Speaker 1: What is up, Culture Drop? I am Galen. Today's topic is the five do's and don'ts. No, six. We got six. I'm throwing an extra one in there for the same price. Dealing with, navigating, resolving conflicts in the workplace and in your life. Super important. This is such a critical topic. If everybody were fantastic at resolving conflicts, the world would be a better and easier place. But they're not. So that's why this video. All right. Number one, do not attempt to resolve conflict when you are emotionally turned up to 10 in the heat of the moment, when you are triggered and upset, that is not the time to try to resolve conflict and have a calm conversation. It is so much easier to resolve conflict when people can be calm and neutral and in cold blood, which just means like when you are not completely triggered and out of control, do set up a time when the two of you can sit down and have a conversation. If you know that there's a conversation that you need to have, ask for permission, either go to that person and be like, Hey, is now a good time? I want to have this conversation with you or set up a time when the two of you can talk through things calmly in a neutral space. Number two, don't treat your assumptions as true. Your interpretation of other people's behaviors or their feelings or their perspective is just that it's your perception. It's not reality. Don't act like it's true. Do communicate your assumptions and like your beliefs and perception of the experience. It is totally okay to say, look, an assumption that I have is that you're behaving that way because of this or something Brene Brown says that I really love, which is the story that I'm telling myself is this. But frame it up to say, I don't know that this is true, but this is my assumption about how you feel or what's going on for you. Can you clear that up for me? Can you tell me what is actually going on for you? You will have assumptions, yes, but communicate them and don't treat them like they're gospel because they're not. You don't know. Number three, don't accuse people or tell them how they are of being a certain thing or being a certain way. When you come in labeling someone and telling them how they are, like you never listen to me. You're not a good listener. You shoot down on my ideas. You're not a very good friend. When we label somebody else and tell them how they are, all it does is put that person on the defensive and you end up, it devolves into an argument about whether or not that person is a good listener or not, et cetera. And it just makes people feel attacked. Using that language only makes things worse. Do frame up your language in the conversation in terms of focusing on the experience that you are having in your own feelings and observations. So that looks like saying specifically, the experience that I'm having is that I don't feel listened to by you. It's really important to do that because A of all, it's not something you can argue. That person can't say, yes, you do because I'm telling you this is my experience. So whether or not you're a good listener has no relevance here. The truth of the matter, the crux of this and the conflict for me is that I don't feel listened to or that's the experience that I'm having. And so when we frame up language like that, it puts people in a less defensive space and it creates something that is like, this is just the experience I'm having. These are the observations that I'm having. These are the feelings that I'm having that belong to me. And let's talk through that. Let's explore that and let's get to the heart of why. Number four, I love this one. Do not believe that you own 100% of the truth. You don't. Your perspective, your feelings, your view of what's right and what's wrong and what's happening is not cosmically true. And if you go into a situation of conflict where you assume that you are the ultimate judge of what's right, what's wrong, and your perspective is correct, you will not be able to effectively solve conflict with other people. Do listen and be curious. This is really important. Ask questions. Seek to understand. Ask for that person's perspective and their point of view. Demonstrate empathy. Put yourself in that person's shoes, whether you agree with what they have to say or not. It's like that experience is true for them. And try to see it from their perspective, which comes from a place of just listening and wanting to understand. Number five, don't treat people how you feel. And what I mean by that is the difference between a feeling and a behavior. To be angry or to be frustrated with somebody else is a feeling. To yell, to throw something, to be abusive to somebody else, that is a behavior. You have to remain in control of your emotional behavior, the words that come out of your mouth, your body language, your energy level, how you treat other people. You are 100% in control of that. If your face is like this, right, or you're like somebody else is talking, like that is emotional behavior. You like do not treat people the way that you feel. So do remain in control of your behavior and how you treat somebody else. It is possible to be absolutely livid and also speak calmly in a neutral way to somebody else, right? It's okay to express, I'm incredibly frustrated. I'm very, very angry about this. Like, let's talk through this. I know that's very hard to do. It takes a lot of emotional intelligence, right? Of like, I am in control of my emotional behavior, but it's so important in order to navigate conflict. Number six, the last one, do not believe that you are great at resolving conflict. Unless you have received extensive training and you've practiced and you've read books and you've like actually like done work to be better resolving conflict, you're not very good at it. Nobody is born being great at resolving conflict. Do learn, educate yourself, read books, take a class, like watch videos. You can become a lot better at conflict. It is a skill. It's not an inherent trait of anybody. Uh, Fierce Conversations is a great book. It's a great resource. I'm always talking about that. It will help you in how to resolve conflict with other people and provide some tools for you that are great. Also, last thing I want to say, real talk, go to counseling. Like a lot of the triggers and a lot of the things that cause you to be angry and cause you to have conflict with other people stem from all the messed up things that your parents and the rest of your family did to you growing up. There are things that make you very angry or frustrated or that trigger you in a huge way that are, that do not belong to the other people. Romantic relationships, the people at work that trigger those things in you. If I feel like somebody shoots down my idea, why does that make me so heated and angry? Right? It's like you have work to do to sort of work on yourself. You cannot get to be an adult without like receiving a lot of damage along the way. And it's like unwinding those things and learning how to have healthy communication and like understanding yourself and working on yourself as it goes a long way to like resolving conflict with other people in a healthy way. Thanks for watching and tuning in. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We have our weekly email list, The Culture Drop. You can subscribe to that and get these emails right in your inbox. Follow our social media channels. We put out a lot of free content around being more awesome and building great teams.