True Conflict

 True conflict is how you take conflict your way. Bring your competitor into your trap. Bait them with all the measures that conflict management demands and turn the tables: get personal, bully, misconstrue what they say again and again until they (like everyone else) can’t believe/won’t know what’s going on. Conflict is not to be managed; it is there to be won. Anyone utilising conflict management measures is crushing you with niceties, and simultaneously hacking an axe into your spine. Of course, people must pander to the rituals of conflict management; it is a public code of conduct, but two people in the heat of conflict need to sort out where they stand.

Some people are better equipped to drag a conflict out over months, years, even decades. If they see that their competitor likes things sorted out in minutes, they’ll trap them into acting with no regard for civility and then dishonour them publicly for as long as possible. While true conflict may make you more enemies better equipped to deal with you, inversely people will respect you. Passive people can spend their careers cooking up a conflict but never experiencing the glee of victory or the nausea of defeat that active people do. You might win, you might you lose. And remember, the nasty tactics you use will be used against you.

 
Re-assure yourself that there is nothing to be afraid of (except offending those who can fire you!), because conflict is an energy that can be harnessed. It is as dangerous as it is healthy, and without competition and conflict we remain in a steady state, whereby nothing changes or adapts to a world that is constantly changing. If you want to bring about change you will have to become a walking conflict.
The prizes of competition are easy to see, but the actual instruments and positions of people that decide conflict are harder to define. How do people get what they want? Fortunately, in the confines of the office, it all translates back to knowledge.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war.

Everything depends on circumstances – Leon Trotsky