If Everyone Else Is the Problem, Read This

We spent quite a bit of time at The Broadmoor talking about conflict during our Roundtable Extravaganza, and several of you have asked for more - I love this because as I have continued to think about what we all learned from Dr. Dave,  I've realized that most of us have conflict all wrong.

We tend to believe the goal is to avoid it. Keep everybody happy. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make things uncomfortable. Or we go completely the other direction and decide that if there is a problem, somebody needs to be told about it.

Neither one is particularly healthy!

Conflict is going to happen. At work, at home, in friendships, in marriages and certainly on teams. Healthy relationships move through harmony, disharmony and repair. The goal isn’t to somehow eliminate the disharmony. The goal is to get better at what happens next.

The problem is that most of us enter conflict focused almost entirely on the other person. What they said. What they did. What they should have done. What they always do. What they need to change.

And sometimes we are right. Maybe they were rude. Maybe they didn’t follow through. Maybe they handled something badly. Maybe they absolutely do need to change. But that still leaves one person in the conversation that we actually have control over: ourselves.

That was probably my biggest takeaway from the entire discussion. Before I deal with you, I have to deal with me.

What is actually happening here?

Conflict isn’t just something happening in our heads. Our bodies react too. Your heart starts racing. Your face gets hot. Your shoulders tighten. You start talking faster, getting louder or maybe doing the exact opposite and shutting down completely.

That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you or that you shouldn’t feel what you’re feeling. Emotion isn’t the problem. The challenge is recognizing what is happening before the emotion completely takes over the conversation.

A few simple questions can change what happens next.

1. What is happening in my body right now?
2. What am I actually feeling?
3. And maybe most importantly, what story am I telling myself about what just happened?

That last one is a big deal.

Human beings hate missing information, so we fill in the blanks. Someone doesn’t answer your email. The fact is that they haven’t answered your email. The story may be, “She’s ignoring me because she doesn’t respect me.”

You ask a team member to do something and it doesn’t get done. The fact is that it didn’t get done. The story becomes, “She doesn’t care,” or “She never listens to me.”

Someone walks past you and doesn’t say anything. The fact is that they walked past you and didn’t say anything. The story is, “He’s mad at me.”

Could your story be right? Absolutely. But it also might not be, and once we decide our story is true, we usually enter the conversation ready to prove it. At that point we are no longer reacting to what actually happened. We are reacting to what we have decided it means.

One of the most useful phrases from our discussion was, “The story I’m telling myself is ________. Is that true?”

Then get curious. “Help me understand.”

Curiosity does not mean weakness. It does not mean you have to agree with the other person, lower your expectations or excuse poor behavior. You can be direct and curious at the same time. You can hold someone accountable and still want to understand what happened. You can say no, set a boundary and tell someone, “This isn’t okay,” without walking into the conversation already loaded for bear.

Curiosity simply gives you a chance to find out what is actually true before you decide what to do about it.

Speak for your anger, not from it

This was one of my favorite distinctions from the meeting.

Anger is real, but there is often something sitting underneath it. Hurt, disappointment, embarrassment, fear, loneliness, feeling dismissed or feeling like what you said didn’t matter. One of the comments that stuck with me was that anger and hurt tend to walk together.

The problem is that anger is usually easier to express than vulnerability. It is a whole lot easier to say, “I am so sick and tired of you doing this,” than it is to say, “When that happened, it hurt my feelings.”

That’s what we meant by speaking for your anger instead of from your anger.

There is a big difference between, “You obviously don’t care what I think,” and, “When that happened, I felt like what I had asked you for didn’t matter.”

There is also a big difference between, “I’m sick of doing everything around here,” and, “I’m overwhelmed, and I’m starting to feel like I’m carrying this by myself.”

The first version attacks the other person. The second tells the truth about what is actually going on with you.

We also talked about our tendency to jump immediately to practical solutions. We love a new policy, a new system, a checklist, a schedule or a rule. Sometimes those things are exactly what we need, but sometimes we are trying to put a practical solution on top of an emotional problem.

The argument may appear to be about the schedule, when what is really underneath it is, “I don’t feel heard,” “I don’t feel like what I say matters,” or “I don’t trust that you’re going to follow through.”

Until we deal with that part, the new checklist probably isn’t going to save us.

What The Horse Whisperer can teach us about conflict

At the event, we watched a clip of Buck Brannaman working with a horse. If you aren’t familiar with Buck, there is some important context because his story is a big part of why the example matters.

Buck is one of the country’s best-known horsemen and was one of the inspirations behind The Horse Whisperer. He later served as a technical advisor on the Robert Redford film. But what makes Buck particularly interesting to me has much less to do with horses.

Buck grew up with an abusive father and eventually spent part of his childhood in foster care. He knew firsthand what fear and intimidation could do, and he made a very deliberate choice not to use those same tools with horses. His approach is based on understanding the animal, being clear about what he is asking for, correcting when necessary and, at the same time, creating enough safety that the horse isn’t terrified of getting something wrong.

Watching him work is fascinating because there is nothing passive about it. He isn’t letting the horse do whatever it wants. He is very clear. He is very much in charge. He just isn’t angry.

One of the lines from that discussion that stuck with me was, “You can be strict. You just can’t be unfair.” That distinction is worth sitting with.

Buck allows a horse to make a mistake because that is part of learning. What he doesn’t want to do is create a horse that dreads making a mistake because it is afraid of what will happen afterward. And when the horse behaves like a horse, Buck doesn’t take it personally. He doesn’t create some story in his head that the horse is being disrespectful, stubborn or deliberately trying to make his life difficult. He pays attention to what the horse is communicating, controls his own response and figures out what the situation requires.

Tell me that doesn’t apply to people!

How often do we see something we don’t like and immediately decide what it means? She doesn’t respect me. He’s being difficult. She doesn’t care. He’s doing this on purpose. Then we respond to the story we created rather than getting curious about what is actually happening.

Buck can be firm without being furious. He can correct without humiliating. He can maintain the expectation without allowing his own emotion to become the punishment.

That’s leadership! And frankly, it’s probably a pretty good model for most of our relationships.

We also talked about the different “parts” of ourselves that show up during conflict. If you weren’t in the room, that phrase could sound a little strange, but the concept really isn’t.

We all have different versions of ourselves that show up depending on the situation. There is the rational version, the defensive version, the people pleaser, the fixer, the one who needs to prove a point, the one who wants everybody to like us, the one who wants to walk out of the room and the one who thinks, “Fine. I’ll just do it myself.”

The goal isn’t to get rid of those parts. They’ve probably been around a long time and, in many cases, developed because they helped us cope with something at some point. The goal is simply to recognize when one of them has grabbed the steering wheel.

Sometimes just noticing it changes the next move. “There I am getting defensive.” “There I am trying to make everybody happy.” “There I am deciding that I am right and they are wrong.”

Once I can see it, I have a choice. Do I want that version of me leading this conversation?

This also helps explain why two people can experience the exact same interaction very differently. One person hears a neutral tone and thinks absolutely nothing about it. Someone else hears the same tone and immediately feels criticized. We all bring different temperaments, histories and experiences into a conversation. That does not mean we have to tiptoe around everybody, and it does not mean someone else’s emotional reaction automatically makes us wrong. It simply means our intention and their experience are not always the same thing.

Healthy people are willing to at least be curious about that gap.

This does not mean letting people off the hook

This is probably the part I most want to clarify for anyone who wasn’t at Broadmoor.

Taking responsibility for how you show up does not mean taking responsibility for everybody else. It does not mean tolerating bad behavior, avoiding difficult conversations or convincing yourself that everything is fine when it isn’t.

You can regulate yourself and still say, “This isn’t okay.” You can be compassionate and still hold a boundary. You can be curious and still decide that someone’s explanation isn’t acceptable. You can understand why somebody behaves a certain way and still decide that the behavior cannot continue.

Sometimes you have a healthy conversation, make a reasonable request, clearly communicate the expectation and the person still doesn’t follow through.

Okay. Now you have information.

If it continues to happen, you have more information. At some point, repeated behavior becomes data. You do not have to turn someone into a villain to acknowledge what the data is telling you.

The opposite is also true. Not every irritation requires a summit meeting. Not every disagreement needs to be resolved. Some things really can be let go. The trick is being honest about whether you are actually letting it go or simply stuffing it away so you can bring it back up six months from now. There is a difference.

One of the other comments from the meeting that hit me pretty hard was that 'the most dangerous person in a fight is often the one who feels righteous'. Once I am completely convinced that I am right, I don’t have to be curious anymore. I don’t have to examine my contribution. I don’t really have to listen. The entire solution becomes, “You need to change.”

That is a dangerous place for any of us, but especially for leaders.

You can be completely right about the issue and still handle the conversation terribly. Being right does not give us permission to be reckless with people.

So maybe before the next difficult conversation, don’t start with everything the other person has done wrong. Start with yourself. What is happening with me? What am I actually feeling? What story am I telling myself? Do I know that story is true? What version of me is getting ready to walk into this conversation, and is that who I want leading it?

Then go have the conversation. Ask the question. Tell the truth. Hold the boundary. Listen. Get curious. And pay attention to what happens next.

Conflict is not the enemy. Avoiding it can create just as much damage as handling it badly. Healthy relationships are not relationships without conflict. They are relationships where people learn how to move through conflict and get to repair.

I don’t get to control everything, and I certainly don’t get to control everybody else. But I do get to control how I show up. And that may be the most important part of the art of conflict.

Before Your Next Hard Conversation

The next time someone irritates you, disappoints you or does something that makes you want to immediately “have a conversation,” stop for a minute before you do. Not because the conversation shouldn’t happen. It probably should. But go into it knowing what is happening with you first.

Ask yourself:

• What actually happened—and what part have I added to the story?
• What am I feeling underneath the anger or frustration?
• What am I assuming about this person’s motive that I don’t actually know?
• Am I going into this conversation curious, or am I going in to prove that I’m right?
• What do I want to accomplish here—repair, understanding, a changed behavior, a clear boundary, or simply being heard?
• Which version of me is about to show up: defensive, controlling, people-pleasing, judgmental, avoidant—or the calm adult in the room?
• If the other person doesn’t respond the way I hope they will, can I still be proud of the way I handled myself?

That’s the self-inventory.

If you want to take this back to your team, don’t make it complicated. Pick one or two of these questions at your next team meeting and actually talk about them:

When conflict happens on our team, what do we tend to do— avoid it, get defensive, complain to someone else, or deal with it directly?

What are some of the “stories” we tend to tell ourselves about one another when something goes wrong?

What would “speak for your anger, not from your anger” look like here?

Are people on this team allowed to make a mistake without dreading what happens afterward?

When we have disharmony, are we actually good at repair—or do we just wait until everybody gets over it?

That last question may tell you quite a bit.

The point isn’t to create a team that never disagrees.  Honestly, I don't trust teams that say they never disagree. The point is to create a team that can tell the truth, get curious, hold one another accountable and still find its way back to repair.

Then the next time conflict shows up—and it will—you have something to practice instead of simply hoping it goes away.