203. Embracing Conflict: Transforming Tension into Growth with Judy Bornstein

[00:00:07] Welcome to episode 203 of Girl, Take the Lead where each week we explore womanhood and leadership. And I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. Judy Bornstein Boomer joins me to discuss conflict. Judy is the founder of C-Suite Resolutions, where she provides mediation, ombuds services, conflict and negotiation coaching.

[00:00:37] And corporate trainings to organizations and executives. She has worked extensively as a CFO and chief compliance officer and brings her business experience to her work in addressing conflict.

[00:00:53] As someone who personally avoids conflict as much as I can, I found Judy's gentle approach and deep understanding and knowledge such a great way to learn more distinctions about conflict.

[00:01:13] Perhaps it will be helpful to you as the holidays come along and we have gatherings with people or conflicts can emerge.

[00:01:25] These are some of the topics we covered. The definition of conflict.

[00:01:29] The difference between disagreement and conflict.

[00:01:34] Gossip.

[00:01:36] That's an interesting one.

[00:01:38] Consequences of pushing down conflict.

[00:01:42] Costs involved in unresolved conflicts.

[00:01:47] How organizations set themselves up to handle conflicts.

[00:01:53] And working in conflict and understanding our reactions.

[00:01:59] Enjoy the listen.

[00:02:00] Here you go.

[00:02:05] Judy, welcome to Girl Take the Lead.

[00:02:08] Thank you.

[00:02:09] So much fun.

[00:02:10] And I do love it when someone comes on the show that I know well, and we've had, gosh, a long time.

[00:02:18] We've known each other.

[00:02:19] So, so thankful that you're here.

[00:02:23] Well, I'm really delighted to be here and thank you so much for asking me.

[00:02:27] It feels like a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation that I'd be happy to have under any circumstances.

[00:02:33] Exactly.

[00:02:34] And you were posting so much about your background in conflict.

[00:02:39] And I think if you could just sort of start us off by giving a bit more about your bio to our viewers and listeners, that would be very helpful.

[00:02:48] Yeah, I'm so happy to do that.

[00:02:50] So, yes, it's impossible for me to talk about my bio without talking about conflict.

[00:02:55] Conflict is so much at the center of what I do and think about and live with.

[00:03:00] So maybe I'll put it into a few different categories.

[00:03:03] First, I'll talk about it from the perspective of work.

[00:03:06] I have my own firm called C-Suite Resolutions.

[00:03:10] And my primary focus is working with organizations who are experiencing conflict of one stripe or another and would like some help addressing it and navigating it.

[00:03:21] And sometimes that's just working with one individual who has, you know, a big negotiation coming up and they need some coaching or support to think that through.

[00:03:30] Sometimes it's working with a couple of different parties who have some sort of challenge that they don't know how to work through.

[00:03:39] You know, they're sort of stuck at some kind of impasse and it's helpful to have a third party sort of facilitate and mediate.

[00:03:46] And sometimes I'm working as an ombud.

[00:03:48] So I'm really working with a whole organization, sometimes in groups, sometimes one at a time to help people think about sort of where conflict is popping up, where people are getting stuck and what might be a way to navigate it.

[00:04:03] So that's sort of in the professional realm.

[00:04:07] I also do a fair amount of mediation, some in court.

[00:04:11] I teach a mediation.

[00:04:13] Well, I'm leading a mediation training coming up in November.

[00:04:17] Probably it will be over by the time this airs, but that's coming up.

[00:04:21] And I co-facilitate a mediation training program inside St. Quentin Prison.

[00:04:26] So there are a lot of ways that professionally I'm very involved in the world of conflict.

[00:04:31] I also study conflict.

[00:04:34] I have a master's in dispute resolution, and I'm right now a doctoral candidate at Penn State where I'm studying business conflict specifically.

[00:04:42] And then, you know, I'm a person in the world, so I encounter conflict.

[00:04:46] I am married to the love of my life.

[00:04:49] He and I have very, very different views on many things, including politics.

[00:04:52] So as you and I are recording this, it's soon before the election.

[00:04:57] And, yeah, there's lots of conflict in the air, and, you know, the boundaries of our home are permeable.

[00:05:03] So we experience some of that here.

[00:05:05] So conflict is everywhere.

[00:05:08] Yeah.

[00:05:10] So what do you think, you know, when we say conflict, what do we mean by that?

[00:05:18] Yeah, it's a fabulous question.

[00:05:19] Actually, I'm doing some work today right before this recording.

[00:05:24] I'm working on a paper in my doctoral program, and one of the things I'm working on is thinking about how is conflict defined.

[00:05:34] It's controversial.

[00:05:35] There's conflict around how to define conflict.

[00:05:37] Truly there is.

[00:05:38] But I'll tell you what works, the definition that works for me.

[00:05:42] Conflict for me is any time there are different ideas or perspectives about what is or what should be.

[00:05:55] That's conflict.

[00:05:56] It's a fairly broad definition of conflict, but I think it's important to have a broad definition because sometimes people confuse conflict with a fight.

[00:06:08] And, of course, sometimes when people are in conflict, they do get into a fight.

[00:06:11] But there are many, many other reactions to conflict besides fighting.

[00:06:16] And if we only think about conflict as a fight, then I think we lose a lot of the conflict that happens.

[00:06:21] I think conflict can be at the organizational level.

[00:06:26] It can be a really powerful engine for creativity and change and self-reflection.

[00:06:33] And, again, if we only think about conflict as a fight, then I think we lose a lot of that opportunity, too.

[00:06:40] What came to mind, too, when you were talking, what do you think is the difference between conflict and disagreement?

[00:06:47] Is it just along the spectrum of intensity?

[00:06:52] Yeah, it's a good question.

[00:06:53] I don't know if there's any difference.

[00:06:57] But, again, with the same caveat, which is for some people, disagreement simply means there are varying views.

[00:07:08] And for some people, disagreement means they're in a fight.

[00:07:12] Right?

[00:07:13] So you and I might disagree about the best movie ever made.

[00:07:22] But we might not be in a fight about it.

[00:07:25] Right, right.

[00:07:26] It might not rise to the level of contention.

[00:07:29] But we could still disagree.

[00:07:32] Right.

[00:07:32] We simply, you know, I think the best movie ever made is X.

[00:07:36] And you think it's Y.

[00:07:36] Okay, we don't have the same view.

[00:07:40] Yeah.

[00:07:41] I think, you know, there are, I don't want to, I don't want to take this someplace too soon or whatever.

[00:07:48] But I will say, one of the reasons it's important to me to have a broad definition of conflict is there are, you know, lots of different ways people respond to conflict.

[00:08:03] Some, including getting in a fight, right?

[00:08:04] Yelling, screaming, that happens.

[00:08:06] But there are a lot of other things too, including suppressing, avoiding, making nice, apologizing, deciding just to live with it.

[00:08:15] These are all responses to conflict as well.

[00:08:17] And responses sometimes fall along gender lines.

[00:08:21] There are, of course, people are different in all sorts of different ways.

[00:08:26] And there's no universal truth here.

[00:08:29] But it's often the case that women will respond to conflict differently from men.

[00:08:33] And so if we only understand conflict as sort of maybe a little bit louder, more aggressive, or more adamant reactions to conflict, then we lose a lot of women's experience in conflict.

[00:08:49] And I always am looking to see where we can amplify women's voices and, you know, validate women's experiences.

[00:08:59] So I want conflict to be a broad, I want there to be a broad definition of conflict so it can include everybody's experiences.

[00:09:06] So what are some of the experiences that women have that are different than men?

[00:09:13] Well, I'll tell you what I notice, especially in workplaces.

[00:09:16] But again, this is a huge generalization because certainly there are lots of men that have all different kinds of reactions to conflict and ways of managing it.

[00:09:26] And that's true for women also.

[00:09:28] But I will say within sort of gender normative behavior, if we want to talk about it that way.

[00:09:37] You know, most women, at least in this sort of Western American culture, are raised to be nice, to be good, to not make waves, to not create a problem, don't make a scene, don't make other people uncomfortable.

[00:09:52] And so when conflict comes up, often women are uncomfortable expressing that there is a conflict, acknowledging that there is a conflict, because it sort of clashes with how a lot of us are taught to behave.

[00:10:11] And so women's reactions to conflict often are to be quiet about it.

[00:10:17] Not always, of course, not always.

[00:10:20] Again, these are very broad strokes.

[00:10:21] But many women will be quiet about conflict or will not address it directly, will find indirect ways.

[00:10:29] There's a whole body of literature around gossip and conflict and how gossip is a reaction, a way of sort of, quote, unquote, managing conflict for people who otherwise don't have a voice to manage it.

[00:10:41] Wow.

[00:10:42] I didn't know that, but that seems to make sense.

[00:10:45] So, yeah, there's actually a lot of really interesting academic research into gossip, which is not our topic today, but maybe for another time.

[00:10:53] It might be a future topic.

[00:10:53] No, I was going to say, but it's super interesting because there's some very sort of pro-feminist ideas about the social functions of gossip.

[00:11:02] But just to say it's one possible reaction, you know, just internalizing conflict is another possible reaction.

[00:11:08] And I think as I talk to women in the workplace who are experiencing meaningful amounts of stress, a lot of the stress relates to unexplored or unexpressed conflict or conflict where they experience that they don't have a voice to describe what's happening for them.

[00:11:34] And so sometimes, you know, for some women, conflict is a really internalized experience.

[00:11:43] And in that way, it can also be a very marginalized experience.

[00:11:47] And by the way, I would say having nothing to do with gender, but in general, in the workplace, because human beings are naturally and appropriately, when I say appropriately, I mean, like from an evolutionary perspective, we're sort of wired to not like conflict.

[00:12:05] It means, you know, our managers, our bosses, our leaders at work also don't like conflict.

[00:12:11] And so there's a natural reaction to conflict, which is, you know, push it away, set it aside, get it to quiet down, make it just make it stop.

[00:12:22] And then there are lots of unintended consequences of that, of that approach, including that people become really stigmatized for having conflict.

[00:12:33] So rather than looking at what's happening here at a systemic level, what's happening here at an organization level, and what might we learn from it, a more common reaction is what's wrong with, you know, person X and person Y, how come they can't just get along?

[00:12:49] Right.

[00:12:49] And it's really a tremendous loss, both for the organization, because there's no organizational learning that happens at that level, and for person X and person Y, who are sort of blamed, you know, the conflict is established relative to the two of them.

[00:13:05] They may simply be the two people in the organization that are naming the conflict.

[00:13:08] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:10] So there's a real way to, a real way that often in organizations, and again, not out of any malice, but probably out of lack of skill, management will squish conflict down to sort of the lowest common denominator.

[00:13:26] Oh, it's just, you know, Sally and Bob.

[00:13:30] Why can't Sally and Bob get along?

[00:13:32] Rather than looking at a real expansive view of what's being expressed here, what are the paradoxes or the, you know, moral dualities that exist in our organization that are triggering this conflict or this different way, these different ways of seeing between Sally and Bob.

[00:13:53] It's just like, oh, Sally, Bob, you guys get along, you know.

[00:13:56] Yeah.

[00:13:56] And that's a real loss.

[00:13:58] Well, it's terrible punishment for poor Sally and poor Bob, right?

[00:14:02] But it's also a real loss for the organization, because in as much as conflict is a place that can ignite change, I think it's impossible to have innovation and growth without having conflict.

[00:14:15] And so organizations that can't tolerate conflict also are unlikely to have innovation and change, and so they're likely to stagnate.

[00:14:25] So is it this pushing down and the lack of observation around and recognizing conflict?

[00:14:35] What makes it so hard to resolve it?

[00:14:39] Well, for sure, because often we're solving the wrong problem.

[00:14:42] You know, and I notice this, because sometimes like an organization will call me, and the conversation will go something like this.

[00:14:49] Hey, Judy, we'd like to bring you in to help resolve a conflict.

[00:14:54] You know, Sally and Bob can't get along.

[00:14:56] And could you just work with Sally and Bob and help them get along?

[00:14:59] Mm-hmm.

[00:15:01] Well, sometimes it's true.

[00:15:02] Sally and Bob can't get along, and both of them are behaving in ways that reflect a real lack of skill.

[00:15:09] And they just need some help, and then all is well.

[00:15:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:15:13] But I would say that's a minority of my experience.

[00:15:16] More often what happens is I talk with Sally, and I talk with Bob, and I find out, wow, you know, they're each doing their job exactly as they were asked to.

[00:15:25] Maybe they're from different departments.

[00:15:27] You know, Sally is in charge of engineering.

[00:15:30] And has been asked to be very thoughtful and mindful about quality.

[00:15:36] And Bob is in charge of marketing and is asked to be exuberant and forward-looking.

[00:15:43] And so Bob is maybe talking to people about the product of the organization in a way that Sally finds really uncomfortable and even inappropriate.

[00:15:54] And when that gets expressed in maybe a leadership team meeting, people think, again, this sort of squishing down of the conflict.

[00:16:01] Gosh, Sally and Bob really don't like each other.

[00:16:04] Yeah.

[00:16:04] In fact, I mean, they may have no problem with each other at all.

[00:16:07] It may just be that the positions that they're in structurally have conflict baked in.

[00:16:13] And by the way, that's a really healthy conflict, right?

[00:16:17] An organization should want some balance between quality and marketing.

[00:16:22] Because if you only have quality, then nobody ever hears about your product.

[00:16:26] And if you only have marketing, then what you're delivering is probably not very good.

[00:16:29] So an organization should want both of those functions and needs them to be in conflict.

[00:16:38] And again, the question is, could they be in conflict without it being a fight?

[00:16:42] Could people say, Sally, you are doing such a great job representing the engineering perspective here.

[00:16:48] And Bob, you're doing a fabulous job of representing the marketing perspective here.

[00:16:53] And what do we as an organization do to attend to both of these things so that the two of you aren't left to solve it on your own in some interpersonal way?

[00:17:01] Because it's not personal.

[00:17:02] It's structural.

[00:17:03] Yeah.

[00:17:04] So you mentioned before that one of the costs to an organization if they don't handle conflict is that there's a lack, perhaps a lack of innovation and creativity happening.

[00:17:20] Are there other things that can happen as well?

[00:17:23] Oh, my gosh.

[00:17:24] The list is almost endless of the unintended consequences of either mishandling conflict, misnaming it, misunderstanding it, or simply not dealing with conflict.

[00:17:35] I think one thing that, again, I see this over and over again in my consulting work, it is typical for organizations to consider the cost of responding to conflict.

[00:17:51] But it's not a symmetrical analysis.

[00:17:55] They fail to consider the cost of not responding to conflict.

[00:18:00] And so they just say, okay, well, we'll just kick the can down the road as if that's a free option and it is not a free option.

[00:18:07] In fact, that is the option that is most discouraging and alienating for employees.

[00:18:12] So organizations that don't deal with conflict or that make it go underground, even if that's not their intention, often have turnover, quiet quitting, poor morale, employee theft,

[00:18:26] all the stuff that happens when people feel disempowered or, you know, just not heard at work.

[00:18:33] All of those problems start to mount up.

[00:18:36] And I think, you know, one recent example that we've all lived through is, you know, during the COVID pandemic,

[00:18:47] when organizations all of a sudden were like, okay, everybody work from home,

[00:18:50] especially for most organizations where people had never had permission to work from home before.

[00:18:55] And then it was like, now you have to work at home.

[00:18:57] Oh, you've got a five-year-old who needs you to basically be their teacher at the same time.

[00:19:01] Well, not my problem.

[00:19:02] You know, again, it's not that anybody had a bad intention here, but there were a lot of conflicts that surfaced in that period.

[00:19:12] And most organizations weren't set up to manage them,

[00:19:16] both because organizations often are not set up to manage conflict.

[00:19:19] And to the extent that organizations are set up to manage conflict, this was a conflict that felt novel.

[00:19:24] And what did we see right after that wave of unaddressed conflict?

[00:19:29] The Great Resignation, which was tremendously, tremendously expensive for organizations.

[00:19:36] So there are all sorts of both missed opportunities, exactly as you were referencing earlier, lack of innovation, lack of change, lack of growth,

[00:19:47] that happens when conflicts aren't really understood, dissected, and, you know, consumed in a way.

[00:19:56] Like you want the organization to get the benefits, suck the marrow out of the conflict.

[00:20:01] But there are also costs to not addressing conflict because the human cost of that is very high.

[00:20:09] And sometimes it becomes more than just a human cost.

[00:20:13] There can be breakdowns in performance.

[00:20:16] You know, quality can suffer.

[00:20:18] And if you've got a workforce that is producing something that takes precision and attention,

[00:20:24] well, nothing's more distracting than a conflict.

[00:20:26] So you can have actual production slowdowns and quality costs.

[00:20:31] There can also be litigation.

[00:20:32] I mean, there are all kinds of costs to not addressing conflict.

[00:20:36] The unresolved conflicts are the problems that haunt organizations.

[00:20:40] I would say if you just went through and looked at what kinds of litigations organizations face,

[00:20:48] whether it's, you know, personnel related or, you know, competition related,

[00:20:52] those, by the time something gets to court by definition, this is a conflict that wasn't solved.

[00:20:57] Yeah.

[00:20:58] That's how it gets there.

[00:20:59] Yeah.

[00:21:00] Well, one thing you mentioned was that you said if an organization is not set up to handle conflict,

[00:21:07] I got intrigued with, well, how do organizations set themselves up so that they can handle conflict?

[00:21:14] Because I think the traditional way has been HR and employees learn not to trust HR because they're not there for them.

[00:21:26] They're there to protect the organization.

[00:21:29] So how do organizations kind of take care of the organization,

[00:21:35] but also take care of the employee who could be having the conflict?

[00:21:40] Right.

[00:21:41] So it's a really important consideration for business leaders, I think.

[00:21:47] You know, there are so many competencies that organizations need in order to thrive and to be nimble.

[00:21:54] And the ability to navigate conflict is one such competency.

[00:21:59] I don't think it gets a lot of airtime.

[00:22:02] And I think conflicts usually get pushed either to HR or to legal, right?

[00:22:06] Mm-hmm.

[00:22:08] Legal sometimes just being the logical extension of things that don't get managed to go in HR, you know.

[00:22:14] But there are other sort of non-personnel-related conflict matters that get sent to legal.

[00:22:20] And both of those are, to your point, manifestations of already the conflict

[00:22:29] not being handled within the organization and sort of pushed to a specialist.

[00:22:36] And so I think there are maybe two things that I would suggest and that I do suggest to organizations that I work with.

[00:22:43] And I recognize that neither of these are simple or, you know, quick fixes overnight.

[00:22:48] But one is for organizations to really commit to a conflict culture that, if not embraces conflict,

[00:23:02] because we are human beings and, like I said, we are wired to not want it.

[00:23:05] So embracing conflict might be maybe a stretch,

[00:23:08] but at least acknowledges the ubiquity of conflict and the power of conflict

[00:23:14] and therefore looks to capitalize on it, looks to get the most out of it.

[00:23:19] So that's just really a mandate for training at every level of the organization,

[00:23:26] training in considering conflict and how to navigate it.

[00:23:29] So that's a piece of it.

[00:23:30] And then the other piece for me is where does conflict live in the organization?

[00:23:35] If it's always pushed either to legal or HR,

[00:23:39] I think it sends a meta message that, again, is probably unintentional.

[00:23:44] And I'm saying this to you also as someone who has a long career in the business world

[00:23:49] and I've spent over 20 years in the C-suite as a CFO.

[00:23:52] I think conflict lives in the C-suite.

[00:23:55] I think that's who needs to own it because that's where cultural norms get set.

[00:24:02] That's where items that are a priority to the organization are held.

[00:24:08] That's where risk is managed.

[00:24:10] So to me, conflict lives in the C-suite.

[00:24:14] Isn't there a lot of conflict within the C-suite?

[00:24:18] And there's conflict inside the C-suite itself, of course.

[00:24:20] And again, some of it is, you know, because there's a mean bully who's the boss.

[00:24:25] Okay.

[00:24:26] But a lot of it is when you think about the C-suite,

[00:24:29] I mean, it's called the C-suite for a reason.

[00:24:31] It is a space, a shared space that is cross-functional.

[00:24:36] Mm-hmm.

[00:24:37] So when you've got your chief revenue officer and your chief risk officer sharing a space,

[00:24:46] there's conflict.

[00:24:47] And there should be.

[00:24:48] That's a healthy conflict for an organization to have.

[00:24:51] Just like in the example with Sally and Bob, if an organization only is concerned with revenue

[00:24:56] and never looks at risk, that organization is going to be way out on a limb and quickly

[00:25:01] will probably run into trouble.

[00:25:03] On the other hand, if you've got an organization that only looks at risk and can't look at revenue,

[00:25:08] it probably will go out of business.

[00:25:11] Careful.

[00:25:11] But it will go out of business.

[00:25:12] And so really for an organization to be healthy, it's not a question of one or the other.

[00:25:17] It's a both and mindset.

[00:25:20] Yeah.

[00:25:22] Yeah.

[00:25:22] I just wonder, how do you coach your clients so that they begin to see all these,

[00:25:29] the tentacles almost of conflict so that it isn't a personal experience?

[00:25:37] Do you help them have that perspective?

[00:25:40] Is that what you do?

[00:25:42] Yes.

[00:25:43] And, you know, people make that easy for me to do, actually, because when I, and this,

[00:25:47] you know, when I work as a, as a contract ombuds, this is when it comes up the most.

[00:25:53] And let me just take one very quick moment to say something about the role of ombuds,

[00:25:57] because I know not everybody is familiar.

[00:25:59] It's really more a European construct than something that we have a lot of in the US.

[00:26:03] But an ombuds is a designated neutral inside an organization.

[00:26:09] In what I think of as sort of the purest form, the ombuds doesn't actually work for the

[00:26:15] organization.

[00:26:16] Because if I'm trying to be a designated neutral and I'm an employee, that's, you know,

[00:26:21] that's getting close to sort of an HR function.

[00:26:24] And then there are all the issues of trust and whose interest, you know, has priority and

[00:26:29] that kind of thing that you were raising earlier.

[00:26:31] The reason I do my ombuds work as an outsider is not only is an ombuds someone who is a neutral,

[00:26:41] a trained party in navigating conflict and helping others navigate conflict, but importantly,

[00:26:47] an ombuds is independent.

[00:26:50] In other words, the organization can hire me or not hire me, but I don't do the bidding

[00:26:55] of the organization.

[00:26:56] And that allows me to build trust with people all up and down the organization.

[00:27:03] Confidentiality is the very hallmark of that work.

[00:27:06] And so as an ombuds, what I get to do when I'm brought into an organization is I talk to,

[00:27:11] sometimes it's literally everyone in the organization and smaller organizations.

[00:27:15] Sometimes it's a subset.

[00:27:16] You know, there's an issue with a senior management team and I'm just working with those folks.

[00:27:20] Sometimes it's departmental.

[00:27:21] Sometimes it's open to whoever, you know, it's like in the Peanuts cartoon when Lucy

[00:27:28] had the sign that said the doctor is in, you know, sometimes it's that.

[00:27:32] But whoever it is I'm talking with, I'm talking with in absolute confidence and anonymity.

[00:27:38] And what I do is I listen both to what is being shared with me one-on-one and to the themes

[00:27:46] that emerge.

[00:27:48] When I spend time in an organization, themes absolutely emerge because let's face it, people

[00:27:53] are very smart and very intuitive beings.

[00:27:59] And even if people don't quite have the words for it and they're not talking to me about,

[00:28:03] you know, the duality of some particular contradictory circumstance or structural paradox

[00:28:10] or whatever, people are telling me what's up in the organization.

[00:28:14] And I'm able to really glean what the themes are.

[00:28:17] And I will go back and report.

[00:28:18] I only report out to the most senior level.

[00:28:20] So typically that's just the CEO.

[00:28:22] Sometimes it's the C-suite.

[00:28:24] And I'll report out themes and I'll say, here's what I'm hearing.

[00:28:27] Here's what I think is at issue in your organization.

[00:28:30] And it's never, you know, oh, it's Sally and Bob.

[00:28:34] It's, you know, you've got real need for pursuing risk.

[00:28:41] You've got real need for pursuing risk, you know, avoid risk.

[00:28:44] And these things are structurally at a clash.

[00:28:47] So I'm able to communicate and feedback to leadership.

[00:28:52] Here's why you've got some conflict that's bubbling up right now.

[00:28:55] Um, and I then can make suggestions, including this sort of both and frame of mind, because

[00:29:03] leaders also understand that they can't just have a revenue perspective and they can't just

[00:29:08] have a risk perspective.

[00:29:10] If they're seasoned leaders, they know that very, very well.

[00:29:14] Um, it's just, where, where does that, then, then what?

[00:29:18] And the answer again is it's not one over the other.

[00:29:21] It's not prioritizing one over the other.

[00:29:22] It's both simultaneously.

[00:29:25] And that's a place where actually conflict is so generative, because if you can bring

[00:29:32] your risk people and your revenue people together, and I'm picking on those two functions, it

[00:29:36] could be any two functions, but if you can bring those functions together, you've got your experts

[00:29:41] in the room.

[00:29:42] Those people know what they're doing.

[00:29:44] And if they're brought together, not to figure out who's going to dominate and win, but how

[00:29:52] they can understand the issue from each other's perspectives, they don't have to agree with

[00:29:57] it.

[00:29:58] They simply have to understand it.

[00:30:00] That's where new ideas come from.

[00:30:02] I know, um, probably we're getting to the end of our episode, but, um, I'm thinking of

[00:30:11] the people that I know.

[00:30:12] Okay.

[00:30:12] So we've been talking a lot about organizations, but individuals who find themselves within an

[00:30:18] organization who are, you know, being, I don't want to use the word attacked, but there,

[00:30:28] there can be, uh, conflicts with individuals.

[00:30:35] How do you help them navigate their conflict?

[00:30:41] I mean, cause part of, part of what I've always thought is I need to own my own reaction to

[00:30:49] things that's on me.

[00:30:51] So if Sally's really bugging me, Sally's being Sally, but yo has to kind of look at Sally

[00:30:59] and go, you know, my reaction to Sally is what I'm responsible for.

[00:31:05] And I can look at rather than let it fester or turn into something where I'm ignoring Sally

[00:31:15] or, you know, just trying to avoid, um, doing all this before.

[00:31:22] Before.

[00:31:24] So how, how would you suggest somebody work and, and what are things for them to consider

[00:31:31] if they find themselves in a situation like that?

[00:31:35] Well, first of all, you said, you know, you don't want to use the word attack.

[00:31:39] Sometimes people get attacked at work, you know, not everybody's on their best behavior

[00:31:43] all of the time.

[00:31:44] And some, some people act like jerks.

[00:31:46] Like, let's just say it, it happens.

[00:31:47] It's unfortunate, but it does happen.

[00:31:50] So you're absolutely right.

[00:31:51] I think each person is responsible to understand my reactions or my reactions.

[00:31:56] On the other hand, that doesn't mean that reactions are unwarranted, right?

[00:32:01] I mean, there are things worth getting angry about.

[00:32:04] There are things worth feeling sad about.

[00:32:06] There are things worth being frustrated about.

[00:32:08] Um, I think one real misconception is that every conflict should be a DIY project.

[00:32:17] Okay.

[00:32:17] And it shouldn't.

[00:32:19] Um, if, I mean, let's use you or me as an example.

[00:32:24] I mean, I have conflict in my life too.

[00:32:25] I, I interact with people in the world.

[00:32:27] I don't enjoy everyone equally all of the time.

[00:32:30] Um, you know, if, if we as individuals are feeling stuck in a conflict, I mean, if it's a small

[00:32:36] conflict, right?

[00:32:37] We just handle it, right?

[00:32:39] Uh, Hey, yo, we had that call the other day.

[00:32:41] I didn't feel totally settled at the end of the call.

[00:32:43] Can we take five minutes and just hash it out?

[00:32:45] You say, yes, we hash it out.

[00:32:47] We move on with our lives.

[00:32:48] Okay.

[00:32:48] That's a great DIY project.

[00:32:50] But if it's different than that, maybe you're my boss and you have a lot of control over

[00:32:56] my annual bonus.

[00:32:57] It's totally discretionary.

[00:32:58] And so I don't know how to talk to you.

[00:33:01] And yet I keep feeling attacked by you.

[00:33:03] I don't even know if that's what you intend, but it's, it's how I consistently feel.

[00:33:08] And yet even raising it feels threatening to me.

[00:33:11] That might not be a good DIY project.

[00:33:14] I might really want to bring in a trained neutral who can facilitate a dialogue.

[00:33:19] That's called mediation.

[00:33:21] Uh, who can facilitate a dialogue so that I can at least express my, to this neutral third

[00:33:27] party.

[00:33:28] Here's what I'm experiencing.

[00:33:29] I don't even know if I'm right, but this is how it feels.

[00:33:32] Yeah.

[00:33:32] That party can then come to you and say, yo, what's your experience of what's going on?

[00:33:37] What's your intention?

[00:33:39] What do you feel you're communicating?

[00:33:40] How do you feel it's landing?

[00:33:42] There's a lot of exploration that a neutral third party can do very gracefully in a way that

[00:33:48] everybody feels fine about because they're not part of the conflict.

[00:33:53] It's not wired.

[00:33:54] It's not electric to have a neutral, ask a question.

[00:33:57] It's really neutral.

[00:33:59] So I think for individuals and you're right, we have spent a lot of the time in this conversation

[00:34:06] talking about organizational level conflict that could be, cause I'm writing a paper right

[00:34:09] now on organizational level conflict, but, um, but at the individual level, yes.

[00:34:14] Um, I think it's incumbent upon each of us to also know this is the limit of what I can

[00:34:21] simply talk myself down from versus this is the place where I'm actually stuck.

[00:34:25] And I need a third party to help me out here.

[00:34:28] It's so good.

[00:34:29] I think that's just such excellent advice.

[00:34:32] Um, because so often, you know, we can ignore it, pretend, you know, as I said,

[00:34:40] away hope it goes away.

[00:34:43] Yes.

[00:34:44] Hope is not a strategy.

[00:34:48] That's a great quote.

[00:34:50] Oh God, Judy.

[00:34:51] This is so good.

[00:34:53] Is there anything else that you'd like to tell our listeners and viewers before we end our

[00:34:59] episode?

[00:35:00] Um, I guess one thing I would just like to say is that we live in a complicated world.

[00:35:10] It is volatile.

[00:35:12] It is, you know, there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff going on in the zeitgeist.

[00:35:17] And I talk to people every day who are in conflict and who blame themselves for being

[00:35:24] in conflict.

[00:35:24] This idea of like, what's wrong with me?

[00:35:26] Why am I in a conflict?

[00:35:29] I mean, it could be there's something going on.

[00:35:31] People can be in patterns where they are very conflict prone people and there could be something

[00:35:36] to look at.

[00:35:38] At the same time, I think for a lot of people, they, and women are especially good at this.

[00:35:43] You know, we blame ourselves for conflict, for having conflict when it may be that we have

[00:35:49] conflict simply because we're wise enough to see the complexity in our world.

[00:35:57] And, um, and so I kind of want to encourage people to give themselves grace.

[00:36:02] Conflict happens for a lot of reasons.

[00:36:05] Um, if you're experiencing conflict in your life, it does not mean there's something wrong

[00:36:08] with you or that you're bad or faulty.

[00:36:11] And it might mean there's something that you're stuck and you could use some help.

[00:36:15] Hmm.

[00:36:19] Well, I just love this.

[00:36:21] Um, because I think you opened up for me, especially, and for a lot of people, I think

[00:36:27] just this subject, because it's so perplexing.

[00:36:32] It is because it's, it's like, you know, what can be involved is the relationship and, and

[00:36:39] power.

[00:36:40] And it's just an identity, like our sense of self.

[00:36:43] Who am I in this conflict?

[00:36:45] And there's a lot of really incredible work that's been done.

[00:36:50] Let me just mention one person in particular, Baruch Bush, who is like the founder of transformative

[00:36:55] mediation.

[00:36:55] And he talks about how conflict compels people in ways that they are alienated from themselves,

[00:37:04] that we are in conflict.

[00:37:06] We can become unrecognizable to ourselves.

[00:37:08] Hmm.

[00:37:10] And that is, that's a heartbreak.

[00:37:12] And I, I see that when I mediate, especially disputes between friends and neighbors, that

[00:37:19] people, it's not just, they become alienated from the person with whom they have conflict,

[00:37:23] but they become alienated from themselves.

[00:37:25] And there's a real heartbreak there.

[00:37:28] Oh, so how can our viewers and listeners find you and perhaps like discuss mediation?

[00:37:39] Because I think we can all use it.

[00:37:44] Yeah.

[00:37:45] I think we can all use it too.

[00:37:47] Um, the best way for people to find me is through my website, which is c sweets resolutions.com.

[00:37:55] Um, and if you're, if you're doing a, whatever, something that where you can share the link for

[00:38:00] that, you know, I'll put it in the show notes.

[00:38:02] Um, I also can be easily found on LinkedIn, um, Judy Bornstein on LinkedIn, and you're welcome

[00:38:08] to include a link to my LinkedIn profile as well.

[00:38:11] And either of those are great ways people can either DM me, um, through LinkedIn or reach

[00:38:16] out to me through my, through my website, c-sweet resolutions.com.

[00:38:20] And I would be so happy to talk to people who are struggling, who would like some training

[00:38:28] in their organization, who are just feeling a little stumped about something.

[00:38:32] And they'd like a thought partner as they approach either a conflict or negotiation.

[00:38:36] Um, it brings me a lot of joy to work with people in conflict.

[00:38:41] The conflicts themselves can be thorny, but the people are delightful.

[00:38:44] So that's terrific.

[00:38:48] I'm so happy for you that you have your lane, you know, like this is my, everything about

[00:38:53] that lane interests you, you know, like everything I like for me, I kind of have found my lane

[00:39:00] with my podcast and, you know, oh my gosh, it's so interesting.

[00:39:04] I wonder what that's about, you know, so I'm always like looking around, but I get it.

[00:39:09] Yeah.

[00:39:09] So my darling, what would you tell your 20 something self today?

[00:39:13] I think I would just say life keeps getting better and better and better.

[00:39:18] Like, yeah, with time, everything seems to keep getting better.

[00:39:23] Oh, it's terrific.

[00:39:26] And I know that you helped me out.

[00:39:28] I, I had asked listeners, I had asked Judy to go to our website and take a look at the

[00:39:34] store and just see if there was a card that stood out for her.

[00:39:38] It was there one that you, there was one that I really, that got my attention right away.

[00:39:44] It was really, it was a really cute card.

[00:39:47] It is, well, you can't even see the person's face, but they're wearing a dress.

[00:39:53] So I'm assuming it's female holding this huge bunch of flowers.

[00:39:58] So, so large that it obscures their, their face and the top half of their body.

[00:40:02] And it just says, you deserve a whole bunch of appreciation.

[00:40:07] And yeah, I love that image because I am incredibly gifted in the people around me in my life.

[00:40:17] I feel like there's so many people that deserve a whole bunch of appreciation,

[00:40:22] some grand, some grand bouquet of appreciation.

[00:40:25] So I loved that card.

[00:40:26] I thought it was a perfect image.

[00:40:28] Yeah.

[00:40:28] That's terrific.

[00:40:29] It's so good to hear that, that it spoke to you, that something spoke to you.

[00:40:34] That was one of the intentions of the, of the store was that there would be things even to

[00:40:39] delight people that even if you go check it out, you'll get a chuckle here and there,

[00:40:44] or you go, Oh my God, this is too funny.

[00:40:46] Or, Oh, she nailed it with this one.

[00:40:50] Yeah.

[00:40:51] So thank you for going.

[00:40:53] And thank you for encouraging me to look because actually all the artwork reminded me of you,

[00:40:58] like infuse all of that artwork.

[00:41:00] And so I found it all like warm and charming.

[00:41:03] Well, thanks.

[00:41:05] And thank you so much for coming Judy and joining us and sharing your depth of knowledge around the

[00:41:11] subject because, um, we definitely are human beings.

[00:41:15] We definitely have conflict and we definitely don't know how to resolve it.

[00:41:19] So it's great.

[00:41:21] Well, that's what makes us human truly.

[00:41:24] So thank you again.

[00:41:26] All right.

[00:41:27] You know, thank you so much for the opportunity.

[00:41:29] It's delightful to talk with you.

[00:41:32] Thank you for listening today.

[00:41:34] And we sure hope you enjoyed this episode.

[00:41:36] If you did, please leave a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts, tell a friend about us,

[00:41:42] join our public Facebook group, Girl Take the Lead, or visit our website,

[00:41:49] girltaketheleadpod.com.

[00:41:50] We also have a YouTube channel where your subscription would be appreciated.

[00:41:54] Once you're on YouTube search at Girl Take the Lead.

[00:41:57] And we've recently expanded to YouTube music and Spotify also has opportunities where you can find a video of this episode.

[00:42:09] Here are three takeaways.

[00:42:11] One, if we only think of conflict as a fight, we can lose that.

[00:42:20] It can be a really powerful engine for creativity, change, and self-reflection.

[00:42:28] Two, responses to conflict can fall along gender lines.

[00:42:34] Many women are raised to, quote, be nice and, quote, be good and told, quote, don't make a scene.

[00:42:46] Women may be uncomfortable acknowledging a conflict, so we'll be quiet or not address it directly.

[00:42:53] And there is less latitude for women to express conflict than is often afforded to men.

[00:43:01] Three, humans are naturally and evolutionarily wired to not like conflict.

[00:43:11] So that means our managers, bosses, and leaders probably don't like conflict.

[00:43:16] As a result, conflict may be pushed down or silenced, which can lead to unintentional consequences,

[00:43:25] like blaming the people rather than learning from the situation.

[00:43:30] Conflict is an inherent part of growth and innovation in organizations.

[00:43:39] Our next episode will be about Giving Tuesday.

[00:43:45] It's history, and we'll offer organizations we've had on the podcast you might want to support.

[00:43:53] So talk to you soon.

[00:43:55] Bye.