Speaker 1: Let's welcome Susan Clark and Chris-Marie Campbell. Conflict. It's a source of pain on any team or even any relationship. But what if conflict wasn't good or bad?

Speaker 2: What if conflict was an energy source for creativity, innovation, and transformation?

Speaker 1: Susan and I have spent over 15 years working with hundreds of business leaders and their teams. Our clients actually call us the team doctors because we focus on the health of the team in order to get to smart business results.

Speaker 2: Well, there is the one that refers to us as the dentist.

Speaker 1: That is true.

Speaker 2: I think she just hates conflict, not us.

Speaker 1: Let's hope so. She keeps bringing us back, so. Have you ever been on a team where two people wouldn't deal with each other, so you had to manage around them?

Speaker 2: Or have you ever worked with someone where you just wanted to be able to have a good debate and they kept taking it so personally?

Speaker 1: Or have you ever worked with somebody who has always got to be a battle? Like, can't we just get along? In these situations, you might think conflict's the problem. Conflict isn't the problem. It's the choice to diffuse it rather than use it. That's the problem.

Speaker 2: So today we're going to introduce you to two magic ingredients that if you use them in a conflict situation will turn conflict into creativity in an instant. So just a little bit more about us. Well, we are a team. We've been business partners and life partners for over 15 years. Let's just say we've gotten into a lot of conflict.

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2: And we do conflict very differently. We approach it differently, and we have different styles. And...

Speaker 1: We can all agree.

Speaker 2: No, what we can agree on, I forgot my line. What we can agree on is that conflict, and forgetting your lines, is a natural and healthy part of any relationship.

Speaker 1: Yes, it's a natural and healthy part, but that doesn't mean I like it. Conflict terrifies many people, and I've been one of those people. I grew up with an army colonel father, and as a little person, my dad was big, loud, and scary. And the only thing predictable about him was he was going to get upset. So every night at dinner, it was like running the gauntlet, hoping he wouldn't blow up. One night, we were stationed in Georgia. We lived in this old historic house. It was a big kitchen, white kitchen, red curtains over the sink. And we were all sitting around the table. My dad was across from me, and they were making fun of one of my teachers. And I was 13 at the time. Well, I had just gotten to that place where I had had enough. So I stood up, and I said, shut up, shut up, shut up. A little louder than that, though. I didn't want to blow you guys out with the mic. In a nanosecond, my dad was around the table. His hand was on my shirt, and I felt a fist in my face. It was a terrifying moment. I froze. He kept punching. My sister finally pulled him off, and I fell to the floor in a puddle of my own pee. That was a life-changing traumatic event for me. I decided then and there, whoa, it is not safe enough. If it's too dangerous, I'm not going to be vulnerable and say how I really feel or show my emotions or my anger. No way. My body made a decision. Anytime there were disagreements, it would flood with fear. And I started to actually seek safety by tracking and managing my external environment, all the people around me. So if there was any tension in the environment, I would ask a question or change the subject or rephrase somebody's inflammatory comments so the other person could hear better. I always made sure I nodded and smiled and kept eye contact. But I took it a step further because I wanted to make sure those power people in my life, they were happy. So I decided I wanted to focus on what they wanted me to become, and I would do that. So I'd been a C or D student. I went to getting all As. I wasn't an athlete. I went all the way to the frickin' Olympics. I was a Boeing flight test engineer, the most macho part of Boeing. This is not an engineer. And I wound up at a top-five consulting firm. Ironically, my expertise at that consulting firm, facilitating tough conversations. No surprise, I had spent the requisite 10,000 hours around my dining room table diffusing tension. I had become a professional conflict avoider, facilitating conversations, but never really showing up in them. And while I looked good on the outside, I was terrified on the inside, and I felt like a frickin' fraud. And then I met Susan Clark, and I saw her work with a group in conflict, but she did it completely different than I did. I mean, she had an opinion. She was passionate. I was like, oh, my God. But I knew I wanted to do that. And I'll let her tell you about her.

Speaker 2: So for me, surfacing conflict saved my life. When I was 23, I had my dream job. I was teaching. Life was good. And then I got sick. I started to lose weight. I couldn't keep any food down. I had no energy. I ended up in the hospital, and the doctors kept asking me over and over about my past. They kept wanting to know about my past, and I kept saying I had a healthy, happy childhood. Well, apparently there was a difference between what I was saying on the outside and what they were seeing on the inside. They were seeing a lot of evidence of scarring and sexual trauma. And basically what they said to me is, you need to go get some answers. You need to go ask your family some questions or maybe go see a psychiatrist. Well, I did. And it was like opening Pandora's box. All of a sudden, my happy, healthy childhood became a nightmare. I started to remember these horrible, violent acts, mostly at the hands of a charismatic camp director who no one, including my family, wanted to rattle or disrupt or mess with that image. Well, my life depended on it, so I kept going. I went back to my doctors, and so they now had resolved the conflict from the past, so they were able to diagnose me in the present. They diagnosed me with stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Now, you might be thinking, that sucks. But actually, believe it or not, in that moment, it was sort of a relief. Suddenly, I had something to focus on. I had something that the treatments were distracting me from these crazy memories, the conflict in my family, and that was actually good until the treatments stopped working. I still remember the day well when I sat across from my doctor, and she said to me, We don't have any more options. You have about six months to live. Suddenly, I found myself with this dying body, these crazy-ass memories that no one was really validating or acknowledging, and I realized I was at a critical choice point. I could quit, which actually really, frankly, seemed like the best bet at that moment. I could keep fighting with my family, with my doctors, with my own memories, or I could get curious. Well, that led me to the haven, ironically, to a program called Come Alive, and it was there that I discovered the amazing energy source and aliveness that comes from really surfacing, dealing with, and using conflict. I won't kid you, it was hell. But that experience of surfacing conflict changed my life, saved my life.

Speaker 1: So you just heard our two very personal stories, which we don't tell all the time, and I want you to think about your story, what you learned about conflict growing up. Now, think of a team you're on now or a significant relationship. How do you deal with conflict today? Conflict isn't good or bad, but I'm not kidding you, you're not crazy, it's hard and uncomfortable. And that's because our nervous system gets fired and we go into fight, flight, or freeze. And we all have our own personal triggers. Mine is anybody getting upset in the environment, and I get really anxious, my body floods with fear, and I want to run.

Speaker 2: Well, mine, if I'm around people who are really nice and polite and not saying stuff, I actually start to think they're up to something dangerous, and I go to fight.

Speaker 1: It's gotten me into a little trouble, I will admit. The question I had to ask, and you may want to ask, is do I want to let my nervous system control me and limit me?

Speaker 2: So, you probably are wondering, why are we talking about all this personal stuff? How does this relate to business and teams? Well, business is personal, and we still have business to do. So, cue Lego movie.

Speaker 1: Because this is what people think a team's going to be like. Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when you're part of a team. Everything is awesome. Oh, thank you. But that's not what happens, really. No, what really happens on a team is you do start out with an awesome vision. Great. So, you gather some smart people, and they are passionate about your cause. And all of a sudden, these smart people start having very different opinions. And then those different opinions come with strong emotions because they've got a lot of passion. And you're stuck in, I'm right, you're wrong, and we're smack dab into conflict. We don't like conflict. So, most people choose to diffuse it. And it could be, you might have a style like me, like, well, okay, we'll do it your way, a peacekeeper style. Or it could be, I'm going to take charge, I'll do it my way, you guys are going to thank me when I get done. It could be, hey, I'm out of here until you guys get done with all that messy stuff, and then I'll come back and do some real work.

Speaker 2: So, teams that do this, they stall. People get disengaged. They get worse, they start to undermine each other. And the teams like this don't get to great results. They get to mediocre at best. This disengagement is because people are not using conflict. They're avoiding it or diffusing it.

Speaker 1: And here's some data from Gallup, and they talk about the different engagement levels.

Speaker 2: So, look, I mean, when you see this, one-third of a company is usually disengaged. And let's just talk about that 17.5 because they say actively disengaged, that's sort of nice and polite for something really bad is going on there. Let's just say, you know, those people, something's going on for them, or they're very dissatisfied with where they are.

Speaker 1: And we do think this disengagement is because people are not dealing with and surfacing conflict. So, we want to talk to you about the two magic ingredients that actually transform conflict into creativity in an instant. They are vulnerability and curiosity. So, the first magic ingredient, vulnerability. I don't know anybody who actually likes the concept of vulnerability, except for maybe Brenny Brown. But in business, you've got to be kidding. Business is a realm of invincibility. And, you know, but we're talking about on a team where relationships matter, and vulnerability is a key. Vulnerability is not about being weak. Vulnerability is the willingness to expose oneself to danger, to take a risk and be honest about what's really happening, to say what you think, feel, and want. And I've got to tell you, I do not like this concept at all. I still say, God, why do I have to be vulnerable? Should I tell them? You were actually arguing about it about an hour ago.

Speaker 2: She wanted me to take this part.

Speaker 1: But the benefit, when I have the courage to actually stand up and say what I really think and feel and want, even share my anger, which, you know, didn't go well earlier in my life, I actually stop managing you guys, and I land inside my own shoes and I connect from there. And I reclaim more of me, my voice, my emotional and creative expression. And I'm actually pretty good in conflict these days. I'm going to vouch for that.

Speaker 2: So let's talk about that second ingredient, curiosity. So what curiosity doesn't mean is letting go of my judgments. I often hear people say to me, I don't want to be judgmental. Really? Your judgments, your ability to discern, to imagine, that's one of your greatest gifts. You want smart, opinionated people on your team. You hired them for that. The problem isn't our judgments. The problem is we get stuck to them. We get married to them. We get attached to them. We think we're right. I do this all the time. I know this one. She does. And it's very sticky, you know? What curiosity does mean is the willingness to own my judgments and then get interested and curious about a different perspective. To be willing to consider that there's more than one right way, more than one truth, more than one possibility. And to get over my need to be right. Now, for me, that meant that I had to get curious about cancer. I had to consider that cancer wasn't just an enemy. There was something there for me to learn from it. I had to get curious about those memories and quit just burying them down. And I even had to get curious about the difference between my storyline about the past and my family's.

Speaker 1: So when you combine curiosity and vulnerability in the midst of conflict, that's when you start to use the energy of conflict rather than diffuse it.

Speaker 2: So let's give you a business case scenario of this. We were working with an IT company, and they were pretty successful. They were successful enough that they were able to acquire. That's the word I'm looking for. Acquire a smaller company. And with that acquisition, Jane, the president of the smaller company, got planted on the executive team. Now, three months into this new deal, the CEO, Frank, of the IT company called us. I'm pretty sure he just wanted us to help him fire Jane. But we came in, and we started working with them over a two-day period. They got to the part where they were talking about their strategy. Jane was vehemently opposed to what the team was proposing. Three of the guys from the executive team got up, were pointing at her, screaming at her. I actually thought we were going to have to be real medical doctors. I was a little concerned. But then we said, time out. Do you remember vulnerability and curiosity? And one of the guys, one of the really angry guys, said in an angry voice, but he started there, he said, Look, I'm going to be vulnerable. I'm going to tell you, Jane, I have been angry and frustrated with you since you joined this team. And I really haven't listened to anything you've said. Now, then he said, and he got curious. He said, I actually want to try to. And he walked over, and he sat next to Jane. Now, Jane, she took a breath, which I should do, and she said, This has been really hard. But then she launched into her idea. And you could see light bulbs go off with Joe and the rest of the team because they knew she had a good idea. And they stepped back, redesigned their entire strategy to include Jane's idea. That new strategy catapulted them into the number three spot in their industry.

Speaker 1: So we find this all the time on teams, high caliber people that can't work together. And it's our job to help bring them together and recognize it's not my way or your way, it's a whole new way. And teams and relationships that do this, utilize vulnerability and curiosity, come up with innovative solutions not just once but repeatedly. They bounce back from setback and failure, and people involved feel engaged and alive.

Speaker 2: So I want to take you back to when I had just six months to live, to the last morning of that come alive. It was a transformative moment for me. The leaders of the workshop wanted to do a healing circle for me. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of that. And they invited their friend, Father Jack, a Roman Catholic priest. Now when he walked into the room in his robes, all hell broke loose. There were some people in that room that had some pretty serious issues with organized religion. That loving, kind, healing circle, chaos, mayhem. It was not pretty. Until Father Jack said something. He got vulnerable. He said, you know, I realize I'm representing the church here and I have made some mistakes. My church has made some mistakes. And then he got curious. He said, I am interested in hearing from you. Well, suddenly it got very real, very quickly. And people, you know, it was a changing moment because I'd never seen conflict get dealt with like that. Such a contentious issue to get dealt with, with vulnerability and curiosity. As a matter of fact, that was the healing. I went back and had to have surgery to remove tumors. They opened me up. The tumors were gone. Now I really believe that in that moment, that experience of being in a situation where there was that kind of conflict and people dealt with it differently, saved me.

Speaker 1: So we'll leave you with this. Conflict is an energy source for innovation, creativity, and transformation. It's time we stop looking for safety and magic outside of ourselves and recognize the resources we have within and between us to bridge our differences and tap that unlimited renewable resource.

Speaker 2: So you are capable of amazing things. I know we're out of time now, so I'm going to wrap this up quickly. You are capable of amazing things. So the next time you get stuck in conflict, remember, diffuse it. I mean, there you go. Oh, my God. I just, you know, use it. We're going to be fighting about this later. Don't diffuse it. Because you, too, can change the world. One team, one relationship, one conflict at a time. Thank you. Thank you.