Of Dragons, Heroes, Princesses And the Creative Side of Conflict

It's one of the oldest stories in Western culture: evil dragon captures helpless princess; knight in shining armor slays beast, saves princess.

And everyone lives happily ever after. Except the poor dragon, who's actually the most "creative" character. If the fire-breathing villain had minded his own business, there would have been no conflict. No story, either.

Kenneth Cloke, Ph.D., author, arbitrator and director of the Center for Conflict Resolution, deconstructed that eternal triangle for an audience of Academy members tonight in the second part of a professional development program entitiled "How to Get What You Want." The program was again hosted by CBS at its Radford Studio complex, which provided everything from refreshments to lighting and recording.

When we tell about our conflicts with others, we usually depict ourselves as the victimized princess, or possibly even the brave hero, Cloke pointed out. It's a rare person who'll cop to being the dragon.

Kenneth Cloke

But there's another level of story beneath the surface of the timeless tale, and still another level beneath that, Cloke said. And when we plug our own experiences into those subconscious scenarios, it turns out that there's a bit of dragon, princess and hero in all of us.

"In every conflict, the first one we have to conquer is ourselves," he said. "The conflict story is actually a smokescreen. It's a diversion to get you away from that deep, powerful, sensitive stuff which is what you actually want for yourself."

Cloke cited this example: parents and teens may argue about whether curfew should be 10 p.m. or 12 p.m., but what's the deeper conflict? It's actually the parents' concern for their kid's safety vs. the teen's yearning for more freedom, he suggested.

And what's the story beneath that story, the conflict beneath the conflict? Everyone knows that the child will eventually be leaving home for good; that the parents want their offspring to be safe as well as independent. And isn't that what the teenager wants as well? Wouldn't it be more productive to get to the bottom of things rather than arguing about 10 o'clock vs. 12 o'clock?

Of course, but it's difficult to reach that level of communication because we're so afraid of losing what's most dear to us: "It's threatening because you want it so badly," Cloke said. So at one time or another, we've all exaggerated our roles as victims or rescuers -- at least in our version of things.

"If you want (to realize your deepest expectations) badly, you don't want them to be rejected. So instead what you do is play it safe and superficial. In fact you create a bunch of other stuff to divert everybody's attention away from this super-precious thing that you want."

He suggested four steps toward turning destructive conflict into creative conflict:

-- Listen carefully to your antagonist
-- Ask yourself and your adversary what kind of relationship you'd like in the future. Forget past problems.
-- Create a distinction between the problem as an "it" and the problem as a "you."
-- Distinguish between positions (what you want) and interests (why you want it).

"Ask each other questions and find out what's really important to you," Cloke suggested. The technique could work just about any situation, from arguments at home to labor negotiations to stopping wars.

"Why not create an open and honest conversation about what you want?" he said. And the best time for that? "Right in the middle of the conflict."

The seminar was produced by Mimi Gramatky and Teri Koenig. In addition to thanking CBS for its contributions, Conrad Bachmann, chair of the Academy's activities committee acknowledged the work of Kay Sumner, vice-chair for professional development; Robert O'Donnell, director of activities and Melissa Brown, activities coordinator.