Brian Gubernick breaks down two conflict styles: confronters who address disputes quickly and feel less stress, and avoiders who let tension build until it shows up as illness. He walks through a six-step model for handling conflict, from full disclosure and staying calm to active listening and finding common ground.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to discuss conflict, conflict and how to deal with conflict. So conflict, rather simple word. Conflict that goes unresolved can totally turn your world upside down. What I've found is when it comes to conflict, there are really two different types of people. There are the— there's the conflict confronters and the conflict avoiders. To confront conflict is one of the best ways that I know to eliminate stress, to reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed, just to really put your mind at ease, to confront conflict. It's not easy, but it is the better path. Conflict confronters deal with crisis and they deal with conflict immediately. They don't put it off. And as a result, their stress levels are going to be lower. They get the situations resolved when frankly they should be resolved. Now, conflict avoiders, they put off dealing with crisis. They put off dealing with conflict. They do that whenever possible. And sometimes they're hoping that the conflict will just disappear, but the conflicts never disappear. They just never do. As a matter of fact, in my experience, they only intensify. And this creates even more stress along with a feeling that we're just at a standstill, not getting the job done. And, and that's true, right? Like, if you're avoiding conflict, you are at a standstill, you are not getting the job done. Now, as my friend Mack Newton says, crisis really is nothing more than change trying to happen. So if you think about a conflict avoider, if they let a conflict go on for too long and they avoid it, they have to get away from all the stress and disorder in their lives. And the best way they know how to do that— it's going to sound kind of crazy, but think about it— the best way they know how to get away from the stress and the disorder is to get sick. That becomes the calling card of the conflict avoider. They're always getting sick. They're always bedridden. They always have to stay home. And this is when conflict avoiders start to stack conflicts upon conflicts. They get sick, or they're getting ready to be sick, or they just got over being sick. So the solution here is to deal with the crisis early. And stay with it until it's fully resolved. Let's be, let's be conflict confronters as opposed to conflict avoiders. So how do we deal with conflict? How do we deal with it? Now, for me, I've always been one that deals with conflict, but I don't necessarily always do it, or I used to not always do it the right way. More oftentimes than not, I would default to some natural behavior that was driven more by emotion than anything else. Today, I aim to confront conflict in a much more logical manner. It doesn't mean that I don't have to check my emotion and curb my emotion, but that's always been my default behavior. As I become more experienced in dealing with, dealing with this, I have to separate emotion from the equation. So how do we go about dealing with conflict? Number 1, address it head on, address it head on and do it rather quickly. In other words, don't let that conflict just sit out there indefinitely. Address it head on. Now, one key component of addressing it head on, when in doubt around what you should share and what you should not share, I would always encourage you to disclose. In other words, always share. In terms of addressing things head on, addressing it head on means full disclosure, being direct, not, not assertive or confrontational, but direct. So number one, address it head on. Number 2, do your absolute best to stay calm. Like, be aware that emotions may heighten here. And so we've got to work to stay calm. Third step in dealing with conflict, be sure to listen actively and with intent. Hear what the other side is saying. Listen to it. Even take note— notes if you have the opportunity to do so, because in doing so, it leads to number 4. Expressing yourself clearly. If I'm listening to what you're saying, I could then turn around and express myself clearly. Now, a key to expressing yourself clearly, be sure to use I statements versus statements that start with you. I, so I feel this way, I believe this occurred, or whatever it may be, versus you. If you use something that says like, you did this, or you said that, it's accusatory. It's going to go right back to heightening emotion, which is what we're trying to get away from. Next step, stay solution-oriented. Ask for feedback, right? So stay solution-focused and ask for feedback. How would you go about handling this? What do you think the solution is? This, this, this really kind of captures two things. Number one, it shows you're actively listening, like, tell me what you think, how would you handle this? And number two, it's keeping you solution-oriented and you're asking questions, you're engaging. Right? You're staying calm and doing that. And number 6, the last thing I'd say here, find common ground and compromise. Here's the scoop. You're not winning this outright and they're not winning it outright. You're going to land in a place that's common ground. You're going to land at some sort of compromise, accept that and get to it quicker. So again, how do you deal with conflict? Address it head on. When in doubt, disclose. Number 2, stay calm. Number 3, listen actively. Number 4, express yourself clearly using I statements instead of you. Number 5, stay solution-oriented, asking for feedback. And number 6, find common ground and compromise. So in the spirit of being somebody that confronts conflict versus somebody that avoids conflict, These are the 6 steps you could take, or elements of these 6 steps that you could take to get better at addressing conflict. The fact of the matter is, in business, in life, conflict will come about. It'd be silly to think that you're not going to have conflict. So the sooner you can create a model, the sooner you can create awareness around a need for a model, the better you can get at running conflict through this model, addressing things head on, being clear with your message, putting emotion aside and coming to a compromise, the better your world is going to be. The more, the less stressful I should say your world is going to be. And again, we're aiming to get the job done. Conflict impedes the job, not aids to getting the job done. So the focusing question for you, where do you have conflict in your world? Where have you confronted it? And where have you, have you avoided it? If you are in fact confronting conflict right now, can you leverage this 6-step model that I just presented? If you're avoiding conflict right now, how do you feel about that? How do you feel internally? And can you address this conflict immediately leveraging the model we just outlined? That's all we have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
