Episode 20
Handling Difficult Conversations Without Creating Conflict – Interview With Marie Coombes
Want to know how to handle difficult conversations, when you're not in a room together? Or how to communicate your return-to-the-office policies without triggering people job-hunting? Or how to prevent the conflict that's looming for two of the hottest - and most-ignored - topics that are facing offices? In today's Lockdown Leadership Conference interview with award-winning mediator, Marie Coombes, we're talking about:
Creating Change Without Conflict And Handling Difficult Conversations To
Deepen Connections
What We'll Cover In This Interview:
- What are difficult conversations?
- What's the current big topic that workplaces are avoiding, and how will that trigger problems?
- How can virtual leaders manage those who want to stay home-working vs those who want to come back full time?
- Strategies for communicating properly to avoid conflict
- Managing upwards – raising difficult topics with your manager
- What's the next big topic that we need to proactively handle, to avoid creating a two-tier workforce?
Show notes and additional resources: www.clarejosa.com/soulledleaders/20/
Transcript
So good morning, everybody.
Speaker:Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker:I'm thrilled to be able to talk with Marie Coombes today.
Speaker:She's an award winning mediator trainer.
Speaker:She's also a mental health first aid, a trainer.
Speaker:And she specialises in helping people to have the conversations that we've
Speaker:convinced ourselves a difficult in ways to prevent conflict, to facilitate deeper
Speaker:connexion and to restore that sense of calm.
Speaker:So welcome, Marie.
Speaker:It's wonderful to have you join us.
Speaker:Hello. .
Speaker:Absolutely fantastic to be here.
Speaker:You know, I love talking to you.
Speaker:And Marie, one thing that I've never asked you that I'd love to start with today is
Speaker:how on earth did you end up as a mediator trainer
Speaker:by accident?
Speaker:Pretty much before I opened up my company, I worked for Royal Mail for 17 years.
Speaker:And I was in a really, really low key
Speaker:position back in 2014 where they were setting up an in-house mediation session.
Speaker:And I kind of like the idea of of mediation.
Speaker:You know, it kind of fitted with my mentality and helping people
Speaker:pull through sort of difficult situations, left it right until the very last minute
Speaker:to apply applied along with 700 other people, 10 jobs.
Speaker:And I got one of them. And I have never looked back.
Speaker:It was the best decision I ever made. That's fantastic.
Speaker:I had no idea about that, Marie.
Speaker:And one of the things everybody listening and watching I love about Marie
Speaker:is that Marie is very grounded and down to earth and practical.
Speaker:So where the conversation, you know, the topic of difficult conversations can get
Speaker:quite esoteric and quite left brained and quite model based.
Speaker:When you work with Marie, you just feel safe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You just know there's not going to be any drama and I just feel held.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I've never had to work with you as a mediator, which in some ways is fortunate.
Speaker:But just just the conversations that we've had, you just feel safe to be able to open
Speaker:up and be you, which is a real gift, Marie, that you share with the world.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And it's at the heart of everything I do as well.
Speaker:I am on a mission to make people feel safe.
Speaker:Thank you. So, Marie, I'd like to start
Speaker:with what is your definition of what are difficult conversations?
Speaker:It's it's anything that invokes the for the Fight-flight-freeze or for response.
Speaker:And it's those conversations we avoid that
Speaker:we think that we're going to get in an argument with
Speaker:anything that we have fear of, you know, fear of the consequences of speaking up.
Speaker:Power struggles are a big thing as well.
Speaker:Obviously, talking to your manager or
Speaker:feeling that somebody else has has more power than you.
Speaker:It doesn't even necessarily to be a manager subordinate relationship issues if
Speaker:you perceive that they have more power than you.
Speaker:So it's pretty much anything that invokes
Speaker:those photographs and automatically triggers that response in your brain.
Speaker:This is going to be difficult.
Speaker:OK, so the kind of thing I'd expect people to be seeing that.
Speaker:And you can tell me if you see this is is
Speaker:something I talk a lot about with clients called the Flinch factor.
Speaker:Where you think about the conversation is something tightens in your body
Speaker:is that could be really useful. Early warning sign.
Speaker:If you're thinking about that conversation, you kind of go, oh, in your
Speaker:body is like, OK, this is where I need to go and listen to what Marie has to say.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Now, I know you said just when we were
Speaker:chatting before we got on life interview, there's some research that you've been
Speaker:reading about that absolutely blew my mind.
Speaker:Yeah. So there was a study done by 18 months ago
Speaker:now where they were investigating why why people avoid the conversation.
Speaker:Out of that study, 80 percent of people
Speaker:were avoiding difficult conversations, which didn't surprise me in the slightest.
Speaker:What did surprise me was some of the other
Speaker:figures, one in 10, delay that conversation for at least a year
Speaker:and a further one in 10 delay it for at least two years,
Speaker:which that is a terrifying statistic because those people that are delaying
Speaker:those conversations are stuck in that forever.
Speaker:So they are stuck in that situation.
Speaker:Every time they see that person, every time they have to have an interaction with
Speaker:that person, it immediately triggers one of those photographs again, because they
Speaker:know that they're avoiding that conversation.
Speaker:Absolutely. And that really is shocking.
Speaker:I mean, yeah, it also kind of doesn't
Speaker:surprise me because we do put those conversations off.
Speaker:We convince ourselves how horrible it's
Speaker:going to be and we turn it into a really big thing.
Speaker:And I know that also with your background
Speaker:as a mental health first aid, a trainer, you must see a direct link between people
Speaker:putting off those conversations and mental health.
Speaker:Absolutely. It's a cause and effect relationship.
Speaker:If you already have a mental health condition remaining in that place, where
Speaker:you're avoiding those conversations will make it worse.
Speaker:And if you don't have a condition that increases our stress, responses and stress
Speaker:over time can develop into a mental health condition.
Speaker:So, you know, tackling early, regardless of the fact that.
Speaker:It may give you some short term
Speaker:difficulties in the long term is going to be a benefit to everybody.
Speaker:Absolutely. And the increase in anxiety that we get
Speaker:from being in that Fight-flight-freeze response with the Sympathetic nervous
Speaker:system triggered the whole time can have a knock on impact.
Speaker:So many other areas in our lives and
Speaker:relationships that have nothing to do with the past.
Speaker:And that that difficult conversation is with. So Marie,
Speaker:we're looking at #makinghybridwork and
Speaker:going back into the office potentially or potentially less.
Speaker:What are the kind of topics that you're seeing coming up at the moment that people
Speaker:are potentially avoiding having difficult conversations over?
Speaker:So the big thing during covid has been
Speaker:that conversation remotely, we were talking just before about the tone of
Speaker:emails, that's probably been one of the biggest issues I've seen in a lot of the
Speaker:conversations I've seen is everybody relying on email a lot more.
Speaker:And we never know the tone that that email
Speaker:should be coming across on because we're not sat there having the conversation.
Speaker:So you receive an email.
Speaker:If it's from somebody that you're avoiding
Speaker:a difficult conversation with, you're already a lot higher in terms of your
Speaker:reaction than you would be if you told me face to face.
Speaker:And it's it's very much about reading those emails, reading that written
Speaker:communication and not really understanding where it's coming from.
Speaker:And that's triggering a lot of
Speaker:a lot of difficulties between people at the moment.
Speaker:The other kind of things, I mean,
Speaker:communication in general has always been a big issue in mediation
Speaker:because it's the first thing to go when people have an issue with each other,
Speaker:whatever that issue might be, perception gaps, those gaps in perception
Speaker:between what one person thinks and what somebody else thinks is a recurring theme.
Speaker:I always talk about three truths that your
Speaker:truth, the truth and the truth and conflict is never about the truth.
Speaker:It's always about understanding each other's truths.
Speaker:So that's another big issue.
Speaker:The ones I'm starting to see come through now.
Speaker:Menopause.
Speaker:We have an ageing workforce.
Speaker:There's a lot more women in that menopausal area in the workplace.
Speaker:And if you're a man, you might be sat there thinking, oh, God, not you.
Speaker:That doesn't affect me, but it does if you manage somebody who is going through that.
Speaker:So that's going to be a bigger ticket
Speaker:issue over the next sort of three or four years, along with
Speaker:mental health being an increasing issue as well.
Speaker:We've only just touched the tip of the iceberg in terms of mental health at the
Speaker:moment and those people returning from furlough as well.
Speaker:That's I'm starting to see that being an issue because there's resentment between
Speaker:those of Hybrid working thinking that those sorts of home have been a home for
Speaker:the last 18 months when actually they've sat at home, have wanted to be at work.
Speaker:So there's resentment in the other direction as well.
Speaker:So they're kind of the big things I'm seeing at the moment.
Speaker:And there's other things
Speaker:that I can see on the horizon which are really going to cause issues as well.
Speaker:But we'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker:So one of the things that I'm definitely
Speaker:seeing with my clients is what you've just said about fellow returners
Speaker:is we need to be having conversations to rebuild those teams.
Speaker:You can't just bring people who've been
Speaker:furloughed back into the office or remote working and expect them to feel included.
Speaker:Yeah, Imposter Syndrome rates, for
Speaker:example, amongst furloughed workers are skyrocketing because they've been out of
Speaker:the organisation for potentially a year or more.
Speaker:They feel that everybody else has moved ahead.
Speaker:What I know.
Speaker:What if they realise I'm no longer good enough at my job?
Speaker:Similarly, we've got the people who've
Speaker:been on their knees potentially working 14 hours a day with the perception that the
Speaker:people who've been furloughed have been sat at home on holiday, whereas actually,
Speaker:as you say, they might have been stuck in a tiny flat with no God.
Speaker:We're going stir crazy wanting to be back in the office.
Speaker:So when we're looking at things like this, how to communicate, how to rebuild teams,
Speaker:to avoid conflict, to prevent resentment, what is your advice on that?
Speaker:Communicate properly, to be able to avoid
Speaker:that conflict and to be able to rebuild those teams.
Speaker:So for me, it's twofold.
Speaker:One is the psychological side and one is the communication side.
Speaker:So in terms of the psychology, it's about
Speaker:understanding that we all have a desire to be psychologically safe
Speaker:and the kind of tenants and psychological safety security, having a stable job,
Speaker:having a stable situation, having controls autonomy is a big thing as well.
Speaker:Being able to control your environment,
Speaker:being able to control what happens to you and fairness.
Speaker:That's a huge thing in terms of psychological safety of people do not feel
Speaker:they are being treated fairly or if they feel that others around them are not being
Speaker:treated fairly as well, that can have a major impact on all psychological safety.
Speaker:And what that does is it triggers the a
Speaker:response in terms of the communication side of things.
Speaker:Never, ever have a conversation.
Speaker:And the information
Speaker:always sort of say, you know what, we're
Speaker:not going anywhere with this conversation and that's going to take five minutes.
Speaker:I'll go grab a cup of tea and then we'll come back and start again.
Speaker:Never, ever feel like you have to force a
Speaker:conversation like having the proper communication, great trust and rapport.
Speaker:It builds that connexion.
Speaker:Having a proper, empathic conversation builds connexion.
Speaker:So it's very much about finding the right time to have a conversation as well.
Speaker:Don't try and have a conversation five minutes away from a meeting.
Speaker:Find the right time to have that conversation where you can be in a safe
Speaker:environment, where you can be in a productive environment, and also
Speaker:confidentiality is a huge thing about communication.
Speaker:If you're talking about difficult things,
Speaker:you need to know that you are in a confidential environment as well.
Speaker:It's also about listening to people, not listening to respond.
Speaker:How many times have we been stuck in a conflict situation?
Speaker:And we've been sitting there thinking, oh, God, how am I going to respond to this?
Speaker:Instead of actually listening to what's happening, listening to what's being said,
Speaker:so it's about an active listening, actively engaging in the conversation,
Speaker:and the final thing for me is about self-awareness.
Speaker:So it is very much about understanding yourself.
Speaker:And one thing that I talk about a lot, both is mental health, first aid and also
Speaker:as a human being is our frame of reference.
Speaker:We all come from a frame of reference.
Speaker:We all come from a set of beliefs, values,
Speaker:upbringing, childhood, all those kind of things that make us who we are.
Speaker:And being aware of our reaction are triggers to things can have a big part of
Speaker:having a productive conversation with somebody as well.
Speaker:That's really, really important stuff if you see the frame, that frame of
Speaker:reference, that self-awareness is understanding potentially what we are
Speaker:projecting onto the conversation, taking that out so we can really listen to hear
Speaker:and it's being able to listen, to hear without getting defensive, isn't it?
Speaker:Because it's not really about us.
Speaker:If somebody got pain inside, it probably isn't us.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So taking it personally, I can imagine, would actually increase the conflict.
Speaker:And it's having that maturity and
Speaker:self-awareness, as you describe it, to be able to to say this isn't about me,
Speaker:I'm getting me out of the way and I'm open to that being a solution to this.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker:The first thing I do when I'm a mediator is I put my mediator persona on.
Speaker:And part of that is this isn't about me.
Speaker:This is about the two people in the room.
Speaker:This is very much about helping them rebuild.
Speaker:Their communication is never about you.
Speaker:It is always about somebody talking from a
Speaker:position of what they need, their underlying needs.
Speaker:And part of that is psychological safety. Absolutely.
Speaker:And if we look at, you know, most of us have heard of Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs,
Speaker:there's a reason why safety and security is at the bottom of that pyramid because
Speaker:it is the foundation for all of our other experiences in life.
Speaker:We've got a great one here in the comments.
Speaker:Judith Glaser's work on conversational
Speaker:intelligence is a great read and complements what Marie's just mentioned.
Speaker:Listening to Connect.
Speaker:And I know you and I both talked about
Speaker:Marshall Rosenberg Non-Violent Communication.
Speaker:It's what you were just saying here is
Speaker:it's about that the conflict comes because we don't understand each other's needs.
Speaker:And I'm guessing a lot of the times that
Speaker:I've seen in my client what we don't actually know what our needs are, so we're
Speaker:not articulating them in a way that allows other people to meet them.
Speaker:And the job of you as a mediator or if you're training people in an organisation
Speaker:to be able to facilitate those conversations, is to help people really
Speaker:see those unmet needs that have been creating the perception of conflict.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:One of the one of the key things I do is I speak individually with people and we
Speaker:work through from the story, which is usually 20 minutes of what I like
Speaker:to call verbal diarrhoea, which is where everything just comes out.
Speaker:And as a mediator, I'm trained to spot the unmet needs.
Speaker:And then we talk through those to the point where the story that somebody comes
Speaker:in with is very, very different from what they are taking out of that meeting, into
Speaker:the joint meeting of a mediation, very, very different.
Speaker:You say this is such an important thing to be doing.
Speaker:And obviously I know most of us aren't qualified to be doing it the way you do.
Speaker:But if somebody is in a management position and they don't have the benefit
Speaker:of maritime first, then I guess for them they could still
Speaker:there would be huge benefit in them talking to both parties individually
Speaker:rather than just bringing them like two fighting dogs into the arena.
Speaker:And as you say, is that that vomit of I need my story to be heard.
Speaker:Nobody's listen to me unconditionally on this before I need to get it out, because
Speaker:until somebody has been heard, they're not going to let go of the story.
Speaker:Then, as you say, being able to understand
Speaker:what are the needs that meant the story was created and is being fed.
Speaker:And then that's the point at which you mediate from and when you've heard the
Speaker:story without engaging in the drama of it, then the person feels they've been heard
Speaker:and they can let go of some of the emotional attachment if I guess then
Speaker:the mediation or the discussion is much more likely to be successful, Marie.
Speaker:Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:But the joint meeting always starts with something called uninterrupted speaking
Speaker:time, which is an opportunity to speak and be heard, because, as I say, we're always
Speaker:listening to respond rather than listening to hear.
Speaker:So people are effectively in the nicest possible way forced to listen.
Speaker:Yeah, that is a real golden moment in a
Speaker:mediation because you do you see that realisation?
Speaker:Oh, my God, I didn't realise. I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah, I often. Absolutely.
Speaker:And if you're leading that discussion,
Speaker:whether it's somebody like you, Maria, or whether it's a line manager or somebody in
Speaker:an H.R. team, what's really important, I guess, is to
Speaker:make sure that when somebody has that realisation, it doesn't then cause them to
Speaker:shut down with the guilt and the shame of I can't believe I did that.
Speaker:Therefore, I'm an awful person.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, it's happened.
Speaker:We're going to deal with it.
Speaker:You move on. Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely. So one of the big challenges I'm hearing
Speaker:from my audience and from my clients is having those conversations.
Speaker:Output's Yeah.
Speaker:Is being able to raise difficult conversations with your line manager, your
Speaker:direct your managing partner or even the CEO.
Speaker:And I was working with a client just
Speaker:yesterday where her difficult conversation to say no to meetings.
Speaker:Yeah, she's just been promoted into a global role.
Speaker:She now has seven hours a day of back to
Speaker:back meetings, wakes up first thing in the morning.
Speaker:The first thing she thinks is what work will I get done tonight?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, this kind of thing is becoming increasingly common.
Speaker:Leading to mental health issues and burnout, productivity issues, performance
Speaker:issues, team problems, absenteeism, what would your advice be for those of us
Speaker:who need to raise that difficult topic with our line manager, where there might
Speaker:not be somebody there to facilitate to have that courage to be able to have that
Speaker:conversation and not be the statistic that's put it off for two years and then
Speaker:leaves the company because they didn't want to raise the conversation.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So my first thing would be tackle it early.
Speaker:Something will only get bigger if it's not talked about.
Speaker:So regardless of whether it's upwards,
Speaker:downwards, left or right, tackle it early, don't allow it to fester, because that's
Speaker:when a difficult conversation becomes an impossible conversation.
Speaker:And all of a sudden, it's two years later,
Speaker:there's something within the complex
Speaker:splits, vehicle conflict styles and sometimes understanding what your style of
Speaker:dealing with conflict is can support how you have that conversation.
Speaker:So I will say conflict probably not like this conflict is inevitable.
Speaker:It's whether it's constructive or destructive.
Speaker:That is the key point here.
Speaker:OK, the reason why we talk about constructive and destructive conflict is
Speaker:because we all come from that frame of reference.
Speaker:So it's about how we react, not
Speaker:necessarily what the actual issue is, that's quite
Speaker:often the difference between constructive and destructive conflict.
Speaker:So having an understanding of that or the person's conflict style, whether they are
Speaker:a shark, which is kind of like the fight response, whether they're a teddy bear,
Speaker:which is the fawning response or whether they're a collaborator, that can help you
Speaker:prepare for that conversation and prepare your style to match their style.
Speaker:OK, because what you're doing then is you're appealing to that underlying needs.
Speaker:It is about understanding their needs and goals as well.
Speaker:So what is their life like?
Speaker:What is their work life like?
Speaker:Is what you're going to talk to them about
Speaker:going to make things more difficult or more easy, understanding how that's going
Speaker:to impact on their needs and goals and then
Speaker:understanding then how they may react to it.
Speaker:And it is about respect and empathy as well.
Speaker:Brene Brown talks about empathy, building connexion.
Speaker:And it's also one of those where an
Speaker:empathic conversation is never one that starts with at least.
Speaker:So it's all about having the right level
Speaker:of empathy and having respect for each other's time as well.
Speaker:I mentioned earlier on about picking the right time to have a conversation.
Speaker:It's exactly the same.
Speaker:Managing opposite is managing down to a certain extent.
Speaker:It's picking the right time and then being
Speaker:mindful of each other's time because we're all busy.
Speaker:Every single one of us is busy.
Speaker:But what we can do by having the
Speaker:conversation early is we can save a bigger amount of time later on.
Speaker:So it's that short term pain for long term gain.
Speaker:This is brilliant.
Speaker:And I love that whole thing about the two types of conflict and how actually it's
Speaker:about how we experience and process it rather than the actual topic.
Speaker:I'd love to hear from those of you who are alive with this chat.
Speaker:What are your thoughts on that, on those
Speaker:two types of conflict and the role that we play in it?
Speaker:And Marie, building on something that you
Speaker:said earlier about that kind of 20 minutes of vomit, but
Speaker:getting it out there that people need to have that verbal diarrhoea.
Speaker:What would you I mean, I'm thinking and I could be wrong.
Speaker:I'm not media trainer, but I'm wondering
Speaker:if you need to have that difficult conversation with your boss, whether it's
Speaker:worth finding somebody who's a trusted friend that you could have that verbal
Speaker:diarrhoea with before you go into the meeting with the boss.
Speaker:So when you go into the meeting with the boss, you've got the emotions out of it.
Speaker:What would your thoughts be on that?
Speaker:I personally would would probably recommend that.
Speaker:I mean, I'm a big one for having mentors.
Speaker:I'm a big one for having somebody is there as a coaching relationship.
Speaker:So definitely that if I had to have a
Speaker:difficult conversation, I would always and I've still got a mentor now.
Speaker:I would always go to my mentor first and say, look, this is what I'm dealing with.
Speaker:I'm not quite sure how to deal with it.
Speaker:This is this is everything that is going on.
Speaker:And then we would have that conversation so I can distil down.
Speaker:To be fair, I naturally distil now and
Speaker:naturally go for my unmet need first because I recognise it straight away.
Speaker:But obviously if you if you're not trained in that skill, you will probably need
Speaker:somebody to help you having that conversation, taking time to plan the
Speaker:conversation and that will be part of that plan.
Speaker:And that's brilliant.
Speaker:And what you're saying about, you know, you've got the stage where you can now
Speaker:just say, oh, is this need that's creating that particular story?
Speaker:You know, I talk about Mind-story drama how so much the pain we experience is
Speaker:actually the what you feel that we're doing in our heads.
Speaker:And most of us don't even realise we're doing that and that it becomes our truth.
Speaker:Yeah, it is that drama story.
Speaker:But what if he does this or she says that
Speaker:suddenly we forget that was just an imagination?
Speaker:Yeah, I remember a situation once where I
Speaker:had a dream that my husband had behaved very unreasonable.
Speaker:And I woke up that morning and I was really cross with him for about two hours.
Speaker:And I couldn't shift the whole thing
Speaker:because the mind-story drama in the dream had been so real.
Speaker:I'd created the neural pathways that my
Speaker:brain forgot because there was such emotion with it.
Speaker:My brain forgot it had never actually happened.
Speaker:Yeah, so I really think, yeah, having this coach, this mentor figure,
Speaker:somebody you trust who isn't going to sit there and wind you up because we get
Speaker:physiologically addicted at a cellular level to the adrenaline and the court is
Speaker:all those stress hormones created by the mind-story drama.
Speaker:So do not have your pre-chat with somebody
Speaker:who's just going to help you to ease your way back up.
Speaker:It needs to be somebody who can do the unconditional listening.
Speaker:But I guess we don't.
Speaker:It's the individual also need to be open
Speaker:to letting go of the mind-story drama if we actually want to to ease that conflict.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker:Because we cannot have those difficult
Speaker:conversations if we are personally stuck in that drama.
Speaker:It's like I said earlier, I'll never have
Speaker:a conversation, a difficult conversation in the height of emotion.
Speaker:Just take five minutes out to just go and
Speaker:censor yourself and then come back and start again.
Speaker:Absolutely. And definitely I love your advice, but
Speaker:don't have it five minutes before you walk into a big meeting.
Speaker:You have people that do, though.
Speaker:I'm just saying that with it. Yeah.
Speaker:And also, I think it's fair to to brief
Speaker:the person that actually I do want to talk to you about this topic, and I've been
Speaker:finding it quite difficult because the last thing you want is them thinking that
Speaker:you're just doing a catch up date and then suddenly to be splattered
Speaker:with a set of needs that they've got no idea even existed.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It's about making time, making time.
Speaker:And and us being the adults in that situation is owning our reaction
Speaker:to the situation and being genuinely open to that being an amicable solution rather
Speaker:than somebody needing to win and somebody else needing to lose.
Speaker:And that can be quite hard if the person's behaviour has been quite unacceptable.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker:I mean, one of the things I always
Speaker:encourage in those mediation style conversations, whether I do it one on one
Speaker:or whether I do it in a group setting, is speak from the I.
Speaker:Use I statements, I feel like this.
Speaker:I take ownership because that's one of the
Speaker:things we don't do in conflict, we immediately go to that blame place.
Speaker:We immediately try to blame somebody else.
Speaker:And it's not a it's not an issue in the sense of, you know, we all do it.
Speaker:It's just the way we naturally sort of gravitate to.
Speaker:But it's about taking ownership of all them for what's going on.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So we got some great comments here, it's
Speaker:like, yep, I recommend clients to practise, not to have a script, but to
Speaker:deal with the emotion before having the conversation for real.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Might even practise it a few times.
Speaker:I write down the topics I want to talk to, talk through and keep those topics.
Speaker:And it's so important for us to
Speaker:to be able to be in that space where we say we move away from the blame.
Speaker:Yeah, that famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote,
Speaker:If nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent, it's a real rotten
Speaker:tomatoes moment for the word inferior, for whatever the emotion is we're feeling.
Speaker:Unfortunately, it's actually true.
Speaker:And if we're in a conflict situation, the
Speaker:other person might not even realise they're in a conflict situation.
Speaker:They might be blissfully unaware of the
Speaker:story and the pain that's going on inside for us.
Speaker:And we need to make sure we don't speak from the pain.
Speaker:We speak from that grounded sense of I'm taking responsibility for how I feel in
Speaker:this, but I do need you to understand my needs.
Speaker:Yeah, definitely. And it's funny you should say that,
Speaker:because the amount of mediations I've done where one person has this 20 minutes of
Speaker:everything and the other person's "I don't know why I'm here".
Speaker:I've lost count of how many times that has happened.
Speaker:And then by the time we get to the joint meetings,
Speaker:it's like, "Ahh!"It's surreal, isn't it?
Speaker:And we can really find ourselves up about
Speaker:other people's behaviour without them having any idea whatsoever.
Speaker:And it doesn't mean it's OK.
Speaker:But we're all having a different experience at the same practical scenario.
Speaker:Absolutely. That frame of reference.
Speaker:Absolutely. So that's been really great advice.
Speaker:Anyway, so the next big topic, this is
Speaker:something you and I discussed the other day, that you see that we need to actually
Speaker:start having open conversations about now in the workplace.
Speaker:I'd love to hear from you on that. Yeah.
Speaker:So the big ones that are coming through at the moment, there's two in particular.
Speaker:It's that return to work, the hybrid working.
Speaker:And the biggest thing that's going to
Speaker:cause conflict there is having those conversations.
Speaker:So one of the tenets of Psychological safety is fairness.
Speaker:So if you're having conversations with people about Hybrid working is about
Speaker:making sure those conversations are fair to everybody and understanding that some
Speaker:people are going to have greater needs and others.
Speaker:So some people are still shielding, some people still classed as vulnerable.
Speaker:They're not going to want to be in the
Speaker:workplace, but they're also not going to want to be excluded or facing 20 questions
Speaker:as to why they're working from home five days a week, whereas everybody else has to
Speaker:be in three days a week or whatever, so that Hybrid working has the real potential
Speaker:to generate a lot of destructive conflict, a lot of destructive conflicts.
Speaker:The other one, and I think this is going
Speaker:to be even bigger, is the vaccine versus no vaccine conversation.
Speaker:Now, I'm not going to get into to the merits of which ones.
Speaker:Right. In which one went wrong.
Speaker:The key issue here is that some people out
Speaker:there do not have a choice in terms of not being able to have the vaccination.
Speaker:So I have family members.
Speaker:I know Claire, we talked about this the
Speaker:other day, but can't have it for medical reasons.
Speaker:It's going to cause bigger problems than
Speaker:actually having probably covered would do so.
Speaker:So in those situations, it's about having
Speaker:the empathy for those people and understanding that everybody makes a
Speaker:decision as to as to why they're living their life the way they are.
Speaker:We all should take responsibility for that
Speaker:decision, but it's appreciating that not everybody can make that decision.
Speaker:Some people have no choice. Absolutely.
Speaker:And I'm definitely seeing this as
Speaker:something that's going to come up as a hot topic.
Speaker:I'm totally with you on this summary is
Speaker:because there's been so much fear built up, particularly on social media and in
Speaker:the mainstream media, about vaccinated versus unvaccinated.
Speaker:It becomes such an immensely emotionally charged topic.
Speaker:And because it's coming from that place of
Speaker:fear, it's already triggered the Fight-flight-freeze-fawn mechanism.
Speaker:And I've already started hearing conversations of I won't be in an office
Speaker:with somebody who's unvaccinated because they might kill me.
Speaker:And I think we need as managers, as leaders to actually be managing that
Speaker:discussion now, saying, actually, here are the facts.
Speaker:Here's what we're doing to keep everybody safe.
Speaker:If you've been vaccinated, here's the stats on how safe you are.
Speaker:And actually, you know what, right.
Speaker:Does anybody have to know somebody else's medical history in the workplace?
Speaker:We need to be having I don't have the answers.
Speaker:Like you don't have the answers, but it needs to be something that's
Speaker:discussed in an organisation rather than imposed.
Speaker:And it's something that people need to feel safe talking about because there will
Speaker:be so much fear built up around the story that's in their head, because people have
Speaker:been through massive fear in the last fifteen months.
Speaker:If this gets projected into a workplace, you can imagine everybody.
Speaker:You can imagine how destructive that will be
Speaker:suppressed in a workplace.
Speaker:You can imagine how somebody who, for
Speaker:whatever reason, has not been vaccinated is going to end up being ostracised or
Speaker:bullied or harassed or excluded or forced to work from home when actually.
Speaker:They are desperate to be back in the office because they hate having to sit on
Speaker:their bed to work with their dressing gown in the background.
Speaker:Yeah, so there is no right and wrong on this.
Speaker:And it's really important for us to be having those challenging, courageous
Speaker:conversations now so that people feel safe.
Speaker:It's that psychological security again, isn't it, Marie?
Speaker:It absolutely is. I mean, right.
Speaker:The bottom line is it's the word safe that
Speaker:we have to feel safe before we can move off that hierarchy of needs.
Speaker:And that's that's one of the essential tenets of Islam.
Speaker:And the last 18 months, we haven't been safe.
Speaker:I don't think any one of us has felt safe for the last 18 months.
Speaker:We turn into the workplace. I'm very lucky.
Speaker:I work from home, full stop. I'm self-employed.
Speaker:I don't have to go into an office and work with people.
Speaker:But I have clients are expecting me to go into the workplace and I'm having to ask
Speaker:for risk assessments and make sure that everything is the same as the health and
Speaker:the normal health and safety in the workplace is important.
Speaker:This forms part of that for me.
Speaker:So it's about making sure I am safe and
Speaker:everybody needs to take responsibility for their own safety.
Speaker:But at the same time, organisations need
Speaker:to, as part of the psychological contract, as part of the Health and Safety at Work
Speaker:Act is part of all these are the things that underpin is making sure that people
Speaker:are safe at work and covid falls under that.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And there are two levels to that safety aren't there, Marie. You've got the.
Speaker:Yeah, we've done the risk assessment.
Speaker:Here's the written document, if I will say that Psychological safety.
Speaker:And now we're going to discuss it.
Speaker:We're not just going to email that document round.
Speaker:We're actually going to talk about it, why
Speaker:it's got what it has in it and how how if somebody got concerns, how they can easily
Speaker:raise those without feeling judged, which I decide on whichever fence they are.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, Marie, before we wrap up, I just want to hear from the group with us live.
Speaker:If you've got anything else that you'd like to ask Marie or anything that's been
Speaker:a light bulb for you today in this session, let me know via the chat.
Speaker:Emori, how can people get in touch with you?
Speaker:Because you and I have talked about how sometimes we think mediation doesn't
Speaker:happen until you hit, like, serious kind of court level conflict.
Speaker:And actually, the best time to bring you
Speaker:in is so much earlier in the process. How does that work for an organisation?
Speaker:So there's still several ways to contact me.
Speaker:I have my website and my my details and my
Speaker:QR codes there as well, which will direct you to sort of getting in touch with me.
Speaker:But I'm one of those I I'm very much about.
Speaker:Prevention is better than cure.
Speaker:Understanding how to
Speaker:not avoid conflict because it's a conflict is inevitable, but how to make it
Speaker:constructive because constructive conflict, it drives innovation.
Speaker:It drives creativity.
Speaker:It drives engagement because people are allowed to speak and be heard as well.
Speaker:So it is very, very much about
Speaker:encouraging people to speak up, but creating the environment.
Speaker:And that's the biggest thing that I can help organisations do, is create help them
Speaker:create that environment for constructive conflict, for constructive dialogue, for
Speaker:making sure that everybody feels heard and supported.
Speaker:But I am also there when things do go wrong and that extra level of support as
Speaker:well as on the whole process, that that's fantastic.
Speaker:We've got some lovely feedback by the comments from those who've been here live.
Speaker:Going to read more about conflict styles, apps.
Speaker:Love listening to you, Marie, on such an
Speaker:interesting topic of conflict and difficult conversations.
Speaker:I'm going to think about how it might be useful to help people increase their self
Speaker:awareness and help more constructive conversations.
Speaker:So Marie, people can find you over on LinkedIn.
Speaker:They can find you a wee WeRestoreCalm.com.
Speaker:And also you do offer half hour
Speaker:consultations to organisations as well, don't you?
Speaker:Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So get in touch with Marie if you think
Speaker:this is something that your organisation needs to learn from or that your managers
Speaker:might benefit from some training in this, which right now, given the level of
Speaker:difficult conversations we're all going to be having, is essential because simply
Speaker:imposing decisions on people is the best way to make sure they leave.
Speaker:Then please do get in touch with Marie and Marie.
Speaker:If you could just wrap up by sharing that one thing that maybe you wish you'd known
Speaker:back at the very beginning of your career before you started out as a mediator on
Speaker:how to have these conversations, what would it be?
Speaker:It's not personal.
Speaker:That's probably the biggest thing, because the amount of times I didn't speak up for
Speaker:fear of thinking that it was going to be a personal attack on somebody else or
Speaker:reacting in such a way when somebody brought up something with me, I'm one of
Speaker:those that in the past, if somebody criticised me for something, whether it
Speaker:was done correctly or incorrectly, I always went straight to the defensive.
Speaker:And now I appreciate is very much about it's not personal.
Speaker:It's just about getting stuff out there,
Speaker:getting stuff in the open and being able to move on constructively.
Speaker:I think that is possibly one of the best
Speaker:bits of advice for life if it's not personal.
Speaker:It's such brilliant advice.
Speaker:Marie, thank you so much.
Speaker:It's been wonderful talking to you today.
Speaker:Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker:And everyone, you can find Marie and find
Speaker:out more about her work at WeRestoreCalm.com.
