48: Embracing Conflict for the Sake of Building Better Relationships

“Constructive conflict is kind of like how diamonds are formed by a little bit of pressure. Sometimes when we're in a group and we're pushing back against each other's ideas and saying, ‘Yeah but,’ out of that comes new and innovative ideas, something fresh.” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer In today’s episode, Coaches Gabriella and Jill sit down to talk about dealing with conflict. Many of us avoid conflict. Why? Because it’s downright uncomfortable. But having those uncomfortable conversations can sometimes lead to growth and other positive things. If nothing else, we learn from it. Tune in to hear how to be the leader of your life by dealing with conflict, getting out of your comfort zone and having courageous conversations. Resources from the show: The Beauty of Conflict: Harnessing Your Team’s Competitive Advantage by CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke Excerpts from the show: “Gabriella, why do you think it is that some of us dislike conflict so much?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer “It’s uncomfortable. I mean wouldn't that be the thing? That most of us just want to feel at ease and feel safe and feel comfortable. Conflict means that you have to step out of your comfort zone and deal with the elephant in the room and that is not always a comfortable place to be. So yes, most people will try to avoid the conflict. Now what I'm learning about conflict resolution at this point, is that it's important to kind of pick your battles. Are you going to spend your time arguing with someone over a parking spot? Where does your energy in terms of conflict resolution go? Again, from what I'm learning, it has to do with the relationship and how important that relationship is to you and how invested you are in finding a solution that works for both. So the first two things so far are, step one, step out of your comfort zone and be ok with being uncomfortable, because there's no resolution without discomfort. And number two, do you have a vested interest in that particular interaction and that particular relationship to go the extra mile to really see if you can find common ground? What do you think Jill, what have you learned?” -Coach Gabriella Dennery “Well what I learned that was helpful to me a few years ago when I was co-leading some leadership development stuff in a Fortune 50 company was this idea of constructive conflict versus non-constructive conflict. I was like, ‘What do you mean constructive conflict? There's never a time when it's good.’ Which somebody who can be conflict avoidant like me believes. And I was able to understand that constructive conflict is the type of conflict that has the purpose of embracing different world views and encouraging people to think differently. Constructive conflict is kind of like how diamonds are formed by a little bit of pressure. Sometimes when we're in a group and we're pushing back against each other's ideas and saying, ‘Yeah but,’ out of that comes new and innovative ideas, something fresh. There's all kinds of reasons and we're not going to get into tons of psychology around it. But you know some of us who are conflict adverse maybe lived in a home where there was a lot of conflict and it didn't feel safe to you or you observed at some point in your childhood that people were in conflict and that created some trauma around it. So I'm not being glib or unkind when I say that it doesn't feel good to us. I'm just inviting us and our more wise adult Self, you know the part of us with the capital S, to recognize that a lot of times adults can have differing opinions and different world views. And if we create a container to let that conflict be a little bit constructive, some meaningful things can happen. Like clarification of issues, learning more about each other and considering new ideas. So that's one of the things that comes up for me, what do you think about that Gabriella?” -Master Certified Coach Jill Farmer “As always, I agree. I like the idea of construc