Workplace Conflict Analysis: Tools for Leaders and Professionals

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, Simon Goode discusses his approach to analyzing workplace conflict, emphasizing the importance of understanding the self and the interplay of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, behaviors, and the body. He explains the framework he uses for conflict resolution, which includes self-regulation, de-escalation, understanding structural elements, and addressing data, value, and interest conflicts. Simon also highlights the importance of empathetic questioning and assertiveness while providing various strategies for managing and resolving conflicts effectively.

Approach to Analyzing Workplace Conflict

• Typical approach as a workplace mediator
• Application for leadership roles
• Use in scenarios with limited information (one side of the story)
• Coaching others on conflict awareness
• Framework vs. personal subjective experiences

Listener Feedback Request

• Different formats for podcast content (framework/theory, personal perspective, case studies)
• Feedback methods (email, positive reviews)

Self-Analysis and Conflict

• 5 aspects of the self derived from Buddhism:
  • Thoughts (cognition and the narrative we tell ourselves)
  • Feelings (emotions and subjective physical responses)
  • Perception (sensory information and attention)
  • Behavior (actions and volition)
  • Body (physical state and presence)
• Interconnectedness of these aspects during conflict
• Short-term self-regulation strategies for each aspect

Relationship Conflict Layer

• Interaction between self and the other person
• Steps for de-escalation using the 5 aspects of others

Structural Conflict

• Decision-making and communication dynamics
• Adjustments to communication modes and frequency
• Who is involved in communication
• Levels of formality
• Follow-up processes and information sharing

Drivers of Conflict

• Three main aspects that drive conflict:
  • Data Conflict (misunderstandings and differences in information)
  • Value Conflict (clash of principles, beliefs, and priorities)
  • Interest Conflict (differing desires and goals)

Setting Goals in Conflict Resolution

• Defining effective working relationships
• Minimum viable working relationship

Steps to Develop Conflict Resolution Plan

1. Self-Regulation
   • Keeping oneself calm using the 5 aspects of self.
2. De-escalation
   • Strategies to calm down the other person.
3. Raising the Issue
   • Language and approach to initiate conflict discussion.
4. Empathy
   • Questions and techniques to understand the other perspective.
5. Assertiveness
   • Defining boundaries and knowing the bottom line.
6. Next Steps
   • Deciding on a specific conflict resolution strategy (negotiation, collaboration, etc.)

website: simongoode.com
email: podcast@simongoode.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Overview
• 2:45 The five aspects of self in conflict analysis
• 8:30 Self-regulation and interaction between conflicting parties
• 13:15 Structural conflict and communication methods
• 19:45 Three main drivers of conflict (Data, Value, and Interest)
• 32:00 Setting goals and minimum viable working relationships

Transcript

0:05

Well, hello, and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Good. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe. In the episode today, I'm going to be talking about how I analyze workplace conflict. Now I'm going to talk about the approach that I generally tend to take when I'm coming in as a workplace mediator, but that also matches the overall framework that I tend to talk about when I'm delivering conflict resolution training. For me, I think this is particularly useful for people who are in leadership roles, and so they're needing to respond to conflict, whether they're directly involved or potentially coming in and trying to resolve conflict that's going on between 2 other people within the organization. But we can also use it for situations when, I don't know, like, we might only have one side of the story. Like, we're talking to one of our staff, and they're dealing with conflict with an external client or an external stakeholder. And we want to figure out the best way to go about coaching them to become aware of what's going on. To be honest, I think I probably follow a very similar approach. But instead of just reflecting on these different topics, I would probably be asking the person who I was coaching to think about it. Like, what do you think is going on? What's going through your head? What are you feeling at the moment? Like, I would encourage them to reflect on the different aspects. Whereas I'm going to talk about as if I'm dealing with the conflict myself. So when I say who's involved in the conflict or what's going on, you know, I'm talking about you. I'd love to know, by the way, if you find this kind of approach helpful, like, me giving a general overview of a framework or a theory or maybe talking about my perspective on a particular issue. What what do you prefer? Like, more of the research evidence based summary kind of stuff. Like, I'd be happy to do that type of thing, but, for me, when I listen to podcasts, I often want to hear the the person's perspective, you know, their subjective experience based on what they've gone through and what they've learned. So that tends to be the way that I lean, but, yeah, I'd love to know your thoughts. And then the other option would be more like case study analysis and looking at a practical particular issue or maybe even a specific theme, like a lot of my most popular download episodes are things like dealing with the staff member who's using their phone at work, for example. So today, it's more of the bigger picture kind of thing, and I'd love to know if that's the kind of thing that resonates with you. The best way to give feedback at the moment is send me an email, and the best email address to use is podcast@simongood.com. If that's too, weird or confronting or something to send a random an email, if you'd be willing to leave a positive review on the whatever you're listening to the podcast on, that would be the next best thing. And thank you so much in advance if that's something you're prepared to do. So I start by thinking about really the self, who's involved in the conflict, and then how are these different aspects of themselves being affected. So that sounds like a mouthful, and I'll explain a little bit more about what I mean here. I'm kind of borrowing one of the concepts that comes from Buddhism where Buddha was encouraging his disciples to think about what who they are, you know, who are you really? And he identified these 5 aspects of the self, your thoughts, you've got your cognition and your meaning that you make about the world and the story that you tell yourself. You've got your feelings, your emotions, the subjective, like, physical part of that, as well as the label that we would put on something like angry or whatever. You've got your perception, like what you're noticing and paying attention to, what information's coming in, like, literally, what are your senses focusing on in that moment? What are you seeing as opposed to the peripheral vision that you're not paying attention to? The 4th aspect is our behavior, our action, our volition, like what we do. And then the 5th is our body. Now I'm not necessarily saying there's not more than this, like, I I think there is. There's consciousness, and if you have different ideas around the meaning of life or your purpose or your spirit or any of these kind of things, it's probably not just these aspects. Although, actually, in some ways, probably some of those other less tangible elements would relate to these more tangible ones. So maybe what we observe in our thoughts is a little bit of an indication about something that's going on in a different dimension or whatever. I don't know. I suppose there are very interesting ways to think about this, especially when we consider conflict as, I suppose, for me, it's really an opportunity for growth. And in any of these 5 different areas, I might look for myself improving over time when I'm dealing with conflict. In my thoughts, I want to gradually become a little bit more rational and logical and see the bigger picture and not jump to conclusions and all this kind of stuff. Like, in other words, be a bit more wise in my feelings. I hope that as I go through conflict and and deal with these people that are very, very annoying or bullying bosses or challenges with my family or my friends that I'll grow from those. And what I'm aiming for in my feelings is to over time gradually become more balanced, I guess, and more experiences of equanimity where regardless of the ebbs and flows of life, I'm able to maintain my calm and my inner composure. In our perception, I suppose, we want to adjust and become more present rather than getting our thoughts caught up in the past and the future. And then in our behavior as well, we want to become, you know, more able to respond rather than just reacting, and I'd like my body to calm down a little bit as well. You know, I want to be able to go through stress and have a slow heart rate and just feel a sense of being in control rather than being overly rattled and flustered and blowing about in the breeze type of thing. And for me, conflict is a real opportunity for growth in all of those 5 areas. And even in the short term, when I'm thinking about self regulation, like, how do I keep myself calm? I could intervene in any of those five levels. I could address my thoughts. Maybe I'm catastrophizing or blaming myself for something that was outside of my control or whatever. I I could deal with my feelings. I could vent. I could journal. I could debrief with someone. I could let it out and punch a punching bag or have a shower, and that'll change how I'm feeling. I could adjust my perception. I could change my behavior, slow down, take a deep breath, you know, stop stop doing that impulse that I have, resist the urge to say that thing even though it's almost on the tip of my tongue and out, you know, clinch my teeth if I can before the words escape or change my body, like, physically relax. Let the tension out of my muscles in my shoulders and my neck and my forehead. It's it's these types of adjustments in the short term that often give us much greater capacity for deal with dealing with conflict. So for me, that's just been incredibly helpful thinking about at least a part of myself in those 5 different. And then when we think about the other person that we're in conflict with, all of those 5 aspects of us begin to interact with the 5 aspects of the other person. Like, as we say something that annoys them, their heart rate will increase. So their thought changed and their body changed as a result. Or they might notice that annoying facial expression that's on your face and they feel frustrated, so their perception adjusted the emotions. Can you sort of see the interconnectedness of these different aspects? And we might trigger 1, which has a flow on like, a trickle down effect on all of the others potentially. And then they might yell out something like, you're obviously not gonna listen anyway. Like, that's their behavior being affected by probably all of the above. So if our goal is then de escalation, which would be the next step in my conflict resolution framework, we start with self regulation, then we move to de escalation. Well, that is going to mean that we can intervene in all 5 of those layers as well. We could change their thoughts, like letting them know, look, I just want to give you a heads up. I'm not putting you on the spot. You don't need to make any decisions today. I don't want you to experience any pressure. You're not locked into anything. Like, we could change their thoughts and then that might adjust how they're feeling and then adjust their perception and they can calm down and look through the document that's in front of them or, I don't know, listen to you before they interrupt you for 5 seconds longer and so you get a bit more information at this time kind of thing. Like, we can intervene at all 5 of those layers of them as well. So for me, this is a very useful way of thinking about what I usually call the relationship conflict layer, the interaction, the reciprocal patterns that's going on between the 2 of us. So when I'm analyzing workplace conflict, that's where I'd start. If it's me who's involved in the situation, I would think about my thoughts. What's the story I'm telling myself? What meaning am I making? Why is this so annoying? Like, for me, I think strong emotions often come when a boundary is being crossed, so I would reflect on, well, what are the boundaries that are being crossed here? Or think about my interests, like, what am I actually hoping for? What am I aiming for at the end of the day? Or I could adjust my perception and, you you know, double check that I haven't misread something in the emails or print them off even instead of looking at the screen. Maybe that's triggering me a little bit, or I could talk to somebody about it and adjust my feelings and calm down a little bit before I go back into the next meeting to talk to the same person when I'm seeing red and I'm just feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the anger of it all. Like, I can adjust those different aspects of me when I'm thinking about workplace conflict, but I need to first become aware of how the conflict is impacting me. Does that make sense? I'd I'd love to know if this is resonating with you and and this is the kind of approach that tends to be helpful. I know it's it's not quite as scientific as talking about the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex, etcetera, but I have taken that approach in different groups that I've done training workshops with and coached in the past. And it's interesting to know that kind of stuff, but it's challenging to know, like, how do I you know, we don't feel like we have as much of a direct adjustment to our prefrontal cortex as we might to the posture that we're sitting in, for example. And, of course, as you're adjusting your posture, that's literally what will change that activity in the prefrontal cortex. So I suppose I'm just starting from the other direction rather than explaining it from the, you know, the chemical mix or something else. So that's, as I mentioned, the top layer, the relationship conflict part of it. The next thing that I'd probably focus on is what would be considered structural conflict. Here, we're wanting to think about things like how decisions are made and how the communication is happening. So if I'm going, experiencing communication with a client, for example, I might change the mode that it's happening. If we've had a few emails back and forth and I've noticed there's a little bit of tension that seems to be building, maybe I would give them a call or organize a time to meet them by Zoom or in person even. We could adjust the frequency that we're communicating. Maybe there are problems in our working relationship because we're not touching base often enough. Like, there might be frustration going on for a client because they're not able to give you feedback around where things are up to at the moment. So then when they do give you feedback, it's a bit you know, it's overwhelming. It's too much at once. Or maybe they're not getting enough feedback, and if you could let them know that things are on the right track, that might calm them down and give them a sense that things were under control and adequately managed. So we could change the mode or we could change the frequency. We could think about changing who's involved, like which people are doing the communication, having a more senior person come, having more people in the room, having less people in the room might be a better option for some situations where the meetings aren't going well. We could think about the level of formality that we're using, and we could adjust up or down depending on what's going on. So, for example, we could adjust up if we've been talking to a staff member about a problem and it keeps happening. We could increase the level of formality. Like, send them a written summary of our conversation, for example. And even though we're working in, I don't know, hospitality or something, and you don't normally email each other, this might be an example where you're trying to communicate the fact that we've increased the stakes here. You know, I want you to pay attention to this and so doing something different can be a way of making it stand out, so to speak. Or maybe there's been significant problems around, you know, significant issues like you're in arbitration and there's 100 of 1,000 of dollars that you're in dispute around. It's a construction company, a subcontractor or something. You might adjust the level of formality down, like, suggest you go out and have a beer or have a coffee or organize a site walk through with just the 2 of you there, and maybe that would be helpful. A small number of decision makers, maybe there's more opportunity there for compromise, for example. You could change how the follow-up is done as well. That's another aspect that's related to the formality, I guess. Like, do you send a reminder? Could you let me know once it's done? Is there some kind of an approval process? Maybe that's what's needed. The issue is that the person's not confident that you've done the right thing because they don't get to have the final say, or you don't have a structure for providing revisions. So they keep sending you emails as they think of new ideas, whereas it would be a better option to set up a particular time and place where the 2 of you will go through them all at once. And then you could also think about the way that information is shared. Like, maybe you send them information ahead of time or you might even call them. I think this is a very good idea in most cases. Call them and give them a heads up about bad news that's about to come in. Just a heads up, we're sending through a notification around the dispute. You know, of course, there's that 7 day time frame to get back to us on, so I just wanna let you know so that you can get on the front foot. It's hard to figure out these kind of things in the biz in the business of everything else that's going on. I know. So it's like a level of respect. I'm calling you to give you a heads up that this is coming through because I didn't want you to get caught off guard or feel like you're on the back foot. You know, this is why I'm doing it. I'm calling to let you know, you know, effectively to be helpful for you. And I'm not compromising. I'm still gonna send you the formal notification that you need to get back to me about within 7 days. But this is a nice way of, I guess, reducing the potential inflammatory effect of sending through something like, we're going to potentially take you to court for 100 of 1,000 of dollars. So we could think about the relationship, and then we would think about the structure. They're the first two layers, I think, when I'm thinking about how to analyze workplace conflict. And then the 3rd layer I would be I would consider, what are the drivers for conflict? Like, what are the different aspects that's actually contributing to the issues themselves? And for me, I think there are these three main aspects. It's data, value, and interest. So data conflict would be things like misunderstandings about the information. There might be problems with the contract, like you're both reading it differently, or there's an ambiguous clause where something wasn't mentioned. It might be that the client has agreed to something and forgotten about it, or you might have you might have missed information and you've issued some assumed something, whereas, actually, things are different behind the scenes. So we don't know what's going on. We've got this difference in understanding, and that's leading to a difference in expectation. So So the best way to deal with this type of data conflict usually is to clarify the data. To get on the same page, it sounds like you're expecting this on our take on the situation. This is how we see things. You know, could we organize a time to talk it through and and make sure that we're on the same page moving forward, something like that. The next type of conflict is value conflict. This is, like, how I think something should be. It might be the big religious world views that we've got or some particular aspect of, I don't know, culture or something else that we value. Like, diversity would be a current example for a lot of organizations. So you might have someone that's got some type of an agenda around diversity, and then you might have someone else who's saying, well, how do you define that? Like, what is that? Like, why should we be focused on diversity? How much should we be focused on diversity? You know? We've got all of these other values that we've had within a company as well, so how does this fit in? And if we do value this, then what does it mean in terms of the implementation? You know? You've got this idea around, I don't know what it's called, like, the affirmative action type of step that you might take, and then someone else in the company might say, but that effectively punishes another group unfairly if you're trying to prioritize the benefits to this group. So this is an example of this clash of values. Like, we've got a different idea around what the priority should be. Someone might have environmental sustainability or one partner in a business might really value growth, and that's the thing that you're aiming for. And someone else might think, no. No. We need to give staff work work life balance. And there again, you've got this clash potentially of different values. Now it would be data conflict if the staff and the manager never talked about what was expected for working outside of hours. That's data conflict. So if I was the staff member there, I would say to them, look, could we talk through expectations? Because in most other jobs that I've worked, I don't normally get contacted after 5 PM. There are times when I'm happy to work and and do it. You know, obviously, this is the way that a lot of the others work on the team, but there's also times when I'm not going to be available. So I wanted to clarify what was expected in those kind of situations. The last thing I want is for you to be expecting me to get back to you, and as far as I'm aware, that's not something that I've promised or, you know, necessarily said that I would do. What what do you think? And we might just get a rap over the knuckles and say, you know, shut up. This is expected, and then we can decide what to do. Like, do we stay in that job or look for another option? But in other circumstances, we might find that a very helpful clarification to have. If there's an emergency, I'll contact you like this. If it's not as urgent, this is what we expect. You know, I'll send you an email, but I'm not expecting you to get back to me or whatever it is. Like, we could clarify the expectations. That's the data conflict, but this might be values conflict. Like, your boss thinks that this is incredibly rude, you know, of you not to get back to them when they've sent you something that's really important. When they were a junior staff member, they would just say, yes, sir, and do what it takes. Whereas these, you know, rude recalcitrant young staff that they've got stand back stand up to them and answer back. And this might be an example of values conflict where we've just got expectations around how we should treat our manager. It's tiny things, like, is it rude to have your phone out at work or not? Is it rude to show up 5 minutes late? What's the appropriate amount of time to email somebody back when they send you an email? Should you send a reply for every email that you get? Like, I know within many organizations, this causes conflict. Someone writes an email and they never get a response, and they'll be angry about it. Like, well, you never got back to me. How am I meant to know that you got it? This is value conflict. We expect that they should, but it would become data conflict when we ask them. Do you know what I mean? So if we've asked them 6 times and they're still not doing it, then there's something else that's going on. So we've got data. Maybe there's a misunderstanding here. We've got value. Maybe it's a difference in expectations. The 3rd aspect that it might be is what's called interest conflict. This is what I want versus what you want. And I think for a lot of workplace conflict, this is where we begin to get to more of the heart of the matter. Like, what's actually the problem here? It's because I don't wanna do what you want me to do, or, I wanna do this other thing. You know what I mean? And I don't wanna stop. I wanna keep smoking. I wanna look at my phone. I've got Tinder dates going on that I don't wanna miss. I've got footy results or online gambling. Who knows what's happening for the person, but they wanna keep using their phone, and you want them to stop. Your customers are looking at them. It's distracting. It's not creating a professional environment. It means that they're not getting their work done. Like, please stop using your phone and they wanna keep using it. This is interest conflict. There might be a data layer to it. Maybe you've got an agreement that you've had them sign and they've forgotten about it, or you could remind them about that, I guess. Or you could deal with it at a values layer, like, when I was a young person, we used to do whatever we could to act professional, and we would wear a suit and tie every day and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good on you. You can very much imagine how far those conversations usually get in the mind of the young person. So what else do we do to do with this kind of a thing? I think it's interest conflict. And here, what we effectively need to decide is how important it is to us and how important it is to us to keep them happy. Like, how important is it that we get them to stop using their phone? We don't want customers to see our staff using their phone, but, like, what does that look like compared to hiring a new staff member? Because if we decide to take a very competing kind of approach, very firm, assertive, we stick to our guns, then the obvious potential risk is that, you know, they'll get upset and not do their job properly or quit. So that's the cost benefit analysis that we almost need to walk through. And then on the other side, we've got another option of just being completely accommodating. We could just let them use their phone whenever they want, or maybe it's some type of a compromise. Like, they can use their phone during a hourly break if it's not within eyesight of customers or something like that. Is that acceptable though? Like, maybe for you, that's something that's just intolerable. You're paying staff this much money and you literally can't afford to lose the effective productivity of having every single team member go off and have a smoke break or a Tinder break, like shopping break or whatever. 10 minutes out of every hour, like, you'll need to decide, you know, what's that cost benefit look like for you. If we're dealing with an inter department, colleague and we've got conflict going on here, we need to decide, like, you know, maybe we should take the accommodating kind of approach. Maybe we take the competing kind of approach. Maybe it's the middle ground of compromising, but it's going to depend on the situation and what's at stake. So I think after we've done this kind of analysis, we think through those layers of what's going on in the self, how's that impacting the relationship conflict, how the structural elements playing out here. Then we've gone through those other drivers, data conflict, value conflict, interest conflict. I would also then consider the goals. And I often, when I'm doing a mediation, ask people something like, just how would you like things to be? You don't have to be friends. You don't have to be mates. Like, you don't need to be all warm and buddy buddy with this person that you're in conflict with at work. But what does a working relationship that's effective look like? Like, what's the bare minimum? In, you know, business terms, we would talk about something called the minimum viable product. You know, you're gonna launch a new phone or something, like, what's the crappiest one that you could sell? What's the most problems that customers would accept in the most minimum amount of returns or whatever, you know. It's kind of like, do the crappiest job that you can that would still do an okay job in most people's eyes so that they're paying for it and it doesn't hurt your business. And then that's what you launch. It's the minimum viable product. You know, it's not always the strategy that organizations take. They might work on things longer in development and last launch something that's more sophisticated than the minimum viable version. But what I'm aiming for in workplace conflict is the minimum viable working relationship. Like, how infrequently can we communicate and still survive? Is email fine? Maybe we just go with that. Do we have to cc in our boss forever? Like, is that really a workable arrangement? Like, in some organizations, I suppose it might be. I know a lot of organizations, your boss wants you to cc them into everything. I just personally could not stand doing that, but, you know, this is what people expect. It's probably an example of values conflict. Like, this is just what they did in their early careers, so they've never thought to change it or they feel uncomfortable if they change it or something else that might be. So we need to consider our goals, like what's at stake and what's the cost of pursuing whichever strategy we decide to take. So for me then, once I've done that analysis, it then helps me figure out the steps that I'll take. So there are 6 general areas that I tend to cover. Like, if I were going to develop a template on what does a plan look like for dealing with workplace conflict, these would be the 6 steps I think that I would follow in the topics or the sections, if you know what I mean. So the first step would be self regulation. I'd be thinking about, what do I need to do to keep myself calm? I've talked about those 5 aspects of self, thoughts, feelings, perception, behavior, body. So we might even have different interventions or ideas that we could use in each of those different domains. Things we could do to change our thoughts, things we could do to change our perception, mindfulness or something, things we could do to change our body, breathing, you know, posture. We then think about de escalation. So how can I calm down the other person? What steps do I need to take to raise the issue in a way that doesn't come across as criticism or confrontation where possible? The third step would be how to raise it. Like, what kind of language do I need to use? Now I spend that that's kind of a whole topic if you know what I mean. Like, de escalation is very big, and I might spend 30 minutes doing that sometimes. And then the next question I ask is how am I gonna raise the issue? Like, it's a very, specific area of the conversation if you know what I mean. But I think it's crucial. Like, we need to use language that's neutral and mutual, that's future focused, that solution focused when our goal is to establish this collaborative frame that we're going to use to navigate the conflict moving forward. So I would deliberately think about that in particular. What's the best way to name this issue or raise it or mention it, if you know what I mean? I've talked about this topic before in previous episodes of the podcast. The, positive confrontations episode is one that comes to mind and probably a few others as well. The 4th layer is empathy. Like, I think about the kinds of questions I could ask or I might even what's sometimes called steel man, the other person's perspective, like, on the absolute most merit that we could view their perspective, like, how could we give it the most credibility if you know what I mean? Like, what if they're right? Why would they be right? What are they focused on? Which aspects of their argument to correct? All of this kind of thing. So I think about that ahead of time, but I also think about the kinds of questions that I can ask to elicit that. You know? Okay. So from your perspective, it should be this because of this. Is that the way you see it, or is there additional steps there that have and I like questions like what's caused you to believe that or, what what did you learn that led you to believe that? Like, what happened that caused you to believe it or what have you learned that led you to believe it? What were you thinking at the time if there was conflict, you know, and I've said something that's upset them? What have you been thinking about since? What do you think needs to happen moving forward between the 2 of us? How would you like things to be? These kind of questions. The 5th area is assertiveness. I want to think about what my boundaries are. Maybe there are particular things I want to ask them to stop doing or start doing or deal with. And I and I wanna think carefully about, like, what's my bottom line? What's the bare minimum that I would be willing to accept? If I'm a restaurant owner and it's my staff using their phone, personally, I I could I can imagine getting to a place where I just ask them to stop at full stop, like, just put their lock their phone in their locker at the beginning of the shift. Like, for me, it might be in some, you know, a particular context that this is just something that we can't accept. And I know that that might mean that some staff get so upset with me that they quit or they get upset and poke their bottom lip lip out and have a bit of a negative mood for some amount of time, but that's sort of the price that I'm willing to pay. Whereas in other situations, like an office in a not for profit or something, I've never particularly cared if I notice stuff using their phone. I've I've always thought that they're probably checking it. Do you know the kids might be at preschool or something like that? But a lot of that to do is the context. You know, we didn't have customers looking, and we weren't working on a hyper responsive team where we were taking inbound calls or, like, I can imagine many other situations where the phone issue would be different. But we have to think about that level of assertiveness. We don't wanna walk in and get railroaded or agree to something that we then regret. I think that's the absolute worst spot to be a lot of the time. You've said yes to something because you got flustered and upset, and then you need to try and find a way to walk it back. Very difficult to do that. Whereas it's usually more effective to, you know, be very assertive upfront and say, look, this just cannot change. It's not flexible. And then maybe there are other additional things that you might offer them on top of that, like, given the fact that I'm asking you to do this, this is what I'm prepared to offer or something like that. So then the final area I'd consider are the next steps. Here, I might think about how I'm gonna negotiate the issue, if that's the approach I'm gonna take, how I could collaborate, what kind of a change in structure, or, extra support for them, or mentoring, or our interactions might be different moving forward. I might just decide to leave it. That's definitely possible. Sometimes I get to that next step layer and I think this is just not worth it, you know, thinking about all these different things that it's gonna take to resolve this. Like, they are being an absolute, like, you know, piece of work. They're really nasty. I can't believe they're doing it to me, and I don't think it's worth it for me to get into it anymore. Like, I don't think my chances of changing their behavior is very high, and I think it's gonna cause me even a lot of stress. For me, personally, I'm just really careful about the kinds of conflict that I get in these days, you know. I'm sort of middle aged now, and I've probably learned not to be as much of a hot head as I was in my earlier years, but it's internal stuff as well. I don't like getting all worked up and wired internally, and sitting there, and I'm trying to watch the footy or something, and I can't stop thinking about this annoying person that I've been in conflict with. Like, that's a real cost there for me. So I have to say, I tend to take the avoiding approach for a lot of conflict more than I might have done in my earlier years. Or I might coach them, maybe I think this isn't actually a problem that I need to solve. Like, I'm a team leader and I'm in conflict with one of my stuff. I might set up a coaching process or think about the best ways to coach them to figure out how to deal with the problem that they're facing. So I think those are the overall steps I would take. Self regulation, de escalation, think about how's how to raise the issue, think about those aspects of empathy, how to demonstrate empathy questions, what might be going on for them, assertiveness, and then thinking about the actual response. I'd love to know, though, as I mentioned feedback, does that match your approach? Do you find this helpful in thinking about workplace conflict or maybe there are still particular glaring holes or this wouldn't apply to your particular context? I would really very much appreciate any feedback that you'd be willing to offer. As I mentioned, the best way to send that through at the moment is by email. So it's podcast@simongood.com. And you can check out my website, simongood with an e.com. This year, I'm intending to be more consistent with the podcast and use my website actually to put up a number of different resources. My YouTube channel, I've been focusing on uploading a video most days looking at conflict analysis in particular, and I've been focusing on workplace conflict over the past few weeks. It's still a bit of a ghost town, to be honest. It's tumbleweeds at the moment. There's not many people watching the videos. So if you'd like to have a look at me, you know, talking through slides and working on the screen with my pen, taking notes, and that kind of thing, check out the YouTube channel. And I'd like to probably in the next week or 2 set up a feedback form, especially for listeners of the podcast. And what I'd love to hear from you, if you'd like to let the thoughts start to percolate, is do you like the fact that I deal with both workplace and non workplace conflict in the podcast? Because for me, I can obviously use the podcast to generate more money, like, more business doing workplace topics because I get emails looking a bit from people looking for workplace mediations or training workshops or that kind of stuff. So, like, that's fine. I enjoy talking about workplace conflict. And if that's the what people want in the podcast, I'd be perfectly happy to focus on that more or even exclusively. But for me, I'm very much also interested in the other types of conflict, like my first roles as a mediator and where I learned was working with people going through divorce and separation. So you can imagine the high levels of emotional volatility and, to be frank, I think just trauma that people were going through day to day. It was just a very challenging role to be and to be frank, I think as a mediator, I kind of got thrust in the deep end in in many different ways, but it really did help me to develop quickly, you know, my capacity for dealing with emotion and and what kind of tools help in de escalation and all this kind of thing. And these days, I'm just very aware of the challenges that people have in maintaining friendships and reconciling, you know, if you've had conflict with a friend, it's very distressing and it's just so hard to know how to rebuild those bridges and repair. So I have a bit of an interest or a passion or I don't know what you would call it, like, not a vocation, but it it is something that I also feel called to. So if people really wanted the workplace conflict only in this podcast, I'd probably think about you know, a relationship type of podcast as well. But for me, I think combining them tends to work because they're similar kind of frameworks, but it's possible that you're listening, thinking, no. No. No. I'd really prefer it just to be workplace or just to be the relationship side of things or you maybe you like the mix of both. So as I said, I'll set up a feedback form asking some of those kind of questions around what kind of topics would you like and what approach is helpful. And if you're willing to just flick me an email, please feel free to send one through. I haven't had any this year actually. I I normally get a few every month from listeners of the podcast. So if you'd look like to be the 1st listener from 2025 to email podcast at simongood.com. Anyway, I'm sorry that's enough bloody rambling at the end of the podcast episode, isn't it? Thank you very much for listening as always, and I hope that you'll tune in again to a future episode of the Conflict Skills podcast. Bye for now.