Welcome to the new Manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here, and I hope you're doing well.
This is episode 199 of the New Manager podcast.
And I think officially, if you look at the number of episodes
listed in whatever app you're listening to, it'll actually say
it's 200 and something because over the course of the years, I
sometimes would add little bonus episodes or, you know, like
little extra things that wouldn't get an official episode
number. So, you know, one way to look at
this is I've already done over 200 episodes, but this is
officially episode 199. And next week, the last week of
the year, is going to be episode 200, which I am feeling pretty
excited about. As we move into today's episode,
I have two things I want to share with you.
So my ask is, if you listen to this podcast, would you please
leave a rating and a review? It would mean a lot to me.
And it will also help other listeners know when they should
be listening. Is this an episode or a podcast
that they might want to listen to more of?
When you leave a review, you help other people know if this
is the place for them. So take a moment and do that.
Thank you so much. And the second thing is I am
teaching my next class on communication strategies.
We start January 7th. There's still time to sign up.
So if leadership development is one of the things on your To Do
List in the new year, if you are a manager and you want to be a
better manager, especially around communication skills,
then sign up. Join that course.
We meet six weeks and there are also additional office hours
which are times when you can just drop in.
I will be there live every class, every office hour and you
can just ask questions. So the way I structure it's
because I want to have the curriculum and the specific
things which you can see everything that's included, all
the topics that are covered in the registration page.
And I wanted to be sure that there would be additional space
because sometimes something will come up that is not on the
agenda. And one of the values of having
a live teaching environment is you get to ask live questions of
me and you get to listen to some of the questions that the other
folks in the course will ask that might also help you.
So that's how it's designed. And I would love to support you
in getting the year started with some clarity and some tools and
just, you know, let's talk about how this year is going to go and
how to enhance and build out those communication skills.
So you'll find information about the course in the show notes or
just go to my website, chemical.com, and you'll learn
more about that. So for today, let's talk about
conflict. If the word conflict, if the
very idea of conflict makes your shoulders crunch up by the ears
or makes you feel a little bit tense in your belly.
And I am glad you are here because in the course of your
career you are going to encounter conflict.
And if you are like me and a lot of the people that work with me
and that, you know, come to me for coaching or come take my
classes, then conflict is something you're probably not
really comfortable with. The fear of confrontation, the
fear of conflict is something that is probably just a little
bit in your bones. And your initial reaction is to
say, Oh no, that's bad. I don't, I don't want that.
And so today I wanted to offer a different perspective about
conflict. And this is something that I
have had to learn in the course of my career and life also.
It's not an easy lesson to get, but the initial perspective is
an easy one to start to hold onto.
And with a lot of these changes in leadership and manager
skills, it's going to start with a perspective shift, a little
bit of curiosity, like is there another way of seeing this?
And then it starts to show up in the actual workplace and in your
actual relationships. Sometimes one of the reasons why
it's hard to make that change from the learning place into the
living place is because in the existing relationships that you
have, you've already built up a number of patterns in how those
relationships go. And when we're talking about
changing the way that we communicate or the way that we
respond to specific people or circumstances, that requires
doing things differently. And one of the things about your
brain is it likes to do what it knows how to do.
It doesn't want to do things differently.
It wants to do things the way it did them before.
You know, there's like a measure of efficiency in that.
But that will get you into trouble because that means that
you'll over rely on strategies that work in the past but might
not be effective or useful or even, you know, appropriate in a
current situation. So for example, if you grew up
in a household where the presence of conflict, whether it
was overt, like there was shouting or there was really
big, loud, volatile adult, you know, personalities in your
household, Like if it's overt conflict or if it's a little bit
more subtle, like silent treatment tension that you
couldn't quite explain, but you could definitely feel it, a
sense of pressure to conform in in order to avoid or prevent
conflict from happening. Then you would have absorbed
this kind of unspoken understanding that codes
conflict as bad. Conflict bad must be avoided,
must be reduced. And you might have become a
person who stepped into the role of conflict alleviator, or the
person who is the peacemaker in the situation, or the person who
tries to cheer up or kind of change the direction of the
energy in the room so that things didn't feel so tense and
things felt a little bit lighter.
It's really interesting, all of the different strategies that we
develop when we're really, really small around conflict,
about how comfortable we are with it, whether conflict
signals something bad to be avoided.
It's helpful to understand that the reason that you respond the
way you do now is probably tied to your earliest experiences of
working with other humans. And I mean that in a very
practical day-to-day living way. Like how did it work in your
house? How did it work in your school?
Like how, how did conflict work? And so if you have that gut
reaction, conflict is bad, then you will put a high priority on
avoiding conflict, on minimizing conflict and seeing conflict as
a problem first and foremost. And so I want to normalize that
first of all, if that's, you know, if that kind of matches
what you're accustomed to. And I want to now invite you to
consider something a little bit different, which is that the
presence of conflict is not always bad.
That actually the presence of conflict can also be a sign of
safety and of like healthy relationship Like the presence
of conflict can be an indication of psychological safety because
it suggests that people feel safe to express disagreement and
share different viewpoints. Sometimes when there's no
conflict, it's because everyone is too afraid to say anything
that might be perceived as, you know, different, right?
And so we want to be, we want to be curious and cautious about
like what what kind of peacefulness do we have and what
kind of conflict do we have? So instead of thinking conflict
bad, now we can start to say, well, sometimes conflict is
actually good. Sometimes conflict, like the
presence of conflict is a sign of good health.
It's a sign of trust. It's a sign that you know
something here is working when we have of a moment of conflict
or that tension arise. And so when we consider that
possibility, then it becomes important to ask yourself, well,
how do we handle conflict here? What happens when someone
presents something, an idea or a perspective that is in
disagreement or in opposition to someone else?
How do we handle that? What do we do?
That's where you want to get curious.
And also in a leadership role, you're setting the tone and role
modeling that for others. How do you handle conflict?
Is it OK if there's conflict or disagreement?
What will happen? So you want to start to get
curious. One thing you want to consider,
is this conflict generative? Is it generating new ideas?
Is it tapping into the creativity or the diverse
viewpoints and strengths of the group?
Is this conflict generative and creating more conversation, more
ideas? Is there something good that's
coming out of it? Is this conflict respectful?
There are lots of different ways to be in conflict with others.
We want to put on the lenses, like the glasses that say, is
this conflict happening in a respectful way?
What are you noticing about how this is happening?
And related to that, is this conflict about ideas or is it
about people? There's a real big difference
between saying, you know, I'm not sure that I agree with that.
Actually, I have a very different perspective.
I, I don't agree that that's the right course of action.
I think it should be this way instead For these reasons.
That's really different than saying that's a stupid idea and
you're stupid for suggesting it. And while most of the time
people won't say that outright, you can sometimes feel the
undertone of contempt and disrespect in the way that the
disagreement is communicated or conveyed.
And we have to be careful here, right?
But we just want to acknowledge that communication is multi
leveled. It's not just the words that we
use or the words that we don't use.
It's also in the way that that information is conveyed.
So, you know, when there's conflict or disagreement, is it
about the person or is it about like the concept or the idea?
Now, a couple of ideas for what you can do when there is
conflict and how you might be able to handle it or communicate
to your team like, hey, let's try this, let's do this.
When conflict is here, number one, you can disagree and
commit. That's when you say, OK, I
disagree with that, with that course of action or that point
of view. That's not what I would choose,
but I will. I'm willing to commit to this
course of action because that's, you know, the decision that has
been made. And that's kind of where we're
able to say, OK, like I disagree.
That's not what I want. That's not what I would do.
But I'm still willing to commit to whatever the ultimate
decision will be. Disagree and commit.
The other thing you can do is you can be clear about who makes
the decision and how. This is going to help get you
out of like the mire. That can be the search for
consensus. You might try to get everyone on
the same page and everyone to agree, and that's just not going
to happen. Instead, identify what is the
actual decision to be made and who is responsible for making
that decision. You might have other people
offer perspective, advice, counsel, whatever, but that
doesn't mean that they are the ones making the decision.
That's where you might say, OK, thank you for that perspective.
Thank you for that information. I'm the one who's making the
decision and I'm going to make it based on XY and Z, right?
I'm really glad that you're giving me all of your
perspective. This is the decision that we'll
make. And sometimes being clear about
what is the decision, who gets to make it, when do they make it
can also help clarify and just organize, like what do we do
when there is conflict? And that can allow us to say,
yes, like, there are multiple perspectives here, but that
doesn't have to get enmeshed and like, get stuck in, like who
actually makes the decision so that you can have clarity about
like, what is the process for that path forward?
And the third thing that you can do when there's conflict is you
can also identify the needs and the goals.
So there might be multiple needs, different needs.
There might even be needs that are at odds with the people or
the different stakeholders in the room.
You want to identify what the needs are.
Sometimes people are arguing and we don't stop to understand what
is the underlying need that is fueling this argument.
Can we get clear about what that need is?
And by need, I don't mean I need you to do it my way.
No, that's not what I'm talking about.
But it might be someone comes and says, no, like I need to,
you know, I need to have this thing done.
I want it done in this way because I really need to, you
know, develop this customer relationship in this way.
And if I can't deliver on this, I'm really concerned that
they're going to cancel their service and we're going to lose
them as a client, right? Like, can you understand what is
the underlying need? What is it that's behind that
different perspective or that different point of view?
And, you know, a lot of times in an organization, we might have
the same goal, right? Like the same overall vision,
but we might have very different needs and very different ideas
about how to do that. And so if we can slow things
down and get curious, like, why is this happening?
Like what is the underlying need here?
It can help us to understand and make decisions about what we're
going to do with this conflict. Also, when you think about the
individual people, sometimes the underlying need isn't
necessarily one that will be obvious or that somebody will be
willing to say out loud, right, 'cause we have different parts
of ourselves and our lives and our own priorities might be
different. And, you know, with someone,
their underlying need might be like, look, I'm going to retire
in two years and I really need, you know, to stay in this job
for the next two years and not have things be complicated.
I don't know I'm making that up. That can be lots of different
kinds of things, but it helps when we remember that people are
multifaceted, that there are different priorities, needs,
different things that motivate them.
And even if we don't know what all of those things are, we can
still be curious about them and we can still remember that they
are present and active. Even if we don't know what they
are, they are still present and active.
So identifying the needs, identifying the goals, right,
like what are you trying to accomplish?
And if you you know with with that suggestion or with that
approach, sometimes we don't actually know.
So we can ask or we can just be mindful that that's also in
play. And all of these then give start
to give you a way of working with conflict, of being mindful
with conflict, of being really humane and really appreciative
of the humans that you work with, while also not letting the
presence of conflict signal a failure on your part.
Right. Because sometimes we think if
there's conflict, then that means I must be doing something
wrong. I need to fix it by making
conflict not be here. And that is not a realistic way
to be right. Instead of the fear of conflict,
I want you to think about conflict is a really normal
thing that happens in the course of human relationships,
especially in the workplace. And so your job and the
invitation as a leader is to begin to get more comfortable
with conflict, to see it as something that is going to
happen from time to time. And when it does, are you
equipped to respond to it? Are you prepared to think about
it in a way that will help you and help your team, rather than
eat away at you, interfere with your sleep, and create a whole
lot of pressure on you? Because you don't need that.
And you know what? Your team also doesn't need a
leader who is that stressed out about conflict.
Instead, you know it's something that happens.
And let's get you equipped and ready to address it in the best
way. So that is what I wanted to
share with you today. Some thoughts on conflict as we
move towards the end of the year.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a great day, a
really great holiday week. If this is a holiday week for
you and if you are working this week, even during the holidays,
then I just want to send a whole lot of extra appreciation to
you. And I hope you're able to have
some time to rest and connect with the people you care about
most. All right, thanks for listening.
I'll talk to you next time. When you're more effective at
work, you're happier in your life, and when you're happier in
your life, you're more effective at work.
I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com
and sign up for a coaching consult.
It can get better.