How many times have we found ourselves facing a conflict—big or small—and wondered: is it really necessary? Is it useful? Can I handle it positively, without letting it turn into an insurmountable obstacle? Conflict is an inevitable part of our relationships, a moment when our needs and perspectives clash with those of others. We often see it as something negative—but does it have to be?
To help us explore these questions, we spoke with Martina Righetti, founder of Parliamoci di Brutto and a professional who has made conflict her field of expertise. After years working as a corporate lawyer and legal consultant, Martina decided to take a new path, dedicating herself to the peaceful resolution of conflicts as a conflict coach and mediator. With her practical and human approach, she has supported many individuals and teams, helping them navigate conflicts constructively. In this interview, her experience and insights invite us to see conflict from a new perspective—less intimidating, and far more interesting.
Let’s start from the basics: is it possible to never experience conflict?
Conflict is a human, natural and inevitable phenomenon. I often compare it to breathing in the body’s physiology: it’s simply part of our daily experience. In relationships, conflict arises when one need clashes with another, and this happens all the time, especially during moments of strong emotion or significant change.
If we pause to think about a typical day, how many of these contrasts do we experience? We could say that conflict is a physiological dynamic within our relationships: something natural, so it makes little sense to try to avoid it at all costs.
Is it desirable to never experience conflict?
As we’ve just said, it’s not humanly possible to avoid conflict. I’d add that it’s not only unrealistic, but also not something we should even hope for: like any natural phenomenon, welcoming it and learning to handle it mindfully is the best strategy for ourselves and for others.
Still, there’s a part of us—shaped by our culture and certain ways of being educated—that believes avoiding conflict is the safest option for the individual and for their relationships. At the root of this avoidance, there’s often the fear of not being able to handle conflict effectively and constructively, or even a catastrophic narrative that frames conflict as something purely destructive.
Let me give a simple example: it doesn’t help that the word “conflict” is often paired with “armed”. As a result, the very idea of conflict tends to evoke the language and imagery of war and violence—a theme that understandably makes us feel threatened, especially in these recent years marked by terrible global tragedies.
Are there visible and invisible conflicts?
I prefer to speak of surfaced and underlying conflicts. The first are open, explicit and clearly recognized (at least by some of the people involved). The second are those in which the clash between different needs remains unspoken, staying underground and therefore unmanaged.
Underlying conflicts are often the ones that cause the most trouble. When a conflict remains hidden, people may start to form alliances against someone or something—a decision that was made, a person in a leadership role, or another group within the community. This dynamic increases the dysfunction of the underlying conflict, because avoiding direct confrontation prevents the underlying needs from surfacing and limits the possibility of starting a real negotiation that could meet everyone’s needs.
If conflicts can be functional, does the absence of conflict become a red flag?
As Patrick Lencioni explains in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, in any environment grounded in trust and shared purpose, it’s natural for conflicts to arise. Usually, the absence of conflict is not a good sign: it raises questions about whether people truly perceive that environment as safe. Research on organizations and communities shows that the lack of conflict often leads to a decline in accountability, engagement and, over time, overall performance. By avoiding conflict, we lose its evolutionary potential—the chance it offers to continuously renew the way we work and collaborate.
So should we seek out conflict in order to foster healthy growth?
No, I’d rather say that we need to learn to recognize it when it arises naturally and to handle it constructively. Avoiding conflict—or approaching it in an extreme way—prevents relationships from rebuilding the kind of dynamic, adaptive balance that sustains genuine collaboration (and emotional connection). When that happens, relationships can start to feel flat and disengaging, marked either by forced cooperation or by the absence of cooperation altogether.
How can we tell a “good” conflict from a “bad” one?
I’d rather speak of functional and dysfunctional conflicts.
A conflict is handled in a functional way when everyone involved has the space to express their own needs and emotions while staying open and attentive to those of others. This is how a genuine collaborative understanding can emerge—one that leads to agreements that truly meet everyone’s needs (the so-called win-win agreements). By contrast, a conflict becomes dysfunctional when there is dominance, passivity, compliance or total avoidance.
How can a conflict become an opportunity for growth rather than a breaking point?
This is where the approach to conflict comes into play—what some call a “management model”. Personally, I don’t like to speak of conflict management, because I believe that, as with all relational dynamics, thinking we can control causes and effects through a specific management strategy is quite an illusion.
That said, conflict becomes a constructive encounter when it’s approached with what I call an assertive and collaborative posture: it’s about finding the balance between expressing one’s own need and considering the other person’s, without becoming either too dominant or too submissive. When this posture is maintained, staying within the conflict together becomes a valuable opportunity to create new and more creative possibilities for the relationship.
What are the concrete benefits of a well-handled conflict, both for individuals and for organizations?
Through my work, I often encounter or study situations where conflict actually generates benefits. To name just a few examples: couples who come out of a crisis and co-create a renewed motivation to stay together; colleagues who engage in honest dialogue and discover how to collaborate at their best; administrations that find new, more balanced ways to align the needs of individuals with those of the public good. The benefits can take many forms, but they all stem from an openness to the dynamic and adaptive redefinition of balance within relationships.
How can we create the conditions to face conflict in a positive way?
The key word here is: TRUST. Only when we trust each other and feel that we are in a safe, non-judgmental and democratic space can conflict emerge in its most functional forms. From both personal and professional experience, I’ve seen that organizations where conflicts never surface are usually places where something very different is at play: FEAR. So let’s break the myth: healthy relationships are not the ones without conflict, but those where conflict can arise and be addressed with openness and mutual listening.
Are there universal tools for dealing with conflict?
Because conflict is a human and ever-changing phenomenon, I’m afraid there are no truly universal tools. What is certain is that communication is the cornerstone of conflict: misunderstandings arise from a lack of effective communication; alignment is restored through dialogue (ideally empathetic and mindful) and listening (ideally focused and active); agreements are reached by exchanging proposals, and those same agreements are renegotiated over time through ongoing dialogue and open conversation. Dialogue, listening, negotiation skills: this is what I like to call, in short, “the conflict & communication mindset”.
How should we act when the other person doesn’t want to face the conflict constructively?
This is a situation many of the people I work with find themselves in. As Marshall B. Rosenberg, the creator of Nonviolent Communication, used to say, we can’t expect others to reflect our constructive approach. What we can do is work on ourselves by learning to transform our instinctive reactions to conflict, which are often shaped by the patterns we’ve inherited from our family and cultural background. This change in approach is, in itself, a seed: it doesn’t bloom right away, but it’s meant to influence the environments we’ll be part of in the future, and the people within them. Our positive influence can, in turn, spark a constructive ripple effect.
Would you like to share a story of conflict with a happy ending?
Define “happy ending”! Constructive conflicts can end in countless different ways. I can share a positive story here that ended in an unexpected way.
Some time ago, I worked with two brothers from a family that owned a well-known artisan business. Their conflict style was mostly avoidant: instead of speaking openly about their needs and listening to one another, they would circle around the sensitive topic without ever truly addressing it. They had reached the point where they could no longer talk about the issue that had caused repeated clashes between them—the future of their family company. Together, we worked on their conflict mindset: learning to welcome their divergent opinions, listen to each other and finally share what each of them wanted for their professional future. In the end, both decided not to take over their parents’ business but to start two separate ventures, each in his own field of expertise. Handling the conflict in a functional way brought them closer together, and united they faced their family’s (not exactly enthusiastic) reactions. Now they’re more in sync than ever, and they’re even thinking of starting new projects together, who knows? Whatever the future brings, the fact that they can now talk about it is only because they managed to speak and listen to each other to overcome that difficult initial conflict.
Life is a continuous weave of change and uncertainty, and conflict is one of the ways these dynamics unfold in our relationships. There is nothing wrong with it; on the contrary, it is often how different needs and perspectives can emerge. Rejecting conflict does not make it disappear—it simply hides it, increasing the risk that it becomes more difficult and draining than it needs to be.
The invitation is to learn to recognize conflict when it arises and to welcome it with awareness. Through open and compassionate communication, kindness and active listening, we can transform moments of tension into opportunities for both personal and collective growth. Every conflict approached constructively becomes a chance to build greater trust and connection, while every conflict left unspoken creates distance.
Listening, openness and shared learning are not only tools to strengthen our relationships: they are also the foundation of systemic change and of the way Wisedāna Foundation understands philanthropy. Nurturing these attitudes—within ourselves and in our communities—is the first step towards creating positive transformation that is both lasting and deep.
Written by Marta Turchetta and Martina Righetti
Edited by Marta Turchetta
Photos by Klaus Nielsen on Pexels
