I was wondering when does standing up for the right thing take precedence over
avoiding conflict this is something that leaders have to deal with all the time
so clearly out of the gate things that are immoral unethical or illegal if you
participate you're guilty that's the way it is now things that are a matter of
opinion that's where you might have to play the long game like maybe you won't
don't want to do something a certain way and if you but if you think oh well I
think the jiu-jitsu class warm-ups should be doing these exercises and in
EKKO thinks it should be those exercises so EKKO these things we should do it
this way no we should do it this way you dig in I dig in now we we'd to end up
saying well I'm not gonna teach the class you know you end up in these
situations well what's the big deal what's you know what would I rather do
I'd rather play the long game I'd rather say hey man can you explain why you do
those exercises oh here's another exercise cool and that I learned isn't
this good for this technique oh you know how you like when I do this move this
actually helps me do it even though it's just a warm-up move oh that's cool we
build a little relationship you get to understand me I get to understand you
bloom Gus and you say hey I'm gonna incorporate that into our warmup so
we're gonna want to up here both yeah like that there you go now I understand
that that's the right thing right because I'm a mom I'm on in my mind I'm
thinking hey these students didn't know this escape it's the right thing to do
so I do then so you have to weigh it out what am i doing to my relationship in
this situation if I go along with this like if you asked me to do nine things
that are pretty menial and you're my boss and I said yep cool got it boss no
problem and you asked me to do something else that's meal yep cool got it boss no
problem then you asked me to do something else me do cool got a boss no
problem then you asked me to do something that's downright stupid and
dangerous like oh hey boss I need to talk about this I'm not sure can you
explain to me why we're doing it this way cuz there's a possibility that
someone could really get hurt you all well you've done you're in your mind
you're thinking you've done these 10 things for me you've done nine things
from you've done seven things from you did them well you didn't question me and
now listen you have a question you must have a legitimate question that's what
we're hoping for that's why we're trying to build relationships now all that
being said yes we're playing along it there are times this is a really sketchy
area to enter into there are times where something that is happening is immoral
unethical or illegal and you might actually have to kind of go along with
it I tried to think of a good example of that and I thought of one Oskar Shindler
from Schindler's List what did this guy do right this guy was a Nazi he was a
Nazi they were exterminating Jews and instead
of him standing up and saying this is wrong to exterminate Jews I protest how
long would he have lived if he had done that thirty seconds right there oh you
know you don't think Jews should die Cole we're killing you that was that how
many people did he save zero in fact he costs he went negative one yeah what did
he do he played the game he he befriended the Nazi leadership he bought
them gifts he bribed him he bought him gifts he built relationships with him he
ended up being able to move his factory and all this other stuff to save a bunch
of Jewish people and he even though he knew like he would he would see them
executing people he would see them executing Jews and he knew it was wrong
he thought it was wrong he felt it was wrong and if he would have stood up and
said hey what you're doing is wrong then he wouldn't have been able to save
anyone he would have been killed himself so even in that situation it's it's not
a guarantee that you you need to stand up to do the ethical thing because
perhaps there's a chance you can do the more ethical thing by playing the game
building relationships who knows who knows maybe if that war went on maybe he
would have said oh you know what he maybe he would have risen to a position
where he you know maybe if the Germans wouldn't want and he could have said hey
you know what the Jewish people are making good workers here I'm gonna I'm
gonna continue to use him or whatever you know maybe he built up a whole new
you never know but when you get rid of your influence when you lose your
influence because you stand up it might not be the
move and the thing that you have to wait for this what you have to weigh with
this is you are participating and actually you know they say Oskar
Schindler felt completely guilty because he did participate and he was a part of
of what was happening him he did his best to stop as much as he could but he
wish he would have stopped more and you know at some point maybe you see a
little six-year-old girl getting shot you think you know what I should screw
it I should stand in front of that bullet and take that bullet for that
little girl you know that's the kind of guilt that he felt so there are times
where you really have to weigh this out and also I'll tell you I mean even in
things that aren't this big ethical dilemma head-on conflict is generally
not the best way to solve problems most of the time it's much smarter to
maneuver and it's much smarter to flank and it's much smarter to come from
another angle and it's much smarter to build Allegiance and alliance with
people so you can have influence over them so you can move them in the right
direction yeah so almost like actually straight up we're doing the right thing
and avoiding conflict is kind of like they're not that like opposite you know
we're doing they're avoiding that you should and I'm totally just interpreting
this trying to anyway avoiding conflict you should always be essentially trying
to avoid conflict as far as maybe now that's not as always okay generally
speaking we do a better job you know the outcome is better when we avoid conflict
now of course anyone listening to this thinks oh you take that to the extreme
this is someone that never stands up for anything yeah you know and that's bad
that's also bad from a leadership perspective if if your team is looking
at you and they think Jaakko never sticks up for us he never gives the boss
any pushback so we just we're just at the whim of this tyrannical boss and
jock was no buffer to it that's what they see so you can't just be a pushover
but at the same time if you go to your troops you say hey listen guys here's
what's going on the boss has got a lot of ideas
right now some of them are good some of them not so good but guess what
well what I'm doing right now and the reason that we're pushing hard to carry
out what he's trying to get us to do is to the best of our ability the reason
we're doing that is because I'm actually trying to build some trust with him so
that he will listen to me right now he's not really listening to me he knows I
don't have much experience but I'm trying to build a relationship so he can
listen to me so we can actually do this and what I think is gonna be a smarter
way can you guys help me build this relationship by kicking ass for the next
three projects that we've got so I can build up some clout and come back to him
and get the tools or the people or whatever it is that we need yeah you
always have this real finesse sort of way of saying stuff like you it's fun
where I guess you were you were saying and I think you were wrong actually you
were saying that that standing up and doing the right thing
is the same thing as avoiding home as avoiding conflict yeah no I didn't mean
it like that I meant that they're not necessarily
always opposites you know like doing the right thing in avoiding conflict like
they're you know there's just some wishy-washy kind of room in the wiggle
room in there a lot of times and when I say avoiding you should always be quote
unquote avoiding conflict I meant of course not always but I meant more like
even if I'm gonna confront someone or something about like something that's
wrong I still should be while I do that I should be avoiding like conflict for
sure do it in a finesse sort of way to actually just keep everything you know
rolling forward maybe just nudge it in a different direction kind of thing but I
actually now that I'm sort of reading this again I understand what he's asking
you know it's like is there a time where it's like hey there's gonna be conflict
is there a time where it's worth the conflict and where is that point you
know and the point that I always give is if if you're telling me hey joko go do
the mission this way and I'm like you know what I'm not doing it yeah and you
go okay find your fire yeah and now do you put someone some yes man in my place
and then that yes-man gets everyone killed because it was a stupid stupid
plan did I really help or should I have said hey boss and we're really gonna
recommend we do it a different way here's some different options and then
finally you say no Jacque are you doing it my way
what even then I can go out and mitigate in the field yeah even then I can say
you know what in the classic example that is in band brothers when dick
winners the awesome leader they send a recon mission across the river one night
someone dies they come back the war is over it's all but over and the next
night they want me to do another reconnaissance mission and dick winters
is like sir I'm not sure that's a great idea it's like do it he goes okay Roger
that the guys go down they drink a couple
bottles of wine in the bottom of them they don't do the mission he mitigated
the risk if he would have stood up and you know that's that's a great example
of where he avoided conflict he stayed in the game he wasn't he said yes yes
sir got it we got it and then he did disobeyed sure he put
his he put his rank at risk and probably could have gotten in some trouble but he
knew was the right thing to do yeah that was like the best sort of way to do yeah
man and again you uh you're always thinking of like the long
game versus the short game you know where it's like and you can keep that in
perspective these things become a little bit more clear you know they always do