Conflict Management and Building a Strong Culture will Reduce Anxiety at Work

✅ Conflict Management and Building a Strong Culture 

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Key Highlights: 📌
🤝 Conflict Resolution: navigate workplace conflicts with a focus on work, not people.
🎨 Culture Crafting: Insights into how a unifying culture can act as a foundation to overcome team challenges and conflicts.
🔍 Attention to Anxiety: Strategies to encourage independent problem-solving and overcoming perfectionism, reducing workplace anxiety.

Join Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick as they welcome Liz Kislik, a renowned conflict management specialist and executive coach, to the Anxiety at Work podcast. Liz shares her wealth of experience in defusing conflicts and building effective communication within teams, underlining the significance of aligning personal and organizational values to create a supportive culture.

In this insightful episode, Liz Kislik discusses the impact of clear communication and transparency on mental well-being. She also offers practical advice for leaders on fostering collaboration and acknowledges the importance of addressing individual concerns to prevent burnout and promote mental safety.

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#ConflictResolution #CultureBuilding #LizKislik #WorkplaceCommunication #AnxietyatWork #ManagementConsulting #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipSkills #MentalWellbeing

Transcript

Welcome to the Anxiety at Work podcast. I'm Chester Elton and this is my co-author and dear friend, Adrian Gostick.  We hope the time your going to spend with us for a few minutes today will remove the stigma of anxiety and mental health in the workplace and your personal life. We invite experts from around the world of work and life to give us ideas and most importantly tools to help us deal with anxiety in our world.
We want to give a special shout out to our sponsor Lifeguides. You know as you go through your life of anxiety and stress, everybody needs a guide. Well, Lifeguides is a peer-to-peer community that helps navigate through day-to-day stressors by providing a place of empathy and listening and wisdom and the support of a guide who has walked in your shoes experiencing the same challenges of life that you have. And because you're listening to our wonderful podcast, this offer is for your team so that you can show them that you care. All you got to do is go to lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo and add the code healthy 2021 to the free text box and you get two months of free service. That is a great offer. Life guides. Look them up. Well, our guest today is our dear friend, Liz Kislyk. Liz is a management consultant and executive coach with the expertise in conflict management and helping people do better and feel better at work. She has proven techniques to help executives navigate today's complex workplaces, as well as ways for leaders and organizations to collaborate and improve communication. Liz, we've known each other for a while now and I am so delighted to welcome you to our Humble Podcast. I'm so happy to be with you both. Well, thanks Liz for joining us. Taking a few minutes today, as a conflict expert, we were really excited to talk to you about because a lot of managers we work with, they point toward those other individuals, those other teams or departments. They want them to do things differently. It's a lot about others, that they, others are the source of conflict. So, help us kind of just begin by giving us some advice. Maybe you offer managers who experience these sort of conflicts when collaborating. It's a hard thing for us to see ourselves as being in the wrong. Of course, we want the right thing and we assume we either know what the right thing is or at least know how we should be behaving. So when something goes wrong, we assume it's not us, it's those other folks. Really, the best place to start for this through the years is with the work and not the people. And so by stepping back from the interpersonal situations and really looking at what's the work, what is it we need to be doing, who are the stakeholders, what's our brief? Do we agree about the basic terms of the work? That often can take some of the heat out of it. I will admit that it is difficult for people to do this if they've been engaged in an ongoing conflict for a long time because they're so functioning on automatic, they're not actually thinking about even the interactions they have with the other person anymore. They're just assuming it all stinks and it's all terrible and they're terrible and somebody needs to fix this for me. So sometimes you need a facilitator to help them hear each other because even when you prep them, sometimes they have a hard time hearing the other one. They'll try to do better themselves based on the instructions you give them, but if they're really locked in for a long time, you want a neutral third party to help them hear the other person and actually re-craft what they're trying to say themselves, too. Yeah, really interesting. You know, Adrian and I have been working in culture for the last 20 years and the importance of creating a defined culture at work and we've seen how much of an impact a strong culture can have in an organization. So how does having a unifying culture at work help overcome some of the problems that can arise with various teams as they work together? valuable because it specifies the values, how we behave here, what we think are the right modes of behavior, what do we care about the most. And in many conflicts, what you're actually arguing about are some of the details of how stuff gets done or what we need to do here. And when you can lift the conversation back up to the level of values, you can come to a place of agreement if you're operating inside a strong culture because everybody's already subscribing to those values theoretically or they wouldn't last there. back to that kind of bedrock, showing respect for each other, for example, delivering work product on time, caring for customers ahead of ourselves, whatever the tenets of the culture are. If we agree there, we have a place we can stand together, and from that, you can sort of build outward. What else might we agree about? You know and and and take it from there if The culture isn't working though. You actually have more ways to disagree and be angry with each other Yeah, it's interesting. I was just working with a new coji yesterday, and I said okay, so tell me about your your values He says they're around here somewhere I somewhere. I think there's something about customers in there. You know, I said, look, that's the sort of the foundational, that's the building blocks of culture, right? You're not setting your foundation. That's exactly right. I mean, I would ask him, what are his own values that he's brought there? You know, because somebody who doesn't even know what they are and isn't thinking about them, well, let's start with him and then encourage him to go see which of the values of the place he actually subscribes to. It's such a great point because, yeah, you're right. I don't even know where they are. They're not really not meaningful to me, and I haven't aligned them with what matters to me. And it's a really good point is that there's a very good chance you haven't spent the time thinking about your own values as well, which you do when you're coaching somebody, we do when we coach, is help them think about that. Now, one of the values that most organizations have when we go out and work with them is some form of communication, transparency or openness or whatever they want to call it. And yet, it is one that often falls through the cracks. I know in our new book, Anxiety Work, we talk about this really being one of those things that brings down anxiety and helps mental health. When we're candid with each other, you know, we often say once you think you're over communicating, you're probably starting to get there. So what are some tips that you give to leaders that help them when they really help communicate with their teams more effectively. Actually, Adrian, I worry a lot about candor because sometimes candor is used as a kind of cloak for I get to tell you anything I want. I get to tell you my truth and you're stuck with it, baby, because sometimes people who talk a lot about candor, that's actually what they think. They sort of ratchet themselves up to deliver a load of candor and now go deal with it. So I care a lot about compassion in communication and thinking not just about what is the message, what is it that I want to get across, but how can I be responsible for what the recipient is going to hear so that I can get the best result possible. Because, you know, this is the thing about the truth shall set you free, but sometimes the entire truth is too much. It's not even helpful. You have to know your audience. Different people have different tolerances. Some people you can be totally direct with and lay it on the line, and they're like, yes, thank you, that's so great, I appreciate it so much, and other people will run away and not speak to you for three weeks. So knowing, do you have to warm them up first? Do you have to see how they're doing? Do you have to remind them that you're actually in a relationship where they trust you and you have some fondness and some history with each other? Maybe you need to lay some groundwork first and then you can raise the issue. The other thing is that we never talk about candor if we think it's going to be easy. If we think it's pleasant, candor doesn't come into it. We don't have to bother with this signpost that says, I'm going to tell you the real thing. The real thing, with emphasis, is usually because it's hard and we think you're going to be a little upset or that this might be scary. I often say, put your seatbelt on so that they have just a few seconds to prepare themselves. And some of that's physical as well as mental. You can see people take a breath or sort of square their shoulders and they get ready. And then the thing is not only to speak kindly, but to include a lot of curiosity because this is not just a delivery. There's got to be a reception at the other end. And so whatever it is I need you to know, I also need to know how that has landed with you and what you think about it and what it means in your world. So I always want questions accompanying a declaration to find out what's going on with the recipient. You know, I really like the way you put that. You know, I'm a big believer in being kind. It doesn't cost you anything. I do love your idea too about saying, you know, put on your seatbelt, this might be rough because I agree with you 100%. Well, we need a candid culture and sometimes it's just an opportunity to just tear into somebody under the umbrella of, I'm just being candid. Don't take offense. You're an idiot. You know, it's just so, you know, communication is really tricky sometimes. So how can you usually control how we communicate with our teams? You've talked about a couple of tips about be curious and be kind, but also encouraging communication between individuals on the teams to to take on that next level of challenge. How do you recommend leaders encourage collaboration within the team? OK, so you I know you've seen this a thousand times. The ones who aren't that great at communicating themselves are even worse at getting their team members to communicate, particularly around hard stuff. They're the ones who, when two people come to them with a conflict, say, well, go work this out yourselves. yourself. You know that didn't work when we were children with siblings because the one who usually wins usually wins. So I try to impress upon leaders that if they could work it out themselves they would have already done it. And that means there's something missing in the leaders communication to the theoretical collaborators. Usually, this goes back to a lack of clarity about what it is exactly that's supposed to be happening. Very often, leaders have a much clearer idea of some outcome than they are about the way it's supposed to happen. And when they give directions, particularly if they give it directions to people separately, or if there isn't a chance for real discussion when they're all together, they're not clear about who's supposed to do what. Or there are long-standing problems about, you know, how this project got run three years ago and are we reverting to type and going back to the old history and what didn't work before? And it's really the leader's responsibility, even though they may not have the training, to say to the two people. Tell me what the issue is. What are your questions about it? Let's work it out together. It's on the leader to model it, to model keeping their cool, to model expressing regret and apology if that's necessary. before I signed on for you guys, I had given a client's assistant a time frame when I could meet from 9 to 1030. And she scheduled me for 1030 because her way of interpreting that was that the meeting could start any time from 9 to 10.30. There's a logic to both of them. Neither is morally better. We misunderstood each other. So I wrote right away saying, I'm sorry I wasn't clear. Because why put it on somebody else? This way I've said it and then she can feel more comfortable to try to fix the situation. That's so great, Liz, because I love what you're saying here. It leads me to what I want to ask next about sort of clarifying things that can help reduce anxiety, but I want people to be able to find you and your amazing work. So tell us where people should go to learn more about you and read more about your work. Oh, thank you, Adrian. That's very kind. So my website www.lizkislick.com I'm sure you'll have it in the show notes or wherever is the best place because I have years of blogs and articles there and there's also a free ebook if anybody in your audience wants it about the interpersonal aspects of conflict and how to deal with those about the interpersonal aspects of conflict and how to deal with those. And that e-book is called How to Resolve Interpersonal Conflicts in the Workplace. Who doesn't need that? So go to Liz's website, please download that. It's a really terrific resource. So, okay, so let's get to this idea of clarifying. Things such as, I talk to so many employees who say, I just don't know, decision-making authority, I've got so many bosses, personal responsibilities, what do I do, priorities, etc. So admittedly sometimes employees can get bogged down in the details and we have to micromanage, but we've seen anxiety and perfectionism at play so much in the workplace in these situations. So what can leaders do to encourage their people to solve problems independently and and overcome maybe perfectionism, just get started and start doing things. Perfectionism is a version of fear. I mean it's just a kind of fear. So how do we get people to overcome fear so they can solve their own problems, which really means how do we get them to be just a little less afraid so they can think more clearly and make some choices. I think of it as two different buckets. One is how can we get barriers out of their way? So that might go to your point, Adrienne, about all these multifaceted different priorities, directions from different people, etc. Your reading teacher doesn't know about the homework your math teacher already gave and you're crying to your mother. So the thing is can you get everybody on the same page? Who should be the source of authority about which priorities really do need to be resolved? In what in what sequence. Often the issue is not do this, don't do this, but sequencing. And that's on the leaders to clear up. Any employee should do as much as they can to figure it out, of course, but at the end it's the leader's responsibility to remove barriers that the employee can't. Once you've done that though, or at least started to do that, how do you help the person feel less afraid and feel stronger so that they can bring their best game to whatever it is you need them to accomplish? Some of that is reminding them that they've done similar stuff in the past and that they're completely capable. Sometimes they'll think, oh, you're just being nice to me. You know they may even say stuff like that Some of it, so there are a you know a gazillion different techniques for Helping people do the smallest possible thing just to get out of their own way and get started you know what's the first step and a And a compassionate leader will actually take a few minutes and say, so tell me, if you were going to start this today, what are the first three things you would do? Let's both write them down. And you kind of talk them through. It's like leading the witness. You interview them about their own process, and then they have a process. So if they've got a process issue, now all of a sudden you've collaborated on building that process. Sometimes people are even more anxious though and logic alone won't help. And then I try to encourage people to go back to the body because it's our body that tells us when we're scared if we pay attention to it. How do you know that you're feeling anxious? Well, usually it's in your throat or your stomach or your head, or you have some reaction. So talking to people so that they can calm themselves and recognize that they are actually not in danger right now. And this priority may be a challenging thing or this presentation or this confrontation or whatever it is they have to do may be a challenging thing. But right now, they're perfectly fine and we're just discussing how we're going to go about it. So let's do that. And now that we're fine, what will your next steps be? Not every leader will have the time or the wherewithal to say, and check back with me after you've done steps one and two, you know, and then we'll plan out three and four. But I would hope that within the organization or within the team member's life, there would be someone that you as the leader could encourage them to partner up with. Sometimes you just have to externalize this stuff and get it out of your head when it's driving you a little nuts and be able to talk through, okay, I know what I need to do next and I'm feeling anxious about it, so I'm going to calm my body through breathing, through meditation, through visualization, through sense perception. There are so many possibilities. None of them work for everybody, but all of them work for somebody. And once, sort of to the point, part of the point of your question, once you get people started, they're often all right. That's interesting. You know, I love in your blog when you talk about putting people at ease where you said it's never effective for a leader to say, stop worrying about that or it's not important, right? So aren't there times though when you really do need to refocus the efforts of people? How can leaders acknowledge the concerns of individuals when those concerns aren't necessarily relevant to the task at hand? Oh, that's so wonderful. And Chester, it is the same thing with a parent or a spouse or any other human. Don't worry about it is like, you know, don't think about pink elephants. You can't help it. It actually anchors you even further in the worry, whatever it is. If you can, draw out the worry. Tell me what it is that's worrying you and let's see what we can do." So in that short time, you've said, I'm here with you, you are not alone, we're going to tackle it together. That should be helpful. Another thing that's really, really helpful, if your impulse is to say don't worry about something, is to flip it and sort of say, I've noticed that you get worried about this kind of thing. I'm paying attention to you because I care about you. That's the first piece. And the second piece is, there seems to be a bit of a pattern here. Well, that means there's something we can work with. So the thing is not to reject the worry, which rejects the person, but to actually look at the worry and see what we can do with it. And then it's like any other problem you have to break down. I mean, it could be a budget problem and you have to break it down, or it could be a worry problem and you have to break it down. So once you've got the components and you identify why the worry exists and how it came to be, and a lot of this you can do in a minute and a half, then exactly as we said before, you can figure out what are the things that would reduce the worry. Are there resources? Are there conversations? Is it about time? Is it about clarity? originates and just start in a work-like way dismantling it. Such great practical advice, Liz. Lastly, I just want to ask one last question. You've been writing a lot about burnout lately on your blog. I'm guessing you're seeing that in the clients you're working with. So, ourselves, if we're feeling this, what can managers do about this? What are you seeing in this trend and how can we help? The current time is so challenging, Adrian. Not just the pandemic was finishing, but now it's not finishing. And there's more fear about that. But also, there's so much stress and tension about, will we go back to the office? How will we go back to the office, who wants to be there more, who wants to be there less, a lot of stuff going on. It is not worked out. So clarity is definitely missing and it's the kind of situation in which often there's too much authority happening. This way, we won't do it that way, you are required. Those are things that make people anxious. The burnout happens when you don't know what's gonna be good, what's going to be safe, and there's pressure, both internally and externally. We need you back in the office, yes, but I'm afraid. We need you back in the office, yes, but I have people to tend to. That creates a real challenge and it's made worse by anything outside of work that also is a little unclear or up in the air. So people are getting a little crispy around the edges. I think I'm saying the same thing over and over because it's the same stuff, just applied differently to match the circumstance. When people are burning out, one of the first questions is, what are the things that feel like too much? Sometimes you find out it's not a workplace issue at all. Then, as a leader, you can offer them your personal support, your actual human concern for them, which often is so great that they just understand that you actually care about them and not just what you can do for them. And sometimes you can actually help them. If the hours can be flexible, if they can shut off their video camera so they don't have to worry about who's running around behind them on scene. There may be small things like that that actually reduce burden in some way. Some organizations are actually giving more time off or telling everybody to take off, you know, a Tuesday afternoon or whatever it happens to be. That can be useful, but if it doesn't address whatever the source of the burnout is, it's a nice to have, but it doesn't necessarily help somebody feel better. So actually asking them, do you want to share with me what's going on so that I can try to be helpful, or providing them other resources. Larger companies often have EAPs, employee assistance programs, or other kinds of resources that can be helpful so that people can figure out what's going on and what they could do about it. But if you are willing to back up your words, one of the greatest things a leader can say is, ìHow can I be helpful?î I'm doing this podcast recording outside the public library in the middle of the night and I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing it in the middle of the night. I'm doing this podcast recording outside the public library in Old Forge, New Jersey, watching my battery drain down in my laptop, and I'm thinking, wow, maybe this would have been better if I had been in a big office building with Rocket Fest Wi-Fi. So we're all kind of piecing it together and figuring it out. Well, love the conversation. This has been engaging. We knew it would be. The question we love to ask our guests is, if there's one thing you wanted people to take away from this conversation today, what would that one thing be? There is always something you can do. You may feel lousy, but you're actually not helpless. It may be that you can think about it differently. Maybe you have to calm yourself. Maybe you have to ask somebody for help, but all of us have the potential to help ourselves work on whatever the problem is that we're facing. There's always something to do about it. What a great way to end the podcast. I love your advice and your wisdom and the good that you do out there, Liz. It's really been a pleasure to have you on our podcast. I'm so happy talking to both of you. Adrian, you've got to love the wisdom of Liz, such great experience and so many practical tips. What were some of your takeaways? Now, remember everybody, this is one of the world's experts in conflict management. She says, first off, I love what she's saying, look, start with the works. Don't start with the people. She says, when you're having conflicts at work, first off, do we agree on the terms of our work? Do we agree on our values? Start with what you know and build from that. Yeah, I love your take on culture, too. She said, well, of course you bought into the culture or you wouldn't be there. I love that simple advice. Well, you're still here. So there must be something about the culture that you bind to that we can leverage. And then your comment about the executive you're coaching, well, what are the core values? Well, I don't know. And she said, then go to what their core values are. What are your core values that you bring to work? You know, when she said it, I thought, well, that is so obvious. Why did I never think of that? Well, so much of Liz's wisdom is so practical. I just love her push too on, we talk about candid cultures and yeah, they can be a place of brutality. I loved her idea about speaking kindly, including curiosity, asking questions while you're telling somebody this hard truth that can really soften the blow when you have to have difficult conversations. Yeah, and isn't it interesting? She said what we have heard so often, you don't address anxiety head on. You say, I've noticed you worry about these things or there seems to be a pattern here. Such a nice way to get to the heart of the problem without saying, you're freaking out, aren't you? I can tell. No. I loved her take too on burnout. We've been asked this question a lot lately, but really wise that she's saying, first off, she's saying too much authority makes people anxious. And unfortunately, we've seen this with, you know, Jamie Dimon recently saying, we're all coming back to the office. And that authority with no say after a year and a half of fear is going to just put the anxiety through the roof. She says, you know, get to the source of their unique burnout. Get to the source of their unique anxiety. That's because we do, we all paint with a broad brush. We've been asked these questions a hundred times and we say, well, look, you got to be flexible. You got to do this. Her point is find out what they're concerned about and then address that. Yeah. She used an expression that I'm going to steal when I talk about burnout. She says, you know, in these issues, it gets kind of crispy out there. I thought, what a great word. You're not burned out quite yet, but it's getting crispy. It's getting crispy out there. Well, listen, the wrap up that she gave us is really stuck with me. She said, there's always something you can do. You know, don't give up. There's always something you can do. Really wise advice from Liz Kislyk. So thank you, Liz. We want to thank all of you who have listened in to our producer, Brent Klein, to Christy Lawrence who helps find amazing guests like Liz. Thank you so much, everybody, for joining us today. Yes, and join us in our online community, wethrivetogether.global. We're trying to create a safe place where people can talk about anxiety and mental health in the workplace. And of course, one last shout out to our wonderful sponsors at Lifeguides. As you're navigating through life's pitfalls, you know, we all need a guide. And Lifeguides, you know, pairs you up with someone who's walked in your shoes and gone through the same things you've gone through. To give you great advice. And for our listeners, all you've got to do is go to lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo. And when you go to the checkout box, all you've got to do is put in healthy 2021 and you get two months of free service. Show your team members that you care. Look up Life Guides, give it a run. Well, Adrian, another great podcast. Great to spend some time with you, my friend. This has been delightful getting to know Liz a little better and to working with you again, Ches. So to everybody, we'll talk to you again next week and thanks for joining us. You bet, take care and be well. Thanks for joining us. You bet. Take care and be well.