Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host Roberta. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. And by the end of this episode, please remember to subscribe, give a rating and a review. Now this is a communications related podcast. And one of the main things that we cover is conflict resolution. And my guest today, Kristine Scott, hailing all the way from Seattle, is a conflict resolution specialist. She is a chief trainer for Seattle Conflict Resolution, and she's here to share with us what it is that we can do to not only deal with conflict with others, but with ourselves. And before I go any further, please help me welcome Kristine. Hi. Hi, thank you. Thank you for being on the show, welcome. Thank you, I'm really excited to be here, Roberta. I'm excited for you to be here. Thank you for spending your time with us and excited because during our initial conversation there were so many things that you were saying. I'm like, no, we need to start recording. This is too good. But before we get into it, please give us a little bit of your background. Sure. So I come from many years in social services where I was running group homes and meal programs and shelters, mostly for young people, including young people who lived outside. And I learned that I really am not good at conflict. That they were having really big problems, big issues, and big drama, and it would make me scared. big and aggressively or way too small and just like milk toast, like, oh, whatever you need. Okay. And neither of those worked. And I started learning, I just need to follow their lead because they're living with conflict 24 seven and they, they know what's going on. And I clearly do not. So, so they became my greatest teachers and how to handle human conflict. Right. That's very powerful. So first, let's look at the scenario where you basically saying, let's dissolve the conflict and get things done. Right, right, yeah, yeah. Like I would basically pull rank and say, I'm gonna kick you out of my meal program or whatever. The authority. The authority message, right? All of the ways that parents kind of over-strong arm it, I was doing that with these young people from the streets. And as you can imagine, that did not go well. I just made a lot of enemies. And when you show up with that kind of bristly, big shoulder energy, guess what? They do. They show up with their big shoulder like, you know, energy. And I would have stare downs with people and sure, I could kick them out of their only opportunity to eat a warm meal every day. You know, what has that accomplished? But on the flip side as well, don't you think that you are also in the responsibility that you had? Because you can't run the place in chaos. Great compassion for them and they needed that. But in order to get things done, you have a system, you have rules, you have, you know, line up this way, go this way to get your plate. You can't just have chaos. You can't run the place. In a sense, did you sometimes forgive yourself for saying, hey, yes, I didn't handle it the best way, but... What can I do? Well, that's where they became my greatest teachers because not only did I watch them resolve conflict much better than that, but also every time I screwed up and it didn't go well, they were my guinea pigs. For example, I watched them handle conflict in a way that disarmed the other person and didn't make them feel the need to physically escalate. And I got really curious about like, okay, how could I do that? And the number one thing that you do is you just show an interest in who they are and what they need. It's like, hey, I know you know this rule about whatever, whatever. So what's going on right now? Why are you having a hard time with that role? That's a much different conversation than me saying, I'm going to kick you out if you don't pay attention to the rules. Right? That's very different. Much more effective, right? Because it's interesting in them as a- person as opposed to making them the problem. So you're creating a platform where they can express themselves and explain why this is a struggle for them. And you're assuming that they're totally competent and able to pay attention to those rules. And then the other way which was you said you were just, oh, let's be, everything's going to be okay. Oh, you're just having a rough day. What do you need, honey? Oh, do you want me to go get you some food? I heard someone put it this way, they said, you basically saying, this is making me very uncomfortable. Let's just solve it quickly so we can move on. Yes, yes. Was that what you think you were doing? Oh, totally. And both of them are like very classic fight, flight, freeze responses, right? Where your adrenaline is pushing you one direction or the other way too aggressive or way too compliant. And as you know, if you get way too compliant, the whole room turns into chaos fast because no one's holding the space. And you cannot function like that. No. Now, when you think about how we handle conflict, which is many different ways, does that have anything to do with where we were raised, how they handle conflict in our homes, when we fought with our siblings or... how our parents handled situations, does it have anything to do with that? Bingo, yes, you're exactly right. Because a lot of us were raised in situations, especially with their siblings, that there was always a clear winner, right? I don't know about the arguments you might've had with your brothers, but when I had those arguments, there was always a clear winner. And if you go into conflict, assuming that only one person can win. It will be adversarial. You will fight like it's the last one of your life. Right? Yeah. So what I encourage people to do is like take a step back from that and think about what do I most want for this relationship and the future of this relationship, right? Am I willing to compromise on how I feel about this one thing? For example, there was a big family conflict around the date of my daughter's graduation party. Okay, can I make that compromise around this date, knowing that the long-term relationship is more important and that it's not about one person winning, it's about, hey, how do we move forward and keep things harmonious between us? Because I wanna be able to talk to you next year too. Right. Yeah, and the question about our childhood is also really insightful because when we're little, we have less voice, less choice, right? The grownups can literally just pick us up and move our bodies wherever we need to be moved. And we get the sense of disempowerment when we're not heard, when we don't get our way, we're more likely to feel like, oh, that's what happens with conflict. I just get overpowered. And so that's another reason to come out of the corner, either fighting or with our head down already. And so I just really encourage folks like, okay, look at all that stuff from your childhood and remind yourself this is not now. That was then, right? And I have a lot of agency and I have a lot of choice here and get really grounded in what is my role in the situation right now. But also when looking at your childhood, when the parents had to pick you up and move you out of the way because you were sitting in front of the TV and the rest of the family had to work, what do you expect them to do? You know, give grace to the parents when looking back at your childhood and say, Yes, it wasn't fun, mom, when you moved me out of the front of the TV screen, but I understand now that I'm a parent and I forgive you. Totally. Let it go. But yes, you're right. You're grown up now. Own it. You have agency. And the other thing I do for people who are still struggling with things from their past and from their childhood is I remind them that the things that get stored in your long-term memory from your childhood are the things that hurt. So like when you had this really beautiful day, and your parents were really great people in your life, that is not as likely to still be in that library of a brain you have unless you actually had physical pain or emotional pain. Because that's just how our short-term to long-term memory system works. The painful stuff gets remembered. And so basically as we look back at her childhood, it's like a horror movie when in fact, maybe it wasn't so bad, right? Those are just the parts you remember. Those are the parts that are most likely to be stored in your long-term memory. I encourage people, don't define your childhood by those memories, but dig into what's accurate, what's true, what are the family photos show, what are the stories you and your siblings might share. Yes, because it wasn't a whole horror show. Listen. I wasn't there, but I don't believe anybody has. It's all horror 100% of the time. I don't think that's true. Hopefully not. Hopefully not, for sure. Elia, when you mentioned the winning, who's gonna win this argument? They always say when talking about married couples that the wife wants to win and the husbands, they know now to just relent and let it go. What did they win is my question. Right, yeah. Yeah, if you're engaged in a relationship that's lasting longer than that one day, that one point in time, you really haven't won. A conflict is not resolved unless it's not likely to happen again. So whatever the situation that the argument was about, say it was, Hey, you know, when I cook dinner, I really want you to do the dishes. If that was the argument, and she wins and he goes in and does the dishes, rah rah. But she knows this is probably going to happen tomorrow night too. He's going to drag his feet again. Then it's not really resolved, is it? Right. So you've just kicked the can down the road for something that's still underlying this tension. The other way to know if it's resolved is has there been an increased interest in understanding between the people involved and if there's been no increase in trust and understanding, there's still no resolution. So I really encourage people like look. for and reach into resolution. Hey, so every time I cook, we have this discussion and I'm noticing a trend. I'm wondering like, what can we do so that we're not here again tomorrow night? Right. Cause it must be exhausting going through the same discussion over again. Oh yeah. And the same tension and the same mean mugging. Right? The same like waiting for somebody to go in the kitchen. Because you know what's going to happen, which is the same the day before? Yep. Now let's talk about, as you were saying, conflict within ourselves. First of all, please let us know the way we generally handle conflict, what causes that and why is conflict within ourselves the major problem? I spend most of my time training people how to deescalate themselves. Once they get good at that, they can handle any conflict. Right? Because so much of how we see ourselves and so much of that fight, fight free system, just completely mess with us. Basically we have a busted threat assessor. We are not able to look at a situation and accurately understand if our lives are threatened by it because our body is telling us, Oh my gosh, you're going to die. You're in danger, right? And it's just a conversation about the damn dishes, but my body is giving me. all of the cortisol and all of the adrenaline as though somebody's about to attack me physically. And so I really encourage people, okay, so your threat assessor is lying to you, and you also in that threat assessor have all of these things around the ranking that we use in this country. Okay, what's this person's gender? What's their race? What's their class? Right? All of these ways that we kind of feel power over or less than other people, that's going on. A lot. Yep, and our early memories, right? And our emotions. All of this stuff is flooding us and giving us bad information about the situation that's right in front of us. And so I basically walk everybody through the steps of their threat assessor lying to them and say, okay, so all you have is like whatever a camera would see of this scene right now. And if that's the only thing you're making, you're informed. decisions on how much more freedom will you have. But to do that, people have to like really get honest about all of those other things that are going on in their brains. And one of the big, big differences, and we talked about this before we got on air together, was the difference between who we are, like our true selves, and our deep fears about how other people see us. There's a big gap there. right? And how we want the world to see us and how I really want Roberta to think I'm just like, so great, right? But yeah, this mask. Yeah, that mask that we construct so carefully, there's some space between that and our true selves. And that space creates a lot of insecurity. And all it takes is somebody to look grumpy in our direction. And ding, right? Our insecurity meter is flaring up like, oh, no. They're really mad at me and I must have messed up and blah, blah. It's probably because I'm this and that and you know, I really should go on a diet. And none of that was even said, but that's where we go. That's where our insecurities live. And that's what allows us to overreact when there's tension with another human. Just to look at that. Yeah. Just to be honest about those painful places. My favorite definition of power is. Power is. where you've taken the wounds that you've had in your life and you've healed them and you've made them work for you. Oh, say that again, please. So power is where you've taken the wounds that you've had, you've healed them, and you've put them to work. And that's the definition by Dr. LaTisha Nyeto, who's here in Washington state. She does some great stuff. And once we have that understanding of power, then we kind of go, oh, okay. So yeah, this is a hard situation. I've been through worse and I know how to handle worse. This is who I am and I don't have to worry about what's going on over there. It probably has nothing to do with me. And most of the time it doesn't when you actually find out because here's what we do. When you are just quiet and I walk into the room, I think, why is Christine mad at me? And my insecurities kick in, like you said. I start thinking you met at me because of A, B, C, and D that I'm already thinking about myself. And then instead of asking, why do we not ask? Right, our insecurity doesn't let us ask. I know it's so crazy. I've always challenged people like, just go ask, just go ask. And they all look at me like, you're crazy. Why would I go ask? Because it's like a great like social anthropology experiment. Like, well, okay, I'm a nerd that way. But I do go ask. I am one of those weird people that asks. And you're right, 90% of the time, it's totally something on their side, on their life, that had nothing to do with me. And the 10% of the time that it does have to do with me, I've created a new understanding and a new clarity that I didn't have with this person, and our relationship gets stronger because of it. How is that a bad thing? Either way, there's a win. Exactly. Let's say you work together. and you think Christine is mad at you, because she's quiet when you said hello in the morning and you walked past the coffee machine and whatnot, you will sit at the office the whole day thinking that she's mad at you and you don't ask. Yeah, I develop a whole story about it. I have this whole backstory because that's what humans do, right? Every time you do something, I'm gonna interpret it from that story. That's the problem. Right, yeah. She just moved my coffee cup out of the way on the meeting table. Oh my God. Yeah. She's really got it in for me today. It sounds silly, but it happens between pro labs. Yeah. And you throw in those socialization things around rank, race, gender. Right. Yeah, if Kristen moves my cup out of the way, she doesn't like black people. Yes. Yeah, because we all have those other wounds that we carry, especially as women, you know, that we've been treated poorly and we're just quick to internalize, quick to believe that it's something bad about us. Right. Everything is emotional as well. We always look at it from an emotional standpoint. So let's talk about now, if I've asked you and you told me you do have a problem with something I did or said, you were just trying to process and everything. So I asked you, I said, Chris, so what's wrong? So how, if there is conflict between us, how do we handle that? Great. Well, number one is make sure it's just like CPR first aid. Don't enter the scene if you don't have your own safety. So if I can't have an emotionally charged conversation with you, I'm not gonna start one, right? So I'm not gonna ask unless I have my grounded, happy, ready to go self there. And then I'm gonna come up and say, okay, so hey, Roberta, normally you're kind of like this and right now, you're acting more like that. And I'm just curious, is there something going on? Something that I need to know about, right? So I've let it be... on you to tell me what is going on. And if you say, oh, well, I'm just really stressed and blah, blah. And that's my chance to say, okay, well, if there's anything that I've done to step on your toes, because I can be like a little oblivious sometimes, I just want you to know you have my complete permission to let me know. And if you want any support as relates to stressing you out, I'm there for you. Here's how we usually respond. If you say, oh no, I'm just stressed about my own girls questions. That nothing to do with you. Then why didn't you say hello to me when I said hello at the office? Right? Right. Yeah. That's like, that feels like an attack, doesn't it? And I would really encourage people to have some humility, like be able to laugh. Like, can you believe like when you didn't say hello, and you came in the door, I just went to this whole other place and I'm kind of embarrassed about it right now. I'm sorry that I was going there. That is so much better. Yeah. But what if then I say, you know what? Last week at the meeting when the boss said you talked over me, I didn't like that. I don't. And then I remembered that even the week before when this happened, then the story is being written, right? Yeah. Adding to the story because of that one incident. Yeah. So if I were to respond to that, what would happen? Well, if I have the resources what I'm going to basically say is, wow, this sounds like I did actually step on your toes. And I want to learn more about how not to do that. And I'm wondering if we could set up time just to talk a little bit more, because I want to benefit from a really positive and open working relationship with you. And that deserves more than just the two minutes I have right now. So how are you looking for maybe tomorrow at lunchtime? And by doing that, then we're basically carving out the space that says, this relationship is important. I was probably wrong and I definitely stepped on your toes and I wanna learn what was going on so that I'm hearing you and I'm not doing it again. So the other person wants to feel heard in most cases. Yes. Is that when they say, listening does not mean offering advice or solution immediately? Yeah. Definitely, you take time to hear them. And then as they say, okay, so here's what happened last week, the boss, blah, blah. And then I had a really great answer and you interrupted me. My first thing is going to be like, Oh my gosh, you know, I'm going to apologize. And I'm going to be really clear about how I did not mean to interrupt. You know, I might even problem solve a little bit about like, you know, I've got some hearing loss in my right ear. It's possible I didn't hear that you had started to speak. Right. And. that that's not an excuse, but it is an explanation. And one thing I wanna do moving forward is I want to like sit on the other side from you. Or I'm gonna start making better eye contact because I don't always notice that your lips are moving. That you're about to say something for me, you be quiet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also just to be really clear with them that whatever I do is not about how I feel about you. Like we mentioned earlier about that ranking thing, you know that when we're stressed, whatever implicit bias we have about women, about race, about whatever, all of that comes up. We're much more likely to act out our bias when we're stressed. And so to give each other permission to have dedicated space, to relationship build. and to repair and mend any issues means that we're showing up when we're not stressed, when we're well arrested, and then we've really been thinking about what kind of relationship do I want to have with this co-worker in the future. Right. So look at the long-term goal of establishing a relationship of trust. Yes. Back to when couples have conflict. Would you recommend the strategy of if we had local heads and we're really fighting, one of them needs to storm out of the house and cool down for a second? Would you recommend that or is there a better way to handle that situation? Well, we do know that the fight-fight freeze, once that's going, that for about 20 minutes at least, you're worthless. No new information is going in. All you can do is just repeat the same things over and over again. Your language processing is really pretty rudimentary at that point. So if you feel that level of overwhelm, yes, totally step out. But you don't have to do it in a way that's about slamming doors and screaming, right? You just have to say, I don't have the capacity to have this conversation right now, but I want to, I'm gonna go take care of myself before we have this conversation. I'm gonna go walk the dog or I'm gonna go. Workout, whatever I need to do, because basically it's kind of like the request we made of our co-worker. This is an important conversation. I want to come back to it when I'm resourced. Right? Speaking of workout, you mentioned earlier how the release of the cortisol and that the science behind our emotions in this conflict. Yes. Please elaborate more. Of course. Yeah, you're right. Our body is fueled. to like have a fist to fist combat situation or to run like hell. Both of those mean that the adrenaline that cortisol is going into our muscles to prepare us. So if we are smart and taking good care of our bodies, every time we have that little trigger, within the next 24 hours, I encourage people to actually have at least 10 minutes of elevated heart rate exercise. Doesn't matter what you do, your body can't tell the difference. And that allows us not to be traumatized and allows us not to store that in our muscles as some type of memory of something unresolved. Because once that happens, for example, I used to run a shelter where bad stuff would go down. We had a shooting, we had people with knives, we had people who overdosed. I mean, it was a really intense situation. And so sometimes my volunteers who'd been there for a few months, maybe three, four months, would report like every time I walk in the door, my stomach drops. And I would say, oh, okay, so what that means is that your body's going into fight, flight, freeze, and you didn't move it. You didn't like have physical activity within the 24 hour period afterwards to reassure your body that you're actually safe. That you're safe. Yeah. Because it's trying to protect you because it knows what's coming if you enter the store. So those feelings are basically saying, let's survive. Let's get away from this danger. Oh, this place is terrible. Bad stuff happens here. Oh my God. Yeah. So exercise does help. Exercise is a great idea. And you'll know, you'll know you're ready for that conversation when you can control your rate of breath. Other things that people can do is the neurovascular hold where you put one hand on the forehead and one hand on the back of the scalp. Apply gentle pressure for... about 20 to 30 seconds. Okay. Do that while controlling your breath. I encourage people to do a count on the inhale and the exhale and make the exhale twice as long. And just doing that is like showing your body, hey, I got you, I'm literally holding my body right now and making sure it knows that it's safe. And if I can do that and feel calmed down and feel like I'm ready for that conversation. Then I can come in and re-engage with my partner and say, I'm not nearly as hot under the collar now, is now a good time for us to talk about that issue. That really helps because if you've noticed when we are hot under the collar as you say, sometimes we say things we regret and wish we could take back and it's too late, they've already heard it. Yes. It's a stupid situation. It is, it is, yeah. We say some things that are just quite regrettable. Yes, so it's better to take some time, sort yourself out, you know, using the tools you've just given us so that you come back and really be sober in a sense in the words that are going to come out of your mouth. Right, right. And if you have ways just to like expand on physical energy, just to get what I call out with my kids, I like, need to go get my yas out. For me, that's my Kung Fu class. But everybody has their thing, right? And whatever it, What else that I didn't ask that you can talk to us about when it comes to resolving conflict? Just know that you can't be gentle and kind and curious about another person until you've done it for yourself. So you really have to focus on what do I need right now? What's my body telling me? Right? What kind of compassion can I give to myself? Oh, you know what? I've been under a lot of stress lately. you know, it's possible and I don't have my full resources right now. Oh, okay. All right. So just know I can do that for myself because every study that's been done on humans other than folks that are sociopaths shows that we are hardwired for kindness. We respond to kindness. We need kindness. It's basically our operating language, right? That is so beautiful. Yes. Yeah. And but we have to give it to ourselves because If we don't give it to ourselves and then we just try to go help this other person who's having this big crisis, we can't. We're not giving it to ourselves first. Mm-hmm. Right. That is so beautiful. Kindness is how we are wired. When you think of the online space, you know those viral videos, the Kashia Target, and somebody's screaming at them, and they're really trying to be doing their job and they're trying to be polite because remember they're being recorded. Right. And this person is just screaming. We've been talking about a long-term relationship like a loving relationship, work relationship. You're going to see this person once. They're screaming like that and never going to come back to Target again, or that branch at least. What about the person on the other side who most of the time they usually not wrong, they just following company policy and this person is just screaming at them. As a matter of fact, that's my chief source of income. is folks in a customer service job. Their bosses are hiring me to come in and train their team members and how to be firm and friendly at the same time. So I basically train them in like how to set boundaries around what is and is not appropriate. So most employers will have code of conduct. Like, hey, to be in our store, you need to do X, Y, and Z. And if you don't, we're gonna have the security people show up and escort you out. So everybody knows what those rules are. And they also know, hey, if somebody is breaking that rule, i.e. they just called me something related to my gender. They just used not family-friendly language. They just yelled at me, right? Like whatever the rules are, once those rules are broken, my employers told me like what I can do, right? There's a handset that I can say, hey, blah, blah. You know, we've got a code three, a register four, right? Whatever. Or a hand signal that I can give that another cashier is gonna pick up on. Like I train them how to communicate their distress signal with each other in a way that doesn't alert the screaming customer. So it's usually language that's on the down low. And once they do that, they realize I'm not alone because the person who's attempting to bully them, often will feel a lot more successful if they make you feel isolated, if they make you feel alone, if they make you feel unresourced. Right. If they make you feel small, right? So I remind people, pull in your resources, alert your team members what's going on and let them come to your rescue while you stand your ground. And you might just be repeating over and over again. Yeah, they say, ma'am, I'm sorry, I cannot take it back. You don't have a receipt and it doesn't have a tag. But ma'am, it's company policy. I really cannot take this back. That's all you gotta do. You're just the messenger. You're not the enforcer. I really encourage people. You can give them the same message over and over again. This is not about you. This is about their poor skills and often them not having power in the situation. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but the people who scream the loudest are the ones that feel like they really don't have power. They are usually in the wrong. I think there was another one where they really did not make a booking and they were lying and said they didn't. Things like that. Oh my gosh. And she kept saying, sir, I'm looking at our computers right now. We don't have that name in our bookings. No, no, no. Where is my family supposed to sleep? You should have worried about that before you showed up here. But you can't say that, obviously. No, no. No, you are not going to say that. You're not going to say that. The wrong thing is, they scream not knowing. I don't know if they're not aware that they're wrong, but they're on the wrong most of the time. And it's okay to say, wow, you know, if I didn't know where I was going to sleep tonight, I would be so terrified. You have every right to have some really big feelings right now. But that's not okay for you to yell at me. You're letting them know that yes, Big feelings are okay, but there's still limits about what you can do. The other thing I tell people is, say that their behavior is okay, but the place for it's not. You know, for one of the wineries I worked with, they had a mom whose kids were just running all over the winery. That's like, that's not an appropriate place, right? So all they had to do is say, hey, there's a great park two blocks down. If you want your running kids to go to that park, that would be fine. We'll hold your table for you guys to come back. Right. In other words, the behaviors find the places not. You're not trying to make them bad, you're just letting them know. Not the right venue. That is totally understandable and it's common sense, but obviously, you know, we're humans, so there will be one or two cases for those who might not accept that still. Last words of wisdom, Christine, when it comes to the work you do and What would you live with us? We always have a little space to make a decision. We don't have to react. Just because somebody has said something that just triggers us or has done something that makes us see red, we still have a choice. And that little space of decision is our opportunity for growth. Words of wisdom from Kristine Scott. the chief trainer for Seattle Conflict Resolution. Thank you so much for being on our show today and for sharing such great wisdom. Thank you. And Roberta, I've got a special offer, if I can, for your listeners. Please, go ahead. Yes, we love us. Your listeners who are business owners, I would love to give you a free cost calculator on what conflict is costing you. It will show you how much turnover is actually hitting your bottom line. And I could include a porphyry, a kind of a conflict resolution rating scale to see if your team is ready to handle the types of things that they're seeing at the workplace. Excellent. Is there gonna be a website for that so that I can put it on the show notes? Yeah, yeah. I'll just give you my website. Please do, yes. So if you can give us your website and any other social media handles where you would like people to reach you. Well, of course. It's www.seattle.com. conflictresolution.com. All right. And everything is there. Yep. Special offer, all the information. Excellent. All you have to do is click the button that says book a consultation. Okay. www.seattleconflictresolution.com. Thank you so much, Kristine, Scott. Don't forget to subscribe, give a rating and a review, and we'll be with you next time.