Chad Silverstein spent hours as an office shrink until a coach suggested one question: did you talk to them first? Requiring employees to address conflicts directly freed his time, empowered the team, and improved performance. He still steps in when needed, but frames conflict as conversation, not combat.
Chapters
When I first started with Bill Tallied, my leadership coach came in, and he laughed at me because he saw a box of tissues on my desk. He asked me why I have tissues on my desk. And I told him, because I have a lot of women that work for me, and they're crying a lot in my office. I try to help them. They have a lot of issues, a lot of problems. And I guess I was sort of acting like the office shrink. I like to help people, and they felt comfortable coming to me, and that was a problem because my day was spent trying to help people with things other than work. So he asked me if I like doing that, and I said no. I said, I'd much rather be trying to make my company successful. He said, well, I can help you, and I can give you the recipe for how you can have that stop today if you want. Of course, I hear that, and I'm all over it. So he told me that the next time someone comes in and dumps their problems on me, put your hand up like this and ask them one question. Did they talk to the person that they have a problem with? And 80% of the time, they're coming to you because they have a problem with Someone. And almost 100% of the time, they're coming to you because they have not addressed it with that person. And so to be able to pass the tension and put it back where it belongs is something that every leader needs to learn how to do, because otherwise you become a dump truck for people to come and dump their problems on you. And then as soon as you open up the door, that problem becomes yours, and you become entangled in this triangle of conflict. And so to empower your team and to build a high performance culture, you have to teach your team how to deal with problems without always getting you involved. It doesn't mean that you always have to do this, but if you can get into the discipline of asking people if they first spoke to the person who they had this conflict with, you'll almost always hear them say no. And that's always the case. So he told me to do that, and if the person said no, call the other person in the office. So I was sitting there thinking, wow, that's going to be really uncomfortable, not only for me, but for them. He said, it will be, but it'll be the last time they will ever come to you with a problem about someone else unless they went and spoke to them first. And common sense tells you he's right. And so I don't know how Comfortable I was. And I don't remember exactly if I did that as hardcore as he told me to do it, but I did have a meeting with my entire company on that day. And I told everyone that the next time they have a problem with someone in my office, before they come to me to go address it. Because if they come to me, I'm going to stop them and I'm going to ask them if they address this with the person. And if they say no, I'm calling that person in. You can be sure nobody from that day forward came into my office to complain about another person unless they already spoke about was magic. Literally overnight, I don't know how many hours a week were freed up from my time of just having a schmooze with people at my desk, trying to help them through whatever conflict they had, which almost always was simply just a conversation to be had. It's just people are so scared of having a hard conversation with people and they think of conflict as a fight when it's not. It's simply a conversation to be had. And you have to evaluate every relationship and every situation differently so that you can determine whether or not it's worth whether or not you want to walk into someone's office and have that conversation. Timing also has something to do with that. Because if something just happened and there was a blow up, maybe the time to address that is not right now. Maybe you let it sit for 24 hours, maybe you let it sit, maybe you talk about it with someone outside of work and get their feedback, get their perception of the situation before you go address it. We're always missing part of the complexity of conflict. And you know one side of it, which is going to be your side, but trying to understand the other person's perspective, perspective is going to be critical in order to make sure that you can make the conflict go away, at least resolve it. Doesn't mean you have to agree. You could agree to disagree. But the point is, is that you have to empower your team to address conflict on their own. Because if you don't, you'll be a dump truck and you'll be like me and be an office shrink. And having people in your office dumping all their problems on you. And as soon as you open up that door and as soon as you're entangled in that triangle of conflict, that becomes your problem because you've let that in. And so being able to stop people and ask them if they've addressed it with the person, as uncomfortable as it might be for them it's something that is necessary if you're trying to build a high performing culture of teammates that are able to perform at a high level and deal with hard stuff. Because we have a complexity on teams, whether it be remote or whether it be internal, that you have different people from different walks of life coming together, trying to share a common goal and do something that maybe they don't love to do. And that's a really, really hard thing for any entrepreneur, any leader trying to grow and be successful with whatever impact they're trying to have on a service or a product. And it's important that people learn how to address conflict so that it doesn't slow things down in your business and doesn't slow down production and doesn't create chaos behind your back within your company. And remember that it's not an all or nothing if you have to get involved. If things go sideways, you may have to get involved. And no leader is too big to not get involved, even if it's an entry level person, a brand new employee, a veteran who's been there for 20 years, you know, being delicate and making sure that you process the situation, see things from all sides and you know, 80% of the time making sure that they're dealing with their problems on their own. And again, it'll just create a more cohesive culture for your business to thrive.
