Unlocking the Power of Hope and Self-Leadership in Conflict Resolution with Jenn Whitmer

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview.

Jen, thanks for joining us today.

Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited.

Yes, it's my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Jen Whitmer. I help teams and leaders through keynote speaking and training and coaching. Really what I like to say is return the joy to work through understanding how to help conflict resolution go better, using good, healthy communication skills and high levels of self awareness. So you develop self leaders who know how to communicate and then everybody starts to work better together. And work doesn't become the slog, it becomes that place we want to come back to again and again because we feel like we know ourselves and we have skills to work with other people. So I am also a mom. I have four kids and married my high school sweetheart years and years ago. And we also live with a cat who puts up with us. So that's kind of me in a nutshell.

That is great. Well, glad to have you back. And today we're going to talk about something a little bit different. We're going to talk about the power of hope in these difficult conversations. And so in our prep, you talked about this. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by hope?

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I, even though I talk about conflict resolution, I am 100% a recovering conflict avoider. And so I get that feeling of it's this, it's too much. Like it's just not even worth having this conversation. That feeling that's either in the pit of your stomach or sometimes, like, right up, up in your throat, depending on who you are. And if you can't see where you're going, it feels overwhelming. And I've been working with a local community here that's had really divisive. And when I say really divisive, I mean extreme. There have been death threats. There have been threats against their community and leaders. And we've done some work where we just started having conversations around, how do we return to talking to humans? How do we talk to each other at a human level? Yes, we're divided on these issues, but where do we align? Where do we get together? And so I've been doing some workshops with them, and there was this workshop we did a couple months ago, and we. We worked through the model and the things that I was teaching them. And at the end, we all sang together, which I know sounds a little crazy, but we did the singing event together. And at the end, I'm watching this group of, you know, dozens and dozens of people, and several people had tears in their eyes because there's this moment of we're all together in this. They just spent 90 minutes learning how to talk to each other, learning how to listen again, and then they did something together. And now I know a song is simple, like, okay, we can sing a song together, but once you do one little tiny thing together, you're like, okay, well, maybe we can take that one step further. Maybe we can't solve the big thing that's 29 steps down the road, but what's the next thing that we can do? And I've started to see them work in that way, and the hope that came from that. I asked a couple people afterwards, and they're like, I feel so hopeful. I'm still scared, but now I feel hopeful. And that experience was really impactful for me as we start having all of these conversations that we do around all of the hot topics all the time, whether they're inside the workplace or outside the workplace. I know that there's hope when we start learning how to listen to one another and treat each other like humans again.

Yeah.

Oh, that's powerful. That's powerful. And listeners, important notes. Jen actually knows how to sing, so I will never be leading people in a Kumbaya singing moment.

We didn't actually sing Kumbaya, but, yes.

This is great. And the psychology tracks, too, because when you give people the opportunity to work in tandem collaboratively toward a common goal, no matter how small, studies after study demonstrates that this is something that helps people to break down Barriers and see each other as collaborators, people who are equal on the same level, moving in the same directions, versus like enemies who are in the way of progress. And that matters. And what's so interesting is that people didn't have tears in their eyes during the nitty gritty negotiation or conflict resolution part where you're talking about the skills and what to actually do. They were moved by the feeling of togetherness and then the hope that spurred for that. And so let's really get granular here. Why is it so important for people to have that feeling?

Well, this may be the most controversial statement I'll say today, but that all decisions are actually emotional decisions. We, as humans often, especially in the west, think of ourselves as logical, sentient beings that are thinking people like we our brain, and then we've got some emotions and a body attached to us. That's kind of how our culture operates. It's kind of an old holdover from the enlightenment, but we still often think that way. But when you dig into the research, as you were saying, we're actually emotional beings who think. And we. We operate first through our emotions. And then depending on who you are, you justify that with your logic and your reasoning. And we need all of them together. We need our body, we need our emotions, and we need our thoughts, and we need them to work equally together. But we lead first in decisions with our emotions. So to come back to the hope, if I'm going to decide to move forward in a conversation that feels scary or. Or I feel unskilled to have it, I gotta have a reason. There's gotta be some ROI in this thing. And so the hope says, okay, I can now envision something changing because I have these skills or because I'm going to have this conversation. And that's where that hope comes in. And so we start to practice what I call valor, which is bravery in action. And so when you have the hope, you can then move forward with valor to say, all right, I am willing to do something that frightens me that might not end exactly the way I want, because conflict resolution doesn't always end the way you want it to. But there is an opportunity that I can see that feels more powerful than the situation I'm stuck in.

Yeah. Oh, this is great. It makes so much sense here. Let's dig deeper into that valor element as well, because easier said than done. And I love the definition of bravery in action. Can you unpack that a little bit more?

Well, it really comes from my own personal work. And what are my values and how do I want to operate? And so really thinking about valor is a space where you feel fear. I'm still feeling afraid or at the least, uncomfortable. And then I am making the choice to say, is there something better that I can get? Is there something that is more worth it? So, like I said, I got four kids. You know, we used to live on this cul de sac. And then we moved into a place where it was a little bit busier traffic. And I was always paranoid because the curve, even though it was 25 miles an hour, was right in front of our house. And, like, I just had little kids. And so I knew that if we were playing out in the front, I would never question that I would run out in front of that street to pull a kid back. That's bravery in action. Could I possibly be hit by that car? Of course. But I'm going to be brave because what is a greater sense to me was protecting my child. Now, that's an extreme example, but when we're talking about a work relationship, you get so stuck, or even any relationship. I just work a lot with companies and organizations when I'm stuck with this back and forth or a toxic co worker that every meeting we have just seems to be full of rancor and we can't get past it. You start to feel so stuck. But if I can have valor to say, okay, I'm scared to have this. I want to learn how to do this, and there is hope on the other side of this can be better, then I pull up that action to say, all right, I'm going to figure out how to do this. And sometimes it's just a simple conversation like, hey, we're not working really well together, and I'd just love to talk about that. Saying that sentence requires valor because it opens something up. It opens up a ton of opportunity, but it also feels like exposure. And that's where I think valor comes in. You've got to pull that idea of, I can do this and it's worth it, and I have to take action. I also think it's part of speaking truth to power. And it's just. It's all wrapped up in that I have to know where I'm coming from and why it matters to me, and then how am I going to move forward?

What I love about this combination is that it's. We. We spend so much time talking about the skills, but we don't talk enough about the, like, what it takes, the mindset behind it, but more specifically, the power of.

Of that hope.

But blending that with valor, that's so powerful, so incredibly powerful. And when we think about what it takes to build that valor, how does one start?

Oh, that is such a great question. I think when I'm working with clients, one of the questions when they're like, we're trying to figure out, am I a good fit for your team? Are we working through it? I always ask the question, what does this make possible for you? When you ask the question, what does this make possible for you? You're turning it away from the focus on, we're just stuck. It's always going to be this way into the face of, oh, possibility that starts to overcome the uncertainty and the danger that is inherent in making change. Because our brains are super good at wanting to keep us safe. I mean, that is like their whole job. And so in order to be in charge of our own minds, like, we get to actually be in charge of them, we have to get unstuck out of something. And so when we are moving toward that, what does this make possible for you? You can then envision something that is different and then you can make some choices of, okay, what's blocking me from that? Is it skill? Is it some kind of process? You can start to break it down in that problem solving way, but you've started with the idea of openness and possibility. That brings our emotions into a new mindset.

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It's interesting. So it seems like it has to start with being clear about the value, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in your opinion, does hope come before valor?

Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. I think valor is more of the action and the value like, than it is an emotion. So I think it's really hard to have valor without some hope or at least understanding of why. Why is this worth it? So I think Gosh, back to that idea. If we're feeling beings who think the hope probably does have to come first.

Oh, this is great. Now. Now we're getting.

Now I'm curious.

Yeah, I'm curious, too. This is really interesting because it sounds like the. The way that you're describing valor is similar to the way people describe courage.

Similar. Yeah.

Yeah. Because courage doesn't mean that you don't feel fear. It's action in. Despite the fear, if you are not feeling fear, then there is no courage because there's nothing emotionally to overcome. And I think that's really important for people to understand when they're hearing you talk about the. About valor, doing something despite the fear and recognizing the. But the recognition of the importance comes from more on the hope side. But I think people can often feel that fear, and then they say, I guess I don't have valor. I guess I'm not courageous. I guess I need to work on myself a little bit more before I can do the thing that I want to do. But I think part of the hopeful nature of this episode is the fact that even if you emotionally are still feeling really fearful, you can still use valor, because valor is more of an activity than a feeling.

I would agree. Yeah. I mean, the way I define valor is honor, dignity, and bravery in the face of uncertainty and danger, and the. The strength of spirit that moves you to action. Like, that's my way. I consider valor. So honor, dignity and. And bravery, uncertainty and danger. Those things don't always go together. And so oftentimes, it's really easy for us to think I have to get rid of all these uncomfortable emotions before I embrace the positive emotions. But that's not how we work as humans. I mean, I have a lot of friends and community members that have been involved in what's been happening in Nashville. I knew the head of school there. I've met her. And so there's so much about that that's incredib. Incredibly painful and terrifying and so awful. And there's also good that I see that happened that day that could have been so much worse. Those two things coexist in us as humans. And again, that's kind of an extreme example. But when you are faced with those types of circumstances, going to all or nothing. I'm either going to be not afraid, or I'm just going. Or I'm going to be afraid. Keeps us really stuck and almost disconnects us from our humanity.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's important for us to have a realistic understanding of Our psychology and.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's really, really important. I want to go back to the beginning of the conversation where you're talking about the division in your community, because I think so many of us can identify division around us and, and when we get into that tribal nature of just humanity, again, understanding that this is just common psychology, this is what we tend to do. How were you able to get buy in from people from vastly different perspectives or tribes to even come in and engage in this process?

It's such a great opportunity to talk about how it's a team effort. They brought me in. So there was this idea in this community that something's not working and we've got to break this, like this isn't working for anybody. So the people. There were lots of people who came who were unsure about what was happening. There was some anger that they were doing it anyway. So it wasn't like conflict free even just holding this event and workshop. In fact, there was one man who came in and he was like, kind of made, found out who the speaker was, made a beeline for me and he's like, what are we doing? I need to know. And I was like, oh, great. Hi, I'm Jen. And so just starting on a human level again, because that's actually what we were doing the whole night was about, we're going to return to being humans. And so we had this great conversation and he was like. I was like, does that make you feel better? He's like, well, I felt fine to begin with. And I was like, okay, great, I can't wait to see what happens tonight. And so he went into the back and like, arms crossed, you know, the whole business way in the back. And so then the buy in started with acknowledging where we are. There's a great quote. I always forget the name of the person because I heard it from Emily Freeman. But it said, he says we get into trouble when we don't name things properly. So us just naming that this was happening and acknowledging it, that this was painful was the beginning of everybody going, I can agree to that. This isn't working. I feel pain. You know, like just acknowledging that was the first step. And then we just started talking through how conflicts happen. I always define conflict as the struggle between limited resources and differing goals. And so if we're starting to talk about limited resources, usually those fall into the camps of time, money, people and space. Those tend to be the categories. Differing goals at a human root level almost always are about belonging and safety. And we all want belonging and safety. And so if one of those feels threatened and we've got limited resources, then we have this opportunity for conflict between us. So when we started that, everybody was like, well, yeah, I want safety and belonging. And particularly because in this community, they were arguing about both of those things at a really core level. They were talking about safety of students, they were talking about belonging of different groups. So they could see really quickly, oh, this is the problem. So once we started naming things properly and then everybody could agree to that, and then we're like, oh, yeah, I see how this is at this core level. So then we started talking through, how do we start communicating as humans together? And we went through a couple of different activities. Some were very fun, some were a little bit more intense, and that's what started bringing people together. So the buy in started with like, oh, yeah, we can all name this and we can all agree that that's true. Not like at a political policy level, but at the human level. So by the end of this time, our crossed hands friend was one of the ones singing the loudest. Now, he didn't move a ton of positions. He didn't like change that. He was frustrated by some of the things that were going on. But he left with, okay, there is a different opportunity here to have a conversation. And I might be able to see that now. For me, the crosshands guy at the back, that was the biggest win ever, because he was like, this is insane. I'm coming in. Like, he was mad. And so him leaving curious was huge. And I think that is how we started getting buy in was naming things properly. People can feel it. And then we started moving forward to curiosity, and that changes the posture of everything.

That's powerful. And tell me if I'm kind of getting the. The idea of this correctly, because it sounds like what we're doing. We start with naming and labeling things accurately, but not just accurately in a way that everybody can look at and say, yeah, I agree. Like, this is an accurate depiction. And then also, you focused on the common humanity that everybody has. We have the same goals. We're all people here, and we're trying to accomplish the same thing more or less in different ways. Then you broke into activities. You gave them an opportunity to interact with each other, human to human. And then we ended with the singing together, collaboratively moving in the same direction toward a common goal. And even though people may not have left that with vastly different perspectives on what people should do or the decisions that should be made, this was a critical first step in the process in order to break down some of those barriers so then we can move toward more productive and constructive conversations to solve those problems.

Yeah, absolutely. This was. I was calling it pre conflict resolution. Like, we just had to get there in this particular organization and group. We just had to get to that before we could ever get to actually deciding that we wanted to solve conflict because it was that divided. Now, oftentimes when I go into an organization, it's not that divided. They're just like, oh, we are having a problem with conflict and we're not quite sure how to solve it, or we're not communicating really effectively and it's impacting our team morale. That is where we are. And it's not as extreme, but some of the same concepts are similar. We just don't have to do as much of that pre work in reminding people that we're human. It's a little bit easier along the way. And then we're developing more concrete conflict resolution skills that you talk about all the time. And we totally agree on about asking great questions, being curious about the other person, finding the common ground. Like all of those types of skills that you work in a little bit more as you go. But that particular one, there was just no hope. And so we had to get to that point of hope in humanity.

It's so interesting, Jen, because I think when we look at these situations, especially when it comes to division within communities, we want to get to the solution really quickly. And people are like, how can I solve the problem? How can we diffuse this and how can we move on? It's essentially like going to an empty plot of land and say, how do I build the roof? It's like, we haven't broken ground yet. Why are we even talking about.

That's a great analogy.

Yeah. And it's really interesting to think because they say, okay, well, how do we resolve the conflict? We haven't taken the time to lay the foundation where we can even realistically solve the conflict. When you think about you, me, other people in the industry, we are conflict resolution professionals. We are not magicians.

No, I leave that to other people. I mean, I like bubbles. That's about as magic as I get. And confetti.

Exactly. And so this takes time. It takes time. And especially when the further apart you are, the more of this pre conflict resolution we need to do to get us into a position for us to actually start working on this conflict. I think about back when I was practicing law more frequently and my clients would call me and they're like, hey, okay, so I'm in this negotiation. I said this and that and offered that and this. So how can you solve this problem for me and get me a better deal? I'm like, what do you expect me to do? You ruined everything already. Right. And so we. If you want to start solving these major community problems, the time to start is now because you need to work to build some of that positive momentum to the point where we can actually have productive dialogue.

Absolutely. Because a lot of times, especially in this large community settings, but even in your like team of eight people in your department, you don't always even agree what the problem is. So how do you solve it until you agree what the problem is? And so one of the things that I often like to do and what we did in that particular, those particular workshops in that community was, what do you see has happened? What has happened to you? So I wasn't telling them, here's what it is. They were all naming it and they could see because they knew who was on the other side, quote, unquote. And to see somebody on the other side label something that you also saw was a problem or something you also lost is a powerful connector that starts to get you like, okay, we at least see that the same. And that's that power of that pre work.

Jen, this is exceptional and I could talk to you about this forever, but Flo Nicholas is in the waiting room so we have to get to her podcast next. But before you go, I want to ask you to share one piece of advice for an audience member out here who says, you know what, this sounds kind of like my community and I want to create a positive change. What would be one piece of advice that you would give them to get the ball rolling?

Oh, I struggle with one things and favorites. So I would say there are you decide what your next right action is. And that usually falls within a couple three categories. One is educating yourself. Why do I think this is a problem? Start doing some reading, start doing some research from what I will call reputable sources and start to educate yourself a little bit. And then from there, I think one of the best things that you can do is get curious about what this is happening. It's interest in the gap between what's happening and what you want to have happen. Back to that, like what? I wonder why this is happening. And that looks like when you're talking with people asking really great questions. And so one of the ways I talk about asking good questions is asking how do you feel? And just ask people to label how they feel. What are the reasons you think that. Ask them for their thoughts and ask them, what do you want to do? If you got to solve this, what would you do? And that starts to open up a lot of dialogue. And my super practical suggestion is ask three questions before you share your opinion. So if you don't have to ask necessarily those three questions, but ask questions of other people as you're in your community, because that's what's going to help you start to find that common ground. And then you can decide, do I want to move to advocacy? Do I want to talk to local community members? Or maybe you're in your workplace and you're like, do I want to talk to my boss? Do I want to do these things? Then you've got some choices because you're armed with a very different posture because you're coming from being together versus I'm going to solve this thing. You've got some togetherness that helps you bring that hope.

I love it. Oh, this is so good. So good, Jen. I really appreciate it. And before you go, let the listeners know about how they can get in touch with you and more importantly, how they can work with you, too.

Oh, absolutely. I'm so glad to be here. I always love talking to you. So the best way to find me is Jen Whitmer.com so that's Jen with two N's, J E N N W H I T M E R. And there you can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram. That's where I play the most. And if you go to Jen Whitmer.com freebies, I've got a couple different resources there. One that would be, it's called 20 helpful phrases for Difficult Conversations. So it's just some helpful questions for you that you can download and put them in your own voice. But it's just a nice, helpful way to move forward. And then if you're in a place where you're like, hey, I really, I'd love for you to talk to my team. I would love for you to be at this event. I would love to talk to you about how I can help your audience bring back that hope and get some skills to help them move forward.

I love it. Jen, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

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