Transcript
Speaker: The Voice of Growth, mastering the mind and market. Timeless wisdom, proven strategies, and the deep work that creates lasting success. Like and subscribe to stay aligned with what truly drives results.
Speaker: Welcome to the Voice of Growth podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. My name is Manny Turan, and I'm your host. There's one thing at the center of your life that you don't even know is dictating your success, your joy, your ability to move forward, your ability to lead.
Speaker: It's not intelligence. It's not wisdom. It's not charm. It's not money. It's not good looks. It's conflict. Whether you know it or not, conflict has been at the center of your life in the highs and the lows.
Speaker: Every failed relationship, every failed business dealing, every thing you've struggled with, conflict. Every successful relationship, every successful business dealing, conflict.
Speaker: Your ability to work through conflict, regular conflict. is a defining thing in your success. There is something called high conflict, which is when things explode, when things break down, that is not healthy.
Speaker: And we're going to avoid that at all costs. But today's podcast is really at the intersection of mind and market. Because as a leader, as somebody who's achieving higher things in life, you really want to understand conflict and become not only familiar with it, but more powerfully comfortable with it.
Speaker: You see, as little kids, we're taught to avoid conflict. We're taught to make friends. We're taught to smooth things out all the time.
Speaker: Sometimes to the detriment of our own self. Conflict is inevitable. High conflict is optional.
Speaker: We're going to work through that and understand why it's so important to not let things fester, not let things get to the point where they actually break down. In life, we are not really taught how to agree or disagree.
Speaker: It's something that I wish we did a better job at in a society, in a business domain. And in today's podcast, we're going to break it down into understanding really what it takes to get through this.
Speaker: I love acronyms. I love mnemonic devices, things that help me remember. Um, we've talked about bias. There's something called bowling, which we'll get to another podcast.
Speaker: We'll talk about the five M's of building a blank space team, another time for another podcast. Today's mnemonic device is called CALM. c a l m The C is for catch it early.
Speaker: This is an important set of skills that you need to develop in order to understand when things begin to unravel.
Speaker: The next thing is ask before you assume. We've all heard that term about assume what it does to you and me. Assuming in these situations can be devastating.
Speaker: So we need to learn how to ask the right questions. The next one is listen for the understory. There's a story that's being told, but there's an understory that is really driving that conversation.
Speaker: The last one is make the system better. Because as we'll understand, even though sometimes that conflict is between two people,
Speaker: What really defines the success is what is that system around the conflict? The system is me, you, the problem, what's around it, the culture, it's all put together and that's the system.
Speaker: And that understanding what that looks like and making that better is your job as a leader. So why does conflict matter? Because every relationship has levels of negotiation.
Speaker: I want Chinese food. She wants a burger. So in that situation, super low stakes, right? Fine. I'll have a burger or she'll whatever. Not a big deal, but as things start to escalate, the silence is the killer.
Speaker: So say for instance, that same situation, for whatever reason, nine times out of 10, she gets her way. So I begin to build in some resentment. I get some issues like, well, when do I get when I want? And so that silence is where things start to break down until they don't, until they become loud, until they explode.
Speaker: the The what's for dinner is very low stakes, but if you're talking about a dynamic in a company where people's livelihoods are at stake, where raises and promotions and all these things are center stage, conflict can create massive issues such that that avoidance becomes so costly that eventually it breaks down.
Speaker: Leadership is tested. Not in agreement when things are good, but in disagreement when there are opposing sides where there are elements where you need to step in and fix things.
Speaker: But that fix doesn't always happen successfully because by that time it's too late. So the first thing, letter c Catch it early.
Speaker: Catching it early is what's going to prevent that high conflict, the explosions. You see, conflict starts in silence.
Speaker: It starts with people being quiet. They stop asking questions. They start putting, they stop putting forward their ideas. And then one day they quit.
Speaker: That silence is resignation. They've given up. They're basically done. so So conflict is noisy. Conflict is conversation. Conflict is maybe maybe slightly elevated voices.
Speaker: Again, you don't want that high conflict. But conflict is going to have some level of push and pull. And so your ability to catch it early is extremely important.
Speaker: So here's how you do that. You got to ask yourself, what, and this is, I'm going to ask, put this in a, um like you're looking at conflict unfold in front of you.
Speaker: What conversations are being avoided in this situation? Is there something we're not talking about? Who has stopped telling the truth? Who is leaning into things they normally don't lean into?
Speaker: Who is now agreeing with everything that you should not agree with everything? What are these micro clues that you see because the clues are in the context. If you have a team you've worked with for a while and now you see a different dynamic unfolding, there's likely some level of conflict under the hood.
Speaker: If you've just started working with somebody, it's going to be a little bit harder. And so that's where the next one of asking questions comes into play. But you want to see where things are happening and you want to bring it out into the open before it festers.
Speaker: Sometimes if you have a group dynamic and you see that there's issues happening, it may be important for you to take that a certain person aside and ask them later what's happening. Hey man, what's going on?
Speaker: What brings us to the next one is A, ask before you assume. So by doing so, you're asking questions, you're not making assumptions, and you're gonna leverage the tools that I've mentioned before by Chris Voss, particularly tactical empathy.
Speaker: This is the idea where you're actively being empathetic. You're trying to understand and you're losing things like labels, like the word seemed. It seems like you're upset.
Speaker: It seems like during that meeting, you had something to say, but you didn't want to say it. It seems like, it seems like, it seems like. What that does, it gives the other person the signal that you're actually listening, that you're paying attention.
Speaker: you You want to be curious. Curiosity over certainty, 100%. So you want to ask questions and you want to do it in a way that doesn't create a trigger in the other person.
Speaker: So you want them to feel understood. And it starts with you having that curiosity, understanding that they They have something to say, but they don't feel safe enough to say it.
Speaker: There's three elements that need to be kept at the center of all this conversation. You want to communicate, build that communication, make it stronger, make it more effective.
Speaker: You want to build trust. That means that when you say something, they understand that you mean it and vice versa. And the last one is respect slash love.
Speaker: They're kissing cousins, right? If you're in ah in a romantic relationship, you can call love. But you want to respect that other person. You want them to feel respected and know that you respect them.
Speaker: And by giving them that field to communicate with and in, you're showing that you respect them. By lowering your voice, by keeping the tone down, you're showing that you respect them.
Speaker: Very important. You want to use things like, that's right. rather than you're right or I'm right. You want to use these calibrated questions to understand and draw from them the elements that they want to give you, but are are afraid to.
Speaker: Safety is king and safety is right in the fairway of communication, trust, and respect. Safety is that glue that holds all those together. Because if they feel unsafe to share their feelings because of how you might react, not good.
Speaker: So these are things that need to be center stage in understanding questions. And you want to seek to understand, not to respond or even react. That's the worst.
Speaker: The L stands for listen for the understory. So there's a story at play. There's something there, whether, hey, I didn't get my raise. Well, hey, I didn't get that promotion. Hey, I didn't get that that project. Whatever that is, is on the surface level. That's the story.
Speaker: But the understory, the undercurrent, what's really driving that boat is respect, fear, uncertainty, more basic issues than than the top story, right?
Speaker: And what happens is as human beings, we tend to show that strong face, the shield comes up, but behind that shield is somebody who's scared, who doesn't want to disappoint their family, who told their their buddies, their college buddies, they were gonna get a promotion, but they didn't. So now they feel embarrassed. Whatever it is, these human emotions are what drives the ship.
Speaker: That's the understory. So in your process of seeking to understand, listen to that understory. What is happening back there? Even make notes. Think about it. What is there that's not being told?
Speaker: What is that unmet need? Are they avoiding something? So you want to get to the heart of it because when you do, then you can understand how to make the system better, which is the next one.
Speaker: Make the system better, which is really at the center of this whole tool set. You wanna do things.
Speaker: Action is what actually accomplishes things. You can talk, you can listen, you can make notes, you can ask all the questions, you can do everything, but unless you actually make the system better, it is for nothing.
Speaker: So people often think that the conflict ends when the argument ends. You guys stopped arguing and you shake hands and you go forward.
Speaker: You think that, oh, okay, we're done. Not at all. Because that conflict can live in the silence. It can live in the gray.
Speaker: I've seen it play out. I've seen repeated conflict come in and come out in the same dynamic. There's conflict. There's some level of patching, ah ah not ah not a solid patch, but just like a little light patch.
Speaker: Things are good. it feels good to be done with that argument. You shake hands, go have lunch. And then two weeks later, it happens again. So the system is broken. So in doing that exercise over and over again, you get tired of it and it begins to to bend that metal to the point where eventually it breaks.
Speaker: the They quit or they decide to go a different direction or they they resign themselves in that quiet resign resignation where they're no longer actively trying to take the company to the next level. They're just like status quo, not a good thing.
Speaker: The system is represented by the the pieces of the system. right So if one of the gears is not working, the entire system is not going to work. You got to start off by clarifying roles. What are your roles? What are my roles? And we can just bring those to the table so that where there's no mystery.
Speaker: of what we're working towards. And we also need to understand what those incentives are. Could be monetary incentive, could be something else, but there's something that they're trying to gain by winning, quote unquote, the conflict.
Speaker: What are they trying to gain? That goal, if you're able to put it on the table and give it a name and give it a, um,
Speaker: almost like a metric, here's what we need to achieve, then that helps the conversation, that that removes the gray. If I want something and you want something and they're mutually opposed, that is like the center stage of conflict.
Speaker: But there could be something else that is in a different position. I once did this really cool exercise with a negotiation expert um that came in to one of my Vistage organizations and did this thing.
Speaker: And he gave half of the people in the room this piece of paper about what we're trying to go for. We were in the orange juice business and we are trying to get the juice from the the supplier. So there's actually three teams. There's two teams and then like the person that has the oranges.
Speaker: And so the other side of the of the people had... a need for the rind. They were doing some orange oil and they needed the rinds to, to process into making orange oil.
Speaker: So your idea is to negotiate for the best price with the supplier. And you're basically going up against this person and you're, you've got a certain amount of fake money that you're trying to, to work.
Speaker: So the idea is if you communicate, if you understand what each person's goals are, what they're trying to achieve. and you communicate in the right way, you'll understand that, hey, I'm interested in the juice.
Speaker: I don't want the rind. And they're interested in the rind and they don't care about the the juice. So if we work together and we communicate, we can actually go forward and get the best deal for everybody.
Speaker: Massive, massive win. There's a guy named W. Edwards Deming who was really one of the drivers of the success of the Japanese manufacturing,
Speaker: um really a complete change after World War II. So after World War two the Japanese society struggled in manufacturing for about two decades, 15 years, roughly.
Speaker: demings came in Deming came in and he really implemented a lot of things with ah total quality management and other things where he changed the mindset of the Japanese culture to understand that if there is a problem, most of the time it's a systemic problem and not an individual problem.
Speaker: If you've heard about the Toyota way, that was basically Deming's brainchild. The Toyota way is that at every step along the assembly line,
Speaker: If somebody recognizes that there's a problem, especially a systemic problem, they have the ability to pull the chain and stop the entire assembly line.
Speaker: What does this mean? it means you give your employees tremendous amounts of power to understand what's wrong and try to fix it. And by doing the Deming way,
Speaker: And having that ability to stop the entire assembly line, what he did in the employees is he gave them a mindset of total quality management. I own the ultimate success and quality of this car that I'm building.
Speaker: From somebody putting rivets in to somebody putting in the engine, everybody had that ability and everybody was focused on that success. So they really transformed themselves. And of course now Toyota and Lexus in particular are known for the highest quality of any car manufacturer of all time.
Speaker: A Toyota will last, you know, five times longer than many other cars in the same sort of class because of how it's been engineered, because of how it's been ah developed and manufactured.
Speaker: And that's that Deming way. So you want to ask three questions. You want to ask what happened.
Speaker: In that question, you then want to really understand number two, why did this happen? And number three, how can we fix it? So this is really goes back to the communication, goes back to trust, and goes back to respect.
Speaker: Coming into that conversation in the right way, which will include, going to break it down, number one,
Speaker: taking a deep breath. You're going start asking questions like this? You want to take a deep breath. That breath fills your body with endorphins. It makes it more youre relaxed.
Speaker: It brings down the serotonin and gives you that calming effect straight off the bat. Number one is breathe. Number two is don't be defensive.
Speaker: When you ask questions and they give you something back, don't defend. Don't react. Because when you do that, you're setting the stage for a confrontational conversation.
Speaker: the The next thing you do you breathe again.
Speaker: You breathe with intent. Obviously, you're breathing all time, but breathing with intent means you you breathe a little bit longer, you hold it a little bit longer, and that relaxes you and keeps that cadence.
Speaker: It also helps you talk a little lower, little softer. Chris Voss talks and says, it's the late night radio voice, which is a calming, soothing way of talking.
Speaker: Because if I'm talking like this and I'm bringing something to your attention, you're going to be leaning in a little bit. You recognize that by talking lower, you've got to listen a little bit harder.
Speaker: And if I'm talking lower, it means I'm also listening a little bit harder, which sets the stage for a better conversation. Next thing you do is what you don't do.
Speaker: You don't and interrupt. Interrupting is like a wrench in the cog wheel. It's like terrible.
Speaker: I have seen and I have been witness and I've been party conversations that have been completely derailed by interruption. We feel so anxious to be heard. We're yelling and the other person feels the same way. And so all you're doing is you're building your own fortress and nothing's getting across. There's no true understanding happening. It's all just loud words.
Speaker: So when you interrupt, you're showing that person back to these things that you're not really wanting to communicate. You don't really care about resolving this. So the trust is broken.
Speaker: And then you don't respect them because you're interrupting them and you don't really care what they have to say. So in one slice of that samurai sword, you're killing it with the interruption.
Speaker: I have, ah I really struggled with that for a long time in kind of the opposite way than you think. Yeah, don't get me wrong. I have interrupted people. I do get excitable and all that.
Speaker: But because of my culture, because of how I grew up in my situation, my family is when somebody is talking You listen and you you be quiet. You just, you you listen.
Speaker: So I actually started off in the right way. But what happened though, is that other person I'd be arguing with, the conflict partner, would be talking over me. So whenever they talk over me, I would stop talking.
Speaker: And I would just let them take the center stage. And day in, day out, what that would do is that we erode my ability or my sense of being heard. So I fell into that domain of the silent resignation until it blew up.
Speaker: So what really needs to happen is you need to establish some ground rules when you're having these conversations. You can have the fabled talking stick, so only the person with the talk with the stick could talk, but you you could also say, listen, I really want to resolve this. This is really important to me, as I know that it's important to you as well.
Speaker: And in doing so, I believe that sometimes our conversations get heated and we're both very passionate people. So what I really appreciate that we can try our best to not interrupt one another. And when I feel as though maybe I'm being interrupted, I'm going to just put my hand down right here to signal to you that that I was interrupted and and I need my time to talk.
Speaker: Simple as that. When it actually happens, it's more, more dynamic. It may not actually work the same exact way, but I guarantee it will provide a better framework for conversation.
Speaker: So you want to seek to understand. Then rely on your tools, your tactical empathy. seems like also rely on mirroring so you're you're you're repeating the last couple words of what they say.
Speaker: And mean by doing so, you're drawing out more of what is bottled in. When you say, hey Mark, seems like you're really upset at that meeting we just had in the conference room.
Speaker: It appears as though you and and Margie are just at odds. So what you're doing there is you're, you're, see when you say the seems like you're showing to them, you care, you're showing to them that you listen, you're showing to them that you're actually thinking about how they're reacting or living or being.
Speaker: So that provides a stronger bond of communication, trust and respect. Then you want to pause. You want to pause.
Speaker: You want to let them do their thing. And when they're done, you want a slightly awkward pause afterwards. You want a three second pause. You want a five second pause. buy the When you do the pause, you are showing them that you're listening and you're also giving them a chance to really focus back in on what you're going to say.
Speaker: Because if they start stop talking and then you start talking right away, there's no delta there and and they're still sort of in their own mind. The momentum is still there for their their point they're trying to get across.
Speaker: Just pause for three seconds.
Speaker: I understand what you're saying, XYZ. Super powerful tool. These are tools that I've developed over my career. And then now that you see these things on social media coming out, it's kind of validating for me to understand that, hey, these things are actually more widespread than I thought.
Speaker: And you can also even use the word, help me understand. Hey, Mark, help me understand, Why this is so important to you. Now, remember the story and the understory.
Speaker: When you ask that question, they're likely going to answer the story side. Help me understand, Mark, why this is important to you. Well, I was told I'm going to get it promotion and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Speaker: But by listening to the understory, by asking calibrated questions, by really pausing, listening, and being gentle with the conversation, you'll be able to draw out what's really important to them.
Speaker: Is it really the fact that they didn't get the promotion or is it the fact that they now have to go to their family, their friends that they told they would get the promotion that they didn't?
Speaker: Are they now going to be embarrassed? And so, again, you may not be able to have the ability to give them a promotion, but you can work something else out. Maybe you as a leader can create a new lateral move, and lateral promotion, or maybe there's a new project that you can give them that is high status or like a ninja project.
Speaker: There's lots of things you can do to resolve this. And you've got to be curious. Curiosity is ah is a massively important tool that we sometimes, especially as we get older, forget is there.
Speaker: Think about children. We can learn a lot from children. I'm talking seven, eight years eight years old, nine years old. They're curious, they ask questions, they are they look at things intentfully, they see how they work, they push their limits, and they use their tools sometimes, which include having a breakdown, which include throwing a tantrum, which include going in their own silent way away from you.
Speaker: All these things are like a little crucible to consider as you become a leader and an adult, recognizing that children are curious. Children want to understand how things work, but also children have a sense about them that if they don't like something, they're going to let you know.
Speaker: They're going to spit out that that broccoli that they don't like. They're not going to just mince words. So there's a lot to be learned in in that the wisdom of a child. Now, what happens, you know, as they get older, they start to build that fortress around them and things change, but you should remain as curious as you possibly can.
Speaker: And these are elements that, in my opinion, provide for a true leadership style and will eventually create a culture, a system where conflict is seen as healthy.
Speaker: If you've been in a family where there's constant conflict, the system is broken. If you've been in a company where there's constant conflict, the system is broken because that constant conflict means that nothing is getting resolved.
Speaker: If you're in a situation where there's high conflict, there's definitely something broken. and And what happens in that domain is you get people leave. I've seen a healthy relationship, new management comes in massive conflict, that person that used to be jovial and had great ideas becomes silent, becomes ah introverted, doesn't say the ideas anymore.
Speaker: Boom, they quit one day. You don't want that. As a leader, you've got to hold the fort together. You've got to look at people's strengths. One thing we didn't talk about today that I did want to mention is that we all have inherent strengths.
Speaker: I mentioned this in the past about the StrengthsFinder, which is a ah massively powerful tool that you should be using in your business. And we're going to bring in a guest who is an expert in this because we are all formed and all have our own talents. What are we good at?
Speaker: And fundamentally, if you are doing what you do best every day, what your high strengths are, you'll be happier, you'll be more peace with yourself, and you'll be more effective and you'll do better.
Speaker: If you're operating on your lower strengths, things you're not good at, you're going get frustrated, going tired, you're going to get lot of angst and anxiety, and it's not going to be good for anyone.
Speaker: So understanding what people's strengths are is really important. the reason The reason I mention this is that as a leader, you need to be receptive to what each of your reports has to say and respond to them in a manner in which they will better understand. This is very controversial, but it's true.
Speaker: Don't treat everybody equally. Let me say it in a different way. Of course, everybody gets your respect. Of course, everybody has to be communicated in the right way.
Speaker: What I'm saying is that not everything has to be across the board the same way. I'll give you an example. There's a great book called first break all the rules. It's a management book or, um, now break all the rules.
Speaker: Great management book. I learned, uh, these massive tools back in the day. The first thing is that recognizing that people are different and in order to get them to work at their best, you need to help them work on their strengths.
Speaker: You've got two people. You've got one person in New Mexico and one person in Arizona. The one in in New Mexico, she's a sales person. She's killing it. She is above quota.
Speaker: She does her reports on time. She's just amazing. You don't have to worry about her. Guy in Arizona, struggling. 80% of quota, 82. Every once in a while, he gets into the ninety s doesn't do his reports on time, he's dragging his feet, and conventional wisdom would have you say, as a manager, to work with him, get him to a better place, stay on top of him, X, Y, Z.
Speaker: But the data shows the opposite. The data shows you you should work with her to make her from here to 2X, to 8X, to 10X, because she's got the capacity and she's operating in her flow state. She's operating in her strengths.
Speaker: Whereas the other person struggling. They're probably in the wrong role. So you can either let them go, put them in a new role, or create a system around them to help them operate in their flow state.
Speaker: I was that guy, by the way. I was the sales guy in Arizona that was struggling and 80% of quota, this and that, because i wasn't I didn't have the right system in place and the right things around me that once I did, I excelled like crazy.
Speaker: But I would get stuck in the weeds. I would get stuck in the reports so that I'd spend all my time in the reports rather than out with the customers, understanding their problems, working on my tactical empathy, all those things that I do really well, but I had to let go of certain of the more operational elements.
Speaker: And once I did that, it was a game changer. So to round out today, Remember that conflict is healthy. You as a leader have the imperative ah goal to to build a system in place, a culture where conflict can be resolved and is part of the natural course of things.
Speaker: Avoid high conflict at all costs, which means you've got to remain calm, which is catching that whatever's happening early. So it doesn't ah fester and blow up eventually.
Speaker: It's asking those questions and don't make those assumptions. Very important. It's learning about what the true element is, the understory, listening for it, and not necessarily relying on what you see on top of the table. And then lastly, making the system better.
Speaker: Spending the time, investing the time, making those decrees, making those elements of um what you're doing in culture, codifying it and putting it into employee manual,
Speaker: but remembering that culture is what really really is king and then staying focused on developing your team. I've said it many times. For me, my three goals as as a CEO is to set and execute the vision of the company.
Speaker: To block and tackle, meaning I provide for whatever elements my employees need to make them do what they do best every day. And number three is to dev develop my employees, to find ways that they can actually become better at what they do, better human beings. And I really care. I really care about my employees. I care about people.
Speaker: And you've got to have that if you want to be a successful business person. Appreciate your time. I hope this actually will help move the needle and have you see conflict as a powerful tool rather than something you should avoid.
Speaker: Thanks for your time. Cheers.
