EntreLeadership - #258: The Benefits of Conflict with Dr. Nate Regier

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

Dr. Nate Regier believes wholeheartedly in the power and importance of healthy conflict communication—so much so that he built an entire business around it. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Next Element, which works with organizations around the world to help them see conflict as an opportunity to connect with their team members rather than a negative source of unwanted drama. Dr. Regier’s secret weapon is something he calls “compassionate accountability.” And he credits it for increasing trust, productivity and engagement one conversation at a time. Join us to find out why compassionate accountability is such a game changer and how you can bring it to your own organization. entreleadership.com/podcast How to Be an Influential Leader Course from EntreLeadership Small Business Office Automation Guide from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature interview this episode is with Nate Rageer. He's the author of Conflict Without Casualties. And speaking of Conflict in the Office Place,

Jack Galloway, our executive vice president of business to business here at Ramsey Solutions is the king of it. And he's got a tried and true system. He'll stop by and share that with you as well. And of course, some great resources. Nate Ruggier is the co-founding owner and chief executive officer of Next Element, global advisory firms specializing in building cultures of compassionate accountability. He's got the chops. He's a practicing psychologist and an expert in social, emotional intelligence. This is an important conversation you're about ready to dive into because the reality is conflict is everywhere. People are. It's inescapable. And if you know how to handle it and win through it, you're going to be ahead of the game. Here is my conversation with

Nate Rageir. Well, Nate, it's a privilege to have you. The book is entitled Conflict Without Casualties, I feel a guy for leading with compassionate accountability. And I love this title. I love this subject because I'm a guy who, when I hear the word conflict, it doesn't mean something negative to me, you know, but it has this stigma to it. So before we go too much further, I think we need to start with defining conflict.

Let's look at the good, the bad, what the perceptions are out there and why you took this topic on. Yeah, definitions are critical. Because when you hear the word conflict, Like, people have a lot of different associations, and a lot of them are negative. Our simple definition of conflict is that it's anytime there's a gap between what we want and what we're experiencing at any point in time. It's basically just the gap between those two things. Yeah, so it's not an argument.

And I think that's what most people think. No. They think confidence, they go, oh, great. Here comes an argument. Yeah, the gap is the first thing that happens. What we do with that gap and how we use the energy generated by the, that gap is where everything can go crazy or can go well as well. All right.

So you talk about different kinds of conflict. And again, I think this is really important on the outset of our conversation to frame the different types of conflict. So teach us. Yeah. Well, if we can accept the conflict is simply that gap between what we want and what we're experiencing at any point in time, then we can start getting in touch with the energy that's created by that gap. And then the question becomes, what do we do with that energy? And we've discovered there's basically two paths we can take at that moment. We can take the path of drama, which hopefully we'll have a chance to talk about a little bit,

and that's where the energy of conflict gets misused to struggle against ourselves or each other to feel justified, and there's all kinds of predictable negative behavior that goes on there. The alternative path is what we call compassionate accountability, which is to take the path where we spend that energy to struggle with people towards a creative outcome that preserves the dignity of everyone involved. Yeah, so let's break those down, those two types. And you said you wanted to talk about drama. So here you go, buddy.

Let's talk about drama, misusing the energy of conflict. It's Chapter 2 in the book. You give it a whole chapter and for good reason. Let's talk about how we take the oxygen out of this. Yeah, well, I take that path many times a day, so I'm familiar with it. When we take the path of drama, we play one or more of three really predictable roles. And these roles are not who we are as a person, but it's the behaviors and the attitudes and the beliefs that we take on. Some people adopt the attitude of the persecutor when they're in drama, and they take the attitude, hey, I'm fine, you're the one with the problem.

And so they blame, they attack, they intimidate, they question people's motives as a way to deal with that conflict. Some people might take the role of what's called the victim. And the victim says, hey, it's me, I second guess myself, I'm probably the problem, They're the person that apologize when you run into them at the grocery store because you're going too fast. So they're always the one that say, hey, it's me, it's my problem. And they don't speak up for themselves. They don't assert themselves in the things that they want. And then there's that third role, the role of the rescuer.

I do this a lot. And the rescuer in drama, they deal with conflict by appointing themselves the savior of everyone else. So they come swooping in with unsolicited advice, thinking that they know what's best, and that they can fix everyone else's problems. And those three roles, man, they need each other and they dance with each other. And in a given day, I might switch between all three of those roles. And so it really keeps a pretty interesting dance of energy-sucking drama going on. Oh, that's really good.

Okay, so let's stay here. So you've just done a really nice job of laying out those three roles that drama can take the form of or operate in. So you said that they dance together. They're all needed. when out of balance, obviously it's a problem. So as leaders, when we see drama start to take place here, how do we analyze and then make sure that those different roles are all working together as opposed to kind of standing out on their own and causing even more drama? Yeah, great question. And the first task of any leader is to identify myself and make sure I'm not

contributing to the problem. And I'm not playing one of those three drama roles. roles. I'm guessing you're referring to the balance has to do with the compassion skills, which is the alternative to drama. Yeah, the first role is to not play a part and recognize when I'm getting sucked into those beliefs and behaviors, so at least I'm not part of the problem. Then there's that other path, which is the path of compassion. Yeah. Well, let's just go there because that's where this is going. I mean, it's in the subtitle of the book, obviously, a field guide for leading with compassionate accountability. So it's the antidote here. So first to find compassionate accountability. Yeah, it's a big word, and we're trying to give it a name or give it a reputation.

Drama came from Dr. Stephen Cartman. He developed the drama triangle. It's not original to us, but compassion accountability is something that we've really taken a deeper look at the word compassion. I grew up a son of missionary parents, and so I thought compassion was kindness, caring, empathy, concern, your heart goes out for people, you're out helping everybody all the time. If you really look at the deeper meanings of the root of the word compassion, the Latin root means co-suffer. Calm means alongside or with, and passion means to struggle or to suffer. So compassion means co-suffering or struggling with, whereas drama means struggling against. And so we now have this idea of there's an adversarial struggle, and then there's

a creative, generative struggle, and that's compassion. So we put accountability with it because at the end of the day for leaders, we still got stuff to get done. We have tasks. We have obligations. We have goals to meet. We have constituencies that we are beholden to. And so accountability has to be part of the conversation.

With compassion, though, we can struggle with people in a spirit of dignity to close the gap between what we want and what we're experiencing. Okay. I want to put you on the spot because you've written a book on this. We've talked a lot about the philosophy here. we've talked a lot about definitions, but let's get real practical in what this looks like. I think this is a good stopping point to go,

all right, let's think of a standard area of conflict or a situation that is usually just defined by conflict in the workplace. And a compassionate accountability begins to rear its head how? Give us an example of what it looks like as opposed to maybe fueling the drama. The first thing is recognizing that there's drama. So if we recognize that someone or ourselves are playing a drama role, that's the first time to say, okay, let's choose the antidote instead. And the compassion cycle that we've developed is a constellation of three interrelated skills that can be leveraged practically in this situation.

The first one is openness, which is about transparency and disclosure and honesty about motives. So that's always the first thing to do when we're trying to defeat drama is get honest about how we're feeling and what our real moment. motives are. And I'm not talking about honesty like, hey, can I be honest with you? Your zippers open. That's not honesty. We think we're telling the truth, which factually we are. But if the end result is that the other person feels more vulnerable than we do, then we've not been open. And so that's the first step. The next step is resourcefulness, and that's the next skill on the compassion cycle. And resourcefulness is about curious problem solving, listening to understand. We've heard that said so many times, and disclosing information that might be relevant.

How many people in drama withhold information as a way to maintain power, or they don't show their cards, even though they have something that could be very helpful to the solution? And then the third step is persistence. That's the third skill on the compassion cycle. And persistence is about getting really clear about what are the non-negotiables, what are the principles at stake? What really is this about? and not lines in the sand around do this or else, it's about what really is important to me here.

And then we go back to open and complete the cycle by returning to open and checking back in with the other person. Be happy to give an example about what that would actually sound like in a real situation. Yeah, let's do that. That's what I want you, give us a scenario so that leaders can go, oh, I see that.

And that's how, because here's what's going to happen. Everybody's going to be able to remember a scenario recently where they were part of conflict. and this is a great example. So yeah, take it away. Well, I remember a scenario that's so recent, it was this morning during our staff meeting. We are designing a new certification and licensing process for large companies that want to deploy our compassionate accountability tools in their company. So we were having a brainstorming session about how to design this certification to be appropriate

for our customers. And at one point in the conversation, I really was starting to get anxious about where it was going because I thought we were getting off track, we were not using our time well, and we didn't seem to be getting where I wanted to go. So there we go. There's a gap between what I wanted and what I was experiencing. I was having an emotional response to that. So instead of saying something like, we need to get back on track, or that's not what we should be working on, what I said was, I'm feeling anxious, uncomfortable because I'm experiencing a gap between where I thought we were going to go with this conversation and where it is right now. Then I went to R and I said, here's what I'm seeing. Here's the things that we had outlined that we were going to accomplish today.

So that's the gap I'm seeing. I'm willing to hear where you guys are at on that. Then I went to P, persistence, and I said, ultimately what this is about is us maintaining the integrity of our model while serving the needs of the customer. We have to reconcile those two. That's why I'm anxious right now. And I turned it back to the group and said, I'm curious where y'all are at with this conversation. And so what was the mood of the room? when you walk through that way. What's staring back at you as opposed to all this tension?

It's tough. There's still tension because I'm doing conflict. I'm calling a gap. I'm laying out the gap and I'm calling it. But I'm not calling out people. I'm not intimidating people. I'm basically saying there's a gap. I'm not feeling good. I want to feel differently about it. Where are you at? And I got interesting responses. One person said, man, I'm so glad to hear that because I was unaware of how you were feeling. Another person said, oh man, yeah, here's some information that I didn't share that would be really relevant to this from what we heard from a customer the other day. And then someone else said, you know, I really respect where you're going, Nate. Thank you for keeping us on track so that we're using our time well. Now, I said,

they're all great responses. They're not comfortable. The point here is not to make the conflict go away. The point is to use the conflict to generate really good outcomes. Right. But while there is tension, it doesn't have to be unhealthy tension. Tension is good. Not at all. And that's what compassion accountability is, is we can walk into the field of conflict in a spirit of I'm okay and you're okay and we're not here to hurt each other or to win or lose. We're here to struggle together to create something. All right, I want to flip this a little bit to something that a lot of our audience will find very relevant and that is give us at least a scenario where we can walk through that compassion cycle with a client. So a client's upset. Yeah. There's a big thing of conflict, right?

You're, you screwed me and blah, blah, blah, you know, and they're already feeling offended and bothered. And we've got to manage that. You don't just walk away from that conflict. You don't want to bow up. So how do you handle an unruly or not even unruly? Let's say that they're legitimately wronged and they want answers. Those are such good questions and so relevant because how often is the customer or the client, there's a gap between what they wanted and what they actually experienced from us. Or maybe it's the other way around. But either way, there's a gap and they're upset. And man, how relevant. I'm so glad you brought it up because just yesterday we were dealing with an upset client. And the day before I was counseling school administrators on how to deal

with really angry parents. So the very first thing to remember is it's not personal. Even though people try to make it personal, it's not personal. But that doesn't mean. that it's not emotional. And so the very first thing is to validate and affirm and acknowledge the importance of how they're feeling. And you can do that without saying they're right or wrong or admitting defeat or whatever. You know how often when there's a problem, our attorneys or our HR people say, hey, don't say anything. Don't admit you did anything wrong. Just get quiet. When what we really need to be doing is saying, man, I can imagine how upset you are. I wouldn't want to feel like that. Or gosh, you're really angry. So the first thing to do,

at open is validate and affirm the feeling. There's nothing wrong with it. The second thing is to go to resourceful then and offer to be a resource and get curious. And it may be a question like something like, man, I'd really like to learn what's going on so I can understand the trouble you're experiencing. And then P, persistence, a lot of companies come at persistence right off the bat by saying, well, here's our non-negotiables. And, sir, what you need to understand is you can't do this or here's our rules or here's our policies, what if we waited on that and the first time around the compassion cycle, instead we focused on our commitments to them, like, I promise to stay on the phone with you until we get this worked out. Or you can count on me to take whatever you share

to somebody in our organization that can do something about it. And so it may sound something like this. Let's say I call in because my computer's all messed up and the person on the other end says, man, I can see how upset you or I would hate having a lot of work to do and not be able to get my computer or my internet to work. How about we do a little problem solving? And I'm going to ask you some questions and see if we can't get to the bottom of this. But sir, I do want to promise you, I'm going to stay on the phone and stay with you until we get this solved. How's that sound? I mean, all of a sudden there's some empathy there, you know? Well, yeah. And angry customers that just want to feel heard. Very often their requests are irrational. Very often they are

wrong. The customer is not always right, but their feelings are legitimate. And they, they would prefer that we struggle together towards this solution than for it to be an adversarial process. So with ORPO, we call it, around the compassion cycle, we can quickly transform that adversarial into a, hey, we're on your side here. And we're going to help get to a solution that's going to help you feel better. That's really good. I want to skip ahead in the book. Chapter 7 is entitled Warning, Drama, Approaching, Three Leading Indicators. And I think this is good, given where we've been so far in the conversation, because I think

it can come out of nowhere at times, or at least it appears as though it's coming out of nowhere. But you say that we can actually see it coming. What are these indicators? How do we see them? Yeah, these indicators, we've created this whole chapter to help people put rumble strips on their road so that before they end up in the ditch or end up hitting a tree, they can say, Okay, I'm leading into drama. So there's three.

How do I know I'm heading towards victim? The leading indicator is I start to give in. And giving in is not about a healthy compromise. Giving in is about starting to etch away at my soul around things that are really important to me, like dignity, boundaries, respect. Maybe it's in a workplace setting. You know, sexual harassment is a big topic right now. Let's say a coworker speaks to me in a way that maybe I feel really uncomfortable about his tone.

or the way that he's made a reference to a body part or something, and I just don't say anything. Or I just think, well, you know, he didn't mean it. That's giving in because I know that something wasn't right and I didn't speak up. Giving unsolicited advice is the second leading indicator, and that's how we know we're heading towards being a rescuer. Giving unsolicited advice, I've actually started calling it non-consensual helping. And I chose that word non-consensual on purpose because how many of us like to be helped against our will or without our permission? Even though helping seems to have good intentions, without permission and without consent, helping can be a signal of undermining our dignity and more of a patronizing, matronizing type of an

attitude. So giving unsolicited advice is never helpful. And the third leading indicator knows we're heading to Persecutor is when we start giving ultimatums. Ultimatums are not about healthy boundaries. Ultimatums are about things like, hey, do it or else, or that's the last time I'll trust you, or go ahead, make my day. These are the kinds of statements that let me and another person know that I'm hitting a wall and I don't know what else to do. And so I'm starting to set it up so I can attempt to hurt you as a way to get you to do what I want. Okay, that is really, really practical. I love that, Nate. Let's jump ahead. Chapter 9 is entitled Coaching Accountability, when there's no drama, match and move. I love this. This is getting ahead of the game. This is building up a

culture where we're coaching accountability. And that helps us stave off drama, I guess. Yeah. I have a couple beefs. And one of my biggest beefs is we're so enamored with individual differences, personality models, strengths, and all this stuff. And I love that. But we're so enamored about it that we think that if we just talk right to people and just meet their needs in the right way and get the environment just right, then they're somehow magically going to do all the right things. And while that's super important, treating people uniquely and according to their unique makeup is incredibly important, but it still doesn't guarantee that we're going to close the gap. So how do we have conversations around saying, hey, we're good, and what I want from you

is more than where you're at. And I think leaders are always coaches. And so this chapter is about how do we take someone that maybe is at openness and invite them to make the move and come to resourceful now? So let's say somebody disclosed and says, I'm really anxious about this merger.

I don't know what it means for my job. Right. I mean, it's good to know that, and that alone is not going to close the gap. So I might match them at open and say, gosh, I can relate. I remember being nervous about my job when we split departments last year. But that's not the end of it because that person still has to take responsibility for what they want next.

So then I might invite them to come to resourceful and I might follow up with saying, is there anything you want from me? Or how can I help? Because now the ball's back in their court to ask for what they want, take responsibility for their feelings, and begin working the cycle of compassion accountability to really close the gap. So the book, you go on and we've talked a lot of, about how you, the content that you close the book with, but you've got a personal development

guide, and then you've got the preparing for conflict building my Orpo Bank. I want you to tee up those because these are great resources in the back of the book that I think leaders need to be, not just reading this book, but these appendixes are worth the entire book in my mind because I think it really allows us to plug this in into our environments. Talk to us about those. Thank you. Yeah. I'm really glad you said that. And those two resources, were not originally going to be in the book. We were going to create kind of a support kit or a personal development kit that went with the book.

And we thought, no, let's just put it right in there up front. And so we have an appendix that is very specific, guided questions, points for journaling, and points for reflection that go with each chapter so people can integrate and apply and get good at these skills. And each one of those chapter references also ties into this free assessment that people get when they buy the book. It's a really good assessment.

called Your Drama Resilience Assessment. And people can get a good, valid assessment of their drama risks and their compassion potentials and then use that information throughout the book as they start building their skills. The second one, preparing your ORPO bank, is it responds to this question. A lot of people say when I'm presenting, they say,

oh, you make it look so easy, you're so good at it. What do I do if I go ORPO like you did? And then everyone looks at me around the table and says, you're full of, you know, you're full of beans, whatever or you don't take me seriously, what do I do now? And so this chapter and this reference is for you to prepare for these tough conversations where you can go around and around this cycle three times, four times, five times, 30 times if you have to, because if you've done your homework, you've gotten crystal clear about what you need to know to do healthy conflict, and you're not

going in, just winging it. I was going to ask you, you just said it, you just took the words out of my mouth that you make it look easy because you do. I mean, you've walked us through this thing it goes, okay, I get it. And this makes total sense. What would you encourage our audience with when it comes to this book and the processes? It may not be easy. It may look easy, regardless of where they're at on the spectrum as they begin to process this and putting into practice, what would you say to them about the value of sticking with this until they can really get the hang of this? There's nothing that substitutes for practice. And while they're working their way through the book and putting these things into practice,

layering it on one by one, the one thing that anyone could start doing right now that will make a dramatic difference in their life is follow the first rule of compassion accountability, which is always start at open. Always default to either disclosing your motives and feelings, empathizing with someone, or validating their feelings. Because unless we can create a safe place where we're not holding our cards, where it is safe to be who we are, we can't do conflict. And so, When in doubt, start it open, just disclose. Feel super vulnerable. I got that.

And as you read the rest of the book and start layering on the skills, you'll start to realize, I think, what Brunei Brown has been saying, is that openness while vulnerable is incredibly strong when it is flanked by resourcefulness and persistence. Yes. And then the only other thing you can say is practice, practice, practice. Because unless you try it and fail and learn again and get feedback and try it again and let people know what you're trying, you won't get better at it. Yeah, I love that last part. This is not some secret tool. This is something to be open about because so many people are going to be attracted to it when you're modeling it, even if you're not modeling it perfectly. He is Nate Rageir. The book is Conflict Without Casualties, a field guide for leading with compassionate accountability. I think it's a great book. I think it's a must read for any leader in any organization. Nate, thank you for your time. This is good stuff and we're better for it. You are so welcome. I really appreciated your questions and the opportunity to talk about. this. It is our passion to share this message and transform that balance of energy in the world.

Goodness knows we need it. Big thanks to Nate for hanging out with us and sharing some very important information. Again, the book is Conflict Without Casualties. I highly recommend it, so go check that out. Hey, we've got a new Entree Leadership Tool. It's entitled How to Be an Influential Leader. It's a video course, and Daniel Tarty is actually going to come in studio here to tell you more about it. Hey guys, this is Daniel Tarty. As many of you know, I grew up here at Ramsey, and I started out in the Entree Leadership team. Eventually, I became the vice president of Entree Leadership,

and now I get to lead the entire business and leadership spoke for Dave Ramsey. It's such an honor. But I got to tell you, I've got a lot of bumps and bruises, and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. When I was early in my leadership journey, I felt like leadership was all about power and prestige and getting to have my opinion really count. But what I've learned is it's so much more about information. There's really a lot of responsibility that goes with leadership that a lot of times doesn't get talked about when you're not in leadership.

So what we've done is we got together with Sarah, our VP of Entree leadership, and several of our team members, and we started unpacking what is this thing about growing in leadership that people really want to connect with? And as a leader, you've probably had people on your team raise their hand and say, hey, how do I get to be in leadership? Well, we put together this great package that's going to help you equip this. your team with some practical ways that they can start to increase their influence. Leadership is all about influence. But there's some specific things you need to do and some specific things you need

to not do if you want to grow your influence. And so in this free tool that our team has put together, Sarah Soyan, our VP of Entre leadership and myself are going to talk you through what you can do to define what real influence looks like and why it's vital as a leader. We're going to reveal three ways to gain influence that you can hand to your team. And we're going to show you and your team how they can start to close the gap between where they are today and how they can get to become a leader by growing their influence. This is an amazing series. Again, it's free and it's perfect if you want it to be something that your team is working on so that they can become leaders and not have you doing all the leadership stuff all the time. So to join us, all you got to do is text the word

influential. That's I-N-F-L-U-E-N-T-I-L-Influential to 3-4-4-4 to register. That's it. Text Influential to 33-44-4, and we'll see you on this free series. You're going to love it. There's no reason not to check it out. Big thanks to Daniel Tarty and the Entree leadership team for always giving us and you the goods

to help you win in business. Speaking of influence, one of the most influential leaders here at Ramsey Solutions. Jack Galloway is somebody who understands it. He's been a valuable guest for us as he has showed up several times on this program to give us some inside baseball, how we do what we do, why we do what we do. So since Jack has been here before, I'll just leave it to this. He has become the unofficial mediator of Ramsey Solutions. He's got a tried and true process for handling the difficult topics and the difficult conversations. Here is his plan. All right, folks, a special treat excited to have a multiple-time guest, Jack Galloway, one of our executive vice presidents

with us here. He actually oversees the division that Entree leadership resides within and is passionate about this brand. Jack, thanks for hanging out with us. Oh, love to be here. Thank you. I know. We're having you back because you've done such a great job of laying out something that you have learned to do. It's been a process, trial error, but now I think you would say confidently, it is a tried and true process. And that is the difficult conversation. And we're talking about that on this episode. So I'm going to tee you up on what I'm calling the Galloway rules, because we've had you on before to talk about this. So you say rule number one, you've got to deal with the very first difficult conversation. Many times in a process of going, as a leader,

they're going, okay, I've got to confront something. The biggest hurdle is the first hurdle, which you say is that initial meeting. Two-part question here. Sure. Why is the first meeting the most difficult? And how do we get to that point so that when you got to have it, it's not as awkward as or difficult as we think it might be? Ken, I've been here almost 18 years now in leadership. And anytime you're in leadership, you're going to deal one way or another with conflict. And the way I dealt with it for probably the first 10 years of my career here was maybe the conflict will just go away if I ignore it. long enough. And it never went away. It always got worse. And over time, that feeling, I'm on the disc, I'm a high eye, high C, I'm not a high D. I would start getting this nauseous feeling in my gut of how am I going to sit down and address this? And in the meantime, the conflict would get bigger and bigger and my imagination would run away with me and I would start losing sleep. And finally,

we would sit down and have this very emotional conflict. And I finally learned that's just not the way to do it, but it's the way most of us do it as we wait until it can't wait any longer. Today, what I do is the opposite. When there's a conflict to be dealt with, I deal with it early for two reasons. One is it's very small. It's easy to solve a conflict that's small. I can give a person benefit of the doubt. It doesn't feel like this magnificent thing that's been building over time. It just happened this morning. Let's just deal with it. The other is it doesn't give me time to get that feeling that keeps me up at night. I think about it. I know it needs to be dealt with. I sit down with the person and I address out loud, hey, can we talk about something that's a little

uncomfortable? And we start working through conflict. And the reality is, is that when you have that initial meeting, do you see a positive result quicker because of the result of doing it quickly? Always. The reason is it also, because the conflict is, smaller, the other person hadn't had a chance to go too far off the grid. The conflict just happened this morning. It's relatively small. I don't have to nail that person. I can course correct that person. I can talk through why that's a problem and we can address how we're going to solve it. I can give them benefit of the doubt. It's much more of just a conversation. In fact, if I really do a good job, they may not realize we dealt with a conflict until the end of the

conversation as they're leaving, they may go, wow, we dealt with something pretty big there, but it didn't hurt like I thought it would. Well, that's good. And one of the things you say is that difficult conversations that share truth build trust. So, okay, I'm hearing that. I go, all right, how can a difficult conversation build trust? Two ways. One is, if you've got a team member that's outside of the accepted behavior of the team,

you've got a salesperson not making calls, and they're getting lazy and they're, and they're doing things they're not supposed to be doing. The rest of the team picks up on that very quickly. And they're looking to you as the leader to go, do you have the backbone to deal with this? Or are you going to let that person not live up to the standard you set for all of us? And so your team is watching. So it builds trust from the rest of the team

when they know that you've dealt with something difficult in a kind way. It also builds trust with that team member because they trust that you've got the guts as a leader to invite them into your office, to sit down over a cup of coffee and say, hey, you're not at your best lately. What's going on? Your call volume's been in half. Your sales numbers are down. Your commissions are down.

And start asking questions of the person as opposed to just hitting them with everything they're doing wrong. You say it feels like there's a problem. Talk to me. What's going on? And oftentimes there is a problem and the person will appreciate you asking them what's going on instead of telling them what's going on. But when they leave, it will build confidence that they go, my leader, my coach is confident enough to sit down with me when it's awkward and talk about things that matter. Yeah.

And they care. If they're truly a healthy person and it's handled right, don't they also walk out going, all right, they care enough. This wasn't about scolding me. This is really about protecting me and allow. me to grow. I always want to start with asking questions. Here's what I've found with dealing with people for almost 20 years. Most of the people you encounter during the day are carrying around something heavy that's on the personal side of their life. They've got a child that's sick. They've got a marriage that's in trouble. They are struggling financially. They've got a family member

that's causing relational problems. They bring it to work. It affects their work. If you've got a salesperson who's been doing a good job for eight years and all of a sudden they're not doing a good job, I want to give them benefit of the doubt and ask them what's going on. And oftentimes, they'll confide in me when they've really not had the courage to confide in any other person and I can help them walk through that situation while we figure out how to deal with the problem. And you find that most of the time this stuff they're carrying around obviously can be a direct source or an indirect source of the problem. That's right. Yeah, that's really good. All right. Now, I love a couple of these points here, and you've touched on one, but we're going to hit it again.

But this first one, write it down. Now, when I remember the first time we talked about this on the show, I thought, well, that's interesting. Because I'm not wired that way, but I do know that when you do write things down that are going to be difficult with maybe some potential emotion involved, it does several things positive. For me, I took away. Now, wait a second. That would keep me in the riverbanks. You do it for several reasons. tell us the value for the leaders, what we're talking about now, Jack, that writing down the main points of this conflict that you've got to address, why it's so valuable to write it down?

I stumbled upon this method, this tool in your toolbox. This is something you may use once or twice a year. You don't have to do this every time. But I was very, very anxious in a conflict I was going to deal with. I had let it go on too long. It was with a longtime team member. We were friends as well as working together. and the conflict was weighing me down. And I was concerned that I would go in and do one of a couple of things that I don't want our leaders to do. One is build a court case. I'm anxious about this. You're a better arguer than I am. I'm the leader.

And all of a sudden, I feel like I've got to win the conflict. I've got to build a case that traps you in the corner. So you'll admit that, yes, there's a problem. And I don't want to do that as a leader. It puts you on the defensive. And so when I write it down, it keeps me on task. It keeps me in the riverbanks, as you put it. It keeps me from building a court case high or from going left or right off topic to something else you've been doing that bothered me four years ago that I'm just now bringing up, which takes away the credibility of the conflict that we're here to deal with. So it keeps me focused.

And that one particular time, as awkward as it was, and it was. And I said it out loud. I said, hey, I know this. is weird. I just don't know how I have to get through this. I literally read it because in reading it, I was able to take thoughts that I had slept on the night before and articulate them in a way that kept me from getting too nervous or too harsh or exaggerating or being sarcastic and it kept me on task. And do you know that that conversation went beautifully because I was able to put it in a tone where the other person was able to hear it and receive it. And they knew that if I was uncomfortable as well, and I was, that it meant a lot. There was a lot at stake. And they needed to hear it from me that clearly and directly. And writing it down happened to be a way that helped me do

that when I was early in dealing with my conflict and I was anxious. I'm curious. Did you find yourself in this particular story that you're recalling? Did you find yourself after you initially read it and now it's being received, obviously? You kind of go, thunk, you know, hand it to him with that. Did you find yourself going back to that throughout the conversation? At the end of the conversation, the hardest part of reading it was what do you do when you get to the end? Right, yeah. And if you're a talker, you want to just keep talking to avoid the silence. And I would encourage our leaders when they're dealing with conflict, let the silence lay.

Let it be there and let the other person absorb it a little bit. Fight the temptation to just start talking again and let them respond. It may be 10 seconds of silence. it'll feel like hours. But let the seconds of silence go by and you'll get the most genuine, authentic, well-thought-out, least argumentative response from the person that you're talking. Good. All right.

Now, you touched on this a little bit earlier, but I want to let you unpack this. And this is a great truth and I think great hope and great freedom for leaders. And that is it's not going to be as bad as you think it is. What we're saying here is, is leaders, when you got to confront something and deal with the difficult, issue, it's not going to be as bad as you think in your mind. We make it way worse. Look at this giant monster. And then if we actually apply some of the things that you've just laid out for us, all of the things, it's not that bad. It's not. And the reason is you begin to understand that conflict takes us to a better place where I'm on the eneogram. I'm a nine. That's a peacemaker.

I've tried other people's styles and it just comes across as weird for everybody. I've tried to be Dave Ramsey. I've tried to be other leaders and the person's just sitting there going, Who are you? Now, I just use my own style. Right. I'm very clear and direct, but I'm also very relational while I'm dealing with it. And today, I don't get anxious about these conversations. I don't think about them the night before. I think about them while we're having the conversation. I listen intently to what the person says. I may take some notes. I may ask them afterward to send me some clarification on what they heard. But all of this comes very naturally. Part of which,

is due to the fact that I've jumped off that high dive maybe 100 times in the last five years. I've had over a hundred difficult conversations with people of all personality types. And I've learned that if I will care about them and deal with a problem, almost every time, the problem will be resolved. The relationship will be stronger and they'll walk out a better leader or a better team member because I was willing to have this conversation with them. So I don't get anxious about it anymore. I feel like I'm helping. Yeah.

Well, and here's what I love about this conversation. Right from your mouth, you don't get anxious anymore because of two reasons. You have a pattern. You have a process, if you will, that you have worked through and you know it works for you. And we believe, Jack, that this is very transferable. I think as long as our leaders that are listening and watching do what you said, which is be you, use this process, adapt this process. But the process does take a lot of the anxiety way because you know it works. If you stick to the plans, right? It's good stuff.

A couple other things I've learned to do is after the conflict. I've learned to do some things before the conflict and after. Oh, after the conflict, I've learned how important it is to swing by the person's desk and have a conversation same day about something not related to the conflict we just had, but about our normal work day. The reason is a team member, especially if they report to you, they walk out going, did I just lose all of the, the credibility I've spent the last 10 years building. Did I just lose it in that moment? Do they really

want me on the team at all? And when you come by and publicly hang out with them, talk about something unrelated to the conflict. It says a couple of things. One of the things it says to the team member is it was really just about that thing. They don't dislike me. They just disliked the behavior that we were dealing with. I think we're okay outside of them. And it lets them relax. If you don't do that, until you have your first interaction with them, they will carry that around with them, wondering if they've really lost you and lost your respect. The other thing I've learned is before the conflict, all of these things assume that you've got a healthy relationship with a person, a peer, a leader, a team member, a family member

before you sit down and try to do these things. I spend a lot of time before conflicts investing into relationships throughout our company. Sometimes it's just a moment in a parking lot talking to a person as we pass for meetings about something that I think that they did well. Sometimes it's more of a sit down to work through a problem they really need my help with. But if I'll do that, when we finally sit down and deal with a conflict, we've got something to lean on. We were already had a good relationship, already friends, if you will, coming into this. Now I can sit down with you and say, Ken, I need to talk about something. that's really awkward and uncomfortable. And you go, well, we've known each other for a long time.

We were already good friends. This can't be that bad compared to that. And it's a big deal for you to invest before the conflict, during the conflict, and then quickly after the conflict. Love it. Some great takeaways, several things. I think what you have modeled so well in this conversation is the power of questions. Leaders are going to challenge you with that. When you ask a question of somebody, it has the least amount of impact to make them defensive. Because you're not making a declaratory statement. You're asking. And at that point, they have to own that.

That's right. Because you put the ball in their core. That's right. And I think it's a powerful thing. And I've seen it modeled here very, very well. Jack Galloway, thank you, man. This is always good stuff. The value of difficult conversations is a process, folks, that works.

And it works over and over and over again. Make it your own really good stuff. Jack, thanks for hanging out with this again. Glad to be here. Thanks to Jack for that always valuable conversation. I read recently a survey from the Alternative Board, a membership organization for business owners, where entrepreneurs said they spend 68% of their time managing daily tasks in their business instead of working on the business. So this is the idea of you're just doing all this busy stuff instead of thinking about strategy and how to grow the business.

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Infusionsoft.com slash office dash automation. Well, folks, the audience of the Entree Leadership Program continues to grow, and I want to thank you for that. That means you're spreading the word. And here's a couple of other ways. you can spread the word. If you're not subscribe, A, go subscribe. When you're there, how about giving us a review? And then, how about sharing it? That's how we grow. If this program is helping you, it's inspiring you, then we want you to share it with others. And here's the great thing. You get the credit for making a great recommendation. We need you. So again, hit that subscribe button. How about a rating and a review and a share? That would make will the producer very happy? So there you go. And on behalf of the

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