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Episode 380: Disagree Without Conflict · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  Anytime we have a disagreement, the human nature in us wants to prove our point right?
• 0:05
  Like we want to justify our perspective now, great leaders, what they do differently in conflict or in disagreement is asking for clarity. Can you explain to me how we got to this point?
• 0:26
  Welcome to The Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by Angela's doctor Drew and joined today by Doctor Gabby Cavities. And we are going to talk about disagreement. Yeah. Disagreements and conflict. How you handle it. Maybe how you should handle it versus how you currently handle it.
• 0:44
  So if that doesn't sound exciting and, please don't don't, turn this episode off and, go running away or anything. But seriously, I think this is such an important topic because everybody's going to disagree. Everybody is going to have a difference of opinion, a different perspective on how something should have happened or what should have been said or should have been said.
• 1:06
  It's inevitable. Yeah. Deal. However, yeah, maybe there's some irony in this, even though we've all had disagreements with people plenty in the past, whether that's personal or professional, I find that people don't do this very well now, even though they've had practice. And and one thing too, I think, that most people don't fully understand is that not every disagreement has to turn into a conflict.
• 1:31
  That's a great point. That is a great point. Why not? Well, we're we're allowed to have our difference in opinions, right? It's, navigating that with a degree of mutual respect,
• 1:42
  and and handling the conversations with maturity, you know, but you're making such a great point. There's I'm not sure that people even have a mental category, for the fact that we can have a difference of opinion on something and disagree about it and us not get an argument right, but you can 100% do that.
• 2:01
  And so, you know, today we're going to be talking about a lot of things touching on a lot of components of this. But that's certainly one outcome we would have for our listeners is can you, at the conclusion of this podcast episode, have a better understanding of how you can disagree with people and it not end up in it?
• 2:19
  Yeah. I mean, I would like to even shift the the norm around the word disagreement. I think inherently we view it as something like negative. And yeah, there's a lot of emotion behind that and a and a primarily bad way. But shifting that into like we can disagree and that be perfectly okay. Like taking the negativity away from that word.
• 2:41
  Because I think too often it is interchangeable with, with conflict. It absolutely is. And that's why I think it's, it's reframing internally what that word means to us. Right. But then I think the other part of it is because I think in reality, we have a you and I would probably agree we can we can reframe some of these to where they don't become arguments.
• 3:00
  Yeah. Some of them still. Well, right. And so I think the other side of this is being able to recognize the purpose and the value of some of that. Like we've all had those situations with people where whatever, for whatever reason, we got into a disagreement followed by an argument. But then on the other side of all of that, it's like, okay, this built something that could be good in our relationship, right?
• 3:22
  Like, I saw a side of you, you saw a side of me, and now let's think about how we go forward in a productive way so we can also help people think about maybe seeing some purpose in this. Yeah. What you're hitting on there is that healthy disagreement that creates growth and relationships, whether that be personally or professionally.
• 3:42
  Okay. So let's get into breaking down a little bit of, what we mean when we say disagreement. So Gabby, how do you know the difference between conflict compared to what we might call kind of healthy disagreement.
• 4:00
  And. Well there's a few area there to think about. Right. The first being your intent behind the conversation and conflict. The intent is usually to, to win. Right. To drive your point home. And there is a lack of openness to anybody else's perspective or viewpoints, worth whereas with disagreement, usually there's openness to understanding. The intent is to understand each perspective rather than drive yours home.
• 4:34
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think one one little thing to interject there, that's a marker of emotional intelligence I think is well is is like on the disagreement side is can you begin a conversation with a person disagreeing with their position. And possibly be influenced by the time it's over. Like can you change your mind. Yeah. And if you don't have a willingness to change your mind that's a problem.
• 5:04
  Doesn't mean you have to. Yeah. But I think that's, that's a marker of emotional intelligence. You can go into these conversations and have a difference of opinion and maybe even who knows. By the end you might see a differently. Yeah you might, you might not. Yeah. That openness is yeah. The factor there. When it comes down to intent.
• 5:21
  Now the the second thing that can indicate whether you're in conflict or just a healthy disagreement is the way that you're speaking the tone. Are you yelling at each other. You're probably in conflict in a heated argument there versus talking calmly composed. You know that's a marker of healthy disagreement. Amazing how much impact tone can have.
• 5:46
  Oh yeah. Positively or negatively. And it's it's more than possible for a person to say something, whether it be a for phrase or a sentence or a word, there really isn't that big of a deal. Yeah. But if their tone is bad, it's a really big deal. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we've got intent tone and what else.
• 6:10
  And outcome this is you know what you were speaking on really with that ability to have a shift in perspective by the end. Right. The outcome of it is either and healthy disagreement. It's that ability to come to a mutual understanding whether that's agreeing to disagree or shifting somebody's perspective versus conflict. The outcome is usually could be disdain for each other.
• 6:40
  It could be a lack of respect for the other person. And walking away from the conversation just feeling more angry or frustrated.
• 6:50
  because there's a really fine line between what you're saying, whether it becomes, a conflictual type conversation versus just a healthy disagreement because there's such a fine line. Yeah, it's hard to navigate all that.
• 7:02
  A lot of people will just avoid these. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And if, if in when people avoid getting anywhere near a conversation like this, where does that leave? I mean, a lack of lack of trust if built there. I can't trust that you're going to tell me when you disagree with me.
• 7:25
  And I also then if I'm the person not or the person avoiding the conflict, I don't trust you to respond.
• 7:33
  If I were to bring something up in a way that I can feel safe, you know, so then whatever these issues might be are going to linger. Hang around. And what do we know about people probably going to become internally resentful. Yeah. Next we see some bitterness in the relationship. Obviously this is not leading anywhere positive. No or productive.
• 7:53
  And so you when you look at it damn dynamic between maybe it's two sets of people. Maybe it's sort of one a department to the company to another department. Okay. How do they get there when things have really gotten off the rails? Yeah, sometimes the answer is they just avoid it. It's the easiest thing to do. Yeah.
• 8:11
  In the short term. In the short term, yes. And until it all built up and hits that tipping point. Yes. And that's not pretty. No. Now and then suddenly you're wishing you had not been avoiding these things because it's really bad. Yeah. Yeah. So this whole idea of, okay, there's a fine line between healthy disagreement versus full fledged conflict.
• 8:34
  You as our listeners, you're kind of digesting this. You might have one of these right now. Where it's like me I'm, I'm avoiding, I'm passive. I'm just kind of sitting there doing nothing. Yeah. Maybe whether it's conscious or unconscious you're thinking you know resolve itself. It rarely does. And usually does not resolve itself. So this can happen personally and professionally.
• 8:58
  Gabby on the professional side, what is, what are some of the benefits or some of the purposes that we see in healthy disagreement? Well, I mean, when you think about going back to, you know, healthy disagreements, promoting openness, one of the benefits we see is innovation, right? Like increased innovation where people are, open to hearing, you know, potentially new solutions or pathways.
• 9:30
  Of navigating challenges within an organization or within their relationships. So the innovation piece becomes very, very present. And then the second half of that is better decision making, right? Like if, if, for able to disagree in a productive manner, we can now get to a point of deciding what the best foot forward is. Oftentimes in conflict you get stuck and you can't move forward because you can't find anywhere to agree on.
• 10:03
  Yeah, decisions need to be pressure tested, right? That's the bottom line, I think when they aren't, when there's no pressure testing, when there's no one really sitting there and looking at and thinking about not just is this the right decision, but why? And where's the evidence or the rationale, whatever it might be that is indicating we should do this versus that?
• 10:26
  Hey, man, that can be costly. Yeah. So I think one of the I agree with you, the one of the biggest ROI is on healthy disagreement is we make better decisions. Yeah. And to what you're you're hitting on there is that accountability piece to right. Like if we're going to disagree on something let's hold each other accountable to to being able to justify that.
• 10:44
  And, and, you know, provide some degree of rationale. Yeah. So we see it on the professional side. Equally true on the personal side. Oh yeah. And so we we mentioned earlier like what's one of the big values and benefits of we have healthy disagreements. It helps build some trust in the relationship. About you I see that you're willing to have a different opinion than me.
• 11:05
  Right. So it feels genuine. It feels authentic in the sense of it's not just us having kind of this like falsely comfortable. Relationship. Yeah. Or something like that. That's a real problem long term. What what are some of the other payoffs we see on the personal side. Well I think the, the tension in relationships can be decreased by engaging in healthy disagreement.
• 11:31
  However, there can also be the increases that tension initially.
• 11:35
  You know, one thing I always think about with this and caution on is the, the statement of and I said it earlier, but agreeing to disagree sometimes I think that can be used as an out right like that. Is that avoiding the conflicts ready to be done?
• 11:53
  Yeah. That's the door is close. And I know for me that shows up a lot more so in the personal relevance than the professional. Because I think in the professional setting, you have to come to some sort of agreements to, you know, make a business decision.
• 12:11
  When it comes to what we're wanting to have for dinner, I can just say, let's agree to disagree.
• 12:17
  And here's what we're cooking tonight. You get on board or don't eat, you know, but this is. Yeah. And that is so true. And I think the other thing it's important to mention here is, whether it's professional, whether it's personal. A very common thing that you'll hear people say in these, whether it's a healthy disagreement or a, certainly in a conflict type discussion, it's some point of that conversation.
• 12:47
  It's really normal for someone to say, how long have you felt this way? And way too commonly. What is the answer? A long time. Okay. Yeah. Whether that's measured in months or years or whatever and seen this happen too many times where people are trying to have a healthy, productive conversation. Yeah. And it's going reasonably well. And then the moment someone finds out the answer to that question and the answer is a really long time, it all goes sideways.
• 13:24
  Why didn't you bring this up sooner? Yeah. Like what? Why didn't you tell me how they had to do that? And then it comes like I didn't think I could write. It's like, oh, well, I just got work. Now we're just ping pong back and forth and now this whole thing is just way off the rails. It's good.
• 13:39
  It's. It's bad. Yeah. Different levels. So again, just a, another reminder of the importance, you must be willing to have. Yeah. Conversations. Yeah. And they don't have to end badly. Yeah. They don't have to end badly. And to your point that the timing of them, I don't think disagreements are ever going to be time perfectly.
• 14:03
  And being again open to the timing is not going to be right. And you've just going to have these hard conversations sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Before you. Yeah. Before they're too far gone. All right. Well then that's, that's a perfect segue into let's talk about how can you do that. Well, so if I'm going to sit down with someone and I'm going to have the courage and take the initiative to talk about something, we don't agree on, what should I be keeping in mind?
• 14:32
  Okay. Well, the first thing we talk about this all the time when we, speak to to groups and individuals about delivering feedback, right? It's, focus on the problem, not the person. Right. And, being able to separate the two is really important, because the moment I come to you and, and, attack your character or, attack you as a human being, like, you're going to go on defensive mode.
• 14:59
  But if I say, you know, here's the problem, you aren't the problem. But maybe, the way you behaved in this situation was a problem that's changeable. There's a huge difference between me saying it didn't seem like you were very well prepared for the meeting today. Can we talk about that versus. You're lazy, right? Yeah. Like those are going to lay you're lazy and unprepared.
• 15:29
  Yeah. That's going to lay to two very different ways. No let's. Is it possible that person is lazy. They might be maybe. Yeah. Very well. Could be. Is that going to be helpful at all. No. Yeah. Is that going to immediately put them on the defensive. Yes. Is there is there a very reasonable likelihood at all. We're going to have productive conversation.
• 15:50
  Almost zero. Yeah. Not at all. So what I have found over time is when people instead take the shortcut to you are lazy. That is more about their inability to manage their own internal frustration. Yeah. You're frustrated. Yeah. Maybe you have a valid reason to be frustrated and frustrated. That's completely fine. But you've got to instead focus on what is the most functional approach I can take and conversation, which as you said, is about the problem, not the person.
• 16:20
  Yeah, yeah, I think you put it perfectly and it does become really hard to do that when your emotions are heightened and we'll get to an in a moment one of the other, core principles. But, the ability to, to be able to focus on the problem, not the person is, is really at the core of this.
• 16:41
  And look up one more final further on that that I want to interject is I can remember a situation I was in years ago where there was a leader of a team, and he was really, really frustrated about the fact that he had this person on his team who was lazy in a recurring and chronic way, and we had to have our conversation.
• 17:01
  You know what? Yeah. Whose fault was that? The leaders. The leader for allowing it. Yeah. It's his fault. Yeah. And he had allowed this person to hang around for way too long. Yeah. Despite the fact that this person was lazy and they continue to have all this conflict and like, look, this is your fault, right? Because you have the ability to change the dynamic and you are doing it.
• 17:24
  That was enough a conversation I bet not. Okay. So I agree with that wholeheartedly. Number one we must separate the person from the problem. Otherwise we're going to hit a wall. The second research on here is and this is the man. This is tough. Yeah. Can you find a way to lead with curiosity not just frustration or defensiveness.
• 17:48
  So how in the world so many do that go. Well you know the the challenge here is like you said, I mean how do you do this? The that comes down to that being able to ask questions when you want to attack. Right.
• 18:04
  Anytime we have a disagreement, the human nature in us wants to prove our point right?
• 18:09
  Like we want to justify our perspective now, great leaders, what they do differently in conflict or in disagreement is asking for clarity. Can you explain to me how we got to this point?
• 18:28
  You know, a lot of this comes down to avoiding the the whys as well. Like, why did you do that? That's a little that's a little accusatory.
• 18:35
  Puts people on the defense more so than a how did we get here or can you explain this to me? Walk me through your thought process here. Yeah. You know, in leaders, if you're hearing this and you're thinking, I don't always have time to do that, my feedback to you would be, you really don't have time not to do that.
• 18:58
  Okay. And here's one of the reasons why there are plenty of reasons. Here's one of them. If you skip that part, and instead of having genuine curiosity and asking questions like you're describing and trying to genuinely trying to get to or develop an understanding of what's happening here, you skip that. Instead, you go straight to the accusation type stuff.
• 19:20
  There is a 100% chance you're going to end up in a place. Maybe it's not. This was an example, but over time where you're really embarrassed and you're going to be embarrassed because there was something big you missed and you didn't know until it's too late. Yeah, you're going to feel awful embarrassed, guilty. Yeah. You're going to feel absolutely terrible about yourself.
• 19:41
  And honestly, you should. Yeah. Because you didn't do a very good job of trying to go about how you really get to the root of something. Yeah. And we're talking a lot about the questions that you ask the other person you're disagreeing with. But there's also questions you should be asking yourself when you're going into disagreements is what am I missing.
• 20:03
  Right. Like what am I missing. Why do I feel this way. Yeah. How did I get here. How confident I am. How confident am I that I'm right. What are the reasons why I think I'm right. There's a million things you can ask yourself. Yeah. So just by way of review here, separate the person from the problem who you want to lead with curiosity.
• 20:26
  Yeah. What's next. Guy number three goes back to what we've been talking about. Kind of behind these other two which is regulating emotions. Before responding, I'm going to look at well, it was funny when we were getting ready for this podcast, I that one caught your eye. You're like, well, that's easier said than done. I think. Yeah. Yes.
• 20:49
  Correct. Why is it so difficult? Like, why did that catch my eye? Why is that so hard? Yeah, because the fact is you will get into some of these and be right. And guess what. You still need to regulate your emotions. Yeah. It's like there will be a moment or a situation where there are differing opinions on the table and you are objectively correct.
• 21:13
  And plenty of other people would validate that. Yeah. And yet the person across from you has planted their flag in the ground. Yeah. And he or she is not going anywhere. How do you stay composed.
• 21:30
  You know I this goes back to all of the basic emotion regulation strategies right. Like the, the grounding, the breathwork, like all of these, basic core emotion regulation strategies that you can use in the moment to help yourself, get back down from a upregulated state. And it's, again, easier said than done here, but even something as simple as, you know, taking a pause and taking a deep breath when you're feeling yourself, get frustrated.
• 22:03
  And we're talking about regulating your emotions. But in order to do that, you have to have a degree of emotional awareness. Yeah. Understand. And one thing we have here is like when you are getting to that heightened emotional state, either you or you sense it from the other party, like take a pause, right? It's okay to revisit the conversation, let emotion slide down a second and come back.
• 22:27
  Oftentimes that it's helpful in nature. Not always possible, but when possible, being able to separate for a second and come back. I think it's all spot on. And then I think what I would add to that is this is going to sound maybe a little crazy to some folks who, don't see it this way, but I'm going to focus on leaders here for just a moment.
• 22:48
  But equally true for anybody. When you go into a conversation such as this, I think your truest goal should be to handle the conversation consistent with what you believe the right way is. And less about whether in the end you win or lose. Okay. And so I think you got to, you have to go into this thinking the right way, like how do I increase the likelihood that I regulate my emotions.
• 23:15
  Well I go into it with the right mentality around, look it's not about walking out of this room and someone saying, you know what? And now that I've had the time to talk to you and think about it, I actually think you're right, and I can't be about that. Right. It's got to be more about, can you walk in with the objective of, I'm going to handle myself in a way that I can be proud of, and you and.
• 23:36
  Yeah, and just see where this goes. Yeah. I think that's not going to allow myself to get triggered or, to raise my voice or, you know, however, you don't want to show up. Like, I have a clear idea of that, like, know how you want to show up 100%. And then, you know, here's something that I hear a bunch, too, and I've heard over the years, it's really bothersome and kind of ironic is I hear people say, well, I do that pretty well, like in a work environment, but not so much on the personal side.
• 24:04
  Yeah. Okay. Well, do I think it's a good idea or a smart move? Well, in a work environment, to lose control of your emotions. Well, of course I don't think that. Right. But if you're going to get it right with anybody, no disrespect to anyone's coworkers, wouldn't you want to get right with your family? Yeah, I would think so.
• 24:26
  But, you know, we say it all the time. Those closest to us usually get the worst of us. It's they commonly do. And I think it's it's unfortunate and I get it. Like the fact is you can young you know, you can blow up on your teenager. Yeah. And then get up in the morning and you know, you still have a place to parent.
• 24:47
  And you do that in the wrong person in the wrong work environment. And that might go differently. So. Right I understand all of that. But I do think it's important that people are willing to kind of take a step back and be like me. Yeah. If I want to get this right anywhere, I want it should be my personal life.
• 25:00
  Yeah. And if you can get it right there, then you can get it right. If you can get it right with the people who know you at your core, know your triggers, know how to push your buttons. Then you should be able to get it right with anyone else, right? And to be clear, when we say get it right, what we mean is as consistently right.
• 25:20
  Yeah, not in a perfection type way. Correct. So let's talk about the the final one here. And you know, I think you're you kind of teed up nicely for it, which is go into the disagreement focused on shared outcomes not winning. If only people could do that for more consistency. So in other words, what's the common ground. What can we agree on.
• 25:48
  Yeah. How can we create a step forward, a path forward from here? Okay. Where we are aligned. Yeah. The alignment and just remembering like we are on the same team, we share the same goals, we want the same things. We're just disagreeing on the best way of getting there. We're disagreeing on the process. Yep. And one of the best ways to do that, although it's tough, is can you make what what are called kind of like micro agreements where like, hey, maybe you don't agree that this should be our annual sales goal, right?
• 26:26
  Maybe you think that is too far fetched and it's not the thing. Okay, like maybe that's how you feel. That's how I feel. Can we agree on our strategy for the next quarter and just go get busy? Yeah, let's do that. Right. Because if you, you know, if you get too caught up on that outcome, right. Like of we're disagreeing on what the sales target is like, then you're never going to make progress at all.
• 26:52
  Right. So there's, you know, you've got to be able to have some humility and say, okay, can we at least agree on the strategy so we can get to work? Yep. You know, maybe you don't think there should be a leadership retreat in 2027. And I do. Can we just go have a great May. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:14
  And just focus on what it's going to take to make. Yeah. The reality like there's that's the point is I think yeah we're having a hard time getting traction in some way shape or form. How do we go find a space that we are in agreement and align on that. Work hard collaboratively on that. That's that's often a better way to go about it versus trying to win.
• 27:37
  Okay. So we have, you know, we've talked about these core principles of navigating disagreements, how you can go about it.
• 27:44
  But you know what makes this so hard? You know, especially in the professional world, as a lot of our listeners are in that setting, like, what makes this fine line between conflict and healthy disagreement so challenging? I think in a professional setting, part of what goes on there is, power dynamics and hierarchies, which exists in all organizations and need to exist.
• 28:07
  Right? There's got to be structure and clarity and understanding about kind of who fits where in the organization. But the fact of that sometimes means if you are, lower down the chain, in the organizational structure, you aren't always going get going to get to make certain decisions you would like to make. Yeah, going to happen.
• 28:30
  And embedded in that is the fact that there will be people further up the chain in the organizational structure who are deciding things you don't agree with. And there's not a lot you can do about that. So what makes it so hard is Will. I'm asked to then continue to show up day in, day out and do a great job, despite the fact I don't agree with B and C.
• 28:51
  Yeah that's hard. Yeah. No you don't have to stay there and that's up to the person who's in that situation. But it's also not that simple. When you get on the one hand you can say, well you don't have to stay here. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can just snap their fingers and have another opportunity. Right. But yeah, I mean, what what makes it hard is the fact you sometimes have to continue to day in, day out, do your thing despite the script.
• 29:16
  Yeah. And and the negative consequences piece can be a portion of that too. Like if I do disagree with my boss or somebody higher up on that hierarchy, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get demoted? You know, like there's there's the fear of consequences that make these conversations challenging. And that's more so on the side of leaning towards avoidance.
• 29:40
  Because you fear that. Yep. Yeah. So then you have a choice to make, right? Right. And neither one of those doors is too appealing. Yeah. Number one, wade into the potential conflict. Door number two, live with it. So neither one of those are very fun.
• 29:56
  think another piece of this that we haven't really touched on yet is mode of communication.
• 30:04
  Handling disagreement via teams or text message versus in person. Right. Like there's that degree of tonality and body language. All of the nonverbals are stripped away. So the way that you're communicating, in a disagreement virtually can be more challenging than in person. Sometimes in person is more challenging, depending on the person. So it varies here too.
• 30:35
  Yeah. Very true. But a lot is lost and that's a whole nother. Yeah. But because of the distributed workforce. But that's not going away. And it is just so easy to miss out on some really important things. Yeah absolutely. You know sorry Microsoft just is in stock is teams is a cool product and all that. Yeah there's a likeness.
• 31:00
  Even for those of us that work in the field psychologist Dr.. Mistakes. Yeah. Okay. So then Gabby let's also touch on like what are some strategies practically speaking that a person should be thinking about as they're navigating this. So like, give us some some concrete feedback there. You know, I said previously that it's never going to be the perfect time, but finding the right time, the resources there is such thing.
• 31:28
  It's the wrong time finding the right time to have these conversations to engage and disagreements. And not only the right time, but the right place. Yeah. In most work environments, Monday morning, I wouldn't recommend that. No, no. You know, there's a lot going on. I know in the world of employers, there's a lot going on. Oh, yeah.
• 31:53
  Yeah. Yeah. Think about right time. Right place. And I think also, you know, have a mechanism in place. It's a more proactive feedback type mechanism that gives you a chance to not get off track on these things. Yeah. Going back to what we talked about earlier, about how normal it is for someone to say, how long have you felt this way?
• 32:20
  The answer is a really long time. Yeah. Put some mechanisms in place to give you a chance to avoid that. Yeah. Allowing space for opinions to be spoken about. I think it's what you're you're hitting on there regularly. And encouraging that respectful debate among your team. Right. Like, I'm open to hearing your opinions. I might not agree with you, but please voice it.
• 32:43
  Right. All right, so I know we're going to be wrapping up here in a couple of minutes. Yeah, sure. We finish and get into how do you know when things have become a real problem meeting. Like what are the warning signs that this is not healthy? Disagreement. This is conflict. The first first sign that I always see is body language shifts.
• 33:06
  And this goes into, you know, the overarching theme of defensiveness, like the moment somebody starts to close off their body, across their arms. Or maybe it's kind of shifting towards getting in your face, depending on, you know, the personality traits here. Body language is really that that key indicator of defensiveness starting to come about. It could also be the tone of voice.
• 33:28
  Right? But yeah, defensiveness is that first warning sign. And what I would add to that is just chronic, examples of just being difficult. Just silly petty things that aren't even issues. Yeah. We're making issues out of them and having a gripe about things that aren't even worth us talking about. And it's all because there's this underlying.
• 33:53
  It's about what's underlying. Yeah. That's the issue. I came to you with problem A and because I came to you about a problem, now you're coming at me with, you know, problem lowercase a and lowercase b that don't really matter. But it's, you know, because somebody's raising a concern to you, you feel the need to throw something back, right?
• 34:16
  And I think in some of these, it's more than possible for these two relationships to get if we're talking about two people. So far out of whack that it is literally impossible for one of those people to be successful. Yeah. They can't have a good idea. Yeah. They can't have the right approach to solving a problem. It's not going to allow it to happen.
• 34:35
  They're going to disagree. Discrete disagree because there's so much resentment. Right. Yeah. And that's when you know the the personal attacks come into play. And that's that's how you really know when you're, you're in conflict and no longer and healthy disagreement is is the personal attacks like when it's attacks on character or you, just saying things that you don't really mean, using the words like never will, never agree, like those kind of definitive words are indicators of that as well.
• 35:09
  Okay. So just as this will be an example of that, that maybe we can kind of finish with, you want to just mention something that I remember a couple of years ago. I was doing some work with a company and they were trying to get their, their minds around the notion of the language a strong leader. Yeah.
• 35:27
  They're like, we don't have enough strong leaders in this company. And, the more I kind of listen to what they were describing, I realized that what they were describing is a lot more of what I would call kind of like a volatile leader. Not not a strong leader. And the issue was what they were describing was a person who was going to be kind of loud and reactionary and very bold.
• 35:59
  And I'm not saying that all of those things are bad. Right. There are times where being bold is a good thing. But if you want to get back to that word strong, what it really means to have strength is to be able to handle your self control and to have composure, and to not be thrown off by things that pop up.
• 36:21
  Week or month and to handle all these things with emotional maturity. Yeah. That's what strength is. Yeah. Not brute force. Yeah. Not like oh I'm going to come into the room in the presence of a meeting and kind of like push my way around what I want as a strong leader. Right. And it's also not a strong leader when he or she, as it's like, maybe tension rises or there's there's some kind of problem.
• 36:48
  I think going on, it really kind of doubles down on, you know, a dictator, like a strong like, that's not a no no. So I think it's important for our listeners to understand, really, when you look at the literature on emotional intelligence and competencies and leadership and all that, that's what we mean. Or should we say strongly?
• 37:09
  Yeah. Okay. Final thoughts. Final thoughts I think, you know, encouraging our listeners to you know, move into some application of this in their lives. And the first phase of that we always say is raising your own awareness reflecting a little bit. So starting to think about, you know, where do you tend to avoid disagreements. How do you typically react, when you're challenged or when you're frustrated in a conversation?
• 37:39
  And then what patterns tend to show up for you in conflict? Yeah. Right on. And I bet I bet you've got one of these somewhere. Yeah. It's all hard listening to messages. Yeah. Just one example of maybe something that hasn't yet been addressed or talked about that's just there. I really would encourage you to be honest with yourself and others about what that is.
• 37:59
  Yeah. Take action. Okay. Well as always very grateful to our listeners here on the Growth Project. And we appreciate you spending time with us and giving us an opportunity to, to kind of throw some resources at you for you to think about and consider. And we look forward to the next opportunity we have to do so. Thank you.
• 38:17
  Thank you.