The Courage to Have the Conversation, with Karin Hurt and David Dye – Episode 458 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Karin Hurt and David Dye, the CEO and President, respectively, of Let’s Grow Leaders, dive into the findings of their book “Powerful Phrases For Dealing With Workplace Conflict”, including the REAL trends of workplace conflict and what’s driving it, the role of generational leadership styles, new world conflict vs old world conflicts, expectation violation, why silence is selfish, going with your G.O.A.T.s, scheduling the finish, having the courage to have the conversation, and contending with a “global staring contest with mortality”.

About Karin and David:

Karin Hurt and David Dye are the CEO and President, respectively, of Let’s Grow Leaders leadership development and training. They have authored several popular books, including Courageous Cultures, as well as Powerful Phrases For Dealing With Workplace Conflict: What to Say Next to Destress the Workday, Build Collaboration and Calm Difficult Customers and Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results-Without Losing Your Soul. A former Verizon Wireless executive, Karin was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of great leadership speakers. David Dye is a former executive and elected official. Karin and David are committed to their philanthropic initiative, Winning Wells – building clean water wells for the people of Cambodia.

They are also a couple. They met online and started reading and supporting one another’s work. After a while, they realized they were writing the same book, so decided to collaborate, resulting in Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul, while David was living in Colorado and Karin was in Maryland. Soon after the book was complete, they realized they had fallen in love somewhere along the way, got married, and merged their businesses.

Karin is a former Verizon Wireless executive, known for growing courageous leaders, building great cultures, and inspiring high-performance teams. She’s the award Winning Author of five books, and was named as in Inc. Great Leadership Speaker for her highly-interactive keynotes and executive programs. She inspires and guides leaders with Leadership Development programs; a weekly blog, and the “Asking For a Friend” show.

David helps leaders and teams achieve transformational results without sacrificing their humanity. As a former executive and elected official, he is known for practical leadership techniques you can use right away. He’s the award Winning Author of six books, and is a master facilitator inspiring practical innovation through strategic innovation programs. He encourages and grows leaders with Leadership Development programs; a weekly blog, and the “Leadership Without Losing Your Soul” podcast.

Their notable World Workplace Conflict and Collaboration Survey spoke with 5,000 people in over 46 Countries and all 50 states.

Learn more at LetsGrowLeaders.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Stephanie Maas
So, you all do a lot together. That is my understanding on your background that y’all really do a lot together. But I’m not going to start there. Instead, what I’d really love to start with is a little bit about your journey to this book, powerful phrases for dealing with workplace conflict, I would be curious to see if you really believe it’s growing? Or if it’s something we’re just more, you know, talking more about?

Karin Hurt
Yeah. So it’s interesting, we thought, hmm, are we really the right people to write this book, you know, because, you know, there’s a, we’re a husband and wife team, having just, you know, gone through the stress of the pandemic, are we always perfect at managing conflict ourselves? Right. So that was our first thing. But we talk about how important it is to have candid conversations. It’s really, all right, we’re not perfect at it. But we really do it the deep is heart of hearts believe that these conversations are so critical. But let’s really to your point, is conflict actually getting worse? Why are people thinking this? So let’s do some research. And that led us to do the world workplace conflict and collaboration of research to really ground the book. So we understood what was going on? Is conflict actually getting worse? And if it is, why, and what are some of the dynamics at play? And then the so what so what do we need to be doing differently? Now? What has changed? And what is the approach to these conversations need to look like?

David Dye
Well, if we dive into the research, the short answer to that question about is it getting worse and so forth? You know, the conflict is a part of human experience. And I think that’s one of the things is we set the table for talking about workplace conflict, it’s a part of being human, we’re going to have conflict, the question is, is it going to be destructive? Or can it be constructive and productive and collaborative and help us achieve new ideas and better workplaces and more effective efficient teams and better service? So the key for all of that is how we’re going about it. So when we dive into the research, one of the questions that we asked is, Are you experiencing more or less workplace conflict in the last few years? Because we were curious to find out has the pandemic had that effect that kind of qualitatively feel in the air, but isn’t there and overall 5000 plus people, 46 different countries, very strong reporting 70% of folks report that the level of conflict is the same or more than it was a few years ago. And what’s interesting is in that remaining 30%, who said, No, I’m experiencing less conflict, when you then ask them why half of those folks say, Well, the reason why is that they left their job, they found someplace else, or they’ve left the onsite workplace, Alex, I’m working remotely now. And I’m not interacting with human beings. So I’m not having conflict. Well, okay, that feels maybe less conflict feels better for that individual. But the challenge there is all of the last constructive, productive interaction that could be happening. When you look at all of that, in total, there is an increase, and even the decrease is not entirely positive.

Stephanie Maas
I think that really speaks to the power of deep dive with your research, not just taking answers at a surface level, but pulling the layers back a little bit to say, that’s interesting.

David Dye
You know, several things came up that were interesting to us. So the first thing was that when people were saying, Okay, there’s less like, Okay, why and half of those words, because somebody left, there’s also some positive. So when people are saying those who are reporting less conflict, at work, there were people who were saying it’s because we’ve got better at talking about things because our leadership is doing more, it was smaller, but there are some positive trends that to build on. And that you can see, that should encourage all of us that it’s possible. And then one of the questions we asked was about past big conflicts you’ve experienced, what are those, you know, conflicts with bosses, conflicts with co workers, conflicts with customers vendor? I mean, if there’s a conflict available, that just about all of them came out, there wasn’t any one big one. But then we followed up and said, Okay, if you could go back and give yourself some advice, what would you tell yourself, and this one was kind of astounding, just the magnitude of the number 55% of folks said, I would go back and tell myself, I need to be more patient, I need to remain calm. And then after that, it was 21% saying, Hey, I recommend talk about it, speak up, address it directly. And so it was interesting that three quarters 76% of people there total advice, be patient, remain calm and talk about it.

Karin Hurt
I also think that the extent to which people cited mental health challenges and the stress associated with the pandemic, you know, I think there’s a lot of language of well, that, you know, the pandemic is behind us, but it is left it has left an imprint on people that I think that we might be under estimating and 21% said that that is the source of the conflict is that you know, this, this feeling of unease of mental health of the lingering stress. Part of that is you we all chose our bubble, right? So they’re created this us and them even amongst people that we cared about. And, you know, we there was like, I’m afraid of other people, all of that and living that way for so long, I think created some sense of anxiety that is lingering. And coupled on that it was also the last couple of years, it wasn’t just a pandemic, it was also worldwide social unrest, we’ve had wars, you know, and this is a global survey. So this is in the context of a lot of external conflict that people are dealing with, then you’ve got social media, the way social media is working, you know, you’re getting fed to things that are going to fire you up, or just living in this edge. So when you’re, you know, coworker decides to, you know, heat up the leftover fish in the microwave, and it’s smelling up the entire office, you’re like, you know, you’re on edge already. And then it’s like, boom.

Stephanie Maas
One of the phenomenons I think of our generation is this emphasis on leadership, the boomers really were the leadership was Do what I say, Yes, suck it up. Nobody cared if there was job satisfaction, you know, you had bills to pay. So you did it. And at the end of, you know, 30 years, you got to go watch in, you know, you went to go do whatever you did for five years before you died. But we have really seen this development of a desire for different leadership. And I want to really talk specifically about that as it relates to conflict, what have you seen change, and then I’d love for you to address what you see coming to leap through conflict.

David Dye
So let’s start with our research. When we asked people who are reporting more conflict at work for their major reasons, in addition to the mental health and anxiety, pandemic related stress, the two number one responses were overwhelmed burnout, understaffing, all of those kinds of issues. And then poor management practices. And so when you dive into that again, and pull back the curtain and dive underneath that, you find that there’s a massive amount of change happening in the modern workplace. I don’t think this is news to anybody, right. But let’s take a look at what those things are. So first, you’ve got the whole move to remote hybrid back again, not back again, all different varieties of that, then you’ve got this global staring contest with mortality. That was the pandemic that made a lot of people reevaluate their values, how they wanted to live, what they wanted, from their work, what they didn’t want opportunities for more pay elsewhere. So you had the great resignation as people went looking elsewhere, or I don’t like those values I’m leaving, and the quiet quitting that went along, you know, so you’ve got all of these things happening. And then you’ve got, as you were saying, Stephanie, you’ve got a workforce today that is demanding more from leadership more meaning and purpose, that’s, that’s a higher value to them, I need meaning and purpose in my work, the emotional connection to my co workers and to my manager, and to feel like they care about me as a human being, while at the same time, there is increasing complexity in the workplace with increasing multi timezone multi geography teams, you’ve got more matrix organizations, more complex structures, all of that then breeds more, more isolation takes a lot more intentionality, all of those factors add up to an increased demand on managers and leaders to lead effectively. And the skill set has not caught up with the reality yet. So all of that combines to create what you know, one of the what we call conflict cocktails. And so leaders have a lot of work to do. And that’s our job is, and we love helping them do that with all the practice skills that are available. But that is also the reality that they’re confronting. And then then there’s the impact on teams.

Karin Hurt
What’s really I find really interesting is the number of times a day that my phone rings, where someone says, Hey, you know, what we need, we need to teach our leaders how to lead remote teams. And so my first question always is, have they had any leadership training at all before? And so often, it’s no what we haven’t done any, how do you connect with your team as a human being? It’s harder in a remote environment. But Jay, if you’ve got those skills, right, how do you get real clarity about what success looks like and set clear expectations? How do you have a difficult accountability conversation? If somebody doesn’t do right, all of those things? We’re seeing a lot of folks that have never even been trained in some of those fundamental areas, man Gope. And I think there are is a very big focus now on some areas that were not focused on before creating psychological safety. Right? That is one of the most important things you can’t not you cannot spend a minute on LinkedIn without seeing somebody talking about the importance of creating deep psychological safety, diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging. Right. These are conversations that have really Thank goodness, it finally come to the forefront, right? So not only do you need to get great results, you also need to create psychological safety, you need to create a culture of belonging. And it’s just feeling like a lot of things. And if you haven’t been trained to do that, or if you haven’t been trained, what do you do when you’ve got a new, a new person entering the workforce? Who, by the way, went to college, in their, in their high school bedroom, right? And that’s a remote, then they got on boarded to this new job, and they never actually got have been in person, how do you create a real connection to your mission, vision and values in a context like that? Have you? Have we trained people how to do that? Because that’s tough stuff.

David Dye
Yeah, I’ve just thinking of a conversation we had with a senior leader earlier this week, somebody who’s very values based, has a high degree of loyalty and trust from her existing team. And she was describing the challenges that she and her team have been having with incoming workforce, who are genuinely having conversations like What do you mean, I have to be on time and not with no irony. Like, that’s not inclusive? That’s not and they’re misusing the language right there. That’s they’re completely misusing the language. But it’s been more than once that she’s had these conversations, you scratch your head saying, are you seeing this elsewhere? It’s not that it’s always that but the social dynamics, common human dialogue to solve baseline problems, then you’ve got others who are, you know, we’re thinking of another client of ours who has some leaders who struggle with, I really want to do all these things, and they are passionately hurt committed to doing them. And across their team, there is one hour a day where they can potentially get everybody together at the same time online. And that one hour includes some people being at 9pm, some people doing a 7am. Right, that kind of thing. And so, you know, those are realities.

Stephanie Maas
When I first think of conflict, I think of things like the fish in the microwave, you know, tale as old as time. But what I really hear you speaking to is, we’re kind of in a new world, has this new world created this new conflict?

Karin Hurt
I think there are certainly buckets of new conflict. And there they rhyme with the old conflict, though. All right. So, you know, it’s, do we have clarity, we’re seeing a lot of conflict around unclear expectations, a lot of conversation, conflict conversations come from, I expected you to do this. And you did that. Right. So think about and almost any conflict that you have, it’s usually an expectation violation of some sort. So if I think that it is polite to have your cameras on so that we can bond as a team, and you think, you know, is going from Zoom meeting to zoom meeting is giving me zoom fatigue, and I am exhausted, and I just can’t even but then so you show up and don’t turn your camera on? And I’m like, do you not respect me? Or is this conversation not important enough for you to turn your camera on? Now, the problem there is that we don’t have a norm for in meetings like this, we do that and that we have talked about in advance. So it’s, it’s those kinds of things.

David Dye
I think, with the addition of the remote, and this is I mean, so many workplaces, even if you are an in person team, we’re still doing so much with remote communication. And whether that’s a Slack channel, or zoom, or Microsoft Teams, or any of those things, you know, the way our brains work, it’s very easy to reduce somebody to a set of pixels on a screen to reduce them to their job title. That’s harder to do when you’re seeing that person every day. And you might get a glimpse of their you know what they did this weekend or that kind of thing. But it takes a lot more intentional effort to read three dimensionalized people, and it’s so easy to we go two dimensional on a flat screen, and then even less than that as glowing pixels and a chat thread and that sort of thing. So it’s possible, it can be done, but it takes a lot more effort. So when you look at the dimensions of conflict or collaboration, so the things that improve conflict when they’re there or cause it to be more destructive when they’re not the number one is connection. That’s the first thing is do we see Do we know each other as human beings? Then there’s clarity, Karen was talking about clarity, do we have a shared understanding of what success looks like? Next is curiosity. Are we truly interested in one another’s perspectives? And then finally, is commitment and that is do we have a shared agreement moving forward, of what actions we’re going to take and how that works? Those dimensions if we can address those make everything better?

Stephanie Maas
So I’m just gonna throw this out there when you guys are deciding on what to do for dinner together. Do you go through these steps? Hey, I’d like to connect…

David Dye
You kid but it’s funny because people often ask like, hey, well, I’m interested in what it must be like at your house. We do use the tools that I’m actually thinking of a conversation we had Two weeks ago, we were having a conflict about something I don’t remember the topic anymore about Kara does. I was like, Alright, I actually went through the four dimensions. And let’s talk through these and see if we’re aware. Do we have some more work to do? Absolutely.

Karin Hurt
Yeah, just you know, some other things that we really in the book, we really talk about giving people the words to have these conversations. And, you know, once one of these phrases works very well, in relationships, in any kind of relationship that you ever have, I really care about you. And I am sure that we can can’t find an outcome that will be good here. You know, I really care about you, I really care about this team, I really care about our work that we’re doing, I really care about our mission, right? If you can come from a place of I really care about this. And the other day, was talking someone, a manager through conflict that he was really, really, really fired up. And I said, You know what, because I knew the other person, I said, there’s one thing I know for sure, you both really care about the same outcome, you’re both trying to accomplish the exact same thing. Now you have differences of opinion about how you’re going to approach it. But I would start there like grounded in that go say, I know you want this, I want the exact same thing.

Stephanie Maas
That’s perfect becasue I think dealing with conflict is going to take time and practice, so forth and so on. But it is a skill.

David Dye
Absolutely, absolutely. And getting into those specific conversations, the reality for all of us is we’ll all be more effective and have a better enjoyment of life, if we can and workplaces in particular, and do more effective work, if we can navigate it effectively. So understanding that where the discomfort comes from, we’re social creatures, I don’t want to be disliked, I want to be on the outs from my my colleagues, like we need that it’s part of our human needs. The fear comes, I’m going to damage the relationship, I’m going to this is going to stink as a result, that fear becomes from a lack of skill. So if we can, as you said, practice and get good at those skills, it’s going to help us in order to practice in order to try I sometimes have to overcome that fear of what’s going to happen, that discomfort. And so there’s a conversation before we have a conversation with anybody else. There’s a conversation we have to have with ourselves. One of the powerful phrases to use with yourself is what happens if I don’t say anything? Because nothing’s going to change if nothing changes. And so what happens if I don’t say anything? What’s at risk? If I stay silent? What are my values here? What are the things that are that could happen are not going to happen next to really ask ourselves and take an honest look at that. Because sometimes maybe staying silent, might be the right call. Because really, there’s nearly nothing at stake here. And it’s just me, whatever. Most of the time, though, when there’s something that’s irritating us, I’m thinking of a specific example, when I was a newer employee, our CEO wanted to do a marketing project that I really felt lacked integrity. And I stood on it for nights spent, sleepless Lee going, how could he do that does Where’s his integrity. And after four nights that I finally got desperate enough that I spoke up, and I said, Hey, look, Mr. CEO, I can’t be a part of this lacks integrity. I don’t want to do this. It’s something along those lines. And he said, Oh, well, David, I do see it differently. I don’t think it lacks integrity the way that you think it does. And I don’t want you to violate your integrity. What do you think we could do here? Oh, well, what if we did this one tweak? He’s like, Yeah, we can do that. Problem solved. In this context. Silence is selfish. If I don’t say something, I am depriving the other person of the opportunity to make a different choice to take a different path to engage with me on that content. So I’ve got to say something.

Karin Hurt
Yeah. So David shared our four dimensions and productive conflict, the four C’s, well, we have what we call our goats, our greatest of all time, powerful phrases, right. So we’ve got a couple of goats for every one of those C’s. And so I think, you know, though, I shared the one around, you know, creating connection I really care about you care about this project. Another really good connection. One is, Tell me more, I have set myself up as an active listener in deep connection. And then another connection one is what we call a reflect to connect, which is where you are reflecting back the emotion. It sounds like you’re really frustrated with this decision. Now, you’re not saying they should be frustrated with this decision. You’re not saying you you are thinking it’s a bad decision. It’s just saying it sounds like you’re really frustrated with this decision. Tell me more. So those are some examples of connection. One’s a really good clarity. One is what would a successful outcome look like for you? Because now I’m curious because that’s a really important one because if we’re not trying to achieve the same thing, Then we’re never going to resolve the conflict. So it’s better to know that as fast as you can.

David Dye
Yeah, I think that there’s some nuance on that one, too, that’s important is it’s what would a successful outcome? What would it do for you? Because sometimes in a lot of workplace conflict, we’re like, well, I need the data. Well, I need to do this other thing. And we get into we get locked into these conflicts about well, this is what success looks like, for me. It’s like, Well, okay, but what will that do for you? What is it that you’re after? What’s that going to do for you? Well, I need the data in order to do this. Okay, well, let’s see if we can build a solution that can satisfy that and satisfy where I am, we need to do all of these things. And I need to stay healthy in the process, like, okay, how can we do both of those, until we know what those outcomes people are thinking about will do for them? It’s really hard to craft a shared solution. But once we do have that clarity, then we can move forward with something that tries to satisfy both.

Stephanie Maas
And it sounds like, again, correct me if I’m wrong, though, this clarity, while it can be very helpful for the leader, it also sounds like it would be helpful for the person as well, to what I immediately think of, is this a problem that actually needs to be solved? Or do I just need to listen?

Karin Hurt
Yeah. And then, you know, so that really leads to the whole series of curiosity questions, you know, if you can show up really curious about possibilities, are there other alternative ways to think about this? And really curious about what things are looking like from somebody else’s point of view? And so a good goat is, I’m curious what this looks like, from your perspective, you know, it’s a very neutral, easy to ask question, what do you suggest we do next? Because that that is a really good one, too, because a lot of times, particularly if you’ve got a lot of people who are chronically complaining, and they’re coming to you and jumping, solve this problem, solve this problem, right. So what what do you suggest we do? Well, gosh, I don’t know. It’s not an easy solution. So this curiosity questions are some, I think, the most important ones.

David Dye
And other curiosity, one that I love is, what can I do to support you right now? And Stephanie, that gets it that notion you were asking about earlier in terms of is this somebody I need to listen and hear and give them the chance to get that off their chest and let them know they’re not alone? And that they’ve been felt? And they’ve been heard? Or is their solution oriented? And so if we ask, hey, what can I do to support you right now? We’ll find out because it’s not always easy to know, when somebody is coming with their issue.

Stephanie Maas
And again, to your point, what do you suggest? What an empowering thing to say? Like, hey, I don’t need to be the source of all the answers. And that’s actually not what makes for a good leader. I mean, I think good leadership is about developing others and helping them but then at the same time, it’s empowering. But if they’re just a chronic, complainer it also nip that in the bud as well. Okay, bring me home, give me a goat for commitment.

Karin Hurt
David, you want to do that one?

David Dye
Sure, so when we talk about commitment, let’s just get the concept out there is that a lot of times, we will have a Groundhog’s Day situation where we may have a great conflict conversation, and we really discuss some solutions, and we leave with great intentions. But we haven’t made a shared agreement. And as a result, everything ends up happening again. And now we’re back where we were. So one of our favorite goats for commitment is, you know, we can align on an action, what’s one action we can both agree to is the next step. So maybe it’s to get that first. But then one of my favorites, we call this scheduling the finish. And it’s let’s schedule some time to talk about this again, and see how our solution has worked. So let’s get it on the calendar right now. We put it on our calendars right now let’s schedule the finish. And how about Friday, next week at 3pm. Let’s get together for 15 minutes and see how it’s working. And what that does is it increases the likelihood that we’re going to follow through on the commitment that we made to each other. And it gives us an opportunity to deal with any exceptions that came up, oh, well, then somebody was out sick and it didn’t happen, or there was this other business priority that came along. And we you know, all hands on deck, we responded to that. We didn’t keep our commitment. Well, if we don’t have a chance to talk about it, trust erodes. And we’re back where we were only now it’s worse, because we didn’t follow through on what we said. So if we’ve scheduled that time, where we’re going to follow up and follow through, it gives us the opportunity to say hey, you know, What, did you do the thing that I didn’t think? No, we didn’t. All right. Let’s acknowledge that. And let’s recommit and then schedule another one out so that we can maintain our commitment to each other. And that builds trust and it builds the collaboration.

Karin Hurt
Yeah, there’s one of the commitment ones that I find really useful in a really heated if we’re at two separate sides of a conflict as specific as you can be. So okay, what is one action we can both agree on? It pulls in a baby step to give us something that we can align on because we mean not be able to solve the whole thing. But let’s start.

Stephanie Maas
Is there anything else that you guys want to make sure we talk about in our time together?

Karin Hurt
You know, I think the most important thing is that as we asked people about how they felt, right, like, like when we when we you’ve had a conflict? Yeah. Had you spoke up? How did you feel after the words that come are full of I felt relieved, I felt hopeful. I, you know, I felt better. So that is our hope for you is that you are the listener is that have the courage to have the conversation because there is peace and optimism on the other side of that.

David Dye
And I would add, oh, first two things. So first, I think we’ve shared what eight or 10 phrases maybe and if you’re listening this book, powerful phrases for dealing with workplace conflict, what to say next to de stress the workday, build collaboration, calm, difficult customers, there are over 300 phrases in that book that will walk you through all different kinds of conflict that you might have at work with coworkers, the final thought I would want to leave you with and I’m going to come back to a story, a conversation that I had with a manager in his 30s. And this was about six, seven weeks ago, he had a situation at work was feeling some conflict needed to have a conversation hadn’t had the conversation. So we walked through some powerful phrases he could use to start the conversation, we scheduled the finish, let me know let’s call him Joe. So Joe, let me know when you’re gonna have the conversation, and I want to circle back and hear how it went. So you got the follow through. He texted me three days later. And the text said, David, I’m going to get a tattoo. It’s going to say, just have the conversation. I said, So Joe, I take it that the conversation went well. He said it did. He said, I didn’t get everything I wanted, you know, and they saw some things differently. And I learned some of their perspective. But my goodness, why didn’t I do this so much sooner. And we’re all capable of that when we have the right words to use. So just want to encourage listeners, have the conversation, get it started open the door and give people a chance.

Stephanie Maas
I love it. You know, fear is what keeps people from having these conversations. And a big way to get over fear is to have the tools to get through it. And these are the tools arm yourself with the appropriate tools so that the fear just dissolves because you know, you’re starting in the right way. So thank you both so much. Thank you all tremendously. I really appreciate you being here and available.

Karin Hurt
We are so grateful for you. We’re big fans of the important work in the show and thank you for all you do to encourage courage and to grow leaders.

David Dye
Our pleasure.