Blue - Sides forming

In Blue, difference is becoming organised. People increasingly gather around others who share their views, and “us and them” language becomes more common. What began as unease or disagreement is starting to become connected to group identity.

This does not look the same from every position. People with less power may organise to gain solidarity, protection and collective voice. People with more power may organise defensively, often through existing relationships, procedures and institutions. Understanding both sides of this dynamic is essential.

Blue still contains real possibilities for movement. The sides have formed, but separation is not yet fixed. Contact across the divide may be difficult and socially costly, but it remains possible.

What the Blue Zone actually is

Learn to recognise the shift from private unease to organised sides: clustering, repeated arguments, group language and growing identification with a shared position. Pay particular attention to how power affects what becomes visible — and what remains hidden.

The Practitioner’s Stance

Your relationship with each side now matters greatly. Multi-partiality, self-awareness and careful attention to your own reactions become central. Look beyond the visible arguments and ask what unmet needs, grievances or structural conditions may be driving the conflict.

Awareness, safety and dialogue

Dialogue cannot simply be introduced because tension has appeared. Awareness helps you understand what is happening; that awareness can help create safety; and safety makes greater openness possible. Lived experience can then begin to replace group positions as the basis for contact.

Dialogue beyond words

When direct conversation carries too much risk, shared activities can help keep relationships alive. Making, moving, cooking, playing or working together can create moments of recognition without requiring people to declare or defend a position.

What to do

Begin by listening to the sides separately, exploring mistrust and identifying people who still have relationships across the divide. Prepare carefully before bringing people together. Over time, help the group rebuild contact, develop dialogue skills and create shared ways of handling disagreement.

Always consider whether the conditions for joint dialogue actually exist. Where psychological safety is too unequal, power differences are severe, or people’s dignity and belonging are under direct threat, bringing everyone together may do more harm than good.

Some situations also require difficult judgement calls. Group identity may provide protection and dignity while at the same time deepening separation. And sometimes conflict continues because existing structures benefit those with more power. These problems cannot always be solved through better communication alone.

Which way is it moving?

If Blue is easing, clustering becomes less automatic. Individual voices return, genuine questions appear, stereotypes become more specific, and relationships across the divide become easier to maintain.

If Blue is hardening towards Indigo, argument begins to give way to withdrawal. Separate groups become separate networks, spaces and information worlds. Pay particular attention to the people who still maintain relationships across the divide: when they come under pressure to choose sides, some of the last natural bridges between the groups may be at risk.

Awareness in this context is not passive observation. It is not simply naming what arises or noticing the temperature in the room. It is an active, generative capacity — the quality of attention that makes safety possible, which in turn makes genuine dialogue possible.

When a practitioner is fully present — attending not just to what is said but to what is felt, avoided, performed and hidden — the room itself becomes safer. People begin to sense that they are genuinely seen. And when people feel genuinely seen, they become capable of something that no technique can produce directly: the willingness to speak from their own lived experience rather than from their group position.

Stories of lived experience are among the most powerful forces available in conflict work. They move people across divides that argument cannot cross, because they do not ask anyone to abandon their position — they ask only that they recognise another person's humanity. But those stories cannot be forced or facilitated into existence. They can only emerge when the safety is real.

The sequence is: awareness → safety → openness → stories of lived experience → recognition of shared humanity → movement toward connection.

This sequence cannot be shortcut. Jumping to dialogue before the safety exists does not accelerate the process — it damages it. The practitioner's awareness is not a preliminary to the work. It is the foundation on which everything else rests.

This also means that awareness at its deepest level is a facilitation skill of the highest order — not a personal quality that some people happen to have, but a professional capacity that can be developed, practised, and deepened throughout a career. Naming it explicitly, and taking it seriously as a discipline, is one of the things that distinguishes skilled conflict work from well-intentioned improvisation.

When sides are forming and trust is weakening, direct conversation about the tension can carry real risk. It may harden positions, trigger defensiveness, or push people to declare where they stand before they are ready.

Shared activities can offer another way of staying in contact. Making something together, moving together, playing, cooking, or working on a shared challenge allows people to meet without having to take a verbal position.

In these moments, people can begin to see one another differently: this person is also human, also capable of humour, concentration, frustration, creativity or joy.

That kind of recognition can sometimes reach across a divide more effectively than a facilitated conversation. These moments are not incidental. They may be where some of the most important movement begins.

Ask yourself: what forms of connection already exist in this group that I have not yet recognised as dialogue?

Read the full “Dialogue beyond words” approach →

Do

• Notice and name “us and them” language, gossip and speaking about people rather than to them. Do this calmly and without taking sides. For example: “I notice we are speaking about X rather than to them. Can we think about that?”

• Meet with the different groups separately before attempting joint work. Each side needs to feel genuinely heard before it can begin to hear the other. These conversations are not simply preparation for the work. They are part of the work.

• In separate conversations, do more than listen. Ask questions, acknowledge and validate emotions, and gently challenge assumptions. Help people put words to what they are feeling and, where possible, explore the experiences behind those feelings.

• Explore mistrust before debating positions. Ask not only what people think, but what has led them to feel as they do. Shift the focus from positions to relationships, and from argument to experience.

• Identify people who may be able to help: natural leaders, trusted figures, and people who still have relationships across the divide. Approach them as collaborators, not as people you are trying to manage. Ask for their help and involve them in shaping what happens next. This gives people real agency and makes them co-designers of the response.

• Begin to map what each group is saying and believing about the other. Treat this as information that helps you understand the conflict — not as material to carry from one group to another.

• Keep a record of what you are observing: patterns, changes, recurring themes and specific incidents. Memory becomes less reliable under pressure, and documentation can become important if the situation escalates.

• Prepare carefully before any joint conversation. Dialogue begins long before people enter the same room: in the individual conversations, the trust built, the expectations clarified and the risks identified. An unprepared joint meeting is not a shortcut. It is a risk.

Don’t

• Ignore or minimise the tension. At this stage, hoping that it will resolve itself can allow the situation to escalate.

• Bring the sides together before each has felt genuinely heard separately. A joint conversation that happens too early can increase tension and move the situation towards Indigo rather than back towards connection.

• Become a messenger between groups. What people tell you helps you understand the situation. It does not automatically become something to report to the other side.

• Allow stereotypes or sweeping claims about the other group to pass without being questioned. You can challenge them without attacking or shaming the person expressing them.

• Treat the visible organising of the less powerful group as the main problem while overlooking how the more powerful group is also organising. Its organising may happen through existing relationships, procedures or institutions and can therefore be much less visible.

• Try to dismantle group identity directly. This is especially important when belonging to a group offers people protection, dignity or a sense of survival. If people feel that you are attacking their identity, they may begin to experience you as part of the opposing side. The first task is not to move people out of their identity. It is to create enough safety that, over time, they may become able to see beyond it.

• Assume that awareness alone will create change. People can become more aware of a divided situation without becoming more open to one another. Awareness needs to lead towards greater safety, openness and the possibility of genuine movement.

• When each side has felt genuinely heard, create structured opportunities for the groups to speak together. The aim is not to resolve the conflict immediately. The first goal is to make it possible for people to be in the same room, hear one another, and disagree without the conversation becoming a contest.

• Help the group notice what is happening collectively. Explore stereotyping, “us and them” language, and the small signs that people are moving further apart. A group that can recognise and name its own patterns is better able to interrupt them.

• Teach and model basic dialogue practices: speaking from personal experience rather than on behalf of a whole group, asking questions in order to understand rather than challenge, and distinguishing what you observe from how you interpret it. Over time, the aim is for the group to be able to hold these conversations without relying on your facilitation.

• Where possible, develop a shared understanding of how differences and disagreements will be handled. This does not need to be a formal agreement. Even a simple, explicit understanding that disagreement is normal and can be managed constructively can make a difference.

• If you work as part of a team, use that resource deliberately. Map who has relationships with whom, meet regularly to compare what you are noticing, and decide on next steps together. In doing so, the team itself models the collaborative, multi-perspective way of working that you are trying to strengthen in the group.

• Know your own limits. If the situation is developing faster than you can manage, or you notice that it is becoming difficult to remain multi-partial, take that seriously. Seek supervision, consultation or support rather than trying to carry the situation alone.

The approaches above work best when the following conditions are present:

• Each side trusts you enough to speak honestly and does not expect to be judged for what they say.
• There is enough time and space to meet with the different groups separately before asking them to come together.
• The group has some previous experience of dialogue, or enough trust in the process that a facilitated conversation does not feel unfamiliar or threatening.
• Before bringing people together for a difficult conversation, consider whether everyone can participate with sufficient psychological safety. If some people’s identity, dignity or belonging are already under direct pressure from others in the group, the conditions for open dialogue may not yet exist. Bringing people together too soon can cause further harm.
• External events — political developments, media coverage or events in the wider community — are not repeatedly overwhelming the work you are doing within the group. When outside events affect the tension, make space to name and explore them openly.
• You have access to supervision, consultation or other professional support, and are prepared to use it when needed.
• You are able to recognise differences in power within the group, including those that the participants themselves may not notice or acknowledge.

Two difficult judgement calls often arise in the Blue Zone. There is no simple rule for resolving them, and trying to resolve them too quickly can make the situation worse.

The identity dilemma

When people begin to organise around group identity, you may find yourself caught between two risks.

If you challenge the identity directly, you may be experienced as part of the opposing side. This is especially likely when belonging to the group gives people protection, dignity or a sense of survival.

But if you leave the hardening of identity completely unchallenged, the divide may continue to deepen.

The question is therefore not whether to engage with identity, but how.

Usually, the first task is to create enough safety and trust for people to begin looking beyond their group position voluntarily and in their own time. You cannot push people out of an identity that currently helps them feel safe or recognised.

Sometimes awareness itself begins to create movement. When people feel safe enough and you are genuinely attentive, they may start to notice their own patterns and see the dynamic they are part of more clearly.

You cannot force that shift. You can only help create the conditions in which it becomes possible.

The power dilemma

Some conflicts continue not because everyone has failed to find a solution, but because the existing situation benefits someone.

Where one side has structural power that is protected or strengthened by the divide, there may be little motivation to enter into genuine dialogue. You cannot create that motivation on another person’s behalf.

What you can do is recognise the dynamic clearly and name it where appropriate — to yourself, within your team, and sometimes to those with decision-making power.

You may then need to ask a different question:

What would need to change in the wider structure for genuine engagement to become possible?

This may move the work beyond facilitating relationships alone and towards questions of power, access, rules, resources or decision-making.

Both of these dilemmas become more difficult as the conflict moves into the zones ahead.

From structured sides to loosening clusters

In Blue, clustering has become visible in where people sit, who they speak to, and whose contributions they respond to.

When the situation begins to ease, these patterns become less automatic. Someone sits somewhere unexpected. Someone responds to a person on the other side without first looking to their own group.

These are small signs, but they matter. They suggest that the separation is beginning to loosen.

From stated positions to genuine questions

In Blue, arguments tend to repeat. People state and defend positions rather than explore them.

One of the clearest signs of easing is the return of a genuine question — not a rhetorical question designed to make a point, but a question asked because someone actually wants to understand.

The shift from assertion to curiosity may happen only briefly at first. Even so, it signals an important change.

From group voice to individual voice

One of the defining signs of Blue is the movement from “I think” towards “we believe”.

As the situation eases, individual voices begin to return. Someone expresses a view that does not completely match their group’s position. Someone introduces doubt, qualifies what they have said, or acknowledges that the situation is more complicated.

This matters because people are beginning to speak as individuals again, rather than only as representatives of a side.

From social pressure to greater permission

In Blue, maintaining relationships across the divide can carry a social cost. People may feel pressure from their own group to keep their distance.

As the situation eases, that pressure begins to weaken — or people become more willing to resist it. A relationship that was previously kept quiet becomes a little more visible.

Crossing the divide may still be uncomfortable, but it becomes more possible.

From stereotypes to specific people

In Blue, the other side is often described in broad and dismissive terms: “they always…”, “those people…”, “none of them…”

As the situation eases, specificity returns. Someone refers to a particular person rather than the other group as a whole. Someone recognises that there are different views within the opposing side. Someone acknowledges that something another person said made sense.

The other side begins to look less like a single hostile group and more like a collection of different people.

From emotional heat to emotional complexity

In Blue, exchanges can feel like battles. Anger and frustration dominate.

When the situation begins to ease, other emotions start to appear alongside them: tiredness, humour, sadness, uncertainty or genuine curiosity.

This emotional complexity is significant. It suggests that the conflict is beginning to loosen its grip and that people are becoming more than simply their position in the dispute.

From a pattern to a structure

In Blue, clustering and taking sides are still mainly behaviours. People gravitate towards their own group, but the separation is not yet fixed.

In Indigo, separation becomes built into the situation: different networks, different spaces, different sources of information and fewer opportunities for contact.

What was once a tendency is becoming a structure. Structures are much harder to change than patterns of behaviour.

From contest to withdrawal

Blue still contains argument and emotional debate. The sides are engaging with one another, even if the engagement is difficult.

As the situation moves towards Indigo, that engagement begins to disappear. Argument gives way to avoidance and withdrawal.

From the outside, this can look like an improvement because things appear calmer. But the calm may come from disengagement rather than resolution.

From disagreement to different pictures of reality

In Blue, people disagree strongly about an issue.

In Indigo, the divide begins to shape how each side understands the wider world. People may rely on different sources, tell different stories about what has happened, and interpret the same events in very different ways.

You can no longer assume that people are arguing from the same basic understanding of the situation. Dialogue becomes harder because the divide is no longer only about opinions; it is also about how reality itself is understood.

From social pressure to exclusion

In Blue, maintaining contact across the divide carries a social cost.

In Indigo, contact itself becomes harder. The relationships, spaces and opportunities that once connected people begin to disappear.

Someone may still want to maintain a relationship across the divide, but there may be fewer places where that relationship can exist.

From visible power to power built into the structure

In Blue, unequal power may still be relatively visible. A more powerful group may actively control decisions, challenge the legitimacy of the other side, or shape which stories are heard.

As separation becomes more established, those inequalities can become less visible. The arrangement begins to feel normal or inevitable.

At that point, people may no longer need to actively enforce the imbalance in every situation because the structures, habits and rules increasingly reproduce it for them.

From different sources to different information worlds

In Blue, each side may already prefer sources that support its own understanding.

In Indigo, this preference becomes much stronger. People increasingly inhabit different information environments, each reinforcing its own account of what is happening and offering less exposure to information that challenges it.

Online platforms and algorithms can strengthen this process by repeatedly showing people material similar to what they already engage with.

People who still have relationships across the divide now find themselves moving between increasingly different versions of reality. This can become exhausting and difficult to sustain.

Watch the bridge people!

One of the most important signs at the Blue–Indigo threshold is pressure on the people who still have relationships across the divide.

They may be asked, directly or indirectly, to choose a side.

If those relationships disappear, some of the last natural channels of communication disappear with them.

Notice who is still able to move between the sides. Protect those relationships where you can. They may be among the most important resources available for preventing further separation.