Two days ago, I wrote about how creativity is necessary to dispel conflicts. Yesterday, while conversing about how to deal with conflicts within an organization, I realized that unmanaged conflicts crush creativity.
Creativity requires openness of mind and heart.
But if we feel under attack, the last thing we will do is open up. Our self-preservation instinct gets triggered, and we close up to protect ourselves. We pull up the walls and hide, looking for anything challenging our beliefs about ourselves and the world. Ideas are killed in this battle before they even get a chance to bloom.
That does not mean that we must avoid conflicts at all. The more we avoid conflicts, the more entrenched they become.
We need to transcend them.
And that starts with acknowledging that reality is a subjective experience.