Embracing Team Conflict: A Catalyst for Growth and Innovation with Mark Wavle Episode 1

Ready for a deep dive into the intricate dynamics of team conflict? Let's dissect it together. I'm your host, Greg Miller, and joining me is Mark Wavle, the brains behind Unstuck Agile. We've put our heads together to bring you a fresh perspective on conflict in team settings. We're not shying away from the tension, we're embracing it, unpacking why it's absolutely crucial for creative and innovative projects.

Conflict isn't just a thorn in your side, it can be a catalyst for growth and learning. We'll walk you through just how avoiding conflict can stifle progress and breed mistrust. Learn from a company that welcomed open conflict, and the unexpected outcomes that ensued. Hear about Mark's personal experiences at Unstuck Agile, where he's taken on the intricate dance of initiating conflict with higher management. Understand the science behind our reactions to conflict and the tools you can harness to navigate through it. We challenge you to discard old notions of conflict and adopt a growth mindset, fostering a culture of learning in your teams.

BTW: This is Mark's second round on the show that's how awesome we think he is!

Contact Mark Wavle:
https://www.unstuckagile.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wavle/

Don't miss Scrum Day, scheduled for Sep 14, 2023, in Madison, WI, at the Alliant Energy Center. Morning keynote using Liberating Structures by Keith McCandless followed by break-out rooms including speakers from Stanford University and the authors of "Fixing your Scrum".  Afternoon keynote by Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org. Scrum is a team sport, so bring your team and get your tickets at www.ScrumDay.org. Hosted by Rebel Scrum.  Find the training you've been looking for at www.RebelScrum.site.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome to the podcast that challenges you from the inside. Come be more and discover the agile within. Now here's your host, Greg Miller.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Okay, welcome back everyone to the agile within. It's Greg and Mark, as usual. And today is another beautiful day. I'm here in Ohio, marks in South Carolina How's it going down there, mark?

Speaker 3: 0:44

Yeah, it's going well. Got up to like 93, 94 yesterday.

Speaker 2: 0:51

And.

Speaker 3: 0:51

Canadian fires coming in. I guess that's what it was. Like within an hour it dropped like down to 79.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Yeah, it got nicer too. My wife said get inside. You can't be outside with the smoke or whatever fog. I didn't see anything, but, yeah, everyone's doing well out there. So we have a really, I think, a really special guest today. I consider him a good friend. I've known him for 10 years now, back when I first started out starting out in agile, and his name is Mark Wavell. He's here in Cincinnati with me as well and he runs a company called Unstuck Agile. And welcome to the show, mark. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming back. This is Mark's second stint with us, if you've been listening for a while. Mark was one of my first handful of guests way back a few years ago when I first started it out, and he's always been a pleasure to talk to, always has great insights, and I thought I'd like to have him back. So what we're going to talk about today is through Mark's business. He has a with a partner named Chris Conlon. They're both professional scrum trainers.

Speaker 1: 2:06

We won't share those. Yeah, we won't share those.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Nothing stuck. Mark Wavell shared a story of he was with another Mark, but I think we're going to go with Mark Wavell or Mark W and Mark M. So OK, let's dive in Mark Wavell into transforming conflict. Why is conflict healthy for us?

Speaker 4: 2:25

Well, I think it's true of all teams and pretty much every relationship as well, but especially when we're talking about teams that are working on working in creative ways or innovative ways, like what Agile's intended to help us with, right that it's absolutely essential for us as team members to be able to essentially disagree with each other, to have different viewpoints and perspectives, and that, in its essence, is conflict, and there's a number of other words we could use for it.

Speaker 4: 2:58

Tension is fine for me, conflict sounds really scary for some people, but the point is, in teams and organizations, that is a natural thing, that it's going to occur, and actually it's a problem if there is not conflict or tension at all. That means you're missing stuff and you're not getting the best solutions or addressing things that you really need to as a team or an organization or a relationship. So it's really a question of how do we? What does it look like when it's healthy? How do we do that in ways that enable the kinds of outcomes we're trying to get to, as opposed to avoiding it or doing it in unhealthy ways?

Speaker 2: 3:36

That's interesting what you said. If conflict is missing or if conflict's not there, you're missing something. Yeah, that was interesting, because most people, myself included, are like, well, I don't want conflict, I don't want to argue with somebody. Why would I want to argue with? You're not saying force it, you're just saying. I think you're just saying that if you're not going deep enough maybe in building that relationship or just looking at that, yeah, I'll be honest.

Speaker 4: 4:07

part of the reason I'm talking about this because I don't like conflict either, right.

Speaker 4: 4:12

I noticed that I would rather just simply not have the conflict. That sounds hard. I'm not the kind of person who wants to go in with guns blazing. Now, there are different people and others want to go in with guns blazing. That's not necessarily healthy either, but what I've noticed on the teams that I've worked with and in the relationships that I've had too if there is actually no conflict, it ends up being false. It's actually not true.

Speaker 4: 4:41

We are just avoiding the conflict as opposed to dealing with the things we need to deal with, and that ends up costing us a lot. So I'll just take an example outside of a team to say, my wife and I, if we never had a disagreement about anything we've been married a number of years and I'll just say that would not be a good sign from a relationship standpoint for us, because there's inevitably anything from hey, you're leaving your socks on the floor, small stuff to all the way up to wow the way that you were just talking, or we were just having a conversation with our son. I don't think that's the best way we can go about doing that. And if we're not dealing with those things, that doesn't mean that they're not problems. That means we're not dealing with it, we're not addressing it, we're not looking at it and, in the case of teams, that means we're not producing things in the most effective way that are valuable, or the most efficient way that are, if you like, the cheapest and fastest.

Speaker 2: 5:38

So if you're always avoiding conflict, basically you're not growing.

Speaker 4: 5:43

Then right, yeah, Excellent connection. Yeah, because what is one of the major things we need to do when we're dealing with a complex or volatile or uncertain situation is we need to elevate learning. We need to make learning a first class citizen. So you may have experienced this I'm sorry if you have, but I'm pretty sure most people have on agile teams and scrum and specific. If you go to retrospective, right there you go, so what's going well? And everybody's like, oh yeah, high fives, pats on the back, et cetera, which is good. We want to celebrate what's going well. But then the question of what can we do better? And there's this silence, or you end up with these really tiny things. You're like you know, we could check our spelling better.

Speaker 1: 6:26

You're like really, that's what we're going to work on here, that's not a good smell.

Speaker 2: 6:34

No, I can give an example of. I have lots of examples. I think probably some of the best examples I had was the best example I had was I had unfortunately, I had five scrum teams at a company, which is not good but it's a lot, yes, but it worked. But what happened was when I first got them so at this company it was local here and I think in a retro. I asked a question in the retro. I can't remember the question. I was trying something.

Speaker 2: 7:16

I asked a question in the retro and my first inclination of some issues came out there and then it kind of like it was with one team and then I kind of fortunately I had you probably know what I'm talking about I had somebody on one of these five teams who was kind of like I don't know what the word you would use, but he would come to me with information, right, and I think everyone needs someone like that on a team Telling you how it really is basically right, hey, pay attention to this or this is going on. And he was just. He meant well, right, he wanted to help. So I kind of got into this and it's actually a larger problem than I realized. It's banned all five teams.

Speaker 2: 8:05

So what I did was I called. Some of them were in the office. This was before the pandemic. I had all of them that could come into the office and the others called in. We had the entire team gathered in a big room and I basically just I didn't. I wasn't harsh at all, but I basically was transparent with them, very honest, open and honest with them. There were some things that were being said about me, talked about about me. That was not true.

Speaker 2: 8:34

I had addressed that and then, to your point, people were not speaking up.

Speaker 2: 8:41

It was always oh, things are good, things are good.

Speaker 2: 8:43

And I remember challenging this one person who was sitting next to me I knew he had a lot built up in him and he wouldn't say it and finally I got him to say something about me that was negative in the meeting and I shook his hand and I said thank you for that and both marks. After that meeting ended, it took me the time to walk from that room back to my desk, which was through a door and around the corner, and by the time I got back to my desk and reopened my laptop again, which I had with me, I had messages, Ims from people, emails from people on the team thanking me for that, and it was like the analogy of popping a balloon in a good way. Right, All that tension, it got released and the team, just all the teams, felt differently, it felt better. We got it out there, it was released. And so I agree with you that that conflict I was nervous, that I wanted to know I didn't want to do it of course, but I forced myself to do it.

Speaker 2: 9:53

I knew it was for the better of the team and I proved it. It went great and from that point people started opening up more and the relationship felt better.

Speaker 3: 10:02

Yeah, that's a great story, greg. So Mark Wavell got a question for you. Before we get too deep on here, can you define conflict for us?

Speaker 4: 10:12

Yeah, I tend to talk about it in terms of tension that naturally exists from differing perspectives. So, if I use one of my favorite authors, susan Scott she wrote the book Fierce Conversations she describes it like a beach ball and I love analogies, so I use that one all the time. So, beach ball, there's different stripes of different colors on the beach ball right, and so wherever I'm standing is a different color stripe on the beach ball than where you're standing, mark, and where you're standing, greg, is a different color. Yeah, still, and if I'm not aware of it, I don't really recognize that there's a natural tension because you're standing on the green stripe and I'm standing on the blue stripe and Greg's standing on the white stripe. Maybe that we're looking at the same situation, maybe at best, but we're looking at the same situation from different perspectives, and so naturally, I'm going to speak from the color that I'm standing on, which I've already forgotten what colors. I just said blue. Maybe I'm going to speak from blue right and maybe, mark, you're going to speak from green and Greg's going to speak from his white perspective.

Speaker 4: 11:24

Of course we would. That's tension. That's even in the best of circumstances. We would expect that that would be tension because I'm holding on to my green perspective, because it's mine, and you're holding on to your blue perspective. Maybe I just swapped colors for us, but regardless, that's natural and that's how I would define conflict. Now, what gets really challenging is when we have something behind that, that's more than just it's my perspective, and that's where the conflict gets more intense. Is there something about me as a person because of it, or some solution that I'm really bought into, or something else like that? That's where you get what most people refer to as conflict. But I'm kind of broadening a little bit to even just say different perspectives bring tension.

Speaker 2: 12:11

It is different perspective. That's a great analogy. I love that yeah.

Speaker 4: 12:17

And part of what? Again tying it back to creativity, part of what is necessary for creativity to create new solutions are different perspectives.

Speaker 4: 12:28

We know this. There's been more and more studies lately that are showing at the right diversity of experience, perspective, etc. It ignites creativity in a group of people and when you have homogenous viewpoints and experience you actually diminish the creativity of that group of people. So if we want to solve problems that we've seen before the definition of complexity and volatility and all that stuff that Adrien's made to help us solve we need the diversity of thought and experience and we need to handle that in ways that empower, enable like, magnify our capabilities a team to address those.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Exactly. Yeah, now we're getting deep, we're digging down. My mind's really spinning here as you're talking. This is great.

Speaker 3: 13:11

Me too, Greg.

Speaker 2: 13:12

Yeah, good, I followed my train of thought there. So, yeah, on one hand we want we say we need that diversity, so it creates conflict. So I think people can maybe maybe you know, when you're not in the middle of conflict say yeah, yeah, we want the different perspectives, that's healthy.

Speaker 4: 13:36

Conceptually sounds great. Yeah, that's the right word.

Speaker 2: 13:39

It sounds great. Yes, we need that. We need to actually do it and be involved in that. You're like ah, so why do you think either, mark that? Why are people afraid of that? I guess that's kind of like why are we afraid? We know we need it, we know it's healthy, it can be healthy. Yeah, we know it's creativity, but why are we afraid of it? What's the fear?

Speaker 4: 14:05

Yeah, I love that question. I love questions. First of all, I appreciate that question. That's a good one Because, well, first of all, let me back up just a minute to say you and I are in Cincinnati. So I'm curious, mark M, from your perspective, how it is where you are. But what I've noticed, in this part of the United States at least, is that we are nice, or Midwest nice some people describe it as which tends to play its out as there's a conflict. We're going to be nice about it, which means we're going to avoid it. Really, we will do everything to avoid having to look that tension and conflict in the eye and address it. But so in most of the companies that are around here that's the story that you told, greg, the story snippet that I told. That's pretty common for teams around this area of the country. Certainly, as I've been doing work around the country, I've noticed it's different in different parts of the country and with different company cultures and so on.

Speaker 4: 15:09

Because, this is a very cultural thing. There was one company I was working with. It was a 50-person company. The whole company is 50 people. They sold their software, so it was a software-based company, but they were not afraid to have conflict. I just want to make sure we hear the other side of this coin too. They were not afraid to have this conflict at all. They would tell each other exactly what they thought very bluntly.

Speaker 2: 15:37

Yeah, exactly Like what yeah.

Speaker 4: 15:42

There are people who are telling the product leaders you don't even know our customers. It was that kind of like wow, the way I, after spending some time with them because I went and did what I call an Agile health check, just like a checkup how are we doing from the Agile perspective Right now? I spent several weeks with the teams, and one of the pieces of feedback I gave to them pretty early on was you are open with each other. Protect that. That is something that a lot of companies don't have. The way that you are open is probably causing you trouble, because you are open with each other, saying those things openly, like you're throwing punches at each other, which means, though, you are Saying the things you're thinking right, unlike Most of the teams I've worked with in this area of the country, who would hide those things right and say what I think you want to hear, as opposed to what I really think, but they're they're saying the real things, but they're doing it brutally, in a way that it really, like it attacks and disintegrates trust and respect for each other.

Speaker 4: 16:43

So, in the end, it had the same effect, which was really surprising to me from someone who would avoid conflict myself. Yeah, it had the same effect that they weren't hearing from each other, even though the words were coming out of their nose. Oh it so it was not working. It was not working. The trust was disintegrating. They were. They were not willing to have the conversations with each other or hear what the other person was saying, and it was like it didn't matter that it was being said anymore because they were being so brutal about it.

Speaker 2: 17:10

But now that's probably Sorry, but that's probably a, like you said, the part of the country that that's what they're used to doing. They they right. These folks probably grew up doing that and that's why they act that way, right?

Speaker 4: 17:23

I, I think some of them did. Some of the leaders probably did, because that's how community culture tends to Be creative and sustained. So I think some of those leaders, yeah, definitely had that Approach them, and the people then that joined the company either had that or else Simulated to it, or else hit in the corner while the other folks threw punches.

Speaker 2: 17:42

That I could see. That would be very difficult to, because that's ingrained in you, they, there's a thing, the things, one thing that I'm kind of experiences for that long. When something's that ingrained, you know, it's really hard to change. That's, that's like it is. That's like asking them, I don't know, to change how tall they are or whatever. Right this, this, just like that's how that is around. Well, yeah it absolutely does.

Speaker 4: 18:03

It's even hard to recognize that it's happening. But again, though, the thing that really Struck me even though, again, I kind of knew it but to see it in action was that the effect on the human beings in those environments and the Effectiveness of the teams leave the effect is the same is that when we either hold our attention inside of us and Not address it in healthy ways externally, or we're Ex expressing it externally and it's not making any difference because we're doing that in ways that don't build the trust and don't respect the other person, that also is that constant tension, and so in both cases, for example, as a human being, that's anxiety producing, and for the teams and products, that is not effective.

Speaker 3: 18:44

So, I'll give you a real story From years past. This is back in my developer days. I can't remember. We had a pretty significant, significant production issue. Not sure what it was, but it was significant enough that my boss's boss brought like four of us into a Conference room with a whiteboard and said we're not gonna let anybody out of the room until this is figured out so we described the problem and I'll just say that the other three gentlemen were a different nationality than I.

Speaker 3: 19:13

Was not gonna say what that was, but Once the problem was stated, one gentleman grabbed a A marker and went up to the, to the whiteboard and started charting out how to solve the problem. And Kids you not like. Two minutes into it, one of the other gentlemen walks up, yanks the pen out of his hand, erases what he has and says no, no no, no.

Speaker 3: 19:36

This is what we need to do, and then, two minutes after that, the third person comes up and yanks the pen out of his hand. It says no, no, no. This is what we need to do and so what my reaction was was I. I stood up and said hey guys, when y'all figure it out, come let me know. I checked out, Right I tapped out and that is not a healthy sign of a team. Right, when somebody, yeah, checks out because, right, I don't have anything to offer.

Speaker 4: 20:05

Yeah, I mean both of those Behaviors you're describing there are not. What I, in the category of healthy generally, is what I would say right, oh, they were. Like no, no, no, you're, you're wrong. Like let me cut you off and stop you there because you're just flat out wrong. Or the I'm gonna withdrawal. But I think this gets back to the question you were asking, greg, is why do we avoid it? Mm-hmm? And? And if you play that, that Unfortunately very appropriate scenario Back, you'll see some of the reasons. I think why people avoid it is because either, if I Walk into this conflict, someone might, so to speak, through a punch Now that hopefully isn't physically accurate or true and yet To our mental perspective on it, it's gonna feel just like that. And so if I, actually it's really a vulnerable move to walk into a conflict Because you're opening yourself up for having punches, or not. You right.

Speaker 4: 21:02

So that's one fear that a lot of people have. The other is that I see a lot is that it's feudal, which I Don't want to assume. That's what you were thinking there, mark, but that's what a lot of people think, like it's not even worth Me entering and it's not gonna make any difference. There's three very opinionated people, duke in it out up there that we don't need a fourth and I'm just gonna get punched on the way to Somebody else. Get the punch kind of thing. It's not gonna make a difference.

Speaker 4: 21:27

And a lot of us, I think, are afraid of that, not to mention if we have done something that we regret in a conflict, right, I don't know if you ever done this, but if I, I've said things that I'm like, why, yeah world, did I say that Mm-hmm? Right, I, oh, my gosh, that is not who I want to be. Now I have to go clean up that mess, so I've just made more conflict for myself.

Speaker 2: 21:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah, real quickly we process. Okay, I've been here before, done this. This could end badly. I just won't say anything. I'll just, yeah, keep quiet, and it's better Just to avoid it. That's the easy way out, right?

Speaker 3: 22:08

I'm gonna say great, quite frankly, that's, that's the easiest option. Right requires the least amount of effort.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Yeah, what you did there was probably what a lot of people would do, probably in me too. I mean you're, you're just like all right, you know what I? You thought pretty quickly I'm not gonna, my voice won't get heard, I'll get the pen grabbed out of my hand in a race too, and I just you know what. I Got three alpha male dudes in here and I'm out. It's not worth it. It's too exhausting, right.

Speaker 4: 22:41

Yeah, it's too dangerous, like if we look at it from like an ROI perspective, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 22:45

Yeah, we get all.

Speaker 4: 22:47

All right. It's simply not worth that effort. And the challenge is that's a short term answer, right, and we in the moment it's like I don't want to bruise on my face from someone punching me so that's an easy ROI calculation, not worth it. But the long term cost is more diffused and harder to see, but it's actually more costly.

Speaker 4: 23:10

That's why I'm passionate about this topic is because if we can start to recognize what happens inside of us when conflict is coming up with technical term being neurobiological flooding if we can recognize when we're, when we're experiencing that flooding, we can actually deal with it. We can. There's some specific skills we can do to address that so that we are more likely to you know, as an individual, respond in healthy ways that are actually helpful for the conflict and for ourselves. And then also skills that we can practice and get better at. That's a skill, literally mean that, truly a skill that we can practice and get better at. There's several of those that can actually help us have better conflict and then we'll start to see the benefits of that in our relationships and in our teams.

Speaker 2: 24:02

And we will get into that in part two, more about the skills. So that's the little if you're keep listening for part two, when Mark is going to get into some more of those skills, Also on how to handle conflict. So, Mark Wavell, why do you think kind of wrapping up episode one here? Why do you think conflict is is healthy?

Speaker 4: 24:27

So if we do not have I'll kind of spend that question a little bit if we don't have healthy conflict, we're missing out. I've discovered this for myself in my relationships. I'll again take it outside of the team for just a moment, but I'm in my relationships where I avoid delay, conflict, it I have seen it cost and in those situations where I have actually used some of the skills that we'll talk about in the next episode, I have seen, while it's certain I'm not calling it painless, not pretending it's painless, but but it it is much better relationally. It is so much better from a benefit to me as a human being, like my anxiety level is very different. And then for the teams that I'm on, the people that I collaborate with and I'm creative with, it is so important.

Speaker 4: 25:23

So what I'm you know kind of say that another way Chris and I other managing partner with unstuck he and I have conflict. We see things from different perspectives all the time. What we've learned because we've both been through this, this very similar journey as far as conflict is concerned and these skills we'll talk about, is that as we use those skills, we actually do a lot better work together, produce a lot better stuff together. So it's that effective, efficient combination that is really beautiful not perfect, but wow, a ton better. And I feel better about it as well, because I'm not trying to, you know, put a mask on and and hide some parts that I think you know he won't want to hear, or our future, or not worth it, or I might get punched over them. We can actually talk about this thing. So it's better for me as a human, it's better for our collaboration, it's better for the results and, yeah, so I'm just. That's why I'm really passionate about it, I think. I think this is surmountable, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Yes, not insurmountable.

Speaker 2: 26:30

Yes, I agree, but it's very difficult, I think. I mean I, as you're talking, I think I'm relating, I'm thinking about like outside work, because we know this can be anyway. I'm thinking like in my own marriage too. I'm like my wife has said to me a few times in the past that she'll address something with me and she'll say it's been building for a few days, things have been building, so again that balloon filling up, like I said earlier, right with the five teams, and she has to get, she has to get it out and does it. It hurts. Yeah, I'm like, oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 27:07

You know, I know I have to do it because I'm thinking immediately okay, this is good for our relationship, this is, I can think that long term, right. But at the moment I'm like, okay, there's going to be conflict. She's going to probably say something that I don't agree with, obviously, because she wants to address it. But to your point earlier, the fact that she is taking the time to do that means that this relationship is important to her. She wants to address it and get over it. So that's it, so that's probably a healthy thing. In that point, right, she cares enough about it to address it. If she didn't address it and she wouldn't care enough about it and she's like I'm out, right.

Speaker 4: 27:49

Yeah, sorry to use you as an example like that, mark. Yes, we've all done that.

Speaker 2: 27:55

Set yourself up so you set yourself up, it's oh, thank you for being vulnerable.

Speaker 4: 27:59

I'm sharing that yeah. I know I've done that many times, I'm sure everybody listening has done it many times too.

Speaker 2: 28:06

Well, we have. We have the other opposite, we have the opposite. You know perspective. Now, mark, that's checked out right, because maybe it wasn't worth it. We don't know what he was going through, but sure. All right, anything else on this healthy conflict. Why is it healthy? Any other Mark Metz? Anything else?

Speaker 3: 28:30

I'm going to drop a bomb and walk out of the room and we can take this up next time. But a lot of the conflict we talk about is among peers. But what about, like the HIPAA, the highest paid persons?

Speaker 4: 28:42

Yes.

Speaker 3: 28:42

We'll be right back initiating conflict with, like, your boss or your boss's boss yeah, just as essential and even harder because it's more at stake.

Speaker 4: 28:53

Remember when I was talking about like yeah, we just were standing in different strikes of the beach ball and that's hard enough as it is, but then when there's something bigger on the line for us, like, even though we might not say it this way, part of what might be going through our brains is that this person can fire me on the spot.

Speaker 4: 29:11

Like my job on the line or my performance appraisal raise. I mean even quote, unquote, less things than that, but they're still significant, very significant to us All the way to, like you know, disaster in our brain, right, if I lose my job that says something about me as a human being, like my identity is at stake also.

Speaker 4: 29:30

So yeah, we can. Those are really really hard situations to walk into and really address the conflict. That's there. I wouldn't, you can, but I wouldn't recommend starting practicing these skills at that level unless you absolutely have to, I would start a little smaller.

Speaker 1: 29:47

Yeah no, you'll learn your way there.

Speaker 4: 29:49

But you're right. I mean a way to point it out. That's very real and very important for us as well. I'm going to flip the coin over too, because Greg showed excellent leadership with his team and, being the one who was vulnerable, he basically took off his armor and said people are throwing punches at me behind my back. Right, I've got a few knives in my back right now. See, here they are. Let's just talk about those, right, I mean, I don't like those. I wish they weren't there.

Speaker 4: 30:16

Let me address my perspective on those and then asked really effectively asked to be punched in front of everybody. Yeah, thank the person for punching him. Yeah, that's. And then showed that you survived it Like this is not fatal to have conflict. That's how a leader starts to change the culture, and so if you are that person that's the hippo, the highest-made person, man, please lead this way. Please lead this way. Show how you've messed up, be vulnerable and then invite the conflict and, with every fiber of your being and integrity, when somebody says something that you don't want to hear, thank them, genuinely thank them.

Speaker 2: 30:59

And I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know why I'm not sitting here. I didn't use that as an example to like have myself on the back. I don't. I just use it as an example of how I think people should do it. And I, at the time, thinking back, I don't.

Speaker 2: 31:14

I'm the type of person who even though I don't I'm an introvert by nature I've gotten more outspoken as I've gotten older and gotten confidence. But, yeah, I'm the type of person who, when I hear something like that, I have to. I just have to address it. I just can't let it go unchecked, agile or not. I've been like that even before I got into Agile. I just when I hear something like that, that is not true, I just have to address it with whoever. I can't let it go because I know it's not true. I knew the things being said about me were not true. Yeah, and I was like, okay, then I applied it to Agile. How can I? I know it's.

Speaker 2: 31:56

It was systemic throughout the team. Not everybody was saying this, but I had five teams here that were hearing it and I was like, okay, what's the best way to address it? So I called them all in and it was really just that. I wasn't. I wasn't really thinking about, to be honest with you, like being a leader and example and all that stuff. That was not, that was. I was just like, okay, here's a learning opportunity maybe for them. I want to address it, and it just the thing about shaking the guy's hand, that just that just came up on the moment. That wasn't planned.

Speaker 2: 32:29

I asked him for it because he was someone that was holding back, and I finally got him and then I was like let's shake his hand, let's use this as an example. Yeah, trust me, I was nervous, as all can be. I didn't want to do it. I forced, I had to force myself to do it every step of the way, but I knew it had to be done and I just did it.

Speaker 4: 32:45

Yeah, talking to something to it. Yeah, you know. That's even better because it's flowing out of who you are. Right, if you've got the script in your little, you know reading off the script. It doesn't sound genuine right.

Speaker 2: 32:56

That's even the word.

Speaker 4: 32:56

Thank you very much for your feedback.

Speaker 2: 32:58

Thank you. Yes, that's not going to work. Let's see. He says this, then I say that.

Speaker 4: 33:02

Right.

Speaker 2: 33:04

Well, in my younger days I actually which you know, added to my anxiety was when you would play things. That if you guys have ever done it, play things out in your head, you know how things are going to go, and then you get in the moment and things don't go according to that script, and that would just like yes.

Speaker 3: 33:28

What oh my?

Speaker 2: 33:29

gosh.

Speaker 1: 33:30

Now, what do I do?

Speaker 2: 33:30

And that just boom like a bomb. Mark Yep, that's, there's the bomb. Oh my gosh. Now what do I do? It's off script and it happens every time. Rarely do things go according to the script in your head anyway.

Speaker 4: 33:46

Yeah, yeah. I would advise against too much prescripting. I mean, know yourself well enough to know what you need in place. That's, that's part of what we talk about in this class, we're talking about here. But know how you're likely to respond if you're starting to flood. Recognize those situations, that the way that you react right. If I'm starting to get really upset about this in some way, you know for me my shoulders rise, they almost touch my earlobes.

Speaker 4: 34:13

I say just like, but that's, that's when I'm starting to really get and I'm not going to be able to address that conflict well in that situation, if I walk into that conflict having preloaded anxiety into it by playing through a script, that must be just so, when I logically can tell, just like you said, greg, sitting right here, that's never going to happen exactly the way I've scripted it. So that's just asking myself to be more anxious about it. Yeah, that actually doesn't help me. That took me years to get to that point.

Speaker 2: 34:40

And I'm like you, my shoulders rise too. I get tension, keep tension in my, in my neck, and I've actually caught myself. I'm like, wow, my shoulders are like way up here. Put them down. Yeah, just relax your jaw, my jaw cleanses and just relax physical. That's why, at the end of the day, you know, people are like, oh, they're sore and they're tense because they've been like physically tensing your muscles. But, right, yeah, okay, this has been great. I think we've talked through about how conflict can be healthy. Now the next episode, part two, we're going to talk about some skills to help work through that conflict and the big one that, the big bomb that Mark Mets left and left us with the big mess. How do you address it with executives? Right, start off small. We're going to start off small. We're going to. Mark Wavell has some skills for us that we're going to talk about the next episode. So, yeah, until then, this has been Mark and Mark the Marks and Greg for the Agile Within. We'll see you next time.