Omnichannel - How to Diffuse Conflict Without Losing Yourself

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Send us a textConflict doesn’t have to end in frustration, resentment, or someone “losing.”In this video, I take you behind the scenes of a real client situation where pushback could have turned into a full-blown conflict — and show you exactly how I resolved it using my Human-to-Human approach.You’ll learn how to defuse tension, protect relationships, and hold your standards without being pushy, angry, or abandoning yourself.What we cover: 00:00 — Introduction to Human-to-Human Defusing 02:53 — Navigating Conflict with Empathy 05:49 — Finding Common Ground in Collaboration 12:00 — The Balance of Self-Representation and CollaborationBy the end, you’ll know how to:Turn resistance into collaborationCreate understanding without self-abandonmentLead with empathy while still protecting your boundariesMaintain trust in high-stakes client or team relationshipsGet a FREE Copy of the High Converting Online Events Book: https://book.dominikalegrand.com/

Hello, my dearest entrepreneur friends. Welcome back to another video. In this one, we are going to be defusing people the human way. And in order for me to explain to you how do we defuse people, the human to human way, I need to kind of tell you a backstory on how did I get to this realization and how you can also do this in your own business. If you want to defuse people and get your way without making some I want to feel bad, without being pushy, without getting angry or dysregulated, and without them

getting angry and dysregulated. And there's a lot of passive aggressiveness. Like, you don't want that to happen. So we're going to take a scenario of a conflict that has actually happened to me. And we're going to use this as a lesson for this one to kind of hit this point home. I have a client who I've been working with the past three years and I'm helping them go to business. I'm their fractional marketing director. So what happened was that they went ahead to hire a brand new video editor. And what you have to know about this is that this video editor

that they were staying in communication with is actually not a video editor himself. It's just that he's managing a team relating the message. So basically a mediator between the client and their teams right so what ended up happening is after this person got hired to be the midperson what i have noticed is that some of the videos that they were submitting to the client was actually on vacation at the time sometimes i lead the business not just the marketing when the client stops away i know the things i keep the vision until he's back from his vacation what i have noticed is that the videos that they were submitting were not the best quality in terms of editing and there were some videos that were the text were cut out on the sides so imagine when you create any video and

quality work you wouldn't be posting something that the text is missing on the sites right especially it's it's not a cheap service that this team was providing for our clients and what ended up happening is, I'm not going to say directly, hey, that video that you just did as shit and you need to fix it. I didn't say that. I was just like gently trying to help them understand that there is some improvements that could have been made. And what I was asking is, do you think it's possible to make sure that the text is not cut out? And this guy responded, it not possible. I'm like, okay?

At the time, I wasn't taking this the most glorious way, and I'm like, of course it's possible. All you do is you cut this, I cut this. Like, I know how to do this. I know editing myself. But what ended up happening is that I was trying to tell them,

like, that's how you do it. Like, you know, trying to kind of help them see what I'm seeing and help them fix the issue so that they can serve my clients with the quality that is expected, they pushed back. They were telling me how I'm stifling their process and they tagged my client and told my client, hey, you need to tell this person, tagging my name, to kind of back off because basically I'm hindering their work process and they're going to be late because of me. and I'm hindering it and I should be told to kind of stay out of it.

And even though I didn't like that, like obviously that was not cool, but I thought like, if we're going to start a war here, this is not going to work. If there is something that I understand is we are on the same team. We are both here to help the client grow. And if there's something that could be improved, that is blatant, the obvious, I'm going to be nice about it to let you know so that you can also keep serving the client. Because if you keep submitting subpart work and no one says anything, you're going to get fired and you won't even know why. So like I said, to me in that point, it was very clear

that we need to get on the same page. I remember just feeling angry and I'm like, okay, I really tried to be diplomatic here. And I felt like that was completely, like, diplomatic but assertive, like, hey, can we, is it possible to fix it, right? Not possible. Okay. You know, and then turn it up a little bit to kind of see if that helps to get the point across. But what they did is they pushed back. So we ended up becoming in a little bit of our friction because he was trying to loop in the client to kind of put the muscle on me. I was like confused on why this is so hard to fix. Like it's not that we asked for a complete redoing of the entire thing. And I knew the thing, it's easy fix. So I did, I was confused about.

why this has to escalate when this could have been done so easily if they just didn't push back when I was trying to tell them to help us fix the issue. So I had to sit with it because I had to realize that I'm dealing with someone who's not only not the most emotional intelligent, but also lacks the self-leadership, the maturity, the protector, like everything that we talked in the previous video, like that is lacking here. And maybe he was protector, protector of his own team, but didn't come to protect the client's interest in this scenario. I was protecting the clients more than I was paying attention to possibly what's going on for the service provider, like what's the root cause

of them pushing back on a simple feedback. So I really had to sit with it and I had to think about, okay we need to find a resolution here and how can we do that so the first step and if you ever find yourself in a scenario where you're like okay it's clear that we need to collaborate here and it's very difficult right now like I feel the pushback this is not going to work if we don't figure out how do we do this together it's not going to work we need to there is no option here we're both on the same team on the same boats so what happened was is that I reached out privately almost like open a door for them to come and meet me halfway. And in order for us to get someone to meet us halfway, we need to do our own halfway. So what I just simply said is, hey, first name,

I'm really surprised and confused why that small adjustment that I was asking for was impossible to do. And I understand that you are a service provider, just like I am a service provider. I see, you know, how trying really hard to make sure that this client's videos are top quality. I see that. And I also said, like, I'm really trying also hard to not say things that are not within your retainer, like remember the time. Actually, there was times where they were unclear on how many videos they're signed up to produce from my clients each month. So I actually brought in that, like remember the time when I was asking you to make sure that I'm not asking you anything that's not in your agreement. Like I know how it is to be keeping that boundary that if you

agreed upon something, that we'd be stayed within that. So I brought that up. And I also said, I think we both want this client to succeed. You and your team as well and I want the same thing. So how about we try to work together rather than against each other? What do you think? That's why I sent and this person immediately softened and explained to me how that one video would have caused the team like massive delays and it's not that it was hard to do or impossible. It just, it would have disrupted their work. He gave me more context than I understood. And I also said, like, no problem. Like, let's just make sure that next time we pay attention to those details, right? And then we agreed. So I had to kind of step away from my own perspective

to kind of step into their perspective. And what I was trying to do is I was trying to create assumptions. Like I was trying to be like, okay, I'm assuming that this is the case, right? I'm assuming that you want this client to be happy. Yes. I'm assuming that we want the same outcome. You want the client to be happy. You want the client to succeed. The videos to turn out really well. Like, we want the same thing, brother. And when we bring that to like, hey, we want the same thing and inviting them to collaborate with you without force or pressure, like giving them the choice to make a choice. But before I was giving them a choice to make a choice, I was explaining that that I understand them, that I'm the same person, I'm the same, I'm also service providing.

Like, we are the same both. And I also showed empathy for what they did. I actually showcase like where else were I showing empathy for them. So it became this calmness and we finally could actually work on being much more understanding and getting closer to our goal. But for that to happen, I would have to walk away from my preconceived notion in thinking that they are morons and then trying to understand them and demonstrate where I was trying to understand them, but not abandoning myself because I could express how I was confused by that entire thing, that how is it not possible to change something so simple. So it's not a self-abandoning. I still representing myself, but it's more

of like, okay, that's how I feel. I'm confused. Here's how I try to understand you. Here's how I try to protect you. We are the same both. We are both leaders. And at the same time, time. Let's work and collaborate. You know, can we work and collaborate? So actually, all of our pillars that we talked in a previous video, that's how they look in motion. Because I was showing up with that same energy. I was showing up as a collaborator. I was showing up as a protector by acknowledging that I was showing up as a protector because I made sure to state that, hey, look, I really tried to respect whatever is in your retainer. I was showing up as a trusted advisor.

I did kind of cap that conversation after that helped them to open up about their team situation and what's happening for them so that I could really understand where they were coming from. And finally, I also showed up as a leader myself. I also saw this person as a leader of their own team. So once they were telling me how, yep, he's protecting his team from the workload you just want to make sure that you know they are not going back to something when it's the editing is already done it's too difficult for them to get go back to the raw file right so there was all of those elements maybe the trusted advisor not so much

because i wasn't really trying to like hey next time but we did agree on the next time so we're like hey can we then from the next time do this that's more like a trusted advisor energy because I didn't dictate. I was inviting. And then we could really be level leveling the plane field and there was no more friction. So that's kind of how the human-to-human approach of diffusing something is working in real time. And what I have noticed, and this is a bonus tip. What I have noticed is that there was a surrendering that has to happen for me to be able to step out of myself. Not completely. I'm still representing myself. Sometimes the thing that diffusing means abandoning ourselves or, you know, letting them win and we lose. And then, you know,

even thinking, well, let them have it, you know, whatever. I don't think there has to be that, you know, you don't have to lose for them to win. What if you can both win? What if you both feel good? What if you can lead yourself and then let them lead themselves? And then you guys collaborate, meet halfway, you're good. What if that's the case? What is attainable? What if balance is attainable? I believe that is. So there's more conversations like this coming. I am launching a program called Human to Human. How to become. How to become valuable in every organization you touch. And there is a lot of emotional intelligence piece in the program.

There's a lot of how do we think, how do we react, how do we diffuse, how do we master these things called client relationships. And there is no self-abandoning in this process. So it's a fun one. If you're interested in the program, even though it's, I don't know when it's, but it's coming, let me know. If this resonated with you, let me know. If you had a situation where you managed to de-escalate without abandoning yourself or bowing down, letting daughter win, let me know. Thank you so much for watching, listening. I'll see you soon.