Transcript
Speaker: Action. Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the me for the we. Phil Jackson. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches Podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. Today is all about conflict.
Speaker: I'm going to bring up a children's book. It's called There Is No Such Thing as a Dragon. In this story, a boy wakes up with a tiny dragon underneath his bed in his room. Nobody believes in parents, brother, nobody.
Speaker: And so nobody deals with the dragon. And it grows and grows and grows. And the boy's acknowledging it, but the family is ignoring it. And nobody wants to deal with it. And by lunchtime, the dragon is the size of the house taking everything over and still no one wants to deal with it. This is a great metaphor for conflict on your team right now.
Speaker: Every locker room has small dragons. A missed rep called out the wrong way. A freshman who feels talked over. Two seniors who want the ball in their hands during crunch time and then the other one does not make the shot.
Speaker: Left alone, these small dragons become big ones, but handled early, and it's just another Tuesday. Today's episode is a toolkit for team captains and peer-to-peer leadership. Five conflict styles your teammates are already using, whether they know it or not, and a tool for you so that way you can catch these dragons while they're still small.
Speaker: I want to start by reframing conflict. Conflict is not the enemy. This is a mindset shift. We're not going to ignore stuff, bury our head in the sand, dust stuff underneath the rug. No, we're going to address it.
Speaker: Conflict isn't a sign your team is broken. Conflict is a sign your team is full of people who care and give a damn. Teams that never disagree usually aren't being being honest with each other or held to any kind of standard.
Speaker: So where you say brushed under the rug, they're just ignoring it because it's not their problem. And your job as captain isn't to make conflict disappear. It's to manage it so it sharpens your team instead of splitting it over the course of a season.
Speaker: The research I'm going to pull from today is is the Thomas Kilman model. It's 50 years old and it still holds up. It says every person handles conflict somewhere on two dials. How much they push for themselves and how much they consider the other person on the other side of the table.
Speaker: We're going mix those two dials up and we get five conflict styles that I'm going to introduce to you today. Competing, avoiding, compromising, accommodating, and collaborating.
Speaker: You've got all five on your roster right now. Some people are going to shift through different styles depending on how their week went or the different point in the season or whether they're having success in school or on the field or they're not.
Speaker: So the objective here is to understand these until you can listen to the kind of style that's being delivered to you from your teammates. Style number one, the competitor.
Speaker: This is your athlete, your teammate, who treats every disagreement like it's a game they have to win. They're high on pushing their own view, low on considering yours or another teammate's. It's not always a bad thing. This is often your most confident player who knows and trusts themselves in the clutch moments and the one who will call out a mistake in real time that others are making and defend a position that they feel and believe strongly in so you can see the good and the bad in those characteristics the risk
Speaker: Well, left unchecked, it turns every conversation into a power struggle with a competitor conflict style. Practice becomes about winning the argument and not winning the point or doing what's best for the team or listening to a teammate. So your tool as team captain is to separate the person from the problem.
Speaker: When your competitor gets into it with a teammate or a referee, I don't want you to become a referee and ref both sides of it.
Speaker: I need you to redirect the fight towards the standard established by you, your captains, or the coaches, the team. Say something along the lines of, hey, I hear you. You're a herd. But let's talk about what the standard says, not who's right.
Speaker: Calling out one of my my good buds, Luke Summers, he used to say, you could be right too if you agreed with me. not That's funny, but it's not the best approach that we want to take with our competitors. So you're not silencing the drive and the passion that they have for whatever it is they're they're aiming to point. You're aiming... at it like a target, not having them aim at each other for right and wrong.
Speaker: Bring the focus back to the team and the standard. Okay, style two, the avoider. Low push, low consideration. This is your teammate who goes quiet, doesn't bring anything up.
Speaker: They're silent, they accept everything, and it keeps conflict to themselves in hopes it resolves on its own. And when addressed or when dealing with a competitor, it's like freaking Pac-Man and the Ghosts. They're running around, somebody's trying to chase them to solve this problem, and they're avoiding it at all costs because, hey, I don't want to disrupt anything.
Speaker: If you've seen the movie Miracle, It's that one player with the mustache and the goofy hair. He's like, where are you from? i'm where I'm from wherever's not going to get me hit. The risk here, it doesn't resolve on its own, and these dragons start to grow, especially when it's between one athlete and another. And it just goes underground, and and it comes out sideways at some point.
Speaker: The avoider may explode. The aggressor may explode at the avoider. Three weeks later, erupts at a church picnic. Ha, ha, ha. And it it may come out at a different argument and something else that is completely unrelated to what is actually boiling underneath. So here's your tool.
Speaker: Fractionation. Break it up. Break it down early. Don't wait for the avoider to bring the whole issue to you or a whole list of issues.
Speaker: Sometimes they want or they bring you a whole list of things that are overwhelming to the team and it becomes a a ah hostage negotiation list of outlandish stuff that is uncomplishable and you will not win that person over.
Speaker: Or you may compromise your values or the team values to have them get a win and keep them happy happy but then what other downstream effects are we doing?
Speaker: So we need you to fractionation, take that approach, address anything within 24 to 48 hours and break it into one small specific piece.
Speaker: Not, hey, what's going on with you? Try, hey, I noticed you didn't call for the ball earlier after that sub. Or you saw that they were wide open and you didn't give them the ball.
Speaker: and stay silent.
Speaker: Put the ball in their court, pun intended here, and have them bring up the words. Don't force your perspective or what what you believe that they they are feeling inside.
Speaker: Call out the action, the behavior that you observed, and stay silent. Small dragons will stay small when you name and keep them small. So we're still separating the person from the problem and calling out that behavior, what you observed, not blaming the person or pointing the finger from there or creating this long list.
Speaker: All right, style number three, the compromiser, the middle ground player, high enough on both dials of push and pull to want a fair split At all times.
Speaker: This teammate will offer to rotate reps, split minutes, meet in the middle, go get the water for the freshmen, whatever it may be. They're useful, but there's a ceiling on this.
Speaker: And this this goes into a lot of the readings and teachings from Pat Riley I've pulled into a lot of these lessons, The Disease of Me. We're going to ask them to sacrifice and sacrifice, and the compromiser will do it until they won't.
Speaker: And so the risk here is the compromise will end in an argument or turn them into an avoidant because they start to go silent and create this long list of demands to keep them happy. And it doesn't always solve the problem.
Speaker: Everybody walks away in this compromise a little unsatisfied salty and that residue starts to build up over the course of a season if we're always looking for the compromiser to compromise there's going to reach a point where they boil over and they're not willing to compromise about anything as fair as we are able to make it so your tool as team captain here Focus on interests, not positions.
Speaker: Focus on the future. Focus outside the game, not just on the one specific playing time or whatever it may be. So the the position that each person's taking, we don't always go 50-50. Focus on the interests and help them gain some perspective. If you're a team captain,
Speaker: You got leadership, you got perspective. You may be ah a sophomore, a junior, a senior. You may have teammates that have gone off from your team and gone on to be successful.
Speaker: So reference back to them or call them in to advice or set up a call between the compromiser and them so they can have perspective if they don't necessarily value you or you feel someone else can bring something else to the table.
Speaker: So before you let two players split the difference 50-50, ask each one what they actually need out of this. Not just what they're asking for in the moment.
Speaker: Not just, hey, what is going to end this argument? What is a win for you? No. Hey, what do you what do you need? What are you trying to get of this? Two players fighting over starting time, playing time. It might really be fighting over feeling valued, represented,
Speaker: acknowledged. They may not be getting that from the coach. Can you provide that acknowledgement as a leader, allowing them to be seen? Get underneath the position that each of them is fighting for, and you often find a better answer more than 50-50, and you could even bring them closer together as friends, because they can now have these conversations with each other versus always relying on a ah mediation or a captain like you to step in.
Speaker: All right, moving right along. Style four, the accommodator. Low push, high consideration of others. This is your team's peacekeeper at all costs. They'll give in fast to keep the group calm and moving forward. On the surface, this looks like you're the easiest teammate.
Speaker: And then coaches or outside observers say, hey, they're a great leader. They're a great captain. Because they never cause a scene and they always lead and give someone else the opportunity ah to to step into that moment. The risk here is unexpressed anger.
Speaker: The accommodator swallows what they actually want often enough and eventually it comes out as resentment. ah And that's one of our culture killers that we talk about. Or it comes out as them checking out of the team entirely and they are disappearing.
Speaker: So this this is a challenging one and the tool Your tool is saving face. Give them the floor on purpose. Give them the huddle. Give them opportunities and moments to lead, to be the dude, to acknowledge and praise them. If it's taken the they they take the coin flip for you or they get the opportunity to give the pre-practice, pre-game speech in their moment, we're not going to wait for the accommodator to speak up.
Speaker: We need to see and read their body language. It's going to take a lot of social intelligence and reading the team on our part. for us to create the moment to keep them invested, especially when they start to get into this conflict phase, where they're being, ah somebody's being aggressive towards them.
Speaker: Read their body language. This is why having a conversation and getting to know each and every single one of your teammates is so valuable, because you can scan for deltas and see where they're off.
Speaker: Then pull them aside and use an I statement to open up the door. Hey, I noticed you agreed fast back there. i want you to know what you I want to know what you actually think.
Speaker: So now we're opening up the floor for them to express what they're thinking, they're feeling in here. And you're not asking them to to fight and stand up and be aggressive or go after the the person of the instant that they're you notice that they're feeling down about.
Speaker: We're allowing them the opportunity to be heard. And you're giving them permission to have an opinion, to have a position. Allow them to be authentic and listened to. We this has ah talked about this on previous podcasts, humility versus humiliation. Humiliation.
Speaker: where they're not allowed to be authentic, allowed to be themselves, when they are themselves, they are then being humiliated or kicked down in it attempts by a coach or another teammate to keep them humble when they do stand up and try to ah have a position or be themselves we need to see this save their face and give them the floor on purpose or redirect and connect to their bigger purpose and why they're sacrificing so much to be on this team okay style five the collaborator
Speaker: High push, high consideration. This is the gold standard. Team captain stepping in here. And it's rare. It's going to take a lot of getting to know your people and leading them.
Speaker: This teammate, they dig into the real issue. want a solution that actually works for all sides, whether it's between coach and player, player and player, or outside administration and the whole team, the school and the team.
Speaker: And you're willing to do the hard work to get there. you're standing You understand the position of the team first, and you're willing to do this. I speak to it like you, because this is more often the team captain versus the best player on the team. Now, you're the best leader on the team collaborating and keeping the the the team on track and seeing when things could potentially turn from small to big dragons. The opportunity here isn't managing team.
Speaker: all your people is deploying them, finding their strengths with each one of these conflict styles, hey, and setting them free in specific moments because you're going to need each one of these at specific times.
Speaker: So your tool is to make, if you see this and it's not you, I want you to make them a co-captain. of certain scenarios, of certain situations. Each each practice, that is a a storm in itself. Give them the pre-practice huddle where we get everybody going.
Speaker: Or if there is a conflict where you see somebody else down, hey, don't you go talk to Jimmy over there? He's feeling down today. or hey, check out that body language.
Speaker: So I can start to, if I sense this style of of a younger classman, I can start to train them up as my future heir, as team captain to soon take over. I can give them leadership reps by leading them through these opportunities to get into peer-to-peer conflict because resolution takes reps, that's for sure.
Speaker: so The inevitable, when conflict shows up between two other teammates, assign your collaborator the opportunity to facilitate peer-to-peer leadership and speak up.
Speaker: They're not commanding or shutting everybody up. They're listening and then, hey, see if they saw what you saw. Let them help define the actual disagreement before anyone proposes a fix.
Speaker: And this is this does two things. It resolves the conflict faster. It involves the whole team rather than you always being in the the cleanup crew. And it grows the next generation of leaders who have the skill set to then take over. There's not this big drop off when you graduate and you leave your team.
Speaker: So let's let's put it all together. Let's wrap it all up. Same conflict, five different teammates, five different entry points for you to observe as a team captain. The competitor, they need the fight and we need to redirect it at the standard. The avoider, they they need the small piece named early and broke it down into a chunk That's tackleable.
Speaker: The compromiser needs their real interest surfaced. The accommodator needs the floor handed to them and an opportunity for them to be heard. and the ah the collaborator needs to be pulled into the room and trusted to lead in moments. It doesn't have to be perfect. You can shape their leadership, but still give them opportunity for taking on conflict.
Speaker: None of these tools require you to be a therapist. They require you to notice the style, meet them where they're at, and be a great teammate.
Speaker: And one more thing, and this is the part that matters the most. Address it early. See something, say something. 24 to 48 hours, that's what you got.
Speaker: Do not let these dragons grow. So don't wait till the next team meeting. If you see something, address it in the moment. After practice, bring it up to coach. Keep them into the fold. Because small dragons handling while they're small, we can flush them down the toilet. But if they're growing and taking over the whole house, the whole team, that's when it starts to become culture killers, take down. and we're we're wasting a whole season and we don't have many of those in our athletic career.
Speaker: So this is the toolkit. Five conflict styles, five tools, one job. Keep the team focused on the standard, not on each other. If you want to go deeper and run your own team through a quick conflict style check, ask each teammate how they usually show up when there's tension.
Speaker: You don't have to name the five to them. Just listen and see how they describe themselves and how they take on challenges and conflict and see if it fits any of the five buckets that we introduced. And you'll be surprised how fast it changes the way you talk to each other.
Speaker: And if I'm able in peacetime to have self-identified my teammates what they believe that they are in conflict styles when things do start to boil up i know what toolkit to bring to the fight and more often than not they're probably self-identifying what they're not actually are but then that's an opportunity for us to bring self-awareness into this and grow as a whole team so that we're all coach able so Next time, this is how want you to lead that room.
Speaker: All right, that does it for our episode wrapping up here. Thank you for tuning in to the Captains and Coaches podcast. This is a tool and a skill set I bring to my team, Captain Workshops. I'm about to go on the road, very excited to see how these play off. We're gonna bring some conflict to each other. For more on that, head to workshop.captainsandcoaches.com. If you like what you heard to today, like, subscribe, rate, review, all that good stuff,
Speaker: We gotta to roll. All right, ready, ready, and break.
