Hi. I'm Kevin Eikenberry, and I'm here to help you reach your potential as a leader
and a human being.
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Today we're talking about conflict.
Specifically, I'm encouraging you to stop managing conflict.
Are you ready?
Let's get started.
This is the third in a short series on conflict.
You can look above and see links to the past.
Or if you're on the podcast, you can see links in the show notes to the past
two episodes.
Well, today we're going to remind you that conflict isn't always bad.
Like, we may need to facilitate a discussion
to create greater understanding among people with differing opinions.
That's conflict at some level.
And so that's something we might want to manage.
It's OK to manage that kind of productive conflict.
But generally speaking, when we think about conflict,
we're thinking about clashes and issues and challenges.
And I'm saying managing that kind of conflict is a bad idea.
My dad used to say, "Well, we're trying to keep it down to a dull roar."
I don't really know what a dull roar is, but it feels like
that is what we're doing.
Like, sometimes we're just trying to like,
we're just trying to manage the conflict, not get it too far out of hand.
Well, that doesn't sound like a very good idea, does it?
If we're talking about workplace conflict, which by the way, here's how I would
define workplace conflict, that there's a business problem caused by the conflict.
The people are interacting and there's a connection between them,
and the conflict is getting in the way of the work.
So there's a business problem.
One or both of them are probably angry.
So there's anger
and there's blame.
They're pointing the finger at each other and saying, "They're the issue.
They're the issue.
They're the issue." So if that's the situation we got,
why would we want to keep that to a dull roar?
Why wouldn't we just try to resolve it?
Let's just start with where I started.
If a workplace conflict is causing a business problem,
then what do we do with business problems?
We don't manage a problem.
We don't massage a problem.
We don't ignore a problem or manage it.
We try to do what?
Resolve it.
We resolve problems.
So we should focus on resolving conflict shouldn't we?
I mean, we don't want to just tamp it down, keep it under control.
We want to eliminate it, remove it,
release it from being the problem that it's causing
for our business or organization or our team.
So let's just take it from here in this very short video to say,
what do you know about solving any kind of problems?
You look for causes.
What are the causes of this conflict?
It probably means
that the two people are going to need to have a conversation together.
Their thoughts about the causes might be different.
They certainly have different perspectives about the causes, understand the causes.
Second, you look for possible solutions, right?
You look forward to in a problem solving session to say,
what do we do now that might keep this from happening again?
And so that's exactly what you do if you're trying to resolve conflict
you're trying to figure out, OK, based on where we're at, what could we do now
that might change our future behavior, get us different results,
and then we make decisions if we're problem solving,
we come up with possible solutions, then we make decisions.
And the same needs to happen in any conflict situation is for get people
to the place of saying if I do this and I do this, will that resolve the conflict?
Will that reduce the problem?
Will that hit us to a better place moving forward?
Setting history aside as much as we can to say,
what can we do now to make it better moving forward?
Listen, we need to stop
managing conflict and focus on resolving it.
Let me close with today's tweet.
If conflict has become an impediment to the business
outcomes, stop managing it.
Make resolution.
Your goal?
Well, my goal for you today is to help you get to conflict resolution.
But beyond that, I'd love
if you would join me each Tuesday for my LinkedIn newsletter.
It's called Remarkable Results with Kevin Eikenberry.
And if you're on LinkedIn, you can look for it.
You can click the link here to join me.
And of course, it's free.
We'd love to have you join me each week to help
you get the remarkable results that you want in your life and in your work.
I hope you'll do that.
And I hope you'll be back next week
for another episode of Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.