Episode 221 | Stop Avoiding Conflict; It’s Costing You More Than You Think - with Anna Lecat

Make sales by leaning into tension rather than running from it. In this episode, Anna shares how to "pop the bubble" of comfortable information and explains why reaching out to those with different perspectives is a competitive advantage. We dig into her framework for turning everyday friction into a foundation for trust.She also talks about how to communicate with real human emotion instead of a script. You'll learn how to approach difficult conversations with curiosity, use conflict to strengthen your leadership, and build a collaborative environment where problems become breakthroughs. 

Anna shows you how to stop avoiding the hard stuff, and start using it to build a better brand.

About Anna Lecat:

Anna Lecat is an Intimacy and Conflict Consultant and TEDx speaker who has spent more than two decades building and leading multinational businesses across China, the United States, and Europe. A triple immigrant and mother of three, she scaled a sustainable fashion brand and a global manufacturing company before dedicating her work to helping leaders and teams turn hard conversations into trust, clarity, and real connection. 

Her book, Loving Conflict: Creating Collaboration Where Others See Division, invites us to treat the way we fight as part of the way we lead and love.

It explores what becomes possible when we stop avoiding difficult conversations and start staying present in them. If our conversation resonated, the book goes deeper: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1966629974

https://annalecat.com/book/

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Transcript

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Anna Lecat. Anna is an intimacy and conflict consultant, TEDx speaker, and author of the new book, loving Conflict. Anna helps leaders and teams turn tension into trust and real connection with decades of global business experience. She proves that conflict isn't something to avoid. It's a powerful tool for better relationships, leaderships and collaboration. Anna, welcome to the show. Thank me. you have a very interesting background, so a very international background So I like to just start with that. are. Yes. Thank you so much. So I'm a Ukrainian, I was born in Ukraine and I lived there until I was 17. At 17 I left and I went to China and I actually got into Chinese school, university and studied there and then stayed for 15 years. I built several businesses there. I speak Mandarin fluently. In fact, if you speak to me on the phone and you're Chinese, you don't know I'm not Chinese. So I have no accent. And you know, at 17 I was so young, I really wanted to fit in and to understand, and I was. Ever in China. So I learned about history and mentality and philosophy and literature, and I read Chinese. Um, but then forever my dream was to become an American and to live an American. So it took me many years through China, through 15 years in China. Finally, I was able to move to the United States, um, received my American passport, which I was very happy to, to, to, to have and to. I'm very honored to be an American. And so I lived in San Francisco for 12 years, so that was my third, second immigration. And then about six years ago I moved to Paris, France. My, my husband is French, and so now I'm French as well. So three immigrations, China, the United States and France. Well, and those languages being fluent in languages. I'm actually taking Spanish, I hate to say it on Duolingo, and they do a great job of gamifying the language learning, but it's so hard. And gosh, I really respect the fact that you can speak several languages. So when you were 17, you said there were a couple things that motivated you and one of them was to go out and explore the world, right? We don't need to. Absolutely. Yeah, that's good. And of course, some political considerations too. Um, but with your background, I'm obviously, I'm interested in your new book, which is Right Behind Me, loving Conflict. What a great title. So that's what I'd like to dig into. How do you love conflict? Why do you love conflict? And as I mentioned, some specifics that listeners can take away. You wanna just tell me about the book and your philosophy? You know how we grow when we grow up. We are taught that, uh, conflict is bad and we need to avoid it and be nice to each other. And I also was brought up in the same way. Um, my mother always strived for balance in the house. Be quiet, don't say anything. Just let's, let's keep peace no matter what. But then having traveled all over the world, and I've built several global businesses with multinational teams I've noticed that people who are not afraid of conflict, who do not avoid conflict, but instead go through it, they are much better off. Their teams are better, their relationships are stronger, their families stay together. And so I started studying that. How come there are people who do not avoid conflict? And what skillset do they have? How do they actually do it so that they are so good at it, so that at the end of the conflict, they actually have more trust, more collaboration in their teams, in their relationships. And so I've spent my life studying it. And I've developed a framework for loving conflict because I believe that whenever we do something, well, whenever we practice a lot and we do something well, we end up loving whatever we're doing, right? And so for me, conflicting, being engaged in conflict is like a muscle that I practice every day. And it's a very difficult thing to to practice because we're so conflict avoidant. And it makes us inconvenient for other people. But then what happens is that when we are, we know how to do it nicely. Kindly, g. We end up learning more about ourselves and people who we conflict with also learn about themselves, and we end up with a better relationship. I'm fascinated by one of the many things I'm fascinated by with you is that you built multiple businesses when you were in China. So before we dig into that conflict piece, which I have questions about, um, what made you wanna start businesses and, you know, what are the businesses? I'm curious. So what made me start businesses was be I, I was young and naive and I thought that I could do anything. I think that, um, entrepreneurship is like that, that, uh, we are, we are, we don't know what we don't know and what we cannot do. So I was full of energy and, um. Ideas. And so in China it used to be still, uh, it is, it's so easy to start businesses. Chinese people are so entrepreneurial. So having a team of people who are all starters and, and willing to work hard and create new things, it's a wonderful thing. So it wasn't just me. I found an amazing business partner in China who taught me how to do business there. And so it was just, I can do whatever I want, I can build things. And then slowly I started learning that I have limitations. And so it, now I'm 50 and I realized that it's harder and harder to start new things because I understand how much I don't know and how much I'm dependent on other people and how much I need a very strong team to accomplish anything. The fact that you're 50, which of course you don't look 50, you don't look like what I would picture 50-year-old, even though I'm older and I don't look my age either. But oh, the fact that you met other people to help you move ahead is great. And I do think, as you said, as we get older, we kind of know more about how much we don't know. I started playing piano a couple years ago and I said to my piano teacher, grace, who's young, younger than me, I said, I just feel like there's so much I don't know. And she's a composer, composers for indie films and stuff, and I, she said, I don't know. Either it's like, she's so good and yet there's a world ahead of her. So, uh, that comes to mind when you say that, right? And I think it's great because I think that what keeps us humble, that idea, that understanding that we don't know anything keeps us humble, which is one of the pillars for me in conflicting and connecting with people, staying humble myself pushes me to ask more questions, being more curious about other people, which in turn connects me with other people. More people love to share. People love to, to share what they know, right? And so I'm always the one who asks questions. I'm that person on the plane that if you are flying next to me at the end of our flight, depending on the time we spend together, I know everything about you. And you end up telling me, I don't understand. I've told you more than like my husband or my mother knows about me. I don't understand what just happened. But for me, it's like reading books. I think I love reading, I read all the time, but then every time I spent. Nice quality time with another person who is willing to share. Uh, it feels like I've just read an amazing book and it's alive and it's right there in front of me, and it's full of emotions and sensations and just, it just, just, uh, enriches me so much and makes me even more humble about my own experiences. So I've been doing that since, uh, since, uh, ever since I, I, I was a little girl in Ukraine and then in China, and then in the States. And so I feel like, you know, every time I stay humble, I quiet my mind, I quiet my opinions and I'm willing to change my mind. So I listen with the quality of willing to change my mind, I get to learn so much more about the other person, about different points of view, about different culture than if I came in with a very strict idea of myself and what I think and what I know. I think being curious, it's just such a wonderful quality for anyone. I happen to look for my news. I get a whole bunch of sources from conservative to liberal, to everything in between. And I feel like I, I need to have an open mind because yeah, I can't say that I know it all. And I, I think that's really inspiring that you say keep yourself humble, even with all the accomplishments that you've had. So let's talk, I'd like to talk about actual conflict and how, certainly, how do you practice it, because I don't like conflict either. But you know, how do you practice it in business? Um, and, and maybe even personally, like, I don't know what happens on the plane, but tell me about that conflict and how it works for you in business. Every time I feel tension. Tension in my body, tension between me and the other person, or tension in them. There is anything that is I see that they're skipping words, that they're holding back, that they're just, I'm also very body aware, so I'm constantly checking with myself how my body is feeling. Mm-hmm. There is feeling, there is this body scan that I'm doing, practice of body scanning. I'm constantly scanning my body. I know that for me, when I get tense, when things get uncomfortable, my neck tenses and my shoulders tense, and so I'm constantly checking. It's like, okay, how? How is it going? How is my neck? Oh, there is tension. What's going on? Is it something that they said or something that they didn't say? And then I just dig into it softly, kindly, gently. But I'm not going to leave it on the table. I'm going to say oh, there was something there just now. Could we go back into it? Is it, was it something I said that made you uncomfortable or something that you said that made me uncomfortable? And then it's all about me, so I bring it up. I'm not scared to bring up hard conversations because I know how to do it. I know how to do it with care. I know again, how to stay humble and curious about it and how to listen. Ready to change my mind. So that people can express things that otherwise they would have hidden. And so in business, the way it works is that if, for example, so I'm still a CEO of my, of my company where we produce co products for, uh, in, for American companies in China. I've started 25 years ago. And so I work a lot between China and the United States with US teams and Chinese teams. Every day we have uncomfortable conversations. There is so much propaganda one against another. There is trade war, there are tariffs there. It's, there is so much mistrust that people are receiving from the media sources, you know, from stereotypes. And so every time I feel, I see that somebody is making a decision because they have a stereotype for example, I work with American teams that say, well, Chinese people are like that. Whatever you can put in there, whatever stereotype you have about Chinese people, I'll dig into that. Oh, is that, I know that you probably have heard that about Chinese people. Can I, can we look at that? And so, because I am not afraid of discomfort, I'm not afraid of the tension. I know how to feel it in my body. I recognize it, I acknowledge it, I verbalize it, and then we, we just address it together. So that's in business. Every discomfort, every tension I go into it and I result, we resolve it together In personal relationships, it's the same, it's the same way. So I have three kids, they're nine, 12, and 15. And you know, they have grown up in California, in San Francisco and then moved to Paris, France. So they are trilingual, they speak Russian, French, and English fluently. Okay. You know how Ram does said, if you think you're enlightened, go spend the week with your parents. Mm. And so I think that like, if we want to practice conflict, the hardest thing to do is to conflict within our families, right? Yes, exactly. And so I do it every day. I live with my parents. So my parents who are Ukrainian parents, lived with us in the States and now moved with us to Paris. And so all those cultures, French culture, Ukrainian culture, Californian culture, oh, my kids all together, you can imagine how much how much we just bump into each other and, uh, and, and have issues. And so we all know that we are going to, whenever there's tension, we're going to slow down. We have family meetings every week where we bring up those issues. So even my 9-year-old daughter, Faina, she knows, okay, I have an issue, I have a topic for family meeting. And then during the family meeting she will say, well, yesterday, this is what happened. My brother said this and this is how I felt and I would like to bring it up and I have a request. So we have a process of this is what happened, this is how it made me feel, this is why I think it's happening to me. So it's about me. It's not about them. And this is what I would like to request going forward. So it's not blaming the past, it's not blaming them, it's not about, it's not attacking their, their who they are. It's about she needs because of who she is to make a request, how she would like to be treated going forward. That's really powerful. This is turning into p parenting advice too, which I love. And your kids, what an advantage to have that kind of background. It'll be interesting to see what they choose to do, but yes, so that is a great example of how bringing conflict up improves the situation, the understanding everyone's on the same page and, and a solution. You know, the saying, don't bring me a problem without a solution. So that's really great and opening my mind a little bit here. Now in business you mentioned like maybe stereotypes for different races or not racist countries, whatever. Mm-hmm. So that would be something that would come up and to me that would be a pretty obvious way to say, wait a minute. But what are other areas that in business that you might. You know, do you create conflicts or do you just notice when they come up? What is it that you do to bring those to the surface? I guess I think we have conflicts every day. So I, um, so I work with many executive teams and with many companies where there are silos. So companies bring me in if they notice that there are silos, and the ex stylists stop talking to each other. Uh, a common one is a sales team and marketing team, or marketing team and engineers, different language, different cultures. D uh, different way of being, different behavior. When they talk to each other directly, it's like they come, they, they, they speak different, a different language. And so I come in and I translate them to each other. What he's actually trying to say is this often people will say, well, they're not listening. Okay. Oh, then you have an experience of not being listened to. So then I teach the, the other team. Okay. How would you listen? How would you give them feedback? How would you just simply say back word by word what they just said? This is simple tools of how to listen so that the other person feels heard. That we are not taught in business schools and technical schools, we're not taught simply how to listen, which means that we cannot collaborate because the other people or the other team didn't feel listened to. So that that's just low hanging fruit is just coming in and watching how people interact and how, what is the listening capacity there and then teaching them and practicing that. Another one is how do people question each other? So are they saying, well, don't you think so? Or wouldn't it be better? Versus asking a question where it's clear that you are ready to accept the different facts. So fully openly curious questions. So we remove, although that's just easy, just a communication that that hasn't been updated for a long time, we haven't learned. Another one is how to give feedback without it, without putting people on the defensive. Feedback is great. It's very important. I'm all about, that's why I say I love conflict. I'm not, I do not like, uh, you know, sometimes I come into organizations and they're very polite to each other. It's soft, all soft and beautiful, polite. And I'm like, oh, what's under the, yeah, right. Exactly. What is it that, yes. And then they have meetings after meetings, right? People come out of a main meeting and then they are discussing it anyway. But we have no, we, we don't record it. We don't know what happened. We don't have feedback from those meeting after meeting. And so I facilitate, I say, no, we are going to bring everything in here. We're going to be gentle on each other. And just remembering that in front of you is another human being. And we do this exercise where, uh, we see the 6-year-old inside of this person. So if you are in front of someone and you are really. Just dislike them, afraid of them. Think that they're going to take your spot. If you feel shortage of resources or power, you know, if you're not in like an abundance mindset, how do you get back to this is a human being? How were they when they were six? And for me, like if I get stuck and I do not see the human being in front of me, and I just see, you know, the political party or somebody who threatens me, and then I imagine them at six, you know, there's this, oh this, you know, this feeling in the body of like, oh, they're, they're also afraid they also have an imposter syndrome. They're also afraid that they're going to lose their position or their power. Right? Or, or they're hungry, angry, tired. It's just it's all okay. Or it's like imagining that I'm holding their heart in my hands. How would I talk to them? Still giving them feedback because giving feedback is kind. We are helping them. And so I do it when I go to restaurants or to stores like, this is me, I'm that consumer. If I, because I've had the stores myself, I had the fashion brand for many years where we had stores all over California and I was that store owner. And I loved customers who came in and said, who is the CEO? Who is the owner here? I need to talk to them. And I would be like I would be on the floor. I'm like, well, I'm a salesperson, but tell me, oh, tell me. And they would be like criticizing something. They would say, well, I think you should do this better. And I was so grateful because they were giving me a gift of how to serve them better. Right? So I will do it in restaurants and everywhere, but I will do it in a way that is loving and gentle and, uh, appreciative because I know it's a gift to, to provide some of the feedback so that they get better. Wow. That's really, really great stuff. I've been taking a few notes here and it's interesting that your book says Loving Conflict, because to me that means, uh, you would love to face conflict, but you could also create loving conflict, so it's not confrontational. So this seems like. Yeah, A lot of it is communication, empathy valuing the other person. So when I saw that, this conflict, I think, wow, you know, I hate conflict, but you're framing it in a way that's a really good thing. And you said that you're a salesperson and I have to throw this in because so many business owners say, I don't wanna sell, I don't like to sell. And you're the COO and you are selling because mm-hmm. That's the way it is. If you want wanna sell something, if you have a business that's selling something, you need to be behind it. So that's really an interesting flipping the script as they say about thinking how I would imagine conflict and how you are, creating a different. Universe for that conflict. I wanna recommend your book again, it's coming out soon, loving Conflict, and a Look Cat. And as we were talking about it before, um, you can get that at Amazon or independence. Bookstores, right? You wanna talk about where to get it or? Yes, absolutely. So it's coming out March 31st, and it's going to be available everywhere, wherever the books are sold. Um, thank you so much. I really appreciate that you talk about my book. I am, I'm really, um, it's very imp it's been very important to me for a long time to talk about the subject, uh, but now even more than ever, because as a Ukrainian, there is a war in my home country. I feel like I'm in the middle of several major conflicts, geopolitical conflicts in the world, right Then, then as some, as a business owner in China, and there is, that works with the US companies. I'm in the middle of that conflict, the trade war, the separation of the, the, these 2, 2, 2 powers. And then also I'm a, I'm Jewish, I have a family in in Israel. I have dear friends. And partners in, uh, in Palestinian community. So I feel very much involved in a conflict in Middle East. And so I'm just, uh, every day I see these discussions in the state, in the United States, we feel very much how the world is polarized, right? And, and, uh, we are, even if we try not to follow the news, we still feel it in our family gatherings, right when we are together with friends. And I just think that this, I see the shift that people try to talk less and less of about the things that matter to them so that they do not get into conflict. And it's true that I just want to flip the script and say, no, no, no. If you do that and you know how to do it gently, you might not change somebody else's mind, but you will create trust between you and them so that you can hold hands through all the troubles, through all the hardships. And I feel so sad when I see people stop talking to their parents, to their best friends because they, they do not agree on the same points. And, uh, and they think that they're doing better for their political party or for their movement, or for their activism. And I actually think it's the opposite, was it that every time we stop talking to someone because they have a different view, we actually help their point of view because they do not get to be to get feedback from you. They get, don't get to have this back and forth, because in this back and forth is when we find, find better ideas. So I'm just, uh, I really appreciate that you, uh, you invited me and you talk about my book because I want to, um, do everything possible because somehow on some level I feel like I am contributing to the peace in my country, in my home country. The more we talk, the more we are willing to sit in a discomfort. And learn that, okay, somebody is angry, I can still go talk to them as long as it's safe, physically, right, or mentally. I'm not saying, you know, go into unsafe environments for you, but as long as you can keep it safe go listen to them because maybe behind their anger, after the anger, there will be tears and maybe they will tell you why. What is moving them to this anger? Well, I have to say, I fall into the category of someone who does not discuss politics with others, and you're shedding a whole new light on that, really, because that will keep us siloed, as you said. And, I can't wait to read your book. So does your book really, apply to all those areas of life. So it's, I thought it was mostly business oriented, but is it, it address your, all the conflicts potentially in your life? Absolutely. So it's for business and personal life. And I to, I tell many stories in my book. It's partially memoir of my life. So I I, I tell stories from China, from the United States, from my business life and personal life, when and where I learned how to conflict better. So it's quite entertaining. Uh, I wanted to keep it, uh, in a storytelling format. And yes, the principles apply in personal life. You know, you were talking about, uh, how you expose yourself to different news. And it's one of the pillars, uh, uh, uh, in my framework. So I ask people to pop the bubble of information around us, and to keep that friend or to reach out. If you don't have friends who are from different political parties than you are, or from different points of view you do not know enough about the world. I just think that, uh, we need to reach out to people who are different from us and have that, um, discussion and conversation going, because we will learn, even if we learn to express our points better, even if it gives us that practice, it's already a big plus. Well, it sounds like you have, like you say, stories are huge. We all love stories. Mm-hmm. And you have some frameworks like you explained with your kids. Um, I'm sure you have lots more in the book that specific things that we can do. And like I said, you've enlightened me and being the person that you're talking about who's open and willing to discuss in a civil manner, whatever, for understanding, I mean, that will definitely make the world a bigger pla a better place, maybe a smaller place because we're more connected. Mm-hmm. I, this is a very powerful topic and. Talking to you is really inspiring also. So, uh, yes. I really appreciate you being on the show and sharing your wisdom and your story, so thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for doing what you do. Wow, that's really, really good.