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Conquering the fear of conflict at work is one way smart leaders and good bosses set themselves apart from the rest. But how do you do that?
Few people enjoy conflict. Most avoid it and get defensive. And those who do like conflict are often thought of as bullies.
Dr. Debra Dupree shares how to handle difficult conversations at work with grace.
What You’ll Discover About the Fear of Conflict at Work:
* Why so many leaders fear conflict at work and avoid it,
* How to get past the “fight or flight” triggers when managing conflict at work,
* The two-part communication strategy that can defuse conflict at work,
* How mindset shifts help develop the courage to overcome the fear of conflict at work, and
* Much more.
Guest: Dr. Debra Dupree
Dr. Debra Dupree, the MINDSET Doc, has long been inspired to help others grow out of their FEAR of CONFLICT. She saw her own family-owned business embroiled in differences and disagreements, leading to dashed dreams, damaged relationships, and broken hearts. She turned these early experiences into a lifetime of study and application to the business world, working with leaders at all levels of an organization.
As she sees it, people have a financial, and a personal, need to work but work doesn’t always feel ‘psychologically safe’ – and this is true at every level of the organization. Dr. D works with individuals and organizations to show up in ways that matter with influence, persuasion, and cohesion to make collaborative and meaningful environments.
Today, she takes her world-wide community to a new level of understanding with empathy and compassion using strategic skills and techniques that turn challenging confrontations into curious conversations for learning, living and growing for cohesive workplaces.
Dr. Debra is a Dispute Resolution Specialist, Conflict | Leadership Coach, and International Trainer and Keynote Speaker. She is also the host of the bi-weekly podcast ‘Decoding the Conflict Mindset’ bringing ‘thought leaders’ from various disciplines to her worldwide community to gain insight on self and others in challenging conversations, when high emotions run high, facing tough negotiations and confrontations. She is also the host and creator of “The Agile Lawyer-Mediator Interview Series” – a virtual mentorship from 12 topnotch advocates and mediators throughout the U.S.A. And all applicable to the world of business
Debra delivers training and coaching throughout North America, Europe, Australia, India and the Pacific Rim in leadership strategies, workplace conflict intervention strategies and advanced negotiation skills for leaders and dispute resolution professionals, bringing to her participants a unique perspective on the brain science behind people in conflict.
She was awarded recognition as one of the top ten trainers globally by SkillPath Corporate Strategies in 2016 and designated as a ‘Super SMART Mediator’ by the Federal Executive Board in 2008. Dr. D was the former Director of Training for Mediation Training Institute (MTI), training professionals to become workplace mediators throughout North America.
She currently serves on the the Employment Mediation Panel and Faculty for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), on the Board of Directors for the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA), and on the Planning Committee for the ABA Advanced Mediation Strategies Section.
Related Resources:
If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy our other Leadership and Management episodes.
Contact Dr. Dupree and connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Visit Dr. Dupree’s website: Relationships at Work
Check out her Decoding the Conflict Mindset podcast and Your Emotional Potential: How You Show Up Matters Kindle ebook.
Watch her popular YouTube video about 360 Degree Perspective
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How Smart Leaders Sucessfully Conquer Fear of Conflict at Work with Dr. Debra Dupree
Conquering the fear of conflict at work is one way smart leaders and good bosses set themselves apart from the rest. But how do you do that? So few of us enjoy conflict, most of us avoid it and even get defensive. And those who do like conflict are often thought of as bullies.
How do we have those difficult conversations at work with grace? My next guest has some great suggestions.
This is Business Confidential Now with Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, helping you see business issues hiding in plain view that matter to your bottom line.
Welcome to Business Confidential Now, the weekly podcast for smart executives, managers and entrepreneurs looking to improve business performance and their bottom line. I’m your host, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner.
I’ve got a terrific guest for you today. She’s Dr. Debra Dupree, also known as the Mindset Doc. She’s a dispute resolution specialist, a conflict leadership coach, an international trainer, and a keynote speaker. In addition, she’s written a terrific e-book, Your Emotional Potential. She also hosts a biweekly podcast called Decoding the Conflict Mindset.
Dr. Deb says people have a financial and personal need to work, but work doesn’t always feel psychologically safe, and she’s found this to be true at every level of an organization.
That’s why she takes her worldwide community to a new level of understanding with empathy and compassion, to help them turn challenging confrontation into curious conversations for learning, living, and growing, and having a more cohesive workplace.
Available as an eBook
I can’t wait to get more details about how we can stop freaking out about confrontation, overcome our fear of conflict, and turn those disagreements into curious conversations.
So, welcome to Business Confidential Now, Dr. Deb.
Thank you so much, Hanna. Delighted to be here.
Well, I’m excited. Before diving into how to have a curious conversation, I’d love to have a better understanding of why you think so many of us avoid confrontation. Why do we suck it up when deep down inside, we know we ought to spit it out? Why are we our own worst enemy at times?
That’s a great way to get started, because it really hones in right on the fact that we are wired to survive. And so, that drive to survive has real physiological components that are we going to fight.
And there are some of us who naturally do; are we going to flee, which is what some of us naturally do; or do we simply freeze up? Or do we try to amend everything and give away the world? And so, those are the basic neurobiological patterns for how we react when we’re triggered.
It goes back to our prehistoric human predecessors, that we’re still wired the same way, we just don’t have the same threats that our predecessors did. But the threats are still there, and we physiologically and emotionally react to that, and unless we hone our skills, deepen our understanding and awareness, we oftentimes are mismanaging those natural reactions into explosive outcomes, and then it gets really ugly.
Yes, that’s to put it mildly. I mean, ugly in so many ways. But I don’t want to really dwell on the ugly part. I’m interested in what you said about how we’re wired the same, but our threats are different. And so, what suggestions do you have for us to overcome our fear of conflict and managing these threats?
Well, I have learned over my years of working with people in conflict, that there are certain patterns of behavior that emerge. And in fact, it was more of my mediation foundation some 30 years ago, more so than my psychological background, that really caused me to study human behavior from a different perspective.
And so, when I’m working with people to help them learn how to manage their response to conflict differently, I do take them through what I call “three steps to mindset shift,” and it’s really three layers, a deeper understanding not only of self, but also of others. Because when we unlock those clues that are right there in front of us and we know what to do with those clues, it’s amazing how we can redirect that challenging confrontation into a learning conversation.
Well, let’s talk about how to do those redirects, because unless you’ve got a chronic complainer in your office or somewhere on your team who comes in with every little thing, chances are, people take things more in stride, they wait for the right opportunity.
But also, chances are things have been building up for a little while and they come in and they could be, I won’t say explosive, but upset. They’re emotional about it because they care and they see that something is wrong. What would be the first step you would recommend to somebody who’s now having to respond to that particular employee?
As a leader who really wants to be effective as an influencer and model the way, and to be regarded with respect and integrity for how we show up, it really does start with self first. And so, it’s important that we learn to identify what our own triggers are, how we physiologically respond, but also to recognize what other people do that tend to trigger us.
And I emphasize that because too often I’ve seen over my years of mediation, work-related disputes oftentimes between leaders and employees at any level, that unless leaders, managers, supervisors develop their mindfulness, their awareness of where others – how others are showing up, they tend to keep it at the surface.
And because they really don’t know what to do. It’s like an iceberg. They react to the tip of the iceberg, what they see, but they seldom feel comfortable or feel they have the skills to dive a little further to what’s driving this behavior, what’s going on for this person, understanding the context for the behavior that comes into mind.
So that’s, to me, the first step. Developing your own what’s oftentimes called emotional intelligence these days. How do you self manage and then knowing others, and then how do you manage that relationship for key critical components?
And so, that’s where we start with shifting the mindset of the leader, because when we come in with that umbrella of thinking, now we can better deal with those employees who show up at our offices or show up in the hallways or on screen virtually who are upset, who are reacting poorly, who are not displaying good emotional intelligence management themselves.
And so, it’s a two-pronged approach.
Anytime we talk about intervention, let’s start with self first and what’s going on for you, so that now we can apply what we learn about others more effectively, more efficiently, and more articulately.
Well, that sounds makes good sense in in theory, applying it maybe a little tougher. Let’s go back to the supervisor, the leader who’s being confronted by this employee who’s upset.
And maybe they’re not upset with what the leader has done, but they’re upset with something else that’s happening in the business, with a customer, with a vendor, and they want some kind of a response and help from the leader that they hadn’t been getting before.
And the leader recognizes, “Oh my god, this person’s going to blow up and have a meltdown,” or maybe they are blowing up and having a meltdown, and they’re scared. What should they do?
I’m glad you took it back to the practical application, because this is real. But it starts with the framework of thinking, okay, And so now, practical strategic tactics come into play here. And again, it’s first understanding that neurobiological response we have, trying to go there in the heat of the moment is really not the best idea.
What we want to try to do then is to redirect that emotional thing. And so, I’ll give a few practical tips, is that recognizing that when we get triggered, there’s a whole lot, physiologically, that’s going on in our bodies and in our brains. And when we’re in the heat of the moment, we’re not coming from a cognitive perspective, we’re coming from an emotionally reactive perspective.
And so, this has been built on a number of studies and research and practical application. I use this in my mediations and my workplace interventions. I know it works. And so, it’s really a two-part communication strategy.
So, what I call helpful phrases or helpful phrases that a manager or supervisor leader at any level can employ as part of their vocabulary, such as, “I can see that you’re really upset. What I’d like to suggest is that you go ahead and take 5 minutes just to sit here alone in my office, and I want you to write down three or four, maybe even five key things about what happened, and then we can come back.
That would give me something better to focus on, and then we can come up with a plan of action for how we move forward.” Why that’s so important is that by acknowledging – acknowledging is huge – acknowledging that someone is upset, but then say, “Why don’t you take a few minutes to think about the key things that you want to share with me and write them down?”
There’s a couple of things that is accomplished with that. Is that by asking people to write down three or four, maybe five things, you’re actually helping redirect their brain activity to get out of that emotional part into the cognitive part. And by structuring it with three or four or five things, now you’ve give them the framework for them to reexamine what’s going on for themselves.
And you’re also focusing them on the facts of the situation, not the emotional content. And so, when the manager comes back, the conversation is much more focused and meaningful by employing these simple little strategies. Because otherwise, I’m sure many of our listeners have often experienced where someone upset comes into our office and then they just ramble on and on, and you’re trying to make sense of what they’re saying.
Well, that’s that emotional, reactive state of mind that they’re in, that they’re not making sense, they’re just going all over the place. And so, that’s what we want to redirect into something more focused, strategic, and actionable. And then, once you hear that, it’s even questions like, “Well, how would you like to see this happen? What do you feel needs to happen?”
And again, you’re engaging the cognitive part of the employee’s brain and helping them move out of that emotionally reactive. Now, granted, this does take practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. And so, we get better and better at doing these kinds of things. So, that’s a framework. We want to learn how to redirect that emotionally reactive person by using some simple cognitive redirection.
Now, let’s say somebody is partway through that, and the employee has put these things down on paper. The supervisor, the leader comes back in and looks at these, and then one of those things triggers them. They just blurt out, “Well, you didn’t do X, Y, Z. No wonder this is da-da-da,” and there it goes, we’re off to the races. How can somebody recover from something like that?
Excellent point. Yes. Because again, it can run away unless we’re blowing up as the leader to try to redirect that. “I hear that you’re getting upset again by even going over these steps.
But let’s stay focused on the facts, because only if we focus on the facts that we’ll figure out a way to resolve this situation, and this is where we’re engaging the employee in cognitive thought by asking open-ended questions. And the manager, the leader doesn’t want to come back into the room with this emotionally set person with the intent to fixing the problem right away.
Again, it’s turning that challenging confrontation into learning conversation, and help me understand more. That’s one of the most powerful phrases, by the way, Hanna, “Help me understand. You said this. Tell me more.” Now again, you’re getting the upset employee to redirecting their own brain by your questions.
Now, I know another thing about this, is a lot of managers and leaders will take forever. Oh, I will assure you that this will take far less time than letting the employee rant on unchecked.
Yes, I can appreciate that, definitely, the focus. I think it’s really hard for a leader to say, “Help me understand” or “Tell me more” If the employee is having a problem with them. I think sometimes the power that they have to hire and fire, one thing that could trigger them is, “I don’t have time for this. You know what? You’re fired.”
Well, good luck, and see them in court.
[Laughter] Well, yes, Yes, it would depend on a few more facts. But what if the facts as the employee sees them, are wrong, and you know them to be wrong? How can you redirect them at that point? What do you suggest?
Yes. Well, thank you for asking, because I do have a couple of specific suggestions. First of all, it’s important to acknowledge – I can’t say that word enough. Acknowledge where people are coming from, it doesn’t mean you agree with them, it just simply acknowledges that you’re hearing what they have to say.
And so, if somebody presents some – I don’t know if I want to call them facts, but facts from their perception, and that’s going to be another key word I’ll get into; what you know to be about their version of the situation is not accurate.
Then, again, acknowledging would be something like “Thank you for sharing how you see it. I see it differently, and may I share with you how I see it differently?” And then you’d give your version of it, and “Let’s have a learning conversation now.”
And that’s important, again, to the leader to manage the conversation in a way that opens up the dialog to learn where people are coming from. Again, this does not have to be a long, drawn-out time. If people use some strategic things like “Tell me two or three things that are really important to you.”
“What are two or three things that you would like to see happen around solving this problem? And then” I’ll come up with two or three things. Our brain actually works really well when we focus on two or three things at a time.
And there’s all kinds of examples, like our phone numbers, our Social Security numbers. We can remember things when they’re broken down like that, and it’s the same thing when we’re in conflict.
Now, the other part about that is that “Thank you for sharing with me how you see things. I actually see it differently.” Now, we can get into a conversation about perspective taking, and I have a whole exercise on my YouTube channel, very short video that talks about the 360-degree perspective. And I’m always amazed how much it opens up people’s eyes and going, “I never thought about it that way.”
It’s just wherever we are, whatever our role, whatever our experiences, and who we are as individuals, we can look at the same thing. But we’re not seeing the same thing, and that’s what it’s all about, we see things differently.
What suggestions or recommendations do you have for someone who’s still afraid of conflict? How do they get over that fear?
It does take courage to face conflict, particularly if you tend to be more conflict avoidant just by nature. And so, I deal a lot with the poor communication styles too, as far as helping me understand what their natural orientation is. Two of the four are very conflict avoidant. The other two are very conflict embracing, as I like to call it. And so, that’s where it starts with self first.
But the good thing is, is that, again, it’s shifting our mindset. Not all conflicts are bad, it’s how we manage conflict that becomes unhealthy.
And so, a lot of conflict, when managed well, can really lead to some innovative and productive outcomes. And just people feel good about having worked through a problem together rather than lapsing into ongoing confrontation and tension and open disagreement.
And so, the awareness about how they show up, how they react in conflict, it helps them better understand there are things that can be done. And once we understand where people are coming from, now we can introduce specific strategies and tactics to help people build their confidence in managing conflict. And so, that’s where coaching comes into play.
There certainly are trainings that can be done. A lot of my workplace interventions were actually what I call a restorative approach to workplace conflict, and that there is some one-on-one coaching, there is some group educational training in terms of conflict and just understanding that whole world, and then actually working through how do we change our communication strategies moving forward.
Now that we know what we know, we don’t want to go back to where we were. And so, it’s a process. It doesn’t have to be a long process. It’s amazing what we can accomplish in a group setting 90 days. But even so, with individuals, sometimes that kind of group approach is not necessarily the healthiest until the person builds their own confidence and skill set.
So that’s where the one-on-one coaching can come into play. But it’s powerful. I just – it brings such a huge satisfaction to me when I can actually see people get out of their own way by opening up to looking at things differently.
Oh, I can imagine it would be very rewarding. I’m just curious about those types of cultures that some would call toxic, that there are norms and methods of communication or non-communication that need a lot of restoration, to use one of your words. [Laughter]
Are there ever situations that are so opaque that’s, “Fine, as long as Dr. Deb is there for that 90 days, we’ll all be good little boys and girls. But the minute she’s out the door, the elastic snaps back to where it was, and it’s business as usual.
Yes, yes. No, I hear you in that. That is oftentimes a voiced fear or what happens when you’re not here. Yes. And that’s where the emphasis on live, learn, and grow – we’re always growing. And if we have an event, we’re not going to go exactly back to the same way we were.
Our mindset has been altered that I just did a follow up with somebody yesterday on a project I’ve done last year. You say, how were things going? Because it was pretty toxic. And she said, “Oh my gosh, it’s so different now.” And everyone’s getting along and we’re so busy, and people are healthy and happy, and they made some difficult organizational change.
And because they realize the nomenclature that they were using to describe their physical spaces was actually – had hidden derogatory nature and a little microaggressions, so to speak. And people felt less than, and they didn’t even realize just how they were calling their workspaces – it has such a psychological effect on people.
And so, the good news is, is that people will change. Now, there’s some supportive stuff that organizations should do to maintain that change, absolutely. You can just do a training or do a 90-day program and then walk away and never revisit it again. That’s not what you do with your financials. So, why would you do that with your people?
And so, there is a way to sustain and maintain that changed cultural attitude in the organization. I don’t know if you saw these a few months ago, but the surgeon general actually came out and said toxic workplaces are unhealthy for you, much like they did with smoking back in 1965. So, it’s the physical effects of a toxic workplace are huge and long lasting.
Yes, they are. They certainly are. Well, Dr. Deb, I really love these tips that you’ve provided, and the advice you’ve given about reframing and taking a different perspective, and ways to calm things down so that we can really get to the root cause of a problem instead of letting it fester or continuing to trigger like some kind of a nonstop 4th of July fireworks. We don’t need that.
It’s been great. I appreciate your time. All that you do to help us conquer the fear of conflict that works so we can have more constructive and curious conversations to build trust in and move things forward to achieve our business goals.
So, thank you so much for listening. Be sure to tell your friends about the show, leave a positive review. We’ll be back next Thursday with another episode of Business Confidential Now. Until then, have a great day, and an even better tomorrow.
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