Lead Through Conflict: Essential Skills for Resolution & Communication with Claudia S.P. Fernandez

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Claudia, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Yes, it is great to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Okay, so I teach leadership and I'm at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. And I work with leaders mostly in mid career to later career, but sometimes graduate students to help them build the kind of sophisticated and nuanced tools that they need to be able to get a bunch of human beings to work together. A bunch of human beings who have all kinds of different needs and different ideas and get everybody moving in the same direction to work collaboratively to achieve something great together. And that is just not a skill that most people are born with, my friend.

Yes, that is true. And good for us because now we're in business, we have something to do. And so can you tell the listeners about how we got to know each other too?

Yes. So your fame precedes you, and we checked you out and found out how fantastic you are at helping people understand the skills for managing difficult conversations. Around some of the most difficult issues that are facing us today, particularly around things like equity and how do we talk about really uncomfortable situations like how to be comfortable in conflict. Right. And so we asked you to come in and teach in three, actually, of my programs, two national programs and one global program in leadership. So that's, that's how we got together and found out that we have so much in common.

Yes, yes. It was a lot of fun. And it was fun working with you and the team, setting things up, and also fun working with the folks in the actual session. And, you know, I love it when people participate and ask great questions. And there was a lot of excitement in the chats and in the conversation too, so it was fun for me as well.

Yeah, Our fellows don't tend to be quiet. They tend to be very empowered. So that's. It's just a great way for them to learn in a give and take.

That's great. And one of the things we were just discussing too was the impact of the training. And so after the training, when you were working with the folks and seeing the results, what changes did you see in the way that they interacted with each other?

Well, people found your session incredibly motivating and the skills and the tools that you shared to be really essential to what they do every day. The leaders that I work with tend to be health care leaders. They tend to be leaders in academic organizations and the nature of their lives, and is to try to transform what would be a very difficult or uncomfortable conversation into a conversation that is collaborative, that we can explore different issues, that we can come together to create new opportunities and new approaches. So they're trying to transform conflict and turn that into a really constructive dialogue. And so the kind of things that we were hearing was how people went back into place, applied that to their leadership projects or went back or. And applied it to particularly equity kinds of conversations back at work.

Yep, this is great. And so now let's step into your role as the. One of the leaders in the program and the. An executive coach. When you think about the things that people often do unwittingly that are problematic in their leadership when it comes to communicating effectively and resolving problems, conflict effectively, what do you think those key mistakes are that people need to avoid?

Oh, that's a great question. You know, I think the number one mistake that I see is that people come to conflict and expect that this is going to be a logical dialogue because the data is right in front of us and the data leads us to very logical solutions. 12 and 3. Why don't we try those, get some. Some more data on how this is going to work, find the best strategy and move forward. And when those human beings who are complex people come to conflict, they don't bring just their logical mind, they bring their whole selves. And so when the leaders that I'm working with are having to talk through conflict, having to deal with difficult conversations, the number one mistake that I think people make is to assume that we can handle this in a logical, objective, abstract kind of a way. It takes a lot more emotional intelligence than that we. Which means it takes more time, it takes more deep breaths, it takes a whole lot more listening to be able to get the engagement to move down that road. It takes a lot more discovery in the process.

Absolutely. Yeah. And we see it all the time. Especially when you have people who believe that they're quite intelligent, they think highly of themselves.

Right, right. You try to get a whole lot of these really intelligent folks who are amazingly skilled, they have amazing skills, deep wells of professional technical knowledge, and then they have to deal with something that isn't really a technical kind of a problem. It's a culture problem or it's an equity problem, or, you know, there are folks like the community that we serve is really feeling left behind. That's not a logical. That's not a purely. Let me say it that way, it's not a purely logical problem. Problem. There are emotions involved and there's humanity involved.

Absolutely. And when you miss that, it leads to frustration for everybody involved.

Absolutely.

And I think about it as a mediator. Some of my favorite mediations were when people would use the terms irrational or crazy. And because whenever I heard one party say, oh, I can't believe they're asking for this, or they're doing this, it's completely irrational. I'm like, oh, I know what the other side's going to say. I go in and they say they're completely irrational. This is crazy. Right. And if you think that rationality or logic is going to save either one of those things are going to save the day, you're going to be woefully mistaken. And a lot of times the things that we think are logical or rational are very subjective.

Absolutely. What's logical to you might be something that seems pie in the sky or on the clouds to me. One of the things that we talk about with just this kind of problem is most everybody has heard of about, you know, listening and being able to reflect what people say, being able to, you know, reframe what people say. So someone comes to you and they're ex. They're expressing their frustration in this difficult conversation. So active listening. We're going to say back to them in a different way what they've said so that we're showing them that we're listening to them. And a lot of times these conversations, the person goes, oh, okay, no. And they say it again, and they say the same thing. You're like, I just did the whole, like, paraphrase kind of thing back. Okay, I'm going to quote them this time. I'm just going to prove I'm listening to them by I heard you say. And then you just quote to say exactly what they said. And when they go, no, that's when they need to feel heard, not be heard. And that is a completely different process. Now, we're not talking process prefrontal cortex of your brain, you know, right behind your forehead. Now we're talking the. The, you know, like what we call your reptilian brain. Your. Your amygdala. It's your emotional center. You know, if you put one finger above your ear, kind of by your temple, and one in the middle of your forehead, where those two lines intersect, you have the amygdala hangs out in your brain. And it. When it is stimulated, it is harder for people to here to do that. Logical, rational, objective, analytical, abstract thinking, which belongs right behind your eyebrows, basically in your prefrontal cortex. So if people are gripped by emotion, then you might need to say, you know what, I can hear the frustration in your voice. Can you tell me more about that? Or what I think I'm hearing is in your voices. Is that anxiety? Can you help clarify for me what's happening? How can I be of support to you in this? And sometimes people have to work through the emotion part before they can get onto the being heard part.

Absolutely. And that is an expert level distinction, being heard versus feeling heard. And again, if you think about it just completely logically and rationally. Well, I repeated back to what they said, so clearly I'm understanding it. But if you don't understand the psychology that's lying beneath the surface, you're going to try to solve the wrong problem with the wrong tools.

Absolutely. You know, there's a great saying in leadership is we hire people for their technical skills and the whole person shows up for the job. You know, you got to remember that whole person is there. It doesn't matter how logical and analytical you are or the situation might be. In the end, it's people there. And I Think the COVID crisis and the pandemic. It was such an object lesson for us as a world and certainly as a nation, that people, no matter how fantastic they are at their jobs, like, look at all these amazing healthcare providers who are saving lives as best they can and bringing everything that they have to work, and still they have emotions, they get burnout, they feel an incredible amount of pressure and they can't do, they can't save everyone that they want to, you know, try. They want to try to save everyone and it's just not possible. So the whole person is there and it's more than their physician skills or their nursing skills or their respiratory therapy skills, you know?

Absolutely, absolutely. It's really important. And I think that human element is often overlooked too. And in our business world, just the professional world in general, there's this cult of busyness where it's almost like a busy off, like, ooh, who's busier than the other person? And so when we keep on telling ourselves we're busy, we're busy, we're busy, then a lot of the human element is lost because we try to take shortcuts in these conversations. And if we take those shortcuts, what ends up happening is that mistakes happen and then the conversation gets messy. And even though we're trying to take a shortcut for the sake of expediency and efficiency, it becomes a lot less expedient, a lot more, more inefficient, because now we have to clean up a mess because we tried to move too fast. Hello, my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed.

Yeah. And you know that that shell of efficiency is in some people's comfort zone and that's like a wall of protection for them. Some people are really comfortable with the task oriented sort of cognitive conflict skills, and other people are much more comfortable with the feeling oriented, what we call the affective conflict skills. So the task oriented skills around conflict are like, let's stay Busy. Let's get these things checked off the list and divide and conquer kinds of, of approaches. And the feeling oriented ones are much more about, you know, let's be here with each other, let's be witness to what's happening, let's discover the intangibles that are here and how this situation is impacting our relationships. And you have some of those tasks, cognitive oriented people, and they're like, oh my God, are you kidding? Are we really going to do this?

Absolutely. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough.

It's like fish and birds.

Yeah. And so let's say for you as a coach, if you're working with somebody who's more task oriented in the way that they resolve conflict, how do you coach them to a point where they're more willing to lean into the emotional aspect?

Oh, that's a great question. So in coaching, typically someone will call me up and they're like, I'm having this problem. And a lot of people I work with are not one off coaching. I work with them for two years, three years while they're going through the leadership institute that they're enrolled in. So I get to know them very well. And so I have these, you know, long notes that I'm also keeping. And when that situation happens, typically I've worked with them for a few months at least and we've talked a few times. And I can say, you know, this situation sounds a little bit like one that we've talked about before. Let's talk about what your approach is and, you know, we dissect what their approach is and eventually we get to the part of the conversation of, so how's that working for you? Because obviously it's not working if they're calling me. Right. So what else, what are the other kind of approaches? One of the big things to do as a coach is to help people become aware of their own bias. Because we all have bias. It's like we all have a personality. And one of my great teachers, a man named Roger Pearman, always said, everybody has a personality, but you don't want to be had by it. And isn't that a beautiful saying? And if we're going to translate that, what does that look like in real life? Let's just use extroverts and introverts. So someone who is an extrovert and is had by their personality never shuts up. Right. They just keep going. They're so excited, they're finishing other people's sentences. They've kind of been had by their Personality. And what they need to learn to do is to breathe before extroverting.

Absolutely. And I love how you use the term extroverting like as a verb. One of our other guests, Beth Bulow, she is an introvert. She has a book called the Introvert Entrepreneur and she uses the terms introvert and extrovert as verbs too, because she says, yes, I am an introvert, but I do recognize that sometimes I need two extroverts in order to be effective. And again, it takes a lot of self awareness to recognize what your typical pattern of behavior is. So at those strategic times, you can still authentically kind of step outside of yourself because, you know, that's what the situation calls for.

Absolutely. You know, and there's a whole area in the, in leadership that is called psychological safety. For the past 20 years in leadership, I've been teaching the concept of thought diversity. And it's been so exciting to see different areas starting to come together and thought diversity moving into a little bit broader area of psychological safety. So the, that's the idea. As you as a leader, when you have people come to your organization, they're your teammates, you are laying an organizational table. And just like if you were going to be throwing a dinner party, you want everybody to feel welcome there. You know, you want them to be able to put their ideas on the table and to be able to taste what's there and experience something new and share back. In an organization, you want people to be able to feel welcome to put their ideas on the table, take in other people's ideas, share back, create new, and you have to lay an organizational table that makes people feel welcome. And part of that is thought diversity. So let's go back to our introvert and extrovert example. If the organizational culture is one of extroversion and all teams and all organizations have a culture, then you might have brilliant ideas from your introverts, but they never get hurt. So you haven't made a welcoming culture then.

Makes sense. Yeah. And psychological safety, I've been glad to see it picking up more steam and getting a lot more recognition. And for those who don't know, when you think about just the basic definition of psychological safety and what it means for organizations, how would you define it?

So psychological safety is the idea that people can come into your teams and into your organization and although they, they may have different training, they may be different types of people, be different personality types, they may have some different goals, that the culture respects them, it welcomes them. There's a place at the table for them. So you could also look at it as there's an absence of shaming behaviors in the organization, so we're listening to other teammates as equals and being able to move ideas forward in a really collaborative way.

Makes sense. Yeah. And listeners, too. If you are a leader of any sort, looking more into psychological safety, I think that's going to be critical as you start to lead teams. It's really, really important. And, Claudio, with the time that we have left, when you think about the conflict resolution and effective communication skills of leaders that you've seen over the years, what is it, in your opinion, that separates the good leaders from the great leaders when it comes to their ability to communicate?

So I think that great leaders are able to communicate, blending all of their technical skills with emotional intelligence, so they are able to harness speaking to groups in ways that they can speak to be heard. So one of the ways that's important about speaking to be heard is understanding the situation that you're in. If you're in a crisis situation, you speak differently, you communicate differently than if it's ordinary times. One of the things the research shows about communications is that, you know, let's talk about flu shots. You know, in a normal year, we want people to get their flu shots. We really want them to get them this year. But, you know, even before the COVID crisis, that was something every fall. And for folks are going to trust the messenger when they see that that messenger has competence and expertise. In fact, about 80% of whether an audience is going to trust the messenger are those signals of competence and expertise. So who are you going to see on a screen telling you to get your flu shot, Kwame, that you're going to be like, oh, yeah, they know what they're talking about. Who's that person going to be?

It's going to be my wife, Dr. Whitney Christian.

Absolutely. And, you know, some of the signals, like, there's going to be a tagline that says Dr. Or M.D. you know, they have the white coat. They're wearing a stethoscope because, oh, a stethoscope is so important to getting a flu shot. Right. And we all know that doctors give flu shots, right? No, no, they're doing more important things. And, you know, nurses and pharmacy techs and other folks are actually giving the flu shots. But that's who people trust. That's who people trust. Now, if we go into Covid shots, we're going to, you know, the vaccines for Covid, as we've seen, this has been, like, turned everything upside Down. This is crisis communication. And so when we know that this is a crisis, great leaders understand we have to communicate differently. Because now 50% of whether people will trust you in a crisis situation is based on your listening, your caring and your empathy. So you can't come to it and say, this shot's gonna save your life. You need to get that shot. Don't be dumb. Get that shot. You can't say that because you've lost the trust of people. It's only about 15 to 20% of whether you know of trust comes from competence and expertise. And 15 to 20% comes from honesty and openness and everything else, including what it is we're talking about is the other 15 to 20%. But 50% half is listening, caring and empathy. Wow.

I think that's, that's amazing. That's amazing. And it makes a lot of sense and it really talks about it really goes to show just how important these soft skills are. They're, they're really, really critical to your success. So, Claudia, really, really appreciate you taking the time to share with us today. And before you go, remind the listeners about the amazing program that you're running and how they in touch with you if they want to connect.

Oh, sure, absolutely. I'm at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at our Gilling School of Global Public Health. My email is claudiafernandeznc. Edu and the programs that I've been pulling the experiences from today include Clinical Scholars. Clinical Scholars is a three year program where teams of interprofessional healthcare providers work together to change health disparities in their own communities. Also the Food Systems Leadership Institute, which is one of the flagship leadership programs of the public university system and a global women's health care leadership program for OB gyns called the Robert C. Cefalo National Leadership Institute as well. So those are three of the programs I've been working on for many years now and we are been just. It's incredible to see how the participants apply the skills to make concrete changes in the communities that they serve.

Oh, that's fantastic, Claudia, thank you. Really appreciate it today.

It's a privilege to be with you today. Thanks so much. Kwame.

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