Remarkable Minds

How to Fight & Unite

• Daniel Stark

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Fight & Unite. It's the playbook for how healthy conflict brings teams closer together. 

In this episode, Will Davis and Wes Lockett unpack how organizations can cultivate environments where constructive conflict leads to better decisions and stronger unity.

Drawing from Kim Scott's "Radical Candor" framework, our leadership team explores what happens when teams create space for honest, occasionally uncomfortable conversations before rallying around shared solutions.


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Speaker 1:

We all feel heard, we all feel like we said what we needed to say. We debated the pros and cons and we are all going to walk out of this room supporting the solution. That is what United looks like. Get ready, drop the confetti. Get ready, get ready.

Speaker 2:

Get ready, drop the confetti. Get ready, drop the confetti. Welcome to Remarkable Minds hosted by Daniel Stark Leaders. Here we unbox insights for professional growth. My name is Claudia Yanez, I am the Chief Marketing Officer, and I'm joined today by Will Davis, our Chief Legal Officer, and Wes Cagle, our Chief Operating Officer. How's it going, guys? I'm great. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm doing great. I'm excited to get going.

Speaker 2:

Today's topic is on fighting unite. So this is obviously a very known term in the industry, in leadership, and Wes just kind of brief us real quick on what fighting unite is. Who kind of coined that term? And let's start there.

Speaker 1:

Sure. So it comes from a book by Kim Scott called Radical Candor and essentially what it means is it's about having healthy debate and discussions around decision making. So that's having really honest conversation at different levels and different scenarios. And that's the fighting part where you can come and have really candid. That's where the radical candor is really being able to be honest, be frank in your discussions around certain decisions and topics. That, depending on what groups, what decisions you're making, and then at the end of those conversations, coming together around a singular decision, like we're going to do this thing when we leave this room, we're all on the same page, moving towards the same goal. So that's the uniting portion of it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, and one of the reasons why this is so important is because traditionally, this is not how decisions have been made in business or in leadership, and I don't know if you've been here for quite a bit. Maybe we'll throw some years 14?

Speaker 1:

14 years. No, it's almost 15. 15 in.

Speaker 2:

January 15 years and counting, okay. And so I don't know if we've always let's be honest if we've always held on to that mantra here at Daniel Stark, and how we've made these decisions. Do you remember, maybe early in the years, maybe, when we had no leadership or barely forming leadership, and where decisions were not carried out that way?

Speaker 3:

Well, yeah, for sure I do. You know we've changed a lot over the years, but I think our ability, especially as an executive team, but hopefully on every team level, is you know, you have to have that constructive conflict. I think there's a lot of people in the world that are anti-conflict and they don't ever want to have conflict. But, like, conflict is not a bad thing. It can be sometimes, but I think that if you can have constructive conflict and you can get through that together as a team and you can all come out on the other side to support the decision and everybody's bought in, I think it's an incredibly powerful thing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I think that's so true, especially as this new generation comes into the workforce. They appreciate that more than maybe us millennials. I think we also appreciate it, but it's also very different just amongst generations. I think it's probably the hardest for some of our Generation X that are in leadership positions or managers. I think it's harder for them because that's not how decisions were made long ago and it's become a much more collaborative effort to get all voices, all diversity, like, into those constructive conversations, into those constructive conversations. So let's unbox that and talk about. What do you feel like are some of the things, looking back in those conversations you've been in, the good ones and the ugly ones, some of the things that went really well, why they went really well and maybe why they didn't go well. Let's start with, probably let's start with the why it didn't go well. Let's talk about some of the ugly ones. What are some of the things? We felt like, man, we didn't have this and we should have had it in place.

Speaker 1:

Sure. So I think some of the ones that didn't go well were we didn't have a clear set of guidelines going in. We didn't know what decision we were trying to make, who was leading the discussion, what the purpose was, and so the group dynamics were all over the place and we didn't kind of set the stage for those conversations. People didn't realize they were allowed to kind of speak their mind, and so it was missing. Maybe that emotional safety aspect that wasn't in place, and maybe the group dynamics were new.

Speaker 1:

The team hadn't formed a connection to feel like they could have those conversations, and so the people that had been there the longest or that had the most tenure or maybe were the most senior if you're talking about a hierarchy kind of dominated those conversations and so the rest of the group felt like they had to go along with those decisions and so they didn't feel like their voice could be heard and the group wasn't united at the end of that.

Speaker 1:

So what that leads to is not having a united front when you leave those conversations, and that's kind of when you have a fissure at the end, or those after the meeting conversations, and then, if it depending on the level of leadership from those conversations, then a whole organization can feel that you're not on the same page, which is why that unite portion is so important. So I think those were some of the key aspects. When I reflect on what didn't think those were some of the key aspects when I reflect on what didn't go well in some of those conversations, yeah, and one of the words you described, I guess when you were talking about it, was diverse you know I think that's one of the big things to have a team is to have diverse backgrounds, experience levels, specialties.

Speaker 3:

I think the more diverse you can have a team whether that's people that have been here a shorter amount of time or a longer amount of time and come from different backgrounds the better outcome is going to be, because you're going to have different perspectives. But I also think you have to have somebody that's very good at facilitating these things, because I think you need to have input from everybody, which means there's got to be safety for people to be able to talk about it, and then you have to make sure that everybody's doing their part. Maybe somebody's dominating the conversation, and then they can make sure that the people that aren't talking as much can get some more say.

Speaker 2:

I wish I had the Firefly AI note taker. You can see it on screen because it tells you your engagement and how much you dominated in a conversation versus everyone, because I'm one of those people that tend to talk because I process out loud and so I tend to do that, and so it comes across as I'm dominating that conversation.

Speaker 2:

But one of the a couple of things that y'all said that I just kind of want to bring to light again is one setting the parameters right and ensuring that there's a facilitator, and that's always hard. Who's going to be the one right? And ensuring that there's a facilitator, and that's always hard. Who's going to be the one to facilitate? Because sometimes the one who is facilitating is also the one that wants to chime in the most too. So you got to be careful when you're in that role, because as the facilitator and you want to participate, you can do both. You got to be careful with that. You really want a facilitator that can just follow maybe a loose agenda can just circle, bring it back right, someone with emotional intelligence that can pick up when things are maybe not going well. So I love that. Have the facilitator set the parameters.

Speaker 2:

What's the objective of today's meeting? Like, I really love it when I go into one of those and, hey, we're not going to solve it today. Like I know that immediately because, as a lot of high performers, they want to do that. They want it Like. Are we going to solve it? Like no, so just get it out the way. We're not going to solve it today. Today's purpose is to I want to hear your thoughts, I want to hear your feelings about this. Let's just throw some ideas out there, right? So that's always great to set the parameter and the safety, especially when it comes to maybe having diversity and safety and balancing that out, because a lot of times when you have diversity, there's not a lot of safety. Why is that?

Speaker 3:

I mean, I just think generally people don't feel comfortable in a given setting. For, whatever the reason is, I think that the more that you can set the parameters, like you said, the parameters and I think part of the parameters is like how is this decision going to be made? And you know, you could say, like the leader or the facilitator, they make the decision or everybody has a vote in its majority, or it has to be unanimous. I think that can help a lot, but I think if everybody knows the ground rules going into it and you know.

Speaker 3:

but safety is such a huge thing because to have a great idea you probably have to have a bunch of ideas period, and a lot of those ideas are probably not going to be that good. And so you have to be able to be comfortable bringing up a bad idea and then knowing that you're not going to get roasted for it, because you've got to go through a bunch to get the best ideas sometimes.

Speaker 2:

And that safety, especially if you have different tiers of leadership in that room. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Speaker 1:

Sure, so not only when you have different tiers, but when you have different experience levels. So maybe someone hasn't been on the team as long. People feel like I just started here, I need to learn from the other people in the room, so kind of a power dynamic situation where people don't feel like they have anything to offer. So it's on the facilitator or whoever's leading the meeting to say, like your voice is important here, we want to hear everyone's ideas. We brought you on this team for a reason Because it's important to us to have a fresh idea, to have a fresh perspective, because we learn best from all voices and when we bring in new voices we learn something that we missed before. Because we've been in this for so long.

Speaker 1:

For the people that have been on the team longer, like we're too deep in this organization. We've always done it this way and it's obviously not working. That's why we're trying to solve a problem. So we'd love to hear a fresh perspective and really giving them the permission to speak up in those meetings.

Speaker 1:

So making sure that the facilitator is kind of doing like setting the stage for them to share and then having someone that's really confident as a facilitator for people that maybe are higher up in the leadership chain if it's people at different experience levels to feel confident in calling out someone in a higher position to say like thank you so much for sharing. I'd really like to hear from this other person and making sure that everyone has a turn to share, but sometimes it depends on the facilitator. They don't feel comfortable doing that. Or like, hey, senior person, I'd really need to hear from this junior person also, because they have a perspective to bring. They're closer to the team level, so they understand what boots on the ground are doing on this problem and we're a little bit more removed from it. So it's important to hear that perspective. So we've got to have all those perspectives to be able to solve a problem holistically.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. If you're the facilitator in any of those meetings, one of your goals should be engagement from everyone in the room, participation from everyone in the room, and so that's always just a really great key takeaway, and not just for maybe higher in leadership that maybe like to dominate those conversations have a lot of insights, so let's take leadership out of it. Let's talk about personalities now in the room and this is advice for everyone, right? The people who are very quiet let's talk about or maybe are introverts, they like to wander, they're like little incubators and they'd like to process that information to those who obviously that are extroverts, it's just like a stream of conscious coming out. Tell me a little bit more as a, would you consider yourself an introvert?

Speaker 3:

Well, I don't think I'm a straight introvert, Um, but I mean, I I do think a lot of times the people that talk the most are the people that don't always have the right answers. Um, just because somebody talks a lot, does that mean it's more important that somebody that talks less?

Speaker 2:

And I do think, that's key.

Speaker 3:

when you're in a team, there's sometimes the people that talk the least. You got to listen to what they say, because they probably screen that a whole lot more before they say it, versus somebody who says everything, and so I do think it's important. But while I think it ends with the facilitator making sure everybody participates, I think the rest of the team has to create that safety as well. So that's the way I think there's going to really be buy-in is like is if everybody is able to really create safety and encourage people to participate, no matter what the job titles are in the room or their responsibilities, I think the more trust that can be made. But then making sure that everybody has a voice, cause I do think it can be hard if somebody talks a whole lot, sometimes you don't want to jump in.

Speaker 2:

So there's something that you mentioned there that I think is really great and something that Wes pointed out to me People will have a bias towards. If I'm an extrovert, I'm going to classify more as an extrovert I'm coming in and I'm in and I'm having a discussion with my fellow peers who are more of an incubators. I like to process like you said, there is screening are going through a process of discernment and that information before you speak, which I appreciate, I know that I need to check myself coming in. I need to. I need to come in more curious. I need to come in more curious. I need to come in like, hey, what's on your mind? You're pondering something over there, not tell myself a story that you either don't care about the conversation that we're having and that's why you're disengaged, or that they're disengaged, oh yeah, or that they're disengaged.

Speaker 1:

There's the one, absolutely and even you have nothing of value to add to the conversation, and there's probably more.

Speaker 1:

Those are the ones I'm just thinking about.

Speaker 1:

So, like that biasness coming in the group and the level of trust and how comfortable everyone feels, so you can get all kinds of emotions when you and also depends on the topic you're discussing, how impassioned everyone is on that topic and how important it is to the organization or to those people or to their departments, and so you can experience a full range of emotions and that can be a challenge both for the facilitator and the level of candor and the level of safety for everyone in the room.

Speaker 1:

So it is up to the whole group and those people to be self-aware, and sometimes people are and sometimes people are not, and so, again, it kind of depends on the group dynamics and the facilitator, and I hate to keep bringing it back to the facilitator, but sometimes it really takes a strong facilitator to say, okay, I think we need to take a pause, let's take a break. It feels like things are getting pretty tense and we need to take a step back, or maybe we need to regroup and sleep on this decision because it doesn't feel like we're going to get anywhere today, maybe have a side conversation and say, hey, like what's going on, are we okay?

Speaker 2:

Seems like there's something more.

Speaker 1:

There's something more here that we need to talk about and it doesn't feel like it's really about this topic. So and that can be done in really constructive ways or really harmful ways to either build trust or break trust in that group, and so it depends on your level of care and kind of what you know about those people it's kind of vague, but it's very dependent on the situation and the topic and the people involved.

Speaker 3:

And you kind of talked about it with the constructive, with constructive conflict. You want to. Not, it can't be personal at all. You have to keep it to whatever it is that the discussion's about. As soon as anybody goes anything personal, it's just all going downhill unless you can cut that out immediately.

Speaker 2:

Saying it out loud is like us versus the problem. That's right, puts it back to the objective.

Speaker 2:

And when you go in and it does not go well. There's a lot that you got to go back and fix when it does not go well, and so I think having that facilitator understand and know so it doesn't get to that level is so key, because you definitely don't want to be cleaning up after. You want to be able to have those conflicts, in a healthy manner, discuss and so that you can actually unite. So what does unite actually look like?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that depends on the issue actually look like? Well, I think that depends on the issue, but I think at the end, if you can all say, do we all agree that this is the best solution for the problem or the issue we're trying to solve, and everyone can say this isn't what we thought it was going to look like, but yes, we all agree, when we leave the room, we're all going to support this 100%. We all feel heard, we all feel like we said what we needed to say. We debated the pros and cons and we are all going to walk out of this room supporting the solution. That is what United looks like.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, I think it's so important to commit to being United because you cannot come out of a meeting and not be on board with something. I can't come out of a meeting and not be on board with something. I can't come out of a meeting and say, well, you, we can't do that because Wes won't, wes is against it, or Claudia is against it, or this team is against it, because then that's not taking ownership of the situation. So you have to be able to put everything on the table during that meeting so you can come out and support that.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely the thing we hate the most is politicking.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

After any of those, or exactly what you said, where you're like this is the way we have to do it, because XO said so so toxic and so harmful for the health of the organization. One of the things that I enjoy to do when I know that I'm going to bring a topic that feels heavy or feels like I know there may be some emotions, and this was recent it's making sure that I preface let's just be open-minded, open heart, and this is ideation, this is conceptual and most of the time it's just because I want to hear what's important for everybody. So when I do come back with the pitch or do come back with the proposal, I have taken everybody's consideration or parameters, like I could be okay if X, y and Z, so I'm considering all of that as well.

Speaker 3:

That's where I know the good stuff's coming. I like to preface.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes it's helpful when I say that Let me preface this by saying or guys, this is just ideation, conceptual, just because I want to set those expectations for people so they can manage their emotions. We haven't made a decision, I haven't moved in one direction. I'm just really curious and I want to know where everybody stands with this Going back to the emotion.

Speaker 1:

When there is a lot of emotion and you are the facilitator, I find that asking like I'm not sure what the issue is anymore sometimes gets people to check their emotions. Like I think we got off topic and I'm not sure where we are. Like, what are we trying to solve? Again Kind of gets people to check their own emotions. So the facilitator doesn't have to try to regulate anyone else's emotions. They kind of do it themselves, like oh yeah, what are we trying to solve? They're like oh, let's, it's not personal, bring it back. We're bringing it back to solving a problem. Kind of does that for them and it's really going back to that curiosity piece.

Speaker 2:

Ok. So we talked about when you're going to fight. You want to be. You want to make sure that you select the right facilitator, someone who has the qualities emotionally intelligent, who's confident and being able to follow in and follow maybe an agenda or loose agenda, check temperaments and attitudes and is able to bring everyone back together to have a cohesive, just a really great and productive conversation. So again, that safety that's where the emotional safety comes from, right as well. So the emotional safety and establishing that, that's hard, because we talked about how diverse the room is can sometimes hinder that a little bit. And so, setting that, setting the stage for those conversations to happen, what you're trying to solve we talked about.

Speaker 2:

Set the objectives, what's the purpose of it If you can set maybe a timeline or a time frame at least, because a lot of the fight and unites don't happen in just one meeting. It can take the course of several days, weeks, months, depending on how big that conversation. What's the impact of that decision? Does this impact someone on a personal level, a department, the organization as a whole? So all of that gives perspective to that. And again, uniting we talked about meeting, coming together as a team. This is our decision that we made, we all had bought in into it and when we step out of this room, we're all united on this front. That's right. Extremely important for organizational health. Wonderful, any other last bit insights on this?

Speaker 3:

topic. Anytime you make a decision in life or in professional world, I think you need to go back and review those decisions and I think, even in this context, like you can review the decision Was it the right decision, was it the wrong decision? And not to go back and like pick on anybody or anything. But I think you can go back to that meeting and think about, like if this was a wrong decision, like did somebody not speak up that could have, did somebody speak up too much? I think you can go back and I hate to always use autopsy, but I think if you can go back and you can look at these decisions in the process, I think you can learn a lot from that. So it may be hard to remember to do that, but I think it kind of needs to be a process that you're always doing.

Speaker 2:

That feels so good. Yes, I know that when people have set that in the end of a conversation where I felt like man I had there's a lot at stake here is still working for us, or if it's or even like six months down the road, if something does not go well with how we executed this, we come back and, like Jonathan says, execute the plan and start a new plan. That always brings me some level of like, I guess, safety within itself, or maybe some sense of like, security and confident also in in the team and in the leadership team, that we're really trying to make the best decision for the firm or, you know, for the organization.

Speaker 1:

That was one of the things I thought was so important. We're working through our core processes, our change management process, and that was really important for us to add debrief as the last step. So what did we learn from the decision, the change that we were making? What can we do better next time? What do we need to do to make it better after something, a big change happened at GoLive, to make this change even better next time.

Speaker 2:

And that's going to be a fantastic conversation for next time, because once you do make these decisions, how you roll it out to the team matters Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And we've learned. We have some hard earned wisdom from that, definitely taking that and putting into the next time we roll something out so that it has that same level of consideration. All right, such a great topic, but that's all that we have for now. So if you have any insights or suggestions on any new topics, please send those to podcast at DanielStarkcom. Thank you guys for tuning in. We hope everyone enjoys today's insights. Till next time, stay remarkable.