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The Reload with Sean Hansen
The Reload with Sean Hansen
From Silence to Solutions: Enhancing Team Dynamics - 215
Ever wondered why your team isn't talking to you about the real issues? This episode promises to transform how you understand and address communication barriers in leadership. I'll walk you through the four major signs that your team may not be communicating effectively: silence, indirect communication, excessive but meaningless chatter, and insincerity. We'll also dissect why these issues arise, whether it's due to power dynamics, gender, age, or physical size, and I'll share practical methods like 360 reviews to better foster an open line of communication.
Next, we unpack the four main conflict styles—fight, flee, freeze, and fix or fawn—offering insights into how these behaviors show up in both professional and personal settings. From aggressive confrontations to complete avoidance, recognizing these styles is key to moving from emotional reactions to rational discussions. Real-life examples bring these concepts to life, giving you actionable strategies to handle conflicts more productively and return to a rational mindset.
Finally, we'll explore how early life experiences shape our responses to conflict and the universal need for belonging within teams and families. Understanding these triggers can lead to a more supportive environment, even when disagreements arise. I'll share a compelling case study of a former Navy SEAL who learned to navigate his own conflict triggers, offering profound lessons in empathy and constructive communication. This episode is loaded with valuable insights and practical advice for enhancing both your communication and conflict management skills as a leader.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. Okay, okay, here we are. I've been remiss, it's been a minute since I've recorded, but coming at you one more time, here we go. What are we talking about today? Well, recently, a friend of mine who's a C-suite officer at a quickly growing company called me with some I don't know, I guess some questions that he had about some issues that he was facing at work and where it was that he noticed that people weren't talking to him, at least not in a direct way, in a way that he felt would be constructive to problem solving, you know, a general dialogue, et cetera, et cetera. Now, this is in no way unique. So many of my clients, many of whom are C-suite officers and I would say, most of whom have a fairly assertive personality, end up in this position, where they often have concerns or outright complaints about the fact that people are not coming to them with issues, and one of the CEOs that I've worked with this particular individual on more than one occasion has gotten, I guess, fairly cross-threaded with his leadership team because of the fact that when the CEO has done check-ins, everything seems to be going okay, but then turns out when they actually reach sort of hard deadlines or key inflection points around the progress of a certain project, well, it kind of turns out that things are pretty off track, and so the CEO is then left with this head-scratching conundrum of why didn't anyone say anything to me? Mm-hmm, okay.
Speaker 1:So I think there are essentially four major categories that are indicative of signs of trouble. The first one people don't say anything. That one's probably pretty obvious. The second one people say something but not to you, so there's this circuitous path by which you receive information. Third would be people say a lot of things without saying anything of substance, and there's this joke, at least in American culture, that if you want to hear a lot of words but not understand what was said, talk to a lawyer, and that lawyers are somehow these masters of being able to write pages and pages and pages and pages without actually communicating anything of real understanding. Now, having been to law school and, having known many lawyers and having married one, I would argue that really good attorneys actually do speak and, I should say, communicate very effectively, in a very succinct manner, and it is actually that skill that makes them rise to the top of their profession. It is actually that skill that makes them rise to the top of their profession.
Speaker 1:But the lawyerly aspect, or commentary that we have in American society is where it is, that we are attempting to make it seem like we're responding but we don't want to respond, but we don't want to respond and so we don't, even though we just flood the space with words. And then the fourth category is people say something but it's not what they actually mean. That may be a real subtle distinction based off of category number three, but I think meaningful enough that they stand on their own. So what might be happening when we look at these four categories? Well, a pretty, I think, obvious option is that people are intimidated. And it may not be people, it may just be one person, but there's that very strong possibility that they are intimidated. Oftentimes we have to factor in if there is a rank disparity, so if one person is more powerful than another, it could be some intimidation.
Speaker 1:Also, even though I think many cultures have been trying to work on this, there, I think, are still some latent and in some cases not so latent, much more obvious concerns of intimidation between the sexes, men and women. And yes, I recognize that there are some people out there that do not identify as either a man or a woman. But I guess, for the sake of simplicity and to make sure that my head doesn't explode, we're just going to stick with good old-fashioned labels of men and women, additionally, sometimes just age right, even if the younger person happens to outrank the older person. You know, I think many people are conditioned to respect their elders, so to speak, and so that can also be a source of intimidation. Digging into the more primal end of things, you know human beings are still in very many ways animals, and I know that that sometimes insults my very sophisticated clientele when I say that to them, but the fact remains that in very many ways humans still have very primal drivers, and so size can be very intimidating. If you are a bigger person, well, quite often you show up as more intimidating, even if you are the nicest person on the planet, and it's not so much about in that particular instance, how you carry yourself as it is that how people perceive you.
Speaker 1:Now, having talked about perception, or at least referenced it just now, I would say that most people would benefit from doing a pretty introspective audit of how they might be showing up to their team, to the workplace in general, to the workplace in general. How much frowning are you doing in a given day versus smiling? Do you present any obstacles, I guess, to people feeling like they are welcome to be in a dialogue with you in the first place? You know sort of open door, closed door policy type stuff, place, you know sort of open door, closed door policy type stuff. And then also, how do you respond to challenge and do you create a welcoming atmosphere, let's say, around being challenged? And it's quite likely that you will have to ask for some feedback on that, on those various factors I guess.
Speaker 1:Now, some people do that in the form of a 360. Other people do that just by talking to folks themselves. Recognize that if you are the boss, well, it's quite unlikely that if you just randomly walk up to some of your subordinates, that they're going to tell you straight to your face that they have a problem with the way that you show up and this is part of the reason why 360s came about is because it created this anonymous process where people could air their observations good and bad, right, like. We want to get the full suite. We don't want to just focus on one quadrant, but that they were able to give their opinions and observations in a way that felt safe for them. Now, what are some other ideas around here? Some other ideas around why it is that people are not talking to you directly could be that they have a more trusting relationship with the person that they are speaking with and, for whatever reason, they feel that that person is somehow going to fix the problem or has some influence over the situation who knows? Additionally, they could be looking for guidance from someone else, and that they actually do plan to speak to you after they receive that guidance. Now, if you're noticing that it is a chronic condition, then, yes, you might want to figure out how to get that relationship on better footing so that there isn't all of that extra preparation time that has to go into you having a potentially contentious conversation with the person that's not talking to you, and really, in this scenario, it'd probably be them feeling like they need less preparation to talk to you.
Speaker 1:So, part of this process as well, I of leadership teams that look at the EQ, emotional side of running a business as being somehow frivolous. This is not the hard skills of running a business. This is not understanding how to navigate a P&L. This is not understanding how to I don't know attack a certain foreign market to make sure that you're developing market share in ever-expanding regions. And I think that those leadership teams that feel that way I mean they can feel however they want.
Speaker 1:My belief is that they are doing themselves a disservice by not also factoring in these quote-unquote soft skills that are so fuzzy and often looked down upon. And the reason why I believe that it's a disservice is because, again, every business is staffed by human beings and I have yet to meet the human being who is not emotional, including the human beings who pride themselves on not being emotional. They are still emotional, the most rigidly calculating, intellectual, ice-in-their-veins individual when I actually start scraping the layers off. Well, it turns out they like feeling a certain way and they don't like feeling a certain way, and all of that is emotion. And even if you happen to be a highly logical, highly rational, science-driven individual and you somehow are the exception that proves the rule that all these other humans walking around are emotional creatures. You are still in business with, and in organizations with, humans who are emotional, right, so you are not escaping this.
Speaker 1:And, from what I've seen, the teams that are most unwilling to dive into the emotional spectrum to try to understand how to have better relationships and thereby better leadership it's often because not always, but it's often because they are themselves afraid of emotion, of emotion, either because they had negative emotional experiences as a kid or because they never had anybody help them with their own emotional literacy. Oftentimes, I think people believe that, oh, you're either good with people or you're not good with people, and that's crap you can learn. And the reason that people have this phrase, emotional literacy is because they're attempting to change the narrative around emotion and moving it away from some sort of black box where it's like, oh geez, I don't know, things just got crazy and emotional in there. It's like, no, we actually can navigate this stuff better if we practice and we have greater awareness both in ourselves and about what's happening with other people, and we actually have an ability to connect with real empathy, not sympathy. I mean. Sympathy is fine, but real empathy, as in huh this. I wonder if this is how that person is viewing this issue. Not, oh well, I was once faced with a difficult issue and this is how I dealt with it, so they must deal with it this way. No, that's you still being locked in your own myopic perspective. Real empathy is huh. How is this person dealing with this issue? How do I get myself as much as possible into their perspective?
Speaker 1:Now, the benefit of beginning to look at emotion is that you can then also look at conflict styles and begin to understand do I have a conflict style that is different from the other person? And there are essentially four main conflict styles. Are there? Is there arguments that can be made that there are more than four? Sure, go ahead, but predominantly, at least as far as what modern psychology has seemed to identify, we have four main categories fight, flee, freeze and then fix or fawn, whichever wording you prefer there. So fight. I think most people are pretty tuned into what fight looks like.
Speaker 1:Flee is you avoid whatever the stressor is, whatever the conflict is or the perceived conflict. There may not even be conflict yet, but you're like whoa, this is going to turn into something sensitive. I know that the other person has a certain proclivity here and that I don't align with that. So I'm just going to book it and get out of Dodge and hopefully they'll just kind of forget. That would be amazing. So by the time I come back around, hmm, won't be a problem anymore. Well, if you're on a team, generally that doesn't work that well. Or in any situation, sort of long-term relationship whether that's romantic, personal, professional, familial, no matter For freeze, freeze is.
Speaker 1:You know. Some people actually describe freeze as a fleeing, but a fleeing within, whereas I like to think of it as not necessarily a flee running away. I like to think of it as not necessarily a flea running away, but just a deep, deep, deep sort of locking away inside. Out here seems too threatening and scary. I don't want to deal with this conflict, so I'm going to go internal and it's surprising the number of individuals who sit on teams and then freeze, and by that, in terms of the team interaction, it can show up as well. I need to think about that.
Speaker 1:And then everything just kind of bogs down and they think about it indefinitely. And in other instances, especially when things get heated and sometimes people are yelling. The individual who is a freeze conflict style goes silent, goes silent and looks down at the table, looks down at their notes just forever, will not engage. And once they're in that freeze state, it's not until the meeting adjourns and then they can leave the scenario and have time to decompress or have time to get back to normal for them that you can begin to engage them again. Normal for them that you can begin to engage them again. So, whereas with the flea the runner oftentimes they end up being chased and we'll talk more about that in a second the freeze just hunkers down right there and they just withdraw into their fortress of solitude.
Speaker 1:And then the last category fix or fawn kind of depends on how it shows up. But oftentimes if you have a fix-fawn person, whenever the discomfort rises above a certain threshold or the perceived conflict rises above a certain threshold, they feel this immediate compulsion to smooth the ripples. Okay, the intensity is getting too high in here. Let's take it down a notch. What do I need to do? Who do I need to appease? Who do I need to compliment? Whose feathers are ruffled that I can smooth out? And oftentimes, when we look at how this cycle goes, you have folks that are fighters and they get all big and loud and et cetera, et cetera. And then you got your freeze person who's just going deep inside and it's like they're just kind of like a stump. The flee person is trying everything they can to dodge the issue, maybe even get out of the room somehow physically, and then fixer fond person is hopping all around trying to can't we all just get along? And you know, okay, fine, uh, like, yeah, let's, we'll deliver that one thing that you want. Fighter, like, okay, like, maybe you can calm down a little bit, right? So oftentimes this is how this dynamic plays out.
Speaker 1:Knowing what your conflict styles are helps you better navigate that discussion to hopefully get you back out of conflict style back into oh I don't know rational adult, so that you can work through the issue itself To get away from the phenomenon or the place, the headspace of being transported by your own emotions and fear. To get back into rational adult that says, oh yeah, we still have an issue to resolve here and no amount of yelling, no amount of distraction, no amount of going inside to the fortress of solitude and no amount psyches. What is the disagreement that we are trying to resolve? And it's hard and I mean, yeah, like I have been in plenty of conflicts and I don't just mean my combat deployments, right, which is, I mean, that's actually a fairly easy form of conflict because they're trying to kill you and then it's a pretty short menu of responses.
Speaker 1:But really difficult conflict happens between the people of our own team or our own family, and what makes it difficult is that the unit to which we belong whether it's family or business or whatever we're invested in that and we want to have a sense of belonging, even if you're the top dog in that unit, whether you're the boss or whatever, you want to belong. You want to be in a feeling of cohesion. I don't know anybody. It's not to say that it can't exist, but I don't know anyone and I have certainly not worked with anyone who, with a straight face, could tell me that they don't want to be on a cohesive team. That has never come forward. Maybe other coaches get that, I do not. So I have to operate off of this baseline assumption that you too want to be in a cohesive team. Now, you may not want to be on the team you're on, maybe partly because it's not cohesive, but if you think about that question do I want to be on a cohesive team or do I want to be on a team filled with conflict?
Speaker 1:And by the conflict I mean unhealthy conflict, destructive conflict, and we'll talk about that well right now. So oftentimes individuals have a low threshold for conflict, just in general, and oftentimes that is because conflict that was modeled for them early in their development was pretty toxic and maybe even physically dangerous. And if you have individuals who grew up that way, where conflict was threatening, it wasn't respectful, it wasn't two or more individuals discussing the merits and having opposing views on, potentially, values or course of action, you know, whatever like in the foundational element of their understanding of conflict being rooted in intelligent minds, may disagree and that it is fundamentally safe and secure to be able to disagree. And, yes, we may not actually reach a place where we coincide on what a course of action should be, but that we are still willing to support one another even though we have disagreement. And I have no idea what the percentages might be, but based on my work and maybe I am dealing with a self-selecting audience, who knows but I would say that in most households that is not being modeled, what I think is being modeled and again, I don't have proof right. So this is just based off of my years of doing coaching and what I've gleaned from hearing about other folks talking about their childhoods and their family of origin and how they handle conflict.
Speaker 1:But most often what seems to happen is there's a disagreement, there's a blow up, there's separation. Everyone goes to their neutral space, whatever that is, there's silence, things kind of simmer down, act of contrition or apology or some acknowledgement of well you know, let's not fight. And then they return to status quo without actually having dealt with the issue. So it's just lurking like some landmine until they step on it the next time and then they repeat the cycle and then again don't deal with the root issue. They don't actually come to a place of understanding, most often understanding informed by trying to really see the other person's perspective, especially so when it seems crazy to you and my wife and I stumble into this periodically where she has a perspective and I cannot for the life of me understand where that perspective has come from and why she's so invested in it. And the same is true vice versa, and it doesn't make either of us wrong. So much of our perspective is informed by the lenses that we developed throughout our development.
Speaker 1:You know why is it that we do things? You know, why do we? What's a real obvious one In the United States of America, we drive on the right side of the road. Why, when other countries drive on the left side of the road? Well, we do it right. What Like? Why, based on what objective measure, and that's. I mean, that's a silly example, but all I'm trying to do is to illustrate this concept that so frequently, what we determine to be right or wrong is when you really pull the layers off of it boils down to habituation and what we consider, quote-unquote, normal because we like to avoid being abnormal. Why is that? Well, you know, belonging, inclusion, avoiding ostracism, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:Digging into conflict styles helps you begin to recognize how somebody is going to be acting and when they act that certain way, you can see oh okay, well, this person, I'm assuming, is triggered and their threshold for triggering may be lower than yours or it may be higher. You may be the more volatile one in that relationship or in that team and if you know, bringing the conversation kind of back on track with leadership teams, it's good to know. Hey, who on here is is super grounded, super level-headed and who on this team is is a real firecracker with a real hair trigger. And if you happen to be the one with a real hair trigger, especially if you happen to be the one with the real hair trigger, especially if you happen to be the team leader, oh okay, you got some work coming up. Why? Because on most professional teams, the rest of the team finds it less enjoyable to work with someone that is ultra sensitive and has a hair trigger, especially if they like to be the fighter person. But it can actually be equally frustrating with any of the other three conflict styles.
Speaker 1:So what happens if you have, let's say, two fighters? Well, two fighters equals a battle. That's where you get the old screaming match in the team room. What happens if you have two runners, for instance? Well, two runners. They're typically running away from each other, so you have a lot of avoidance and that can, in the short term, actually feel not too bad because you out-distance the conflict. But here's the crappy part about this is that the conflict kind of boomerangs back into the circle because you're not dealing with it. What about if you had two freeze types? Well, generally you just have a lot of silence, because each one of them is going into their own respective fortress of solitude and here again you're not really being pressed against by anybody. But you're also not dealing with the issue. What if you had two fix, slash, fawn types? Well, they're going to get a lot of appeasement, a lot of flowery language, but without really understanding the core issue, because both people are sort of tripping over each other to make things Okay, to smooth the ripples.
Speaker 1:What if you have one fighter and one runner? Well then you got a chase going on, and the interesting thing about chasing is oftentimes the more direct person the fighter, if that wasn't clear just wants to get an answer. Just give me the answer. I will stop pursuing you if you just give me the answer. But in quote, unquote, pursuit of the answer. See what I did there. The runner feels pursued and not in a good way. They feel chased, and so then they run faster and not in a good way. They feel chased, and so then they run faster, and then the fighter person pursues harder and then the runner runs faster and it just creates this crazy cycle, but again also doesn't really lead to any answers.
Speaker 1:What if you had one fighter and one freeze person. Well, generally that kind of just devolves into stonewalling and the fighter might get frustrated, might yell, might you know this? That the other thing, but all of that vitriol is just going to bounce off of the shield. The fortress of solitude has very strong walls and you are not getting in and so oftentimes stonewallers, like freeze types stonewallers they've learned that they often had somebody that was really loud and really big and and and potentially violent when they were a kid and they learned to just wait people out. It's like a war of attrition and you ain't winning this one because they've got decades of practice and you ain't winning this one because they've got decades of practice. But again, you know, oftentimes the fighter leaves in frustration because they're essentially trying to talk to the wall and nothing is being resolved.
Speaker 1:What if you have one fighter and one fixed fond person? Ah, well, okay, you get a lot of appeasement, a lot of yes, sir, no sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, a lot of what can I do for you? And sometimes that is actually able to resolve the issue in terms of getting work product out the door. It often leaves unresolved the deeper rift or the deeper disagreement because the fixed bond person is not actually holding any boundaries. They're just kind of like all right, whatever, whatever you want, I'll give it to you. But then sometimes fixed bond people and I actually tend to be a fixed fond person in my core because various reasons but and I've worked so hard on this in my own life to try to be more assertive, to be more of a direct confrontation person, even though inside I still sometimes feel like throwing up while I'm doing it but as a fixed fond person I have and I noticed this in other fixed fond people, especially on teams is fixed fond people will sometimes just tell you whatever you want, just to get you off their back. And that's I mean as a fixed bond person.
Speaker 1:I am not proud of that, but I have done that on more than one occasion and one of the clear ways that it has come out is uh-huh okay. That exact language. Uh-huh okay. That is not actually agreement and I did a podcast episode on this, I don't know two or three years ago. But when somebody gives you the uh-huh okay or some equivalent of that, there is a really good chance that they just want you out of their hair and they are not actually in agreement with you. There is not buy-in. It is just, I don't have time for this. You're threatening me and maybe not because you're threatening, but because they have a perception that you're you know, whatever. But there's very often this I'm not dealing with this right now and I'm going to make some sort of noise that passes as some sort of acknowledgement so that you go away. So, if you're a team leader or if you're in relationship with other humans ever that's something to take a look at. How often are you getting uh-huh okay and maybe start? If you have kids, start with them. How often do your kids give you the uh-huh okay and then, how often do they actually complete whatever the subject of that conversation was? How often do they actually complete whatever the subject of that conversation was?
Speaker 1:Now, what happens if you have one runner and one freeze type? Well, in that situation, you got one person trying to avoid conflict and you got the other one also avoiding conflict, but by doing it silently and like going inside the runner type typically throws up a bunch of smokescreen and distraction, whether that's verbal distraction or redirecting the conversation to another subject, what have you? So that's an interesting one in some ways, because like yeah, they're both just kind of going away from the conflict. They're both just kind of going away from the conflict and again not actually resolving it. And the runner person probably thinks that the freeze person is unapproachable, which is generally true because they've gone deep inside themselves. And then the freeze person often labels the runner as being flighty or inconsistent or you know, I can't really talk to that person there. You know, there's just like verbal diarrhea coming out of their mouth all the time. Can't actually get to the real issue.
Speaker 1:What about one runner and one fixed fond person? Well, yeah, that's kind of an odd one. There's, it's like basically just avoidance, because for the fixed fond person to do their thing they actually still have to be in the room with the source of the problem. But if you have somebody who's avoidant, well then there's nobody to really interact with. So the runner and the freeze person, they don't really interact much, one because they left the room, the other because they've gone deep inside With fight and fix fawn per people. That is where more interaction is actually happening, but again, it's not necessarily healthier or more effective. And then, likewise, if you have one freeze and one fix fawn, again not much happening.
Speaker 1:So how interesting, sean. So how interesting, sean, what do we do with it? Well, if it was me, I would say you are better off figuring out how to learn about your and other people's conflict styles on your team before you need to know it, meaning before some major blow up has happened. Now, having said that, most teams are not going to do that because why? We're busy, sean, oh, busy. Do you know how much stuff we have to get done? We don't have time for this? Okay, totally cool, you run with that. We don't have time for this? Okay, totally cool, you run with that. And then recognize how much makeup is going to have to happen on the back end of whatever blow up you encounter, because you will encounter a blow up. That is only a matter of time. If you want to be in a highly competitive marketplace, it's coming Guaranteed, so you can pay now or you can pay later with interest.
Speaker 1:When I was in special operations, our training cadre, whenever we tried to cut corners and whenever we tried to say, oh well, we don't have time for this right now, they always said, hmm, funny, there's never enough time to do it right, but there's always plenty of time to do it over. And I have seen that play out in any number of different settings, from the military to business, to family relationships to whatever. So let's move forward on the premise that you are actually interested in learning your own and other people's conflict styles. One of the great ways to do this and you, just you, let me know if I'm going too fast here is to ask one another, like, actually have a conversation about it, and if you're the team leader, go first, especially if you have a conflict style that is going to surprise other people, because you have been working hard to counteract that instinctive response.
Speaker 1:Like when I said that I tend to be a fixed, fond person. The reason well, one of the reasons why is because I was scared of my dad when I was little, and before you start thinking that my dad is some like uh, I don't know evil, abusive person, he's not and I think he was a good dad, but my dad could be incredibly intense and there were times when my dad could get extremely loud and it was hard. And he was a big guy too, like physically big guy, and as a little kid it was hard for me to muster any amount of real courage inside myself to stand up to that and it was easier and felt more accessible for me to engage in fixed fond behavior. And if you wonder where fixed fond comes from, it's typically because you can recognize oh, I don't have the power to fight this person and I don't have anywhere to run because this is where I belong, this is my family unit, this is my house and, for whatever reason, stonewalling also doesn't seem to work because, you know, can I really outweigh this person? But if you have one of those conflict styles that is going to be surprising for people and you're the team leader, go first and share it and you might be thinking well, I don't even know what my conflict style is.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, when you run into a contentious event or topic, what is your base instinct? Do you want to pound somebody's face in? Do you want to avoid it by distracting yourself with everything else? You know, all of a sudden, you need to go organize your closet for some reason, or you need to get to inbox zero, or you need to clean off your desk, or you know whatever. Or perhaps you recognize that you go silent and you go deep inside and you you actually oftentimes freeze types are still actually thinking about the issue, but they're so inaccessible, so deep inside their fortress of solitude that nobody can reach them. There was actually a time oh gosh, when was this? It was years ago my wife and I got into an argument and I thought she was catatonic, like it was just nobody's home. So it can show up to that degree. And then, obviously, like I said, if your instinct is to smooth the ripples and oh my God, this feels uncomfortable, so I better make everybody feel all right Well then, you're a fixed, fond person.
Speaker 1:So, having recognized that about yourself, then lead that conversation to then also begin to recognize what behaviors are associated with this conflict style. And how does that actually? How do those behaviors show up between two or more people when there is a conflicted or contentious subject, so that you can catalog oh yeah, we're doing the hey, you know. The next time it shows up it's like oh, we're doing the thing, we're doing the thing where we are in our conflict styles and the rational adults have left the room, they're not here anymore, and it's just a bunch of like conflict styles that are just bumping up against each other or trying to bounce out of here or what have you. So then hopefully, one person has enough resolve and calm in them to say, hey, maybe we take a break for a bit, because we just have our conflict styles in the room right now. We don't have any wise, rational adults running the show, so maybe we take a break and we come back in, because these are the behaviors that we've identified in the past. Ah, yeah, I mean that could be useful. And then on top of it and again, all of these preparatory conversations ideally would happen when everybody's calm, so you're not in a triggered state, right, so you can learn before the emotionally laden, potentially triggering situation shows up. So you have the benefit of having done a lot of this foundational work so that when you are tested, when you are put inside the crucible, then you are ready to pull out the tools and say, ah yeah, we talked about this, right.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes you also need to map out what issues or what people trigger your conflict style, and some of it's going to be obvious. I mean, if you have somebody that, for whatever reason, comes completely unhinged and is yelling in your face, I mean that's not much of a stretch to figure out that that's going to. You know it's going to elicit an equal and opposite response, or maybe not opposite, but you know some sort of response to either fight, flee, freeze or fix FON. But other issues are subtler. Perhaps the financials are starting to come back and it's looking like oh I don't know, are we going to hit the targets this quarter? Or, potentially, maybe there's a major customer that's talking about taking it somewhere else, starting to feel threatened, starting to feel kind of tight feeling some scarcity in here, starting to feel kind of tight feeling some scarcity in here, starting to get a little antsy.
Speaker 1:And we're looking for some of those precursor elements. Not just full-blown screaming, that one's obvious. But having a discussion with yourself, with a spouse, with your team around, yeah, what have we noticed about ourselves? What issues tend to set us on edge? The difference between sales and operations. Oftentimes the ops folks are like sales quit, writing checks that we cannot cash, and sales is like what do you mean? This is my job. My job is to go tell customers that we can do the thing All right. So there's going to be this, this element of tension.
Speaker 1:And where is it that you have healthy tension and where is it that you have destructive tension? What is the tipping point where it goes overboard? And each group gets to figure that out for themselves. What is the threshold at which, hey, we need to slow things down, or we need to hire more people, or we need to hire more people, or we need to bring on more equipment, or I don't know right? I don't know your circumstances, but I do know that having a conversation, when you're in a grounded place, to begin to capitalize on awareness of, yeah, what sets us off?
Speaker 1:Where do things start, feeling tight, so that you can bring that into the moment when you actually are under stress and not thinking as clearly as you would like to be, and then ultimately to get to a place where you can grow beyond resorting to conflict style in the first place. You know, I sometimes have people that say, oh well, I'd much rather be a fighter than a fixed-fond person. Why, why is that better? Oh well, you know at least, then I'm winning the argument. No, you're not. You're not winning the argument. You're yelling at someone until they go away, or they just appease you so that you shut up, but you're not actually resolving the real conflict.
Speaker 1:Now, it can be confusing sometimes, because sometimes fighters actually get the end product that they're looking for, but there's still a rift in the relationship the end product that they're looking for. But there's still a rift in the relationship and over time that rift tends to grow to the point where they don't end up getting the end product that they were looking for. And what's also pretty interesting is you push a flee person or a freeze person or a fix fond person enough, and then you will bring out the demon in them. Enough, and then you will bring out the demon in them. You will find a fighter who has nothing to lose, and that person is going to be a handful, let me tell you. So, ultimately, it's good to get to a place where you can grow beyond that conflict style. But you can't grow beyond it if you don't know what triggers it in the first place.
Speaker 1:But part of that discussion, part of that productive discussion, is to, as a group or at the very least as an individual, to ask yourself Huh yeah, what are the main narratives that I tell myself that cause me to spin out or spin up or whatever makes more sense to you? Are those narratives true? If they are true, what mitigating countermeasures can I put in place? And you don't? I mean it doesn't have to be an exhaustive list, but at least putting some thought and some bullet points down in your notes or however. I mean, if you don't take notes, then I don't know. Make a mental note or whatever. I don't know, make a mental note or whatever, but to get to a place where you have an understanding of. Oh yeah, it seems that when I get poked in this particular way, then this part of me shows up and is there a way for me to see beyond that knee-jerk reaction? And also, you know, while we're on the subject of what part of you shows up, recognize that most people demonstrate all four. It may not be all four with the same person, with the same person.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago I coached a former Navy SEAL and he swore up and down that he was all about fight and loved it, loved fighting. And it turned out that with he'd been in more than one marriage, that with his wives he actually was more of a fixed fond person, that he saved all of his fixed fond for his partner, and there were many reasons for that, not least of which was he didn't feel like fight was the appropriate response to somebody that was smaller and weaker physically than him, and so it was really instructive for him to be able to recognize oh, huh. Yeah, I have an image of myself as being a fighter, and that is a true image in all these other places, but with this particular person I actually go into Fix Fon, and part of what was so instructive for him was he actually had a fair amount of distaste well, disgust for Fix Fon and then for him to realize that he actually did it himself. That was an interesting conversation for him to have and he began to see the judgments that he had placed on other people who engaged in Fix Fawn, and it helped him gain a greater sense of empathy for some of these other individuals, which then led to more productive conversations because he recognized oh yeah, I've been connected to that, whereas previously he just thought he was on some sort of superior level by showing up as the fighter. But then in all instances having to recognize huh, maybe I don't so much want to be connected to a conflict style when trying to actually resolve something.
Speaker 1:One other dynamic that I missed earlier that I think might be worth mentioning is when it comes to boundary preservation. To boundary preservation, the fighter and the stonewaller freeze type are really the only two that do a strong job of maintaining their boundary. The fighter, because they bring the fight to you. The stonewaller, freeze type, because they just lock everything out. But the fix and fawn person. And then the flee person. They don't tend to defend their boundaries that well. They just kind of abdicate for a while, they leave, they let the invading army just kind of burn the fields and all that and they take off and then they sort of come back and part of the mismatch there is. Again. You're not actually discussing what's really happening, you're not really engaging in the true dynamic that is affecting the individuals. So I should have roped that in earlier.
Speaker 1:My apologies, but growing beyond your conflict style is really about trying to figure out how do you get that calm, rational adult self back online. Part of that is going to be looking at why is it that the calm, rational adult should be back online? And in most cases it's about we want to resolve this issue, we want to improve our processes. We don't want to keep running up against this issue time and time and time again. Or, alternatively, we don't want to spend the bandwidth on having to placate different people's egos on a certain issue, whether it's the yeller fighter person or whether it's the super sensitive. Well, I guess they're both super sensitive. But the other end of the expression spectrum, the fighter, can be super sensitive, the one that's withdrawn can be super sensitive, the one that's tried to leave the room can be super sensitive. But you don't actually end up making real business progress if you're constantly having to cater to different people's egos.
Speaker 1:You need people to be in a grounded place and to be able to quote, unquote, hang in the pocket to use an American football term when the tension starts to mount. And again, if you're going to be in a competitive marketplace, you better believe that you're going to be facing tension. And it's possible that in order to facilitate that conversation, that you might need to bring somebody in. I happen to know a guy and, make no mistakes, that conversation is probably going to be uncomfortable, even if you're doing it from a calm, grounded place. I have yet to meet the group of people who can discuss conflict styles without getting a little sense of agitation because of the fact that so often it implicates our child selves and we start to rub up against that and put pressure on that. People get squirrely. But in the long run, having those conversations helps clarify, helps provide awareness, helps provide empathy and can foster the seeds, of bonding and pulling together and really truly knowing each other as a team, not just your function. Speaking of function, what a wonderful segue. I didn't even plan that one. Amazing If you are the team leader and you have people in conflict, people on your team that are in conflict with one another, so this is not so much you are in conflict with one of them, but they are in conflict with themselves.
Speaker 1:So subordinate A and subordinate B are not getting, they're not seeing eye to eye on something. If you are the team leader, you have to ask yourself are you the referee or parent that has to constantly adjudicate disagreements between team members? Is it your job to ensure that everybody quote-unquote plays nice together, or is it your job to build a culture where the people who report to you learn how to resolve most differences by themselves? I advocate for the latter, and what I've seen is in various organizations, the team leader whether that's the CEO or a vice president or a president or whatever they often actually do instinctively view their role as the person who's supposed to arbitrate the disagreements amongst their team, and in some ways, it feels very validating and affirming like oh, look what I just did. I created harmony on my team and now we're all pulling in the same direction again.
Speaker 1:But what it also does is it creates a real bottleneck and the team falls into learned helplessness, learned helplessness, helplessness ah, what a tongue twister. Helplessness in the sense of okay. You have then trained them that anytime that they can't see eye to eye and anytime that it's not an almost an automatic yep, I agree that they're going to require you to be in the mix in order to make sure that it gets resolved, and you really have to ask yourself, if you're the team leader, do you want to be in the middle of that indefinitely? I mean, sure, if you do it once or twice, that's not a big deal, but you have to envision what is the trajectory that we are on. And am I training them with my behavior to simply come to me every time there's a disagreement, versus working it out amongst themselves?
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that you, just as soon as you listen to this episode, you're like ah, I got you, sean. And then the next time that you know subordinates come to you with the disagreement, you're like F off, figure it out. That's not what I'm saying. You know, if there is an established track record of you being the referee or the parent quote unquote that resolves these differences, then you might have to lay some groundwork around. Hey, I've noticed this pattern that I allowed myself to fall into and unfortunately that pattern has affected you and I'm going to start changing that pattern and I want to promote an environment where you all figure out how to work through your disagreements.
Speaker 1:And so, again, there may be some discussions around conflict styles and how do you resolve conflict and how do you actually have a civil conversation when there are very passionate views held on multiple sides of an argument?
Speaker 1:And again, how do we as a team promote a culture that says intelligent minds may disagree? And how do we always try to cue ourselves into being willing to see an issue from the other person's perspective, knowing that that does not necessarily mean that we will agree? And I think that a lot of people out there have that belief that if I see this issue from your perspective, that somehow that's going to water down my argument and you're going to con me, or you're going to con me or you're going to witch doctor me into agreeing with you, when I actually want to actually maintain this other perspective. I promise you you can have empathy for the other person. You can recognize that they're facing pressures of their own, that they have incentives that are not aligned with your incentives, even though we are on the same team, and you can see the pressure that they're under and have empathy for that, and still have a different opinion about how to move forward. You're not just going to get brainwashed because you happen to see the other person's perspective. What it may do is it may actually help both of you recognize where there's potentially more common ground or more mutual support that can be offered in terms of creating a resolution.
Speaker 1:But I digress, going back to the team leader part, you really have to ask yourself if we stay on this trajectory, what does it mean? Am I going to hamstring or hobble my team in the long run, even though I feel like I'm doing them a service in the short run? And I think that's part of what makes leadership such a difficult endeavor is that we are always attempting to balance the good for right now versus good for tomorrow or the future, and we don't know. There's no answer key. So I have a lot of empathy for you if you are in that situation, because it's hard. That's it for tonight. Hopefully this was useful for you, and if it was, I would love it. If you would like, subscribe, share, follow, you know, like all the internet stuff, or don't you know? It's totally up to you, and until next time, take care of each other.
