Episode 208: The Profitable Side of Conflict with Liz Kislik

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Stop it.

I know. And I'm like, oh my God. He. I think his friends and him were playing my guitar. I. It doesn't bother me that much. But there's been no mention of it. It was, you know, very. What they call that when you do something under the, you know, hidden from sight.

Sneaky.

Sneaky, yeah, sneaky. Now there's a big, There's a more word that sounds more educated than sneaky, but whatever, it was very.

So did he tell you nefarious? Yeah, that's right.

No, he didn't. So we heard of the others. There was a couple suspect things. Yeah, he's. He's 16. I don't know. But what were you, what were you doing at 16? I was drunk. How old were you the first time you got drunk?

I was probably 14 or 15. I want to say I was probably 14. No, I was probably 15.

Like drunk or buzz drunk. What was the circumstances around this? You're still so hungover, you're like, I don't really know.

Yeah, I mean, the first it started happening, my best friend and I would sneak into my brother's. He was at college, but he had like his stashes of alcohol in his room. So we would go into his room and I knew where they were, so I would drink. We would just like sit in his room and we found his Playboys. We would read his Playboys.

Hold on, hold on. You as a teenage girl were getting drunk, reading Playboy magazine. That's.

We're just rebels, you know?

That's.

Except that it was just like she and I in my room.

Here's the irony.

Childhood bedroom.

Here's the irony. I was getting drunk, reading Playgirl magazines. The first time I got drunk, I was. I think I was. I think I was 12. And when I say drunk. Buzzed.

Yeah.

So you know, we were. Is 12. 8th grade. I remember I was in 7th or 8th grade.

Yeah. I feel like 13.

Yeah. So I think I was in 7th grade. My best friend, Billy Yoder, we. We snuck some alcohol out and we're like, oh, I took one step. I was like, oh, my God, this is the most revolting, disgusting thing. But, like, we have to do this. And then I started to feel the buzz and I was like, oh, my God. I didn't drink again, I think, for like four years.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. When I was in high school is if I was in seventh grade, that happened. Freshman year is four years later. Because now I'm thinking that freshman year I got spot on. I got blitzkriegged. Yeah. Yeah.

That was my, like freshman sophomore year with my worst.

Out of control. Yeah, out of control. But now it's funny, I look back at my son, I see he's 16. I'm like, what are you doing drinking?

Yeah.

And I'm like.

Because they seem like such babies now.

Such a baby. Oh, such a baby.

And I was like, oh, I was definitely.

So I think he was sneaking booze. But the other thing is, because I've stopped drinking anything substantial about eight months ago now. I don't have any alcohol at the house. I have tons of beer, but they're all non alcoholic. Tons of non alcohol. I like to drink a beer on a weekend just because the flavor. Flavor, yeah. So it's non alcoholic. And I think if they had beer, they only had access to that. So maybe they thought they were getting drunk. I don't know.

I hope they were more intelligent than that. I know, like N A that's on it.

Yeah. The big. It's N A in red.

Yeah.

Yeah. I call them nabs. Non alcoholic beers. All right, Kelsey, we gotta kick off the show here.

Welcome, everybody, to the Profit first podcast.

Oh, yeah. Hey, everyone, you're back with another episode. We got lost in our. Our booze stories that we didn't even kick off. The. This is abnormal for us. We're like four minutes into it. Here's the deal. My name is Mike Michalowicz. I'm a recovering non alcoholic drinker of beer, and I'm also the host of the Profit first podcast. And the author of Profit first and a brand new book called Clockwork. It's at Amazon now. I'm joined in studio by Chelsea Ayres and she's my co host. And we are here to bring profitability to your business. Hopefully we won't meander much more this episode. We'll get down to the business at hand. But here's the deal. You're going to learn how to drive profit in your business. And today, interesting topic. We're going to talk about conflict. And conflict in business can cost a lot. It can tie you up. It can prevent you from doing things. We're bringing in an expert, the expert from Long Island, Liz Kislik, who's going to talk us through the process of conflict. And I'm a kind of an argumentative guy, so maybe there'll be a little conflict during the conflict discussion. You never know.

You like to be devil's advocate.

Yeah, I know, I know. Oh, I hate that. Playing devil's advocate. It's like, okay, here's a way to bitch and moan that, that I'm already getting angry about that. We're have to ask the devil's advocate question. All right, before we bring Liz onto the show, everyone, you can find us on what?

Itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Google Play, profitfirstpodcast.com or any podcaster anywhere.

Okay, here's the icebreaker question for you today.

Oh, ok.

Okay. If any animal of your choosing could be the size of a horse, what animal would you choose? And I'll go first.

This question, why you reject it? Because I feel like things are as they should be.

Why would I want, like a mouse.

To be the size of a horse?

My God, you are so ridonkulous. You know?

No, my first thought was a mouse because they're so adorable. But thinking of it in ginormous form.

Like that is terrifying. Exactly. So this is a good story. Like when I ask you if you had a billion dollars, what would you do? You don't say, oh, I reject that because I don't. I don't have a billion. No, you play the game.

I still played. I told you what I thought. So what would you choose?

I would choose an ant. Oh, because you know those, those, those mandibles they have. That is horrible because I think it would just make a good movie. I would pick one ant. I'd pick one ant. I wouldn't say the whole ant colony of the world is now size or one ant and I'd have a walk up Main Street.

Yeah. So your purpose Is to create, like, a terrorizing creature for a movie.

No, my purpose. No, I would be its trainer. I would be. You look at the stream of into Main street boot, and people like, oh, there's a giant ant. What's going on? And you see me behind it with a whip going, it's safe, everyone.

Because you want to be like, the hero is.

You're creating the train. I'm like, did you know the founder of Ringling Brothers? I don't know what his name was. Barnum. Whatever. Yeah, Barnum. Ringling. Ringling. That guy.

Yeah.

He. This is very sad, but true. Would you would pay for people to be his ax, but basically cage them. He'd be slaves, effectively slaves. So, you know, the bearded lady was someone that he purchased effectively. So. So what's the animal? You choose now? I give you enough. I give you enough time and fodder.

I can't.

Oh, you're killing the clock here. We said we wouldn't meander. Pick anything.

Maybe a giant cat.

That's right. That's ridiculous. I love it. No, I love it.

I think of, like, a cat the size of a horse, because that's way bigger than even a mountain lion or a tiger or a lion or anything, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Other could you imagine? I would pick one of those skinless. I mean, the hair. Oh, my. Yeah.

Oh, my Imagination.

Liz, what would you pick if you had to pick a giant animal?

Well, I would have gone for cat because I heard recently a debunking of the idea that they would eat you if they were big enough.

Oh, I don't think they would. I think they would be. I mean, it depends on the cat. Some cats are so lovely and some are ferocious.

So, Liz, the myth is that they would eat you if they had the size or they would not. What's the myth that's been debunked?

So the myth is that they would eat you if they were big enough, but that was debunked. The paper that it was attached to didn't actually say that.

Ah, yeah. Thank God. So if a giant cat comes walking down your street, listeners, you are safe.

But don't worry because Mike will be the trainer and make sure that they.

I'll be there behind whipping it. And I want to wear a singlet. Is that. I don't know if I'm going too far, you know, a nude singlet. No, no. Like one of those, like, tiger pattern singlets. And I want to have a big mustache with a handlebar and greasy hair, which I already have. The greasy hair. So that's. It's okay.

You could do that anyway if you wanted.

Yeah, we should do that. We should do that.

Yeah. I'll work on that mustache.

You got a little hint of who our guest is and how zany she is. But we have one more thing to do before we bring Liz on official. Oh, two more things I want to. Don't we have listener mail?

Oh, yeah.

So what are our listeners saying, for God's sake?

This is a shout out to Robin Hartley. She says your podcast is one of my favorites, and I'm thrilled to dive into your book. Having this information at the beginning of my business helps me feel confident in managing the numbers and carrying this side of the business. I definitely look forward to the day I can have a PFP by my side, helping me scale and helping my profits flourish even more.

Robin, good job. We love you. Thanks for being a listener to the show and congratulations on the progress in your business. Wishing you big, big money. Thanks. Bazinga. All right, so. Oh, and thanks to nextiva and Receipt bank supporters of the show. We'll tell you about those folks in just a minute. Now let's get to the meat and potatoes and oversized cats. Her name is Liz Kislet. Kislik. How come I always mess up names?

That's like, perfectly phonetically spelled.

Yeah. Her name is Liz Kislik and she is a management consultant and business coach. She helps organizations all the way from the Fortune 5000 to national not for profits and family run businesses and organizations such as American Express and the American Red Cross, Staples and many, many more in solving their thorniest problems while strengthening their top line and their bottom line. She writes for the Harvard Business Review. She's taught at both NYU and Hofstra and recently spoke at TEDx Baylor School, where, coincidentally, she is where I met Liz. Now, here's one thing you may not know about her. Her first career considerations were. Guess what? Guess it. Just guess, Liz. Guess what. Liz's first career consideration.

Flight attendant.

No. Pop star or rabbi. Oh, and rabbi. Yeah.

Oh, wow.

All right, we got to talk about the conflict in business and how to fix it. Liz, welcome to our show.

Welcome, Liz.

Thanks so much.

That was a horrible introduction by me. I was all over the place there. So Liz, there, when we met up at TEDx, there was no conflict there. There was a lot of nerves up in that room preparing for all the speeches.

Yeah, that would be right.

And. But you. You hit a home run.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And your expertise, I think, would have Been applicable because I don't know if you saw behind the scenes. This was a teenage group, as you know, that was running this the first time ever run by all teenagers. And. And they had a lot of conflict. They didn't handle it by yelling and screaming. They handled it just by going quiet and shutting down and panic. They did pull things off, but I think they could have used your expertise. What are the ways that conflict manifests itself? Perhaps more than just yelling and screaming when it comes to business?

So you're quite right, first of all, about how they handled things. I don't know if you noticed that I didn't actually get a remote to use until about. Yeah, until several minutes into the presentation, so.

Oh, I didn't see that.

It's cut out of the video. Thank goodness we were able to trim it. But I had to actually ask for the remote from the stage because they were doing the best they could, Mike. Okay, they were.

But there was conflict behind the scenes. There was no assignment of responsibility, and people were then shirking. I don't know. I don't have to deal with this. That's what it seemed like to me.

Yes. Yes. So they really weren't organized is the problem. They didn't know how to organize. The conflict came up because the other stuff wasn't working. It's when other stuff isn't working mostly that it starts to get personal. So if I recall correctly, I think you asked me, how else could you tell? Because it's not always screaming.

Yeah.

So there are a bunch of behaviors that if you see repetitively, you can be pretty sure there's underlying conflict. Everything from a lot of blaming to people making all kinds of excuses, passive aggressive behavior. But you can also see conflict through certain organizational lenses. Like when you have a lot of siloing, people just stick to what they do. Don't reach over the wall. Or you get that thing where everybody says, oh, they did this, or they have this problem, as opposed to referring to the group at large.

Okay. So now I know the signs of conflict. What are the costs of conflict? What's the consequences?

So it's pretty severe, and we're not really aware of it. There was a study a few years ago that showed that on average, US Employees spent almost three hours a week each dealing with some form of conflict. And that Translated to roughly $360 billion.

Oh, my gosh.

Because it was about 385 million working days nationally.

Oh, my God.

It's huge.

It's huge.

It's huge. And we don't notice it because we think of it as the bad conversation we have, and then we keep moving. Or we think about it as this other person who gets in our way, and we just think about it as part of the day. It's not a task. It's not a scheduled event. We don't think of it as taking time, but it really does.

And I think of the ripple effect, like when Kelsey yells at me, you know, in the moment, it's intense. And then the rest of the day, I'm like, oh, my God, she had to raise her voice, you know, And I start thinking about it. So the rest of my workday, maybe work week is compromised.

I'm feeling bad about that.

Yeah, she's really.

Well, Kelsey, I don't know if you knew that you had so much power.

I didn't, honestly.

Okay, so now you have to be careful. But there are all kinds of indirect costs. There are. I don't know if any of you have had this kind of circumstance, but I have worked in companies where you had people crying in various places. And if you can imagine people breaking down and crying, well, that could be an hour and a half before they're back at their desk and three hours before they're fully productive. You can have people not show up for work if they think it's going to be a bad enough day, or if they have to be in a meeting with that horrible person and you just get bad thinking. People don't want to interact with each other, and they may not dig deeply enough because they're afraid of triggering the surface conflict.

Right. So I think we have a wonderful place to work, and I think the places that. Because I. I've. I'm biased. I've owned all the businesses, but we've had conflict in my companies. And I remember one business, we had a person that would. Would cry. And I don't think it was necessarily because of how the situation was being navigated. That was her natural response. It was tough conversations, but. But when there's crying, then I don't want to approach that person. I'm afraid to tell them, speak to them truthfully, because I don't want to trigger crying. But now I'm becoming the one who's avoiding necessary conflict. And isn't conflict necessary, even though it can be hard?

Yes. So we have lots of different names for these things. I grew up in a family where one of the sort of watchwords was that we didn't argue, we discussed, and everybody has different language. The thing is, you have to be Able to have different opinions and share them and work it out. And sometimes that can feel perfectly comfortable, like, which movie do you want to go to Sunday afternoon? And sometimes in some families, even which movie can end up being the source of screaming. So it really depends on how you deal with the fact that you have different opinions.

So, okay, so conflict is normal. It happens. There's different approaches to it. There's a great cost for conflict, yet it also is necessary. So it's like you don't want to not have any conflict, but you sounds like we don't want to have the wrong conflict, Liz.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

I'm totally messed up. I'm terrified. What do I do? How do I put a structure in place for my business to have healthy conflict?

So I would say that you start first of all by having a healthy business. It's not that you put a particular kind of structure in place to avoid conflict. You try to be organized and have procedures and all the kinds of things that you talk about and teach about Mike to make sure your business is running well. That's the first thing. Then you have to have tools or approaches for dealing with what happens when there are legitimate differences of opinion. Even if things are going well and over time, as businesses grow, you can have the circumstance in which structures that worked when you were only three people no longer work when you're eight people. And if you keep the three people structure when it's now eight people, sometimes that itself can be a problem. You have to adjust to the new reality. So the big thing is first to acknowledge that we're having conflict. And is this the good kind where we feel okay about each other after we finish the heated conversation or the challenging conversation? Or is it the kind where we feel bad and then we'd better do something about it? So the first thing is actually to assess the fact that it's happening and not hide from that.

Do we seek it out? Meaning I know in my personal relationship, if, say, with my wife, if I have a bad feeling or an ill will, or I shouldn't say ill will, but just that there's something that needs to be addressed. I know the longer I put it off, it actually kind of boils on the surface and can get worse. Is it better to address it up front as soon as you feel it and. Or is there a regimented structure I could put in place in a business where that conflict is always being addressed early and healthily?

So that's exactly right. It's way better to do it as Close to the time of experiencing it as possible. Although I will say, say you have a difference of opinion with one of the people in that eight person shop. You may not want to have the conflict in front of everybody else. You may want to wait until the two of you are by yourselves. So I'm not suggesting that the second you feel a little, you jump up out of your chair and say, oh my gosh, we're having a conflict. That seems a little dramatic.

And also if, you know, you sort of run hot where you are very reactive, is it better to say schedule a time to talk to that person as opposed to bringing them into the next room right then and there?

So I think that's great. I think it could be useful to say. Even more useful than just scheduling it, to say, okay, we're having a conflict. I know I'm running hot. We all know this about me. So let's, let's wait till tomorrow before we talk about it. But acknowledging it up front.

Yeah, but that takes courage, right? For someone to step up for me to say, and I run hot at times. For me to step up and say, at times. At times.

You haven't seen very. I've yet to see it.

Yeah, well, the office, I really keep it in check. And at home, actually in my entire life, I keep in check. But I could run hot. That also, that's a real ego check. For me, Liz, to step up and say, hey, I run hot. Let's cool this for 24 hours. For someone that knows they run hot to actually say that. How do they get the courage to say that and not lose faith?

So in fact, I would say it's not so much courage as it is a practice. And Nice, nice. You've just announced it to everybody who's listening and is ever going to. So that didn't take courage. You were just saying something that you knew was true.

Well, you don't know the fact we have no listeners. So we're. No, I'll give you credit, we're Tony Golden. But okay.

But the thing is, the first thing is actually, does a person know if they've stepped on somebody's toe?

So self awareness, it requires awareness that I think a lot of people aren't.

Right.

So self awareness is crucial. And the courage, it could come from saying, I know I caused a problem. Can we talk about it later when I'm calmer? Yeah, it's more likely to be on the other foot though, where the person whose toe has been stepped upon needs to find some way to go and Say, Mike, can I talk to you about this? We have a problem.

Yeah, that's a good point. It isn't this kind of, I think a victimization kind of mentality kicks in, like, oh, you've hurt me, so you got to step up. It's really both have to say, listen, we got a conflict here. Even though I'm the one whose toes been stepped on, I have just as much of responsibility. It sounds like you're saying, Liz, to step up and say we have to address this and come to a resolution.

Exactly. And maybe more.

Okay.

Because you might not even realize you stepped on my foot. Maybe you're wearing steel toed boots and I'm barefoot. You might literally not know. So it is the responsibility of whoever notices to do it. One of the things that I like to say, and all my clients are used to this, is I say, would you please put your seatbelt on? And that means I'm about to say something that might be uncomfortable.

Hey, that's like your safe word.

Exactly. And so they know. I mean, of course the first thing they're thinking is, oh. But they don't necessarily know what it's going to be about. They just know that I'm asking them to be thoughtful and go into a kind of listening and self management mode.

I like that. I like that. So you set the stage for. Because I assume when you say, let's put your seatbelt on for this, please, that now you're freeing them from that mental chatter that's going on and they become much more focused and listening intently and actively.

Yes. They could be having adrenaline surges too, which is unfortunate, but it could happen. Yeah. Yes.

Are there other ways, as an employer, you can cultivate a culture so that people feel comfortable. Like, let's say as an employee, they feel comfortable letting me know when I'm crossing a boundary, that sort of sets off a trigger for them.

Yes. So when you. So there are many different points in time at which you can do this kind of messaging. When you first hire people, even when you're interviewing people, you can talk about the cultural norms of sharing with each other what's not working and doing it in respectful, forward looking ways. Not to punish, not to needle, not to create discomfort, but to put it on the table so that we can figure out together what's the best thing to do. And in general, if your context is we as opposed to I or you or they, it's more acceptable to anybody else if we're both working on it. It's not like I'm alone, either as the problem or as the person victimized by the problem. To Mike's earlier point. So you can talk about that during recruitment, you can talk about that during onboarding. And the first time it comes up, you can do it. And whoever is the leader in any circumstance, could be a meeting, could just be general discussion. Whatever it is, that person can say, how did this discussion go? Is there anything that didn't work? What do we need to talk about? And have a moment of reflection either at the end or at the beginning of the next meeting or at a separate time. You know, the timing is less important than the fact that it's a practice.

What about mediating conflict? Say the conflict isn't between me and Kelsey. Say Kelsey observes a conflict between two other colleagues here. Is she able to mediate that? Or do you have to be in a certain role? What's the rules of engagement when it comes to mediating a conflict?

So this is really variable because it depends on what the circumstances are, who the people are, what authority they have, a whole host of factors in general. Obviously, if they can work it out for themselves, that's the best. But the thing not to do, the most important thing not to do is to first talk to James and then talk to John. When you talk to them separately, you actually feed the conflict.

You can talk stacking up against them.

In each case, one of them might feel like you're against them or for them and against the other. And the risk is that you perpetuate in their heads their rightness or their fear that they're wrong, whichever. They have more of the useful thing other than to say to them, I see that we're having a conflict. I'm going to bring the two of you together, is to have them together and say, now let's talk about it. This is our problem. We're going to work on it together. You know, if you send two kids back to their room to work it out, the powerful one, whether that's physically, verbally, or any other way, the powerful one generally wins.

That's right.

So just send leaders, managers who send employees off to work things out by themselves. That's only okay if you know they are skilled enough to do it right.

And I presume most aren't because they're not rehearsed in this.

Boy, are you right? Terribly not. Terribly not. And the manager thinks, okay, I've handled the conflict. They will go deal. You know, it's completely wrong. The manager then feels absolved, and that is a lack of courage on the Part of the manager.

Yeah, they're totally abdicating my problem.

Yes, but.

But if. But I do need to get context here, Liz. If. If you and I are going at it, we have a conflict. Kelsey sees it. She's in a, say, managerial capacity or capacity to address this. She just knows that, you know, we're spitting in each other's faces, but she doesn't know why. Doesn't she have to learn the context before she brings us together?

Not necessarily. Because if we each get to rehearse our whole stories for her, then she's got two stories that don't tee up. And she can't help it. She's making judgments already. If she likes one of us better, if she knows you run hot and I don't, you know, there's a host of things going on that can kind of calcify over time. Yeah, but all she has to do is bring us together and say, okay, folks, what's going on? And she can set some ground rules if she wants. And this goes back to. It's great. If you already have a practice and you've already explained to every new employee how you're going to deal with stuff, that's great, but often that hasn't happened. So you might just bring the two people together and say what's going on? And the person who either feels the most powerful or the most aggrieved, again, it's going to depend. These are human things, and you can't necessarily know one of them will start talking. And it's very useful for the mediator to listen for a few moments, not very long, and say, okay, I think I've got that. Or I understand, and kind of play back the factual matter and then turn to the other person and say, and is that the same from your perspective? Not let them.

Ike said, your perspective.

Not let them tell the whole story about how everything's been going wrong for the last six months.

Right, Right.

Because, you know, you never get out of that. But focusing on what is happening now and then the other, it's so interesting, and it's kind of hard to do. They. Mostly because, as you say, Mike, they don't have a practice in this. They mostly will talk about the immediate thing that annoyed them about what the other said or did. If you understand the work circumstance, it's useful to ask lying factors that are likely to be part of what triggered the conflict in the first place. The way the systems work. And I couldn't get what I wanted, and I felt your department was not helping me but it might actually just be a systems problem.

Does it also help to put that there is a common outcome that both are seeking? For example, if Kelsey saw a conflict between you and I, Liz, and we work for the same company, we have the same ultimate objective. We're, you know, we're both looking to elevate the brand or we're both looking to do xyz, does it help for her to reiterate that there's a common good that we're both seeking just from different perspectives, or does that actually cloud the situation?

So it's very good for her to do it, but not at the beginning.

Ah.

Okay.

So I'm going to quote Talmud for a minute. I don't know why this came into my mind, but there is a saying that you should not try to comfort the mourner when the corpse is in front of him. So when the stuff is too close.

Visual. Yeah.

What will feel like a platitude about our big goal? It'll just be annoying if they're rubbed raw. It'll be salt in the wound. You've got to get at least the facts of what is this circumstance? And then there's often a useful way to refer to the big goal and how this circumstance could serve the big goal or get in the way of the big goal. And that's why we're going to do X.

Gotcha. Okay. What about these things? You know, you see them on television. They have these almost hokey or gimmicky things, but maybe they're not gimmicky. They say, you know, Liz and Mike are fighting it out. Kelsey's like, okay, here's the prescription. I'm gonna put the two of you, you know, I'm gonna chain you together to a desk with these handcuffs for the next 24 hours. Go. You're locked in this room together. You have to figure it out. You see, these hokey fixes may, there's TV friendly stuff, but are there these little kind of hacks out there besides this protocol that we should follow?

I'm thinking of the picture of two people handcuffed. If they're really handcuffed, and they have no skills. Okay, Right. That's a horror show. Until they truly realize they have no choice.

Well, I didn't give you all the details. You and I are both dressed in clown.

Okay, great. So after we start crying and our clown makeup runs, you know, in the workplace. Say you put them, the two of them, they're now co chairing a task force. How's that? That's like being chained to something.

Yeah.

The mess that they can make unless they dig deep and are willing to do the thing I'm about to talk about next. At any point, someone can decide to go first and can say, okay, tell me why this is a problem for you. I'm going to listen carefully. I actually want to understand. And if that person then listens and then paraphrases, you know, in all this technique stuff, Mike, there are. There's literature about why one thing works and another thing doesn't. But in general, you have humans together. And if you show that you are listening and that you got it by repeating back some of it, not challenging it, not putting it in your terms, not sharing. Yes. But my perspective was X. If there's real listening, okay, I understand this is what you think happened and this is how you feel about it. And I can see why that would be a problem for you. So there's the acknowledgement of the harm or the hurt or the difficulty. Then if you have two good people, the great likelihood is the other person is going to say, well, thank you, I appreciate that you understand what this means to me, or something like that. And then create space for the first person to say what it meant to her.

Yeah. It almost sounds like there's a form of reciprocity you start instead of a downward spiral. Now you've turned it. You started an upward spiral. Last question before we gotta let you go. We are running tight on time. Is the consequence now on profitability, we talked about the cost of conflict. But if businesses of all sizes, small businesses in particular, listen to this show, if they address conflict from your experience, does that have an impact on the bottom line?

Oh, my gosh, yes. Because things that they've been struggling with for years couldn't get a product off the ground because people weren't satisfied or didn't work properly together, didn't share information, how to deal with an outside client where they were making the client deal with different people. Oh, a hundred times, yes. It eventually goes to the bottom line.

Awesome. Liz, we let you go. I just don't know if you know this. We sent out a spy recorder for different situations and we had actually sent out someone for one of your conflict resolutions with President Obama. And you said, president Obama, I respectfully disagree with what you're doing. I suggest you don't do it. And here's his response. Come on, man. So I just want you to know we got that on tape. Liz, where. Where can people learn more about you and your organization?

So my website is lizkislick.com that's L I Z K I S L I K dot com.

Good.

And there they can get access to my blog and all kinds of stuff I've written and also a field guide and checklist about dealing with conflict.

Good. We're going to have that in our show notes. You also have lizkislik.com resolve conflict and we'll have that link set up, too. Liz, thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you, Liz.

Happy to be with you. Thank you.

All right, hang tight. Don't actually leave us. Just kind of fake leave us, because we still got to talk.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so in a second, here's what we're going to do. I have another recording from her. By the way. This is when Liz. Liz is. You can tell by her voice she is very approachable, calming, soothing. Liz, I said, liz, I don't think I. I can have you on the show. And. And I called her up and said, it's just, I want to, but I don't think you're a fit for the show. I'm really sorry. And here was her response. Do it. Just do it. Yeah, she got fired up.

Amazing. So much.

Yeah. It's unbelievable when people yell almost. They almost all have a very similar voice.

Yeah.

Let me. Let me yell. Just do it.

Do it.

I sound this. I sound the same way myself. All right, so here's what we're going to do. My dear listener friends. I want to thank our corporate partners. I want to tell you what we learned. And we got a goodie in the inbox. Right, For a profit tip.

Oh, yes. Yes.

Okay, so here's our corporate partners, nextiva and Receipt Bank. Here's something unique. I'm not going to tell you anything about them today. I want you to go to the website and find out about them. So go to nextiva.com and then why don't you post in the comments what you discovered and check out receiptbank.com. they're wonderful supporters of ours and I think they can support your business. All right, Kalis, it's time for the famous.

So what'd you learn today? It's amazing how your voice changed there.

Yeah, I sang that. Yeah. Eyes closed. That's why.

So I feel like I learned a ton. I think my favorite takeaway, though, is after a meeting, get feedback on people's reflection of the meeting or conversation. So, you know, like, if you and I are having kind of a talk about something afterwards, it could be like, how did you feel about that? Best Way to approach it. So then you learn, you grow, and you figure out, I love that technique, especially for each individual person. What's the best way to communicate?

Like a debriefing.

Yeah.

So, you know, Ron and I actually started to use that technique. Ron has a different approach to conflict than I do. And that alone can spark more conflict. Right. We both entrenched our ways, and so we've talked about how we address conflict. And I think it's been smoother in having conflict. And we continue to, but we expect to. My big takeaway from Liz was when it came to mediating. I've never heard someone say, don't talk to them separately. Actually, that's what I'm told most often to do. Get the facts from person one, get the facts from person two, and then bring them together. And she said, no, no, no. They start building their arguments and entrenching based upon that. Bring them together right away and address it that way. Freaking genius. Yeah, Gene. Genius.

Perfection.

I was gonna play a funny sound bit, but it didn't make sense, so I skipped over in my mind. All right, that's what we learned. We wanna know our dear listeners. Go and post that on our blog, because this podcast is on a little blog type thing. You can post there or on our site. Now, we do have a listener mail too, right? Ooh, got mail. Pattern baldness.

Okay, this one comes from Emma.

Hi, Emma.

She asks, when you are starting a new retail business and apply the profit first, will your taps be adjusted because you are spending more on marketing, et cetera, and not really paying yourself first? I've set aside money on 50% owners pay, but would rather use that for marketing, et cetera, to build a client base. As time goes, I'd like to get it to where you suggested in your book.

So, Emma, answer is, in short, yes. When you start a new business, particularly with inventory, you need to ramp inventory. There's only one way to do it. You need to purchase that inventory. Now you can finance it yourself, meaning you take in funds and you make a loan to the company. Say you have, I don't know, $5,000 of inventory you want to buy and you have that money yourself. You make a loan to the company, all that money goes into the OPX account. Or you can have another account called inventory. All goes in there and you buy inventory with it to get the initial stock. Then in the early replenishing stages, often you'll have some items that sell faster and others don't. So you need to spend some more money and also build out your inventory. So you may want to adjust your percentages where more money is going toward inventory in the beginning, but put a time frame on it. Maybe say for the first three months, we're going to ramp inventory. And then no matter where we stand, we're going to start cutting our costs on inventory, spend and. And focus more on profitability. So the answer is yes. Nice, Mike.

Excellent.

Yeah, I think that was it, right?

Yeah.

All right, then let's. Let's start the fade out music. I think we pulled it together too, where I was rambling way too much in the beginning. We got tighter and tighter toward the end.

Yeah, absolutely. Don't forget to leave us your ratings and comments on Profit first podcast dot com.

Yeah, and you know, if you feel so compelled to subscribe. Right. If you feel so compelled to tell your friends about it. And we love binge listeners. Do you. Do you have people ever so often call here and they ask you a question about something you heard on the podcast about you not call?

But I've had emails, seen people on emails.

Yeah. You've seen people?

Yeah, like a ProfitCon last year.

Oh, really? Someone's like, oh, how you. So I guarantee someone's going to say, how's the house?

And stuff. Well, that's what happened because way back when I talked about saving for my piece of property to build a house. And so when I ran into Angela Keller, if you're listening, and she was like, did you, did you get your property yet? And I was like, that sounds so creepy. But it's only because I listen to all the podcasts.

Is that awesome? I can't tell you. It's happened more and more frequently that I'm going to presentation and someone's like, I love your podcast. Oh, tell, tell Kelsey this. They're always talking about Kelsey. And now Ryan was our recent host. I bet you he starts getting more and more popular with our audience. Oh, talk about popular with your audience. If you have profitability, your clients will love you. Why? Because they know you're gonna be sticking around. The more profitable your business is, the more sustainable you are. That's how you get popular with your audience. Now, how do you do it? By using Profit First. So go to Profit first professionals dot com. That's the folks who are helping folks like you implement Profit First. Click on Find One. We'll hook you up with a PfP Profit first professional and we will drive some profit in your business. It's that simple. And if you haven't read the book by the way. Get a copy. And, oh, there's a lot of and O's. And, oh, get a copy of Clockwork. It's available right now for pre order on Amazon. So. Gonna be a life changer. I swear, it's gonna be huge. Just huge. All right, ready? Get out of here.

Ready?

All right, see you.

Bye, everybody.

You go buy a house. Finally.

So, right now, Mouth.