Transcript
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Speaker: I recommend that you use the link in the description to visit zencaster.com and take advantage of the built-in discount. Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Speaker: I am your host, Michael Millward. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am talking to Ursula Taylor, a conflict resolution consultant, about how to effectively and efficiently navigate and resolve conflicts without the need to resorting to litigation.
Speaker: Ursula is based in Chicago, Illinois. It is a city that I have visited. If I ever get the chance to go again, i will be making my travel arrangements at the Ultimate Travel Club.
Speaker: Because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I get to pay trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
Speaker: I have added a link with a built in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills it is time to make an episode of the Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
Speaker: and probably also good enough to share with your friends, family, and work colleagues. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Speaker: Hello, Ursula. Hi, Michael. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure. Could we start, please, by you explaining a little bit about your journey from being an attorney to being a conflict resolution consultant? Yeah, it's been an evolution.
Speaker: And ah the common thread is is that I've always wanted to help my clients, help my clients do things more efficiently, do it better, be stronger and sharper and execute more readily in terms of the underlying business functions, the goal. What what are you trying to do? what are you trying to make or create? How are you trying to serve your clients? And in litigation process, as I came along in my career from a young associate to owning my own law firm, i came to understand that litigation process is kind of an aberration from that straight line to achieving results and and having success. it's It's a distraction and a drain. i came into what I do now because
Speaker: It really was the same path of wanting to help my clients do things better, do things faster, grow faster. You know, I didn't come into law or even the the beginning of this consultancy planning on doing things the way the way I'm doing and um addressing it the way I address it. But I want to help people get results and be better and be more successful.
Speaker: So that's that's really the common thread. My own solicitor has said to me here in the UK about the importance of having a contract and documenting the things that you are agreeing that someone else is going to do for you and what you're going to do and how you're going to measure success. And with my ah HR professionals hat on, I very often say, well, an ah HR policy... procedure, call it what you will, is about deciding what might happen at some point in the future and how you might deal with that so that everyone knows what the rules are and what will happen if you follow the rules and what will happen if you don't follow the rules. But just because it's on paper, I suppose, doesn't mean to say that everyone shares the same understanding.
Speaker: That's right. You can spend a lot of time and money on contracts and contracts are important and having ah a common intention is important. But here's the thing that 17 years of litigation taught me. it It doesn't matter how many words you put into a contract or how many lawyers you help to help you draft the conflict.
Speaker: if If two countervailing sides have, have ah you know, sort of devolved the relationship, they're they're at odds and there's an emotional charge, and they're sort of out to get each other, if you will, it doesn't really matter what you put in your conflict or in your contract, I'm sorry. And here's the the other piece.
Speaker: If there's something worth litigating, you've already lost. So just because you might have the better contract language or the slightly stronger case in in your mind or even in the mind of of the tribunal or the court,
Speaker: if you have to go through a long, expensive, protracted litigation, then you've lost. And so yes so what I would say is that while the advice that you're receiving about contracts is important, where there's something even more important that's that's more powerful and more effective and in terms of getting your results. And that is the the ability to release the emotional charge that comes up and and the and just the overall health of your relationship with the other side.
Speaker: Yes, I totally agree with you. It's almost like, yes, we've got a contract, but if you ever have to get it out of the file to find out what it says, you're already on that slippery slope to being in a state of conflict.
Speaker: And it's interesting about the emotional side of things as well. When things go wrong, you don't have the same logic to the situation that you might have had when things go right. You're There's all sorts of different emotions that come into that. And I suppose that must form ah quite a major part of your role. Exactly. Yeah. I refer to it as the emotional charge. It takes away your clarity. It takes away your ability to make decisions from a sense of grounded, neutral rationality, you know, when you're amped up.
Speaker: And it's it's all right to get the contract out and look at it. But there's two parts that need to be taken care of. There's understanding the contract and the intention of the parties and sort of the practical strategies. But then you also have to take care to understand what emotional charge might be driving you and then infecting the other person as well.
Speaker: Yes. So one emotion drives a similar or contra emotion in someone else. And that's what causes the the real destruction type of Listening to you, yeah I'm saying the same sort of things to line managers in organizations. It's like, yes, we have a policy, we have a process. If that policy and process isn't embedded in the way in which you behave, then you won't know how to follow it because it'll be alien to you as an individual.
Speaker: And also having conversations with people where I say, like, you could have dealt with this months ago and it all have been resolved. We've reached the point now where you can't deal with it logically. The only way in which you're talking about it is in a highly charged emotional way with... swear words and cursing and language that is very aggressive.
Speaker: And that's not the right sort of situation to be in when you need to make important decisions. And it's going to get expensive. You are going to have said something to someone, which will mean even from an employment perspective, they could take you to a tribunal and it's going to get expensive. So calm down. Right, right.
Speaker: Right. The is this the business case is there when you understand what litigation is and what it is not and what it costs, and the lack of certainty, the lack of control in the bill, ah the business case for trying to approach these things differently. is is easy. It's very easy. People just don't understand how.
Speaker: Yeah. When we talk about approaching this differently, is it more common for one party in the dispute to come to you or do both parties in the dispute come to you and say, we need help sorting out this issue?
Speaker: I generally work with one party and that's actually all that's required. There's kind of two main buckets of clients. There's those clients that are in or approaching a litigation or an actual conflict. And then there's clients who who maybe are dealing with internal things and and maybe they wouldn't even use the word conflict. They're just ah maybe navigating interpersonal dynamics and wanting to be stronger teams and and better leaders and wanting the tools and the training to strengthen their relationships.
Speaker: With someone who's got ah a dispute with a provider or supplier or a customer, are they coming to you just before anything is likely to go to court and get start getting really expensive and looking for a resolution that will keep everyone happy, but reduce the costs that are involved?
Speaker: Yes. If they're wise, they are. It's a bit easier to talk to them before the litigation is underway. But i I can and have worked underneath litigation counsel to sort of be the resolution-oriented path, working separately in that regard. But pre-litigation is the better course. And I i have the litigation background. I practiced for 17 years, complex commercial litigation in the United States. Specifically, the last five to seven years or so, I was focused on disputes between health plans and healthcare care providers. So I can speak to it in credible ways. i won't provide legal advice per se, but I can certainly speak to the process and what it gets you and and talk about that. And I think that feels very comfortable to people that like I can speak in that language and and offer perspective on that process from someone who's not trying to get the case, if you will, or land the case or prosecute the case or defend the case. someone who's who's got the information, the background, the knowledge, the perspective, but also has ideas about more holistic ways to deal with it if possible.
Speaker: imagine that the understanding the process from the legal perspective as well does add an awful lot of value into the conciliation process as well. Absolutely. and And there's a lot of misunderstanding about litigation and litigation process. A lot of people operate with the assumption of, well, I'm right and so a judge will tell me. and tell them, and this will all be fixed with a judge because I'm right.
Speaker: And what they don't understand is that what litigation actually is, it's a perpetuation of the underlying emotion. Every dispute is driven by human emotion. And what good trial attorneys are are doing at the core is they're recruiting, they're attempting to recruit that trier of fact, that judge, that jury into the emotional charge. And sell that story. And so it's it's competing, competing emotionally charged dramas.
Speaker: and And that's, and that, it maybe doesn't look and feel that way from afar, because everybody's educated and using big words, and there's laws and But at the end of the day, you wouldn't be litigating if there wasn't some some sort of truth to be had on both sides. And it ends up becoming a contest of emotion.
Speaker: And so the the more efficient and effective way to deal with these disputes is to honor that emotion from the start. Know that this is driven by emotion and deal with the emotion. And from there, get the clarity to actually find the strategic solutions and strategies and paths to reach resolution.
Speaker: Something I was told when I was working in Asia, everyone has an opinion and very rarely is anyone's opinion actually wrong. It's just based upon their perception of the situation. And it's about communicating the different ideas to make sure that everyone can see the issue from as many different perspectives as possible. And the more that you do that, the more likely you are to reach some sort of agreement about what is going to be the best way forward.
Speaker: Right. Right. And it's, it sounds very much like the same type of situation here is that you have two parties involved in dispute. They both have their own perception of that dispute and are convinced that they are in the right.
Speaker: Unfortunately, if you end up in court, you might very well be right, but unless you can convince a jury or a judge or both that you are right, you've lost.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. And lawyers are are good and they're smart and they know what they're doing. They will come up with the counter story. They will come up with the persuasive alignment of the facts. They will find the case to the law. They will make the presentation. And you might have felt like it was open and shut and so obvious, but they'll take this email and they'll turn it on its head and they'll present it in this way with enough money and and and willingness.
Speaker: That willingness comes from the emotion, but with enough of an appetite for it, Smart good lawyers are trained to find the other side of every situation and they'll do it and they'll do it well. yeah These things aren't are now almost never black and white. This is true. I don't have the numbers and I'm not sure that anyone has ever counted, but there are an awful lot more lawyers in the United States and in the UK than there are conflict resolution consultants.
Speaker: That's true. Why do people go down the conflict resolution through litigation rather than seeking out more people who can do what you can do? That's a great question. And I think we haven't understood it.
Speaker: and think we don't understand and we don't honor and prioritize where human emotion fits into our everyday, every relationship, every workplace, everything we do as a human species. We spent the last chapters in history intellectualizing and getting away from emotion and sort of trying to repress it and keep it to the side. Well, emotion is the problem. So let's come up with a process that's emotionless. So we think, but we're not really doing it. We're just sort of repressing it. And it's still the the driving current of of our tensions and our relationships.
Speaker: We're just not honoring it and dealing with it. yeah You know, we see it in our news, our politics, you know, everything we do. And We're getting to a point in our evolution where it's it's just reaching a breaking point. This idea that are you know in the United States, for instance, that our politics is running on policy, it's not. The sooner we come to understand this, the sooner we can have some change. I'm getting a little off topic here.
Speaker: No, no, no. I think it's a valid point to make is that I sometimes describe it when I'm dealing with a dispute inside an organization of my ah HR career is like, you'll have people who've put their stake in the ground and there's an element of my stake is in the ground and I can't move that until I've proved that it is right.
Speaker: And we have a reluctance as human beings to accept that someone else's perception might have some validity. Someone else's experience might be as important as our experience. It becomes very much, I'm right, you're wrong. This is a competition. I have to win rather than, well, if I listen to you and you explain your perspective, maybe i will learn something. Maybe we will be able to move forward in a much more constructive way. But we are, especially in the West, very much about our stake is in the ground. yeah And you know I'm not budging. yeah
Speaker: I'm not budging until I've been proven that I'm right. And it's ultimately very destructive because no one is an island and the world will move on around you rather than leave you because you've, you've put your stake in the ground and that's where you're standing. Yeah. That's stake in the ground. And it can take us a long time before everything has passed and we're left alone and we're behind and we're not reaching the results or, or, or doing things in in the way we wish. And by that point, we maybe struggled to even understand how our our need for that stake in the ground contributed to the situation. but So that need to be right, that need to make someone wrong, that is an emotional charge that comes from usually some feeling of scarcity or maybe unworthiness or pride or lack. But when you lift that, instead of the The overarching objective being, this is my stake in the ground and I'm right and I'm going to die here proving this. Peel it back and you get to, wait, what do I need? What do I need for my business? What do I need in terms of my objectives that are sort of practical and real for what I want to do in this world, how I want to serve my clients, what I want to create.
Speaker: And then you don't care about the other person because you're just doing your thing. and And things become more clear and you you become sharper and more powerful in terms of being able to find your strategies and navigate the situations. That's really interesting because what you're talking about there is much more about what you need. You're in a conflict situation and you can either go down about the route of what I want, which is the emotional stage, the aggressive stage.
Speaker: arrogance some people might say approach or you can go right we're in this situation how do we create a win-win out of it we create a win-win by focusing on what we need not buying what we want so we need to make sure that our bill is paid we need to make sure that we're not out of pocket and internalize it more rather than i'm going to show you that you were wrong it's like what do i need to leave this this situation with Right, right.
Speaker: We need to make sure the bill is paid. Like, are we saying it like that? Is that the energy? We need to make sure that the bill is paid. Or is it something like, we need to make sure the bill is paid. Is it like, what is the energy that's emanating? Because that affects your counterpart.
Speaker: That emotional charge will affect everything you do. The kind of the steps in the process and where I try to get clients is I try to get them to Find that emotional charge, and it can be that can be hard to do sometimes, depending on the people. Find it, and then release that emotional charge, and then get them to a place where they can answer the question in a more grounded and clear way. The question being, what do I need?
Speaker: And the answer being something that relates to your actual business function and goals. Yes. Is there a favorite case, the one that you think, yeah, did a really good job there?
Speaker: I mean, I think the ones where I did a really good job required less time and less overall efforts. And the ones that required more of me just took more time. So I mean, the best ones that feel the best is when when people can just call me and just do like one session. And I kind of, they're already partway there. They just need someone to help them see it in the ways that, you know, they it's sort of underlying, but it's a little bit muted. And I kind of help them just
Speaker: just find those feelings and release them and get some clarity. And then I don't hear from them again. Those are the best, really. i mean, they're not, they're maybe not the best for my bottom line, but those are, those are the best. The people are sort of open. They get it.
Speaker: They're sort of doing, and and some of what I talk about in their personal lives, but they haven't fully brought it into their workplace. Those are really great. Yeah. So you're good talking about that, the almost like you're holding someone's hand through the last stages of the process or being the second opinion to say, yeah, this is a good approach to take, that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're sort of there and I just help them clear some of the debris and they get some clarity. And I can usually intuit pretty quickly where the emotional charge is and where they're holding it and kind of help them lead them into it. And they're open enough and they're calling me, sometimes they are, that they can kind of find that and realize it. I was on ah on the phone yesterday with someone.
Speaker: He was kind of charged, right? And he was talking about dealing with his business partners and he was wanting, they were feeling like he wasn't showing up in the ways that they wanted him to. And he was feeling like as the founder of the company, that the real pressure of payroll and the real pressure of the bottom line is all on him. and he's like, I want to turn this on its head and pass this pressure to them. Cause he was little defensive that they, you know, didn't like that. He wasn't working on things the way, the way they wanted him to. And he's like, well, someone's gotta run the company. So we wanted to turn it on its head and pass the pressure to them. We spent a little time talking about kind of that and the feelings underlying it.
Speaker: And where we came out with this, he wants to share the responsibility. He wants to shifting it into something that's empowering. That's orienting them as a team. Let's share the responsibility.
Speaker: of the financials and the revenue and the payroll and the things of that nature. It's more unifying, but it it required dealing with what was underlined was his defensiveness. What I saved him from was a caustic partners meeting between the sort of partners of the company where they sort of pointed fingers and one person accused him of not doing x And then he came back i was like, I'm going to pass this pressure. Let's reframe it in a way that's unifying because the end of the day, they want, they want all the same things, which is to grow and have success.
Speaker: I can see how you're helping people to reframe the situation, look at it from a slightly different perspective in order to create something that is a much more feasible, more effective and efficient solution to the dilemma that they're facing.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's about finding that emotional charge and releasing that and then coming into something that's more unifying and grounded. It's, it's, it's not that hard. It requires a willingness and an openness and a participation. Sometimes it's, it it takes more time and a little more involved, but I can almost always get there. If I'm dealing with someone who's open to what I have to say, we can almost always get there.
Speaker: What are the characteristics of someone who comes to you and you're thinking, this is not going to work? What, what sort of things do they present themselves with or as, or? Yeah, that's a great question. I think somebody who, um you know, and this will happen and that I'll have a ah team that's five people and three are very open and and two are are not, right? two in Those two, they're just really, um they just operate from a lot of fear.
Speaker: You know, they're they're controlled. You know, I kind of sometimes joke about how people can fit into two categories, although it's more of a spectrum, I would say. You have the control the universe type people who think they get what they want by controlling every person and situation in their site. And then you have the flow with universe people who sort of understand that knowing where they where they can have influence and where they cannot is their sort of greatest asset.
Speaker: And so when you're dealing with someone who's very much a control the universe, pure fear, it's ultimately fear, really. It can come off as... um powerful, strong individual who's in a leadership position. But when you have that need to to sort of control everything and everyone, that's a huge limitation ultimately to ennia leader and team. And when I see someone one who's in that space, just completely um completely not open and sort of closed off, tightly white knuckle gripping, whatever it is that they're holding on to,
Speaker: That can be challenging, but then the strategies just kind of shift to doing what we can with that person and then really helping the others to understand that person's actual limitations.
Speaker: It doesn't require everyone in the room. It doesn't require both sides of a dispute. You can you can do the work with just one. Yeah, yeah but it's and just again you I suppose you've got to understand that that person's story and there probably isn't anyone that you couldn't work with, but you have to work with people in different ways depending upon what their story is.
Speaker: Exactly. You create spaces to, and I'll give an example, where as I'm working with ah a team of executive leaders, there's one who he's ah he's he's a little bit tougher, I would say, to get through and deal with, but there is a side to him that's very human. And he did share some some vulnerable things about sort of his his early years and when he was ah a younger person in college and and really struggling financially and his girlfriend was pregnant and he felt a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.
Speaker: And, and that, that very human story is something that I will remind his colleagues of. Right. i'm like Well, remember, guys, this person's trigger. It's he's, you know, still thinks he's bussing tables in college with the pregnant girlfriend. And I do that. I do that not to justify his behavior or or what he may have said or done. I do that to remind them that he's operating in his charge.
Speaker: And so the choice point that they then have is to energize it by resisting and arguing against it. energize it by participating in it and saying, you're absolutely right. Let's all freak out right now. Or they can remember that he's operating from some of this and they can find their own energy from themselves and not perpetuate it by reacting to it.
Speaker: So that kind of awareness building around each other and then the, you know, cultivating sort of a practice of boundaries becomes really important. Yeah. Sounds like you've got some really interesting work. It's a lot of fun. I do enjoy it. If there are other people who'd like to find out more about what you do as well, where should they go? What's your website address?
Speaker: Yeah, my website is just www.conflictreimagined.com. You can find me there. Shoot me a link through my form. Great stuff. Ursula, I could talk to you, think, for hours about this, but for today, our time is up, I'm afraid, but to hopefully you'll come back again. Thank you very much for a very interesting episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you, Michael.
Speaker: Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Ursula Taylor, who is a conflict resolution consultant. You can find out more information about both of us by using the links in the description.
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Speaker: I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Ursula and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
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Speaker: Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.
