.

“Conflict intelligence” and “systemic wisdom” are defined here as two distinct but complementary overarching competencies that can help an individual more effectively and flexibly manage and transform conflict systems in a wide range of settings. These can help both disputants and third parties address qualitatively different types of conflict dynamics in social systems (see Figure One).

Conflicts can differ on many dimensions. Figure One illustrates a range of possibilities along three conflict dimensions: levels of complexity, destructiveness, and endurance. Some conflicts are relatively simple, with low levels of destructiveness, arising from a passing incident or encounter, and respond readily to attempts to talk them through or make amends. Others may be more complicated, involving multiple disputants and issues that are rooted more deeply and thus simmer and persist longer. Nevertheless, they are ultimately negotiable or manageable with good intentions, skill, persistence, and a bit of luck.

A small percentage of the disputes we face, however, are highly complex, often embedded in foundations of past grievances as well as current concerns, and involve stakeholders operating at cross purposes – where the issues and disputants may change but the dynamics remain highly destructive and durable. These conflicts tend to cause considerable harm, resist multiple good‐faith attempts at resolution, and come to seem intractable (see Coleman 2003, 2011, 2014; Kriesberg 2014; Bar‐Tal 2013).

My colleagues and I have found that the specific competencies and skills that fall under the meta‐competency of conflict intelligence can be particularly useful for addressing the vast majority of more straightforward, negotiable, or manageable interpersonal and intergroup conflict dynamics we face in the context of our normal daily lives (see the zone of conflict intelligence in Figure One). This can include even more complicated, destructive, and protracted conflicts, such as those the conflict specialists found in the suburban Dallas school district, which despite their challenges are still mostly responsive to more direct forms of conflict resolution intervention. Here, the dynamical models of optimality and adaptivity can play critical roles in enhancing the effectiveness of more standard forms of dispute resolution in more complex or dynamic settings.

On the less common occasions where we find ourselves engaged in conflicts that are significantly more complex, destructive, and resistant to change, however—such as experienced by the conflict specialists in the community in the South Bronx—a radically different approach is required (see the zone of systemic wisdom in Figure One). This is where developing an understanding of complexity and attractors that resist change become crucial.

We believe that both conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom can be fruitfully applied to conflicts of varying degrees of intensity at the interpersonal, intragroup, intergroup, and international levels. It is not the level that determines which is appropriate, rather it is whether a more narrow, direct, short‐term focus on the conflict itself or a broader, more complex, longer‐term orientation to the context that gives rise to the conflict is more helpful.

Intelligence is generally defined as “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations” (Merriam‐Webster 1976). Robert Sternberg (1994: 37) specifies two subcomponents of intelligence, academic intelligence (similar to general intelligence) and practical intelligence, or “the set of skills and dispositions used to solve everyday problems by applying knowledge gained from experience to purposefully adapt to, shape and select environments.” Building on his classifications, I define “conflict intelligence” as the set of competencies and skills used to manage different types of normative conflicts in diverse or changing situations effectively and constructively (see Table One).²

Accordingly, we have found that conflict intelligence is more suited for addressing conflicts of low‐to‐moderate destructiveness, consequence, and intensity that rarely feature extreme forms of enmity, injustice, and violence. In these settings, disputants and third parties usually seek to manage or resolve the conflict to achieve interests, to maintain or improve relationships, and to hold onto a sense of efficacy and integrity. The duration of these disputes, as well as the process of resolving them, is usually shorter and the concerns more immediate (i.e., resolving the conflict and meeting current needs), and the parties seek to resolve the conflicts by directly engaging with the problem, the relationship, and/or the other disputants.

Researchers have identified a wide variety of competencies associated with more constructive conflict resolution (see Coleman, Deutsch, and Marcus 2014). Here, I focus on a constellation of four competencies researchers have found to be particularly relevant to understanding and managing conflict dynamics, and which can be developed or enhanced through education and training: conflict orientations, constructive conflict resolution skills, conflict optimality, and conflict adaptivity.

The first component of conflict intelligence is the awareness of and ability to regulate one’s own conflict orientation, the usually consistent complex of cognitive, motivational, moral, and action orientations to conflict situations that guide one’s conflict behaviors and responses (Deutsch 1985). This can include awareness of many types of individual tendencies relevant to conflict (see Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry 2015; Sandy, Boardman, and Deutsch 2014 for summaries), such as one’s

• implicit theories of conflict, the unarticulated assumptions and beliefs that we hold about conflict and disputants that orient us toward particular goals, strategies, reactions, and interpretations of events (see Kammrath and Dweck 2014; Halperin, Gross, and Dweck 2016);

• social value orientations, or preferences for how to allocate resources in conflict between our self and others (see McClintock 2013; De Dreu et al. 2007);

• conflict anxiety management, or how we tend to respond to the anxiety elicited by social conflict (see Deutsch 1993), and

• moral scope, or the degree to which we view other individuals and members of other groups as deserving of fair and moral treatment in conflict (see Opotow 2010a).

Researchers have found that each of these components of conflict orientation is associated with more and less constructive conflict processes, and is susceptible to change in response to individualized feedback, training, and consultation.

In addition to awareness about our own orientations, however, conflict intelligence requires adequate self‐regulation in conflict, or the ability to inhibit impulsive, automatic, or “hot” emotional responses to conflict (Mischel, DeSmet, and Kross 2002). The anxiety and threat inherent to conflict often trigger our “hot” emotional arousal system and move us away from the “cool” contemplative, cognitive system associated with more effective modes of problem solving. Walter Mischel, Aaron DeSmet, and Ethan Kross (2002: 322) have recommended a set of techniques, including “time‐outs, reflection, exposure to effective models, planning or rehearsal, and role‐play” that can help individuals learn to essentially cool their hot systems and mobilize their cool systems in service of their longer‐term goals. Doing so, they argued, can help mitigate our more damaging automatic responses to conflict and allow us to employ our more self‐aware, tolerant, constructive skill sets.

The second and most well‐known core competency of conflict intelligence is the ability to engage in constructive conflict resolution. This builds on one’s awareness of his or her own conflict orientation, but specifically involves having the knowledge, attitudes, and skills for managing interpersonal disputes with others. In other words, constructive conflict resolution requires understanding the constructive and destructive potential of conflict, its dynamic nature, and one’s own preferences and tendencies for conflict resolution, and then developing the basic attitudes and skills necessary for bringing about mutually satisfying outcomes whenever possible.

The basic skills include effective listening, perspective taking, probing for needs and interests, establishing rapport, focusing on similarities and common ground, reframing issues at a needs level, and generating creative and integrative solutions (see Deutsch 1993; Coleman and Lim 2001; Association of Conflict Resolution 2005; Schneider and Honeyman 2014; Coleman, Raider, and Gerson 2014; Fisher 1990; Kressel 2006). This is the standard focus of most basic training in conflict resolution, integrative negotiation, and settlement mediation.

A more advanced core competency of conflict intelligence is the ability to respond optimally in conflict by navigating between different or competing motives and emotions and by combining different approaches to conflict to achieve desired outcomes. Rather than privileging one seemingly contradictory goal over another (cooperating over competing, self‐interest over group interest, escalation over de‐escalation) or one approach over another (integrative negotiation over distributive bargaining, domination over conciliation), an optimality approach recognizes that these opposing forces can at times function optimally when combined simultaneously or iteratively over time. This has many specific components, but here I emphasize three: establishing emotional optimality, managing tension escalation and de‐escalation, and combining contradictory behaviors optimally.

Researchers have found that there are optimal ratios of positive‐to‐negative emotions that people experience and express during a conflict situation, which can be critical to the quality of parties’ relationships with each other and difficulties in social relations (Gottman et al. 2014; Losada and Heaphy 2010; Fredrickson and Losada 2013; Lewis 2014). Obviously, the negative emotions that conflict generates can stress or impair relationships. Research has found, however, that under the right conditions negative conflictual encounters can serve a critical function in healthy relationships by fostering learning and growth (Gottman et al. 1993).

Because both positive and negative emotions can build up incrementally over many encounters in relationships, ultimately it is the ratio of the positive‐to‐negative emotional reservoirs that accumulate that affects how they perceive, interpret, and react to new encounters (Gottman et al. 2014). Because negative encounters have more significant and lasting effects on social relations than positive ones do, the ratio of positive to negative experiences must be high to sustain constructive relations. Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy (2010) found that a ratio of three positive emotional experiences to one negative one was associated with more high‐performing work strategy teams. Katharina Kugler (2005) found that similar ratios predict more constructive dynamics over moral disputes on sociopolitical issues. John Gottman (2012), studying marital conflict interactions, found a five‐to‐one ratio predicted greater stability and marital happiness.

Positive‐to‐negative emotional optimality can be developed within individuals (Fredrickson 1993), in the context of interpersonal relations (Gottman and Silver 2002), and within teams and organizations (Coleman and Ferguson 2014). Clearly, building more robust reservoirs of positivity (and more minimal reservoirs of negativity) in relationships at all levels could help to foster more constructive conflict dynamics. John Gottman and Nan Silver (2002) created a set of steps and exercises for increasing positivity reservoirs in marriages. Similarly, Peter T. Coleman and Robert Ferguson (2014) outline a set of tactics to foster positivity with one’s supervisors and subordinates in work settings.

Most conflict resolution approaches seek to reduce tension (mental or emotional strain) and promote agreement or harmony between disputants. In contrast, social justice advocates often seek to increase tension – through activism, consciousness raising, and other forms of social action – in order to transform mindsets and institutions (Roy, Burdick, and Kriesberg 2012; Castro and Coleman 2014). Catalyzing conflict can attract attention to injustice, and generate the interest and energy to address it, but only when the tension reaches an optimal threshold, when the situation is tense enough but not too tense. When there is too little tension, those in power will often fail to address the needs and concerns of those with less power (Fiske 2014). But creating too much tension too rapidly can impair people’s capacity to think creatively and constructively (Carnevale 2014; Coleman and Deutsch 2014) and can lead to even higher levels of resistance to change (Schein 2010). Conflict intelligence includes having the capacity to manage and respond to both. By identifying and working with conflict and tension optimally, activists and conflict resolution practitioners can provide energy for reform, both intrapersonally and within social systems.

For instance, when I worked on a task force addressing patterns of institutionalized racism and discrimination at a college in the northeastern United States, I found it useful to both discuss the patterns of discrimination and alienation at the college with the mostly white leadership team (thus increasing tension and attention to the issues) and to work with activist faculty and student groups to encourage nonviolent protests and negotiations (channeling the tension constructively). Varied actors can implement such strategies in mixed or iterative forms, with the goal of keeping the reform agenda salient and sufficiently motivating to mobilize steady but constructive changes in mindsets and institutional accountability structures (see Coleman, Coon et al. 2017).

Research has also shown that combining contrasting types of conflict resolution behaviors in response to the same conflict can be more effective than using just a single approach. One study found that more effective police officers rarely employed single conflict handling styles; instead they employed more blended or “conglomerated” approaches combining problem‐solving and forcing styles when necessary (Van de Vliert, Euwema, and Huismans 2007). Similarly, “logrolling,” or holding out on a personally important issue while conceding on something that is more important to the other party, has also been shown to produce mutually beneficial outcomes for both parties (Raiffa 2010; Mannix, Thompson, and Bazerman 2004). Finally, conflict resolution efforts that involve high ratios of inquiry (exploring the other’s interests and needs) to advocacy behaviors (arguing for one’s own positions and interests) are associated with more productive business strategy teams (Losada 2005; Losada, and Heaphy 2010) and more effective dialogues between people on opposing sides of moral issues (Kugler 2005).

The capacities to work optimally with seemingly contradictory emotions, motives, and strategies are clearly more advanced skills but they can be instrumental for helping people navigate more complex and mutable conflicts.

The final core competency of conflict intelligence is conflict adaptivity, or the capacity to achieve conflict resolution goals by employing distinct strategies appropriate to the demands of the particular situation. Conflict adaptivity has three basic components: (1) the capacity to understand the fundamental dimensions of different types of conflict situations, (2) the capacity to employ a variety of conflict resolution strategies (distributive and integrative negotiation, facilitative and evaluative mediation, etc.), and (3) the ability to assess fit: knowing which strategies work best in which types of situations. I outline three types of conflict adaptivity here as illustrations: one for negotiation, one for mediation, and one for cross‐cultural conflict management.

Researchers have found that people tend to adhere chronically to specific negotiation mindsets but that adaptivity produces better outcomes (Zartman and Rubin 2001; Coleman and Kugler 2014). For instance, case‐based research on interstate trade negotiations found that more effective parties tended to more frequently adjust their approach to the relative power of the other side (Zartman and Rubin 2001). Survey research found significant relationships between conflict adaptivity and satisfaction with conflict processes and well‐being at work, including higher satisfaction with co‐workers, greater job‐related affective well‐being, and less interest in quitting one’s job (Coleman and Kugler 2014). Another study found that people who were able to employ strategies more congruent to the conflicts they faced expressed greater satisfaction with their own behavior, as well as with the processes and outcomes, and with their relationships with the other disputants (Coleman and Kugler 2014). Interestingly, this study and another (Kim, Coleman, and Kugler 2015) also found that consistent cooperative behavior in response to conflict did not correlate significantly to greater satisfaction and well‐being at work when compared with a more adaptive approach, a finding that contradicts the argument that cooperation is always the best approach to conflict.

Recent studies on adaptive mediation with experienced mediators have found that veteran mediators tended to respond with distinct strategies and tactics when facing four common mediation challenges: high‐intensity conflicts, highly constrained mediation settings, highly competitive disputant relations, and important covert or intentionally hidden issues and processes (Coleman et al. 2015; Coleman, Kugler, and Chatman 2017). When mediators reported being more skilled at addressing each of these challenges, such as responding in a more careful, controlling, and probing manner when encountering high levels of intensity, or responding in a more probing and therapeutic fashion by caucusing when the issues and processes in the case were found to be covert, they reported feeling significantly more empowered and effective as mediators (Kugler and Coleman 2015).

Recent research on cross‐cultural conflict management has delineated the distinction between more prescriptive versus more elicitive approaches to intercultural conflict resolution training and intervention (Lederach 2016; Weller, Martin, and Lederach 2007). More prescriptive approaches focus on the information and strategies introduced by the conflict resolution expert, while more elicitive approaches favor local contextual knowledge and expertise in conflict and processes for resolving it.

Although proponents offer more elicitive approaches as a check on the cultural imperialism evident in many Western approaches to cross‐cultural conflict (Lederach 2016), they concede that it is often unfeasible and impractical. Recently, researchers have begun investigating what are the most basic conditions conducive to using elicitive versus more prescriptive approaches (Coleman, Lamberto, and Mah 2017). For example, researchers are exploring how such conditions as time constraints, differing levels of participant commitment and energy, the “tightness‐looseness” of cultural norms (see Gelfand 2005), and the specific needs and objectives of the stakeholders ultimately affect the appropriateness and feasibility of employing elicitive approaches. This nascent area of research further illustrates the value of employing more situationally contingent or adaptive approaches to conflict management.

To summarize, enhancing one’s capacity to manage more dynamic conflicts requires broadening one’s orientation to conflict from a singular focus on one’s own needs, interests, and tendencies in disputes to also consider those of others and to adapt to the demands of different types of conflict situations. This capacity is further bolstered by developing a basic understanding of one’s own implicit beliefs, values, emotional reactions, and moral scope in conflict, as well as a foundation of constructive conflict resolution knowledge, attitudes, and skills. In addition, it is important to develop skills to respond more optimally and flexibly to an array of varied needs, motives, and options in conflict, as well as knowledge of the basic ways negotiation, mediation, and cross‐cultural situations are most likely to change and of the strategies necessary for navigating these changes effectively. Finally, conflict intelligence also requires us to recognize when the strategies and skills it comprises prove repeatedly inadequate to addressing more entrenched, intractable problems, and therefore when to take a fundamentally different approach.

Intractable conflicts are highly destructive, enduring, and resist repeated good‐faith attempts at resolution (Kriesberg 2014). Research has found that attempting to solve more intractable conflicts directly – through negotiation, mediation, diplomacy, or even the imposition of unilateral force – often has little lasting effect and can also bring about unintended consequences that only perpetuate the problems (Diehl and Goertz 2001; Kriesberg 2014; Klein, Goertz, and Diehl 2016; Prazkier, Nowak, and Coleman 2010b). Accordingly, we have found that to best address more intractable conflicts requires learning to shift one’s orientation from the figure (the conflict) to the ground (the constellation of forces giving rise to the conflict), and from the short term (reaching an agreement, resolution or victory) to the longer term (altering the dynamics of the conflict system – the attractors – qualitatively and sustainably; see Coleman 2011; Vallacher et al. 2010, 2013). For most of us, this is a dramatic paradigm shift akin to learning a new language for conflict engagement built on principles of organizational development, community engagement, and peacebuilding; our objectives shift from resolving conflicts directly to promoting the emergence of more constructive and less destructive interaction patterns by working with the existing drivers and inhibitors of the conflict (see Coleman and Ricigliano 2017). The tightly linked nonlinear networks of causation that constitute more intractable conflict systems, however, are fundamentally different from the less entrenched conflicts we are more familiar with, so the approach requires a different set of competencies – and something of a leap of faith.

In Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972), Gregory Bateson defined “systemic wisdom” as an awareness of the nested, interconnected nature of the world in which we live. Robert J. Sternberg (1984) specified the components of wisdom as “the use of one’s intelligence and experience as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good through a balance among (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, and (3) extra‐personal interests, over the (1) short and (2) long terms, to achieve a balance among (1) adaptation to existing environments, (2) shaping of existing environments, and (3) selection of new environments.” Building on this, I suggest that systemic wisdom in conflict is a critical capacity defined as “the capacity to understand the inherent propensities of the complex, dynamic context that gives rise to more intractable conflicts, and to work with the dynamics of the system to support the emergence of more constructive patterns” (see Table Two). In many ways, systemic wisdom extends and complements the meta‐competency of conflict intelligence, but becomes ever more crucial when an individual seeks to shift focus from resolving conflicts to transforming the contexts that enable and sustain them.

Researchers and practitioners have identified four core competencies for working more effectively and sustainably on intractable conflicts: systemic aptitudes, systemic visualization, systemic agency, and adaptive action (see Coleman, Redding, and Fisher 2017a, 2017b).

The first competency is the ability to comprehend and navigate complexity (see Dörner 1996; Meadows 1989). Research has found that people who successfully address conflicts in more complex environments are particularly skilled in five areas:

• integrative complexity, the ability to differentiate the multiple aspects and perspectives relevant to a problem and then to integrate this divergent information into a coherent whole (cf. Schroder, Driver, and Streufert 1993; Suedfeld 2004);

• emotional complexity, the capacity to differentiate subtle distinctions within categories of emotion and to manage experiences of contrasting emotions (cf. Kang and Shaver 2006);

• tolerance for ambiguity, having a relatively greater level of comfort with uncertainty, unpredictability, conflicting directions, and multiple demands (Budner 1962);

• consideration for future consequences, the ability to consider and appreciate the potential future outcomes of current behaviors (Stratham et al. 1967); and

• behavioral complexity, the ability to behave in seemingly contradictory ways that match the complexity of a system (cf. Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995).

Feedback and training can help individuals develop these competencies (Coleman, Redding, and Fisher 2017a).

Recent research investigated the role of these five competencies in participants’ capacities to effectively manage a simulation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict (Coleman, Redding, and Fisher 2017a). The study found that participants who displayed higher levels of integrative complexity were better able to differentiate the multiple perspectives relevant to the conflict and then to integrate those perspectives within a larger context at the conclusion of the simulation (Redding 1995). Additionally, those who displayed higher levels of cognitive complexity (a component of integrative complexity), tolerance for ambiguity, and consideration for future consequences were more likely to employ multiple strategies for improving the situation, which is associated with more effective decision making in complex systems (see Dörner 1996). The study also found that participants who displayed higher levels of emotional complexity tended to identify a broader range of actors who had distinct roles in the conflict, and were less likely to suggest drastic measures that would have long‐term negative impacts.

Lastly, those who expressed higher levels of cognitive complexity, emotional complexity, and tolerance for ambiguity employed more constructive actions throughout the simulation as compared to those who displayed less skill in those areas (Redding 1995). Overall, the individuals who displayed these competencies for navigating complexity focused their actions more on enhancing communication, building trust, coordinating efforts, and responding to the other party’s needs. These findings were recently replicated and expanded in a dissertation study (Redding 1995), and have been supported as well in a series of studies of moral conflict dialogues (Kugler 2005).

The second core competency associated with employing systemic wisdom in conflict is the capacity to conduct and interpret complexity visualizations. In recent years, systems‐oriented peace builders have begun to visualize the complex systems in which they work in a variety of ways, including using mathematical modeling and computer visualization (e.g., Liebovitch et al. 1948; Nowak et al. 2006), cellular automata (e.g., Nowak et al. 2004) and multiagent‐based modeling (Mussavi Rizi, Latek, and Geller 2016). Today, the most prevalent complexity visualization method used with conflict stakeholders is “causal loop diagramming” (CLD). Peacebuilders use CLD to help stakeholders better understand the constellation of dynamic forces affecting the conflict (see Burns 2007; Coleman 2011; Ricigliano 2016). These visual representations of the conflict illustrate the reinforcing and inhibiting feedback processes involved in the dynamics of both conflict and peace, capture the multiple sources and temporal dynamics of complex conflicts, and can be used to identify hubs and patterns in a system that would be otherwise unrecognizable.

These mapping processes can take different forms, but typically the peace builder will begin by identifying the nodal focus of interest – the central phenomenon of interest (violence, escalation, stalemate, peace, etc.; see Vandenbroeck, Goossens, and Clemens 1994; Coleman, Lamberto, and Mah 2017). Next, he or she will identify the core dynamics of the system, which are those variables and feedback loops most closely associated with an increase or decrease of the nodal variable (such as more or less peaceful communities). After this, the maps can be built out further to help visualize the broader system of elements and feedback dynamics affecting the core dynamics. Maps can be generated at any level of analysis (conflict between two disputants, in an organization, in a community, etc.) as a prenegotiation exercise or in small groups of stakeholders. They can comprise more subjective, bottom‐up mapping processes involving community stakeholders, or more objective, top‐down mapping exercises drawing on data‐analytic expertise.

Research suggests that systemic visualization can support conflict resolution efforts. One study investigated the effects of employing an attractor software visualization training on the sustainability of negotiated agreements (see Nowak et al. 2006). In addition to receiving integrative negotiation training, one group in the study went through an attractor software tutorial for conflict analysis before negotiating, while another received only the negotiation training. The study found that members of the group trained with the attractor software demonstrated significantly greater ease in communication with their negotiation partners and better understanding of the negotiation process. Further, the study found significant differences between the two groups in the long‐term stability of the negotiated final agreements. In fact, each group that negotiated with the support of the attractor software achieved more durable long‐term solutions, whereas the majority of the other groups failed to do so. No studies have yet been published directly assessing the effects of complexity mapping on conflict outcomes, but a meta‐analysis of experimental and quasi‐experimental studies in which students learned by constructing, modifying, or viewing node‐link diagrams (Nesbit and Adesope 2014) found the use of concept maps correlated with increased knowledge retention.

As instructive as causal loop diagramming can be, the maps it produces are often highly complex and it is consequently often necessary to simplify them and choose to focus on particular elements. For example, Eric Berlow (2010) recommended focusing in on more local elements and loops (less than three degrees of separation from the nodal focus) that are actionable, or can feasibly be addressed. Another strategy is to look at each element in the system, and take stock of how many other elements influence it (labeled a “betweenness factor” in network analysis). Elements that receive fewer inputs may be easier to change, while those that influence many other components of the system may have more leverage and impact on the system (see Coleman and Ricigliano 2017).

A third core competency of systemic wisdom is systemic agency, or the capacity to work with the energy, trends, and resources intrinsic to the system in which a conflict is situated. Systemic agency builds on the capacity to map and comprehend the complex networks in which a conflict is situated, but goes beyond this to include strategies for channeling or altering systems dynamics. This has several components (see Burns 2007; Coleman 2011; Ricigliano 2016; Coleman and Ricigliano 2017), but here I emphasize two: working with “systemic resonance” and “working upstream.”

One way to understand the inherent propensities of the system in which the conflict is situated is to identify local areas of resonance (Burns 2007). Resonance in social systems is defined as a form of heightened and shared emotional, cognitive, physical, or social energy that helps people connect with each other, ultimately fostering a sense of congruence and purpose (Coleman, Mazzaro et al. 2016). In other words, resonance is a form of latent shared energy that unifies groups and communities and motivates joint action. Group resonance can be a constructive or destructive force, depending on the valence and direction of the group’s shared interests (e.g., a mobilized community addressing joblessness versus an angry mob addressing grievances against an outgroup).

People can enhance their capacity for working with resonance by, for example, becoming more empathically attuned to others needs and interests (Lovkvist 1999), engaging with communities through multiple conversation streams and listening carefully for commonalities in their different narratives (Burns 2007), and conducting surveys on perceptions of common goals and concerns (Coleman, Mazzaro et al. 2016). Laura Chasin described how working through “networks of effective action” can promote resonance (Coleman 2011). She found that virtually every community in conflict she encountered contained people and groups who, despite the consequences, were willing and able to reach out across divisions and stay in dialogue with disputants on the other side (see also Blum 2007). Supporting these networks is similar to bolstering antibodies in our immune system – for instance, when we get vaccinations, we are stimulating the body’s own ability to strengthen and heal itself, instead of relying on external medications to mask symptoms when illness strikes. Thus, instead of relying on external interventions that directly address manifesting problems in conflict situations, practitioners can trust and build on the existing sources of health and resilience that communities already possess.

When repeated attempts to solve a protracted conflict directly have failed, it can be useful to broaden the focus onto “upstream” factors – elements in the system that don’t appear to have a direct bearing on the dispute, but that may indirectly affect the system’s dynamics over time (Coleman and Ricigliano 2017). The Ashoka Fellows, social entrepreneurs working in zones of armed conflict, have employed this approach (Praszkier, Nowak, and Coleman 2010b). Typically, these fellows are local people working in innovative ways to help rebuild impoverished or war‐torn communities. They often address the basic needs of conflict‐torn communities by building latrines or providing local phone networks, but do so without reference to conflict or peace, which allows them to address some of the pain that conflict creates without getting caught up in the political polarization that often surrounds such peacebuilding efforts. Over time, such initiatives can help shift the us‐vs‐them polarization of communities trapped in conflict.

The final core competency for systemic wisdom to address protracted conflict is the ability to engage in adaptive decision making. In his book The Logic of Failure (1996), Dietrich Dörner describes his groundbreaking research on effective decision making in complex environments involving computer‐simulated communities. Dörner found that the participants who most effectively improved the well‐being of simulated communities displayed the following skills:

• Adaptation: They analyzed a situation and set a course for intervention, but then continually adapted, staying open to feedback and to reconsidering their decisions and altering their course as needed. They were found to make more, not fewer, decisions as their plans unfolded.

• Complexity of action: They understood that the problems they were addressing were closely linked with other problems, and so their actions could have multiple effects. Therefore, they took a wider variety of actions when attempting to achieve one goal.

• Gaming failure: Like experienced computer gamers, effective decision makers tested their solutions in multiple pilot projects, embracing multiple failures as a means of learning the underlying rules of the system and assessing effects before committing to a plan of action.

• Focus on aspirational goals: They identified the central superordinate goals of their endeavor early on and stayed focused on meeting them, rather than becoming easily distracted and diverted and shifting from problem to problem.

• Flexibility: More effective participants did not, however, develop a single‐minded preoccupation with one solution. If the feedback informed them that a solution was too costly or ineffective, they altered their approach.

In other words, participants who had a more nuanced understanding of the complex environments in which they were operating were less dogmatic in their thinking, implemented more types of actions, paid more attention, made more decisions over time, and ultimately performed better.

To summarize, systemic wisdom is the capacity to understand and transform more entrenched conflicts by working with the complex, dynamic systems in which they are embedded. Research suggests we can cultivate it by enhancing our capacities for cognitive‐integrative, emotional, and behavioral complexity, tolerance for ambiguity, and future thinking; by developing the skills for visualizing and mapping the complex systems in which we work; by honing our skills for working with the propensities of systems by leveraging resonance and addressing less volatile upstream factors; and by practicing more adaptive forms of decision making and action. Because these skills and techniques are less familiar to many who work in and study conflict resolution and peace building, mastering and communicating them will require new educational approaches.

In this article, I have sought to offer a new framework for integrating established competencies and practices for constructive conflict resolution and to extend them using insights gleaned from complexity science to enhance their applicability in our increasingly complex, dynamic world. Fundamentally, developing conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom requires expanding one’s orientation to conflict across four levels:

• self: individual needs, interests, beliefs, values, emotions, and moral scope;

• social dynamics: interpersonal and intergroup conflict dynamics;

• situated dynamics: conflict dynamics in fundamentally different contexts; and

• broader systemic dynamics, which can determine and be determined by conflict.

Conflict intelligence principally comprises the competencies associated with reorientation from the self to the social and the situational levels, while systemic wisdom is primarily focused on comprehending and working with disputes embedded at the systemic level. This expansion has direct implications for how we approach education in conflict resolution: it follows, I believe, that we should view self‐awareness models, socially oriented conflict resolution models, situated adaptivity models, and approaches to systemic transformation as distinct but complementary modes of conflict resolution instruction (see Figure Two).

We can use these four nested levels to develop educational tools to prepare future leaders, diplomats, negotiators, mediators, and activists to better navigate the conflicts they are likely to face in a fast‐paced, interconnected world. Because conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom are practical forms of intelligence, such experiential education tools as role‐plays, simulations, games, case mapping, and supervised real‐world practicum experience must be at the core of the curriculum, and be supplemented with more didactic methods. The knowledge, skills, and attitudes that apply to each level could be taught as component modules or woven together into a full curriculum.

Educational programs to develop conflict intelligence and systemic wisdom should provide instruction on basic constructs, models, evidence base, self‐assessments, technologies, and practical strategies and skills across the four dimensions.

The self level: Knowing oneself in conflict. Instruction should focus on enhancing individual awareness and the skills necessary for constructive, optimal, and adaptive negotiation, mediation, and cross‐cultural conflict facilitation, including strengthening the student’s capacities for self‐reflection and critical reflection (Reynolds 1982). It should employ contemporary assessment methods to help the student understand his or her own implicit theories of conflict (Halperin, Gross, and Dweck 2016), social value orientations (De Dreu et al. 2007), conflict anxiety management (Deutsch 1993; Lace, Bass, and Coleman 2017) and self‐regulation techniques (Mischel, De Smet, and Kross 2002), moral scope (Opotow 2010a), and constructive conflict resolution knowledge and attitudes (Coleman and Lim 2001). Standardized measures can be used to assess these competencies, and instructors/facilitators can offer relevant feedback via courses, trainings, coaching, supervision and mentoring or peer support.

The social level: Developing the skills and strategies for managing interpersonal and intergroup conflict dynamics. Instruction should help students develop competencies in more standard forms of conflict analysis, understanding interdependence, integrative negotiation, distributive bargaining, managing mixed‐motive situations optimally, and employing other strategies of interpersonal and intergroup dispute resolution (facilitation, dialogue processes, town hall meetings, problem‐solving workshops, consensus building and other large group methods; see Coleman and Lim 2001; Coleman, Deutsch, and Marcus 2014). These capacities are best accrued through exercises, role‐playing, simulations, and supervised practice.

The situated level: Understanding and employing constructive conflict resolution skills in context. This involves developing awareness and expertise in the situated models of negotiation (Coleman et al. 2012; Coleman and Kugler 2014; Coleman and Ferguson 2014) and mediation (Coleman et al. 2015; Coleman, Mazzaro et al. 2016; Coleman, Coon et al. 2017; Kugler and Coleman 2015), including how to navigate disparities in power and interdependence, and how to navigate high‐intensity conflicts, extreme competitiveness, hidden agendas, and other types of more severe constraints in mediation. Competencies at this level should also include understanding and adapting to cross‐cultural and multicultural differences in norms and expectations for optimal tension management and constructive conflict resolution (see Earley and Ang 2003; Castro and Coleman 2014; Coleman, Coon et al. 2017; Coleman, Lamberto, and Mah 2017).

The systems level: Contextualizing conflict resolution decisions and actions in broader nonlinear systems. Recently, I and my colleagues Nicholas Redding and Joshua Fisher (2017a, 2017b) published a set of guidelines for implementing a DST approach to more intractable conflict as a dynamical systems theory of practice. We organized this around a basic set of change practices with regard to the following:

• systemic preparation, that is, assessing and enhancing individual‐level system competencies;

• systemic comprehension, that is, methods and skills for visualizing complex systems;

• systemic engagement, that is, working upstream and with resonance in systems; and

• systemic learning and adaptation, that is, adaptive decision making and nonlinear methods of measurement and evaluation.

Rather than adopting these guidelines as a step‐by‐step approach, we encourage readers to use them holistically, employing and moving between processes as appropriate when facilitating nonlinear change processes. Specifically, we emphasize developing a working understanding of how nonlinear systems can affect peace and conflict dynamics, and how decisions and actions made at the first three levels described above operate in nonlinear systems over time. Developing this understanding involves acquiring skills for facilitating complexity mapping and working with dynamical computer simulations and role‐plays based on actual cases with multiple stakeholders (Nowak et al. 2006).

This article builds on decades of empirical research on conflict resolution and dynamical systems theory to describe an approach for developing and integrating two distinct categories of conflict resolution meta‐competencies that I refer to here as “conflict intelligence” and “systemic wisdom” with the goal of expanding and enhancing our capacities to manage and transform conflicts more effectively in an increasingly challenging world. In some ways, this framework presents fine aged wine in newer, sturdier bottles, integrating much of what scholar‐practitioners have taught us over many decades. But in others, it marks a turning point for our field through the integration of psychology and peace and conflict studies with the flourishing field of complexity science – offering a new paradigm for the practice and teaching of conflict resolution – and, therefore, a new chapter in our journey toward a sustainably peaceful world.