HOPE IS NEEDED
IN THE WORLD OF
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
By Alessandra Sgubini
Conflicts and difficult situations can happen
anytime and suddenly to all of us, regardless of
status, nationality, or color. Conflicts can arise
between business partners, family members,
co-workers, people with long history relation-
ships, and even between strangers. All individ-
uals and businesses when involved in conflicts
are facing the same challenges. On the psycho-
logical side there is a high level of stress, fears
for the future, combined with a sense of neg-
ative feelings and emotions such as grudges,
violence, or hatred that make those involved in
conflict feel helpless. On the tangible and prac-
tical side, loss of time, loss of money, loss of op-
portunities, and loss of health are factors.
To fully understand the nature of conflicts and
the related damages, imagine one day all of
humanity woke up and the lives of everyone re-
gardless of color, nationality, gender, or status
had been turned upside down due to something
“invisible” called the COVID -19 virus. The same
confusion, emotions, and disbelief happened
when people, as single individuals or as part of
organizations or communities, are facing the
“invisible” damages of conflicts.
In both scenarios, people cannot see the “invisi-
ble enemy” in a pandemic is the invisible virus
1
and the conflicts are the damages. The “invisi-
ble enemy” reveals itself when it’s too late. The
people, when facing an “invisible enemy,” are
going through extremely hard times due to con-
fusion, disbelief, and anger for something that
they cannot seeing coming and cannot see or
touch when they know it’s there. The pandemic
amplifies conflicts.
Each and every one of us, as individuals and as
part of any community, need to be equipped
to manage difficult situations in the best way
possible. When involved in conflict, it’s a game
changer to choose to have hope that problems
can be overcome with the right mindset, time,
and a plan of action. “Choose” means individu-
als are setting goals for themselves. Goals are
essential for individuals and organizations to be
successful, and setting goals allows us to move
forward and improve.
The state of mind of individuals involved in con-
flict is, by default, “I” vs “YOU” – I am right, you
are wrong, which can lead to endless fights and
negative emotions.
In the world of conflict resolution, it’s important
to understand the decision-making process
and the actions of people involved in conflicts.
All is based on “free will,” which, consequent-
ly, determines the decisions and actions of the
people as individual and as part of any com-
munity. There are two ways people act when
involved in conflicts, and both of them require
a different set of skills, a lot of work, and determi-
nation. Neither are easy; actually, both are quite
difficult. One option is to think and act to get out
of trouble in the fastest and most economical
way. In this scenario, people know that conflicts
need to be managed and resolved to move for-
ward. Dealing with conflict requires people to
think and act with openness to alternatives, and
the ability to listen. The other option is not doing
anything and staying in the conflict, hostage to
negative emotions that will block the ability to
see the future and work toward new opportuni-
ties. Dealing with these kinds of people requires
the ability to do the best to minimize the con-
flict’s damages and its consequences.
The main focus in this scenario is to find a solu-
tion and to let these people go, nothing good will
come from having them around.
Observing thousands of people involved in con-
flicts, hope is what makes the difference be-
tween those who choose to act and those who
choose to stay in the challenging situation.
To think and act require hard work and a set of
skills that will allow you to build a plan to over-
come the difficulties with the awareness that
something can go wrong, and also, many
things can change and get better. This is just
an example of choosing to have hope. To stay
in the situation and do nothing requires
another set of skills, such as being able to
accept the tremendous damages and the
awareness that everything is already wrong
and won’t get better.
The main question is: When involved in conflicts
or difficult situations and all seems lost, how do
we choose hope that things will get better?
2
It’s a big “NO- NO” in both scenarios to blame
others for the decisions each of us make and
how we decide to act. Each and every one of
us are responsible for our own actions; no one
makes us do anything. Each individual must
know what they can handle and what they can
live with. The truth is, the individual responsibility
affects the social responsibility.
HOPE is defined as an optimistic state of mind
that is based on an expectation of positive out-
comes with respect to events and circumstances.
In the conflict resolution world, to “have” hope
is signaled by the verbal language and is in the
words “I choose.” “I choose” needs to substitute “I
have to” or “I need to.” Any time someone choos-
es to do something, they are putting themselves
in a position to be responsible for their own ac-
tions. When all seems lost and feelings such as
fear grudges are overwhelming and take over
the person’s thinking, the trick is to say: “I choose
to have hope that conflict can be managed.”
The second suggestion that comes from the
conflict resolution world is to learn how to look
at the differences. Never focus on what makes
people different; but see the differences as a
way to improve and find new opportunities to
build bridges to grow, not walls to destroy and
divide. It does not require special skills to see
that at the end of the day, everyone and every-
thing is different, and everyone perceives reality
in different ways. Someone once told me: “when
you point a finger of blame, the other 3 fingers
of your hand point back toward yourself.”
Ultimately, to overcome any negative situation,
besides changing our mindset, it’s important to
have a system to implement and follow. The
system allows individuals to be able to see the
future and work toward something new. Follow-
ing a plan allows us to overcome fears, disorga-
nization, indecision, and avoids focusing on the
differences, instead; improves the gaps as op-
portunities. Being open to change makes peo- negative consequences for them as single indi-
ple grow. vidual and for their business.

Steps to have HOPE: The mindset of individuals who have hope is

1 BELIEVE that situations will change and will
develop for something better and different.
Take one day at a time to process and heal
without missing new opportunities.
2 KNOW that nothing stays the same. Work
toward the future following a plan based on
the question: “Am I able to handle the con-
sequences.” Never concentrate on negative.
3 SWITCH YOUR MINDSET from “I” to “WE” to
move forward. Realize we are all together in
the conflict or difficult situation. “I” vs “YOU”
never works.
4 BE AWARE that unexpected things happen
all the time. When each of us decide to re-
main hostage to the past and negative
emotions, the result is failing to see the new
opportunities offered in the unexpected
events. In the end, all of us are responsible
for our own actions.
In a time of absolute destruction created by
conflicts, each individual can choose to have
hope and decide that with hard work, they can
manage and resolve the difficult situations to
be productive and efficient. Those individuals
are able to see the differences as opportunities
instead as gaps, and search for the right solu-
tion and move forward.
unique:
1. They know and recognize where to put their
efforts and energy,
2. They choose to spend time preventing con-
flicts before they turn into something out of
control,
3. They choose to have a different mindset
and switch from “I” to “WE” instead “I” vs. “you”
because they know both sides are involved
in conflict, and fighting will only bring more
conflicts,
4. They know “working together” is the answer
with patience and a plan, and
5. They choose to have hope when all seems
overly complicated. They understand that
all passes and everything changes, many
events are unexpected, and they cannot
control them but only manage them.
There is no more time, we need to act now. Hope
is needed to overcome conflicts.

Regardless how difficult any situation may be,

they can choose to face, manage, and resolve
conflicts and, when it’s possible, prevent those
difficult situations before becoming conflicts.
Every person can choose to have a mindset
to never lose hope and to have an action plan
that allows them to achieve their goals, such
as being productive, innovative, on the cutting
edge, and at the forefront to grow. They know
that avoiding, downplaying and disregarding
conflicts, especially the subtle ones, brings only