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.