Conflict Management 101
The Amplified Impact Podcast
August 21st, 2023
Just finished a coaching call that got me thinking about a topic I struggle with…conflict management.
I’ve always been conflict-avoidant and it triggers a physical response in me.
But here’s the thing…in business and life, conflicts are inevitable.
One of the issues my student faces is being a people pleaser. He avoids tough conversations, which often leads to regret.
I believe significant growth happens after difficult conversations.
Whether it’s with others or ourselves, these dialogues push us to change and evolve.
However, being aware of the physical signs when you’re in conflict is crucial.
Instead of being overwhelmed by them, view them as signals.
It’s not that something is going terribly wrong, but that your body is responding.
This awareness gives you back control.
Start with the conversations you’ve been avoiding. By facing them, you’ll experience growth on the other side.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“All the growth that you could ever want in this lifetime is on the other side of a few hard conversations.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
Alright, so I just got off a coaching call with one of my students and we were on the topic of something that I think is worth unpacking and exploring together here. It’s something that I really struggle with, which is conflict management. I am what you would call adverse to confrontation in a very exaggerated way. Like I hate confrontation. It elicits a very strong physiological response in me. And this is problematic because in business and life in general, there are going to be confrontations, right? Like you’re going to have conflict with other people and your ability to resolve that conflict and move towards a goal is going to dictate the quality of your result. And it’s something that I’ve had to get a lot better at over time. And yet I really still struggle with it.
Anthony Vicino:
I still suck. I still am not good at this. But I wanted to share some thoughts on this because of some things that have helped me navigate this. Because my student, one of the things that he was struggling with is that he is a people pleaser. He is a person who will just go with the flow, doesn’t want to rock the boat. And so he’ll get into partnerships or into agreements with vendors and contractors. Not really exploring all the nuances and making sure that he stands up for himself, makes sure that he gets like a fair deal. And then he just kind of trusts the person that they’re going to do right by him.
Anthony Vicino:
And in a lot of cases they do, but in those cases where they don’t, inevitably he’s able to look back and realize like he didn’t do something on the front end. He avoided the hard conversation. And I believe that all the growth that you could ever want in this lifetime is on the other side of a few hard conversations. Whether that’s with your significant other, with your partner, with your employees, or more importantly, with yourself. What are those conversations that you’re putting off that you know you need to have, but because you’re delaying them, you’re delaying the growth that you could experience as well. And you’re also incurring all sorts of cognitive overload and mental angst. And so having those conversations is key. Now having them is not easy.
Anthony Vicino:
Having awkward, uncomfortable, confrontational conversations is not anybody’s cup of tea. Some people really love it, I suppose, but it’s not something I like. And here’s a couple of things that I want to unpack here. These aren’t like tips or tricks or hacks or anything like that. Just things that I’ve become aware of. Number one is when I’m in a situation that is skewing towards confrontation, my body goes through a very acute physiological reaction. I can feel my heart rate increase, I can feel my pulse, I can feel the anxiety inside of me, which is unique because I’m a person who does not typically experience anxiety or stress. Really.
Anthony Vicino:
It’s one of the things that’s kind of weird about me. The times when I do feel it is in the time of interpersonal confrontation. And because it’s such a unique experience for me in the sense that I don’t have it in other areas of my life, I’m very cognizant of it as soon as it appears. And in the past, being aware of it only exacerbated the issue. It only caused more stress because suddenly I’m like, oh my God, I’m having a heart attack, and I’m stressed out. I’m breathing. I’m like, whoa. Oh my God.
Anthony Vicino:
Now I’m able to look at it, and instead of looking at it as the indicator that something’s going wrong, I can look at it as the indicator that something’s going wrong, but that I can now change the behavior because I’m aware of it. Right? Like the pattern interrupt is everything. It’s all about intention maintenance, which is something we talk about a lot on this podcast, like making sure that we’re doing things with intention. We have an understanding of what’s the outcome that we’re driving towards. And so when you’re in a conversation, you suddenly feel that physiological response. You can stop, you can pause, you can reflect. Like, why am I feeling this way? I’m not in any kind of existential threat. Danger.
Anthony Vicino:
This isn’t a danger to my safety or to my standing in this world. It’s all going to be okay. Right? Now, another aspect of this is it doesn’t just happen in confrontation. Sometimes I’m an introvert, so when I go to speaking events, let’s say, and I step into a room full of people afterwards and they all want to come and talk to me, I sometimes find myself behaving and acting in particular ways around certain people. And I don’t know exactly what causes that. Sometimes I just look at a person and I put them up on a pedestal. I want to be cool like them. There’s something about their aura, their energy that just puts me into this position where suddenly I’m seeking their approval, right? And I don’t like that.
Anthony Vicino:
I don’t like having that type of behavior. I don’t like that. But what ends up happening is in those conversations, I tend to become too agreeable. Yeah, I totally agree. Become too friendly, too nice. That’s not a problem in any kind of real sense, but it’s not who I am. It’s not really adding value to a conversation. So if you’ve ever been in that situation where you’re sitting down with somebody, maybe it’s like your significant other’s parents, and you really want to impress them, and you’re behaving in a way where you’re like, this isn’t me.
Anthony Vicino:
This isn’t who I am. Just pausing and reflecting on that, catching yourself in that moment and being like, why am I doing this? Just challenging the behavior sometimes is enough to change the behavior. Okay? Now if you can’t change the behavior sometimes in the case of a confrontation where there’s something that’s eliciting that strong reaction. I find it very helpful to just pause the conversation and say, listen, this is very important, I want to circle back to this. I need to collect my thoughts and unpack this a little bit. So let’s put a pin in this, let’s circle back to it, maybe tomorrow or at the end of this conversation, whatever the time frame is. And that way you can distance yourself because sometimes the thing that elicits so much stress in us is feeling like we have to have the answer or the response right there in the moment. And when we’re feeling that physiological response, suddenly like the tunnel blinders go on, the blinders go on, we get the tunnel vision and we can’t think very clearly.
Anthony Vicino:
And now we just start to agree to things because we don’t want to look stupid and challenge it because our brain is just not working right. So sometimes just putting a pin in it, just put a pin in it, come back to it, typically the physiological response is worn off by that time. You can come back to it more logically, you can collected your thoughts, you can have a more productive conversation and feel at least like you didn’t get taken advantage of in that moment because you didn’t just get steamrolled because your emotions were running rampant. And then the last thing I want to share that’s been really helpful for me, and this is an obvious one, is that growth happens on the other side of repetition and iteration. And so the more that we can expose ourself to these confrontations or these hard conversations, the better the better we get at having them. Because at the end of the day, when I was sharing with my student that I still struggle with these things, he’s like, that’s really cool to hear because I would look at you and I would think, you don’t have that problem anymore. But the truth is, the problem is still there. It’s just morphed and grown.
Anthony Vicino:
And so the monster that I have to fight looks a little bit different than the monster that you fight when you’re at level one versus level ten or whatever the difference is there. And I find that to be true for everybody. There’s really only like five core human problems that we’re all trying to solve for and everything really stems from that. We all want love, respect, safety. The number of things that motivate us as humans are very, very finite. And so the permutations of the problems that we’re going to have to solve over time are just a reflection of those five ish core problems. Maybe we could do a podcast on that actually, that would be a pretty interesting one. But having those conversations is the key to getting better at them.
Anthony Vicino:
And I think 90% of people, if you were to say, hey, right now, what’s that one conversation with that one person that you’ve been putting off that you know you need to have and that, you know, if you had it, things would get better, but you’ve been putting it off. 90% of people have a conversation with a person that immediately jumps to mind. And so in terms of exposing yourself to this conflict and becoming better at managing it, I would start with that conversation, start there, because, you know you need to fight that battle. And typically, the longer you wait to fight the monster, the bigger it gets, the harder it is to kill it. So the sooner you can fight these things, the better. It doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, though, so good luck with that. Just realize this is a battle that we’re all going to be fighting until the day that we die, but you can get better at it. So hope this brings a little bit of value, a little bit of perspective.
Anthony Vicino:
I don’t know if this is something that you struggle with. Maybe it’s just unique to me and my student here, but I’d love to hear from you guys. What has been your experience when it comes to conflict resolution, confrontation? Let me know. Shoot me a DM shoot me a comment. Leave a review. Let’s start a conversation. I’d love to hear from you guys, but as always, I’ll see you back around these parts tomorrow. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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