Michael Ceely's High Performance Podcast
The psychology of high performance with host, Michael Ceely. Inspiring interviews with sport psychologists, athletes, coaches, business leaders, entrepreneurs and other high performing individuals.
Michael Ceely's High Performance Podcast
3 Easy Ways to Stop Avoiding Conflict at Work
Diving deep into the psychology behind conflict avoidance, this episode explores two fundamental causes: environmental factors where leadership fails to create safe spaces for open discussion, and intrapersonal habits rooted in people-pleasing tendencies and fear of rejection. By understanding these underlying mechanisms, you'll recognize how avoiding necessary conversations actually builds resentment and diminishes your professional presence.
The heart of this episode offers three powerful, actionable strategies to transform how you approach workplace disagreements:
- Learn to speak up without attachment to outcomes—breaking the connection between voicing opinions and fear of rejection.
- Discover how simply reframing "conflict" as "solution-seeking opportunities" can rewire your brain's response to disagreement.
- Implement weekly behavioral experiments that build your confidence through deliberate practice in low-stakes situations.
Ready to transform how you handle workplace differences? Subscribe for more insights on professional development, leadership strategies, and communication techniques.
👉 Get the Leader's Guide to Resolving Conflict Avoidance: https://www.michaelceely.com/resource...
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Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.
Conflict avoidance is one of the biggest problems in the workplace. So today I'm going to give you three strategies that are going to help you with conflict avoidance, and this video is really for people who are experiencing conflict avoidance themselves. They're afraid of conflict and, by the way, it's very normal Most people have an issue with this but I really want to give you strategies that are going to help you communicate better, really sort of deflate this whole notion of a conflict. It's really not a conflict, it's more of a difference of opinion. But before we get into the strategies, we want to talk about the causes of conflict avoidance, because I could tell you all the strategies in the world, it's not going to help you unless you understand where this conflict avoidant behavior in yourself is coming from. Okay, the main reason why conflict avoidance behaviors happen in the workplace is really from leadership or the environment in which you work. It could just be that leadership is kind of clueless about setting up strategies and protocols and avenues where people can openly discuss their opinion without any fear of judgment or retribution or anything like that. So that's really important is the environment, and leadership needs to set up and facilitate and foster open communication and even leaning into conflict and like it's okay to have conflict because it really means that everyone's trying to do their job and just have different strategies and a diversity of thought, which is actually really good. But unless you set up that open communication or ways to facilitate that, people generally are going to be a little cautious because they are not actually the leader they're looking up to leadership for guidance and direction. So if you are a leader, you need to model that type of open communication of leaning into conflict and you need to create ways for people to share ideas openly. The second cause for conflict avoidant behavior is intrapersonal, not interpersonal, but in you, inside yourself, you have a habit maybe, of conflict avoidance. So I want to help you with that. But before that, let's talk about maybe why it's happening.
Speaker 0:A lot of humans indulge in this thing called people pleasing. That comes from really thinking that your opinion if someone doesn't like your opinion or your thought or one of your actions that whatever their emotion is, there's an assumption being made or some sort of a deeper belief that I need to really take care of this other person's feelings. I'm really either responsible for their feelings or it's not right for people to have different opinions. There's some sort of a deeper belief, usually illogical, that we learn from maybe our family, maybe we learned it in school is that conflict is bad. Right, if someone has a different opinion, that means they don't like me, that means that they're going to get back at me, all of these things, and these are typically illogical thoughts. Now, if someone is really vindictive in the workplace, that's another issue entirely. But this video is really for people who have a workplace environment that might be a little bit dysfunctional but it's still workable. So again, the two causes are environmental and the other reason is because there's something in you, some sort of a belief that you have, which has turned into I'll call it a bad habit.
Speaker 0:No-transcript. Okay, now we know what causes conflict avoidant behavior, let's get right into the solutions. The first thing, the first strategy, is speak up. Speak up, but without any expectation of things getting solved.
Speaker 0:One of the biggest reasons why people avoid conflict is because they're worried about other people's reactions. They're worried that well, what if I speak up contrary to the VP's opinion? And even if I have a good idea, I don't want it to be shot down. I don't want someone to say no to me and I would say this if you speak up, ask yourself what's the worst that could happen. And again, if you work in a really toxic place where you're going to get fired, if you speak up you may want to look for another job. But let's say that if you speak up you're not going to get fired. But there might be some consequences. People, you know, maybe this VP that I mentioned might get defensive, or maybe you're going to be. Your idea is just going to be rejected outright, without anyone you know, considering the finer details of it. Well, at least you spoke up. Okay, the point here is you never want to keep an opinion to yourself that you think is important. What that does is that builds up resentment within you and you're going to start shutting down at work. You're going to start performing below your capabilities. But if you let that out and you say going to start shutting down at work, you're going to start performing below your capabilities. But if you let that out and you say you know what, I disagree with that or I have another idea, another approach here, even if no one likes it, right, at least you spoke up and you can say to yourself well, at least I spoke up. And that habit of speaking up will build that muscle in you of hey, I'm the kind of person who speaks up, it's what I do. And if you play the numbers, the more you speak up, most likely the more people are going to start listening to your ideas. So always speak up, okay.
Speaker 0:The second strategy I have for you for getting rid of conflict avoid behavior is to reframe conflict avoidance. Okay, just literally change the phrasing on this. You see, the subconscious mind will read words verbatim and actually believe them. So if you say you have a conflict at work, you're going to look at that as war or a fight or something that's really bad and scary. So I'd like you to think about conflict in the workplace more as a solution opportunity or solution-seeking opportunity.
Speaker 0:And the other thing about this notion of conflict is that people can take things personally. If you share an opinion, maybe at a meeting at work, and someone's kind of short with you or dismissive or something like that, don't take it personally. That has very little to do with you and much more about the lack of skills of the other person. Your mission is still the same. You guys are still in the same team. They just committed an error in the game. If you will Now. If you want to hold that against them, that's your problem. You can do that. You're going to get resentful, you're going to take it personally, you're going to think it's all about me, when it's really not. It's much more. That person woke up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever it is, but you still have the same mission together. So, also around reframing conflict, don't make it like your job or your responsibility to solve the conflict, like I've got to come up with the perfect statement or comeback or something like that. Again, it's more about teamwork and it's less to do about you. So don't feel like you have to have the perfect solution, like you have to have the perfect solution, okay.
Speaker 0:The third strategy for getting rid of conflict avoidant behavior in yourself is to try behavioral experiments. So much like an athlete, you are assigning yourself training exercises each week and each week you think of a possible conflictual situation where you're going to feel like a little uneasy. Choose a low stakes situation and lean in more to that conflict. Or, as I said earlier, solution seeking opportunity. Lean into it, be proactive about it. Maybe you can send someone an email after a meeting where you disagreed or where you were cut off mid-sentence or something like that Do a follow-up, lean in, try this as a behavioral experiment for yourself. You don't have to commit to changing your personality. All you're doing is you're saying this week I'm going to do follow-up emails with maybe one or two people and share my opinion Nice and professional one or two people and share my opinion nice and professional, succinct, no drama. And this is going to be an experiment. I'm going to see what kind of feedback I get from this new behavior that I'm trying.
Speaker 0:So if you like this video, please like, share and subscribe this. There's probably someone else in your life that could benefit from this video. And if you're liking this, I also have in the description below a link for a guide to executives on conflict avoidance getting rid of that, either as a leader yourself or facilitating, fostering that for your team. So you're going to want to check that out. It's going to be really helpful for you.
Speaker 0:So, in summary, we've talked about the two main causes of conflict avoidance. Number one it's the environment can reinforce conflict, avoid behavior and poor communication. Number two intrapersonal something within you. You have a habit of avoiding conflict, usually based on some sort of a belief or habit. And again, the three strategies to get rid of conflict avoidance are number one speaking up, despite the outcome. Let go of any expectation of your opinion being implemented. Okay, but you want to get that off your chest, you want to get that energy out. Always speak up and share your opinion.
Speaker 0:Second solution is to reframe conflict avoidance that whole phrase as something different, as solution-seeking opportunities. And number three behavioral experiments. Get into the habit of doing a weekly quota of little training exercises, kind of like going to the gym where you look for conflictual situations or opportunity-seeking situations where you can lean into it, being proactive about getting into a difference of opinion with somebody, either by email or in person. So I hope this video helped you about conflict avoidance ways to get rid of it. My name is Michael Seeley. I'm a high-performance coach for executives and entrepreneurs and I'd like to make these videos to help you get solutions to some of the very common problems that can happen in the workplace. Thanks so much for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe and share with someone who needs to hear this.