Choose your ministry

Written by Maurice Mitchell

Many of my friends and colleagues are rightfully worried about conflict as we head into a contentious election season. Conflict between organizers and voters, between residents deciding on which candidate to choose. Even between organizers about the right way to create change.

Conflict is a part of life. It happens with friends, family members, coworkers and coalitions. It pushes us to justify our beliefs and question our underlying assumptions about others. Conflict can be generative — as long as it doesn’t lead to the fragmentation of relationships or, as I call it, “rupture.” If a conflict is causing pre-existing relationships to crumble, it’s time to step back and consider what caused the rupture in the first place.

As national director of the Working Families Party and a trained organizer and coalition builder, I know this work is complicated. It isn’t free of contradictions, challenges and difficult choices. By its very nature, advocacy creates an impact, and impact creates a public reaction. There’s no such thing as an easy choice that yields upsides for everyone. The questions that my staff bring to me are not easily answered.

My role as a leader is less about answering questions and more about managing contradictions and tensions. With each choice I face, I examine the upsides and potential downsides. If there’s a downside, whom does it fall on? If there’s an upside, who benefits? How, as an organization, can we best mitigate the negative consequences and maximize the benefits? I’ve learned that the key to being a good leader is picking the best choice and, in the event of fallout, viewing it as an opportunity to remain humble and take responsibility.

I’ve navigated both internal and external conflicts heading into this tense election season. On Aug. 16, I was invited to speak at a Design Studio for Best-Case Scenario, a project founded and led by Spitfire Strategies’ Founder Kristen Grimm and Vice President Gabriel Rodriguez. At this session, attended by organizers, academics and funders, I presented my strategies to address both. 

What I found is this:

External conflict is bound to rise whenever you engage in mass organizing and door-knocking. Not every space needs to be a safe space, and mass organizing certainly isn’t. You are choosing to engage people wherever they are — literally at their front door. Naturally, those people bring whatever they’re dealing with that day or in society more generally. But I firmly believe it’s vital to “choose your ministry” by having safe spaces with a high barrier to entry that are tailored for specific groups where people can debrief. Working Families Party canvassing directors are charged with creating a healthy space to debrief at the end of each day with their staff and volunteers. This establishes a safe and supportive culture with reliable leaders who ensure no one leaves a day of canvassing without a check-in or debrief. 

Canvassing work is urgent and fast paced, but we can never move so fast that the debrief is forgotten.  

Internal conflict within an organization or a broader coalition arises when people haven’t done the pre-work. Before getting into the nitty gritty of coalition work, I make sure we aren’t setting ourselves up for conflict. An hour of pre-work can save hours of mediation down the line. I think it’s crucial to take time to build relationships between people in the same room before we start planning and identify a collective North Star goal that we can all agree on, even if we disagree on other elements of our work.

I also like to conduct a “pre-mortem” on day one and talk about all the ways the coalition work could go sideways. I go over where things have gone wrong in the past and name precisely where and how people disagree with each other, and we make a list of steps we can take during our work together that will prevent rupture when disagreements arise. This method of steering into the skid instead of pretending our differences don’t exist mitigates the possibility of rupture. Naming all the ways in which things could go wrong doesn’t come from the place of hypochondria but is rather an airing of grievances before they fester into something unsalvageable. Remember, the goal is not a conflict-free space; the goal is keeping interpersonal relationships intact.  

The standard of avoiding rupture but not avoiding conflict prevents the unrealistic expectation that collaboration and coalition-building requires complete agreement. Engaging in the de-escalation steps above won’t result in zero conflicts, but hopefully it will prevent irreparable fragmentation between groups. When conflict does arise, action from trusted and influential leaders can prevent people from devolving into a fight-or-flight response. Staff members don’t show up as their best selves when they feel insecure and unsafe — and neither do leaders. As a leader, it is my job to think about my own personal emotional development so that I can identify my own insecurities and triggers in moments of collaboration and conflict and avoid a knee-jerk reaction that could increase tensions.

But leaders are human, and mistakes will be made. What’s most important is how you react as a leader in moments of broken trust with partners. You must show authentic humility, take responsibility and articulate concrete ways to avoid broken trust going forward. These are the humbling steps that encourage people to decide to continue working together instead of leaving a coalition. Leadership means getting credit for all the wins of your organization and also all of the mistakes. You cannot take one without the other, and you cannot distance yourself from the uncomfortable, because only through sustaining that discomfort can you create an environment of trust.

Maurice Mitchell serves as executive director of Working Families Party, which operates in more than a dozen states and Washington, D.C.