Why Conflict at Work Feels Hard | Lessons from The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle | Tessa Kampen

Struggling with hard conversations on your team?

In this episode, we’re talking about vulnerability, and what it actually looks like at work.

Not oversharing.
 Not making things uncomfortable.

But the kind of vulnerability that helps managers build trust, improve communication, and handle conflict more effectively.

Because when vulnerability is missing:

•  feedback gets avoided 
•  tension builds 
•  and small issues turn into bigger problems 

If you’re working on your leadership development, this is one of the most practical leadership tips you can apply right away.

In this episode:

•  What vulnerability actually looks like in team management 
•  Why teams avoid hard conversations 
•  How vulnerability helps you handle conflict at work 
•  Simple ways to start using this as a manager 

Resources

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Connect with Tessa Kampen 

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Transcript

Tessa (00:00.31)
Are we staying with the second one here, shared vulnerability? Okay, go.

Desiree (00:03.111)
Yes. Yeah, perfect. All right, friends, welcome back. I am here with Tessa Campin. We are going to dive right back into Daniel Coyle's book, The Culture Code. We are in skill number two. In last week's episode, we talked about skill number one, building psychological safety and some of the tools and things that Tessa and I have seen and done with teams to help them do that. But this week we are going to talk about sharing vulnerability and what that looks like on a team.

why it's not as scary as it sounds, why it's not the touchy feely trust fall. I've never actually done one those, but I don't think it would go very well. Why it's not what you think it is and how we can actually build it on our team. So thank you for joining us, Tessa. Any initial thoughts before we dive in?

Tessa (00:50.386)
I think this one's gonna be tough for a lot of people because, know, again, we'll get into it, but I think vulnerability is scary. It's almost like you're asking me to take my clothes off in front of, you know, people or strangers or whatnot. And hopefully by the end, you'll see that it doesn't have to be that way. But I think this is one of the things I see the most struggles with when I work on teams, even if I'm inside of a vulnerability session.

It is very, very difficult.

Desiree (01:22.633)
Patrick Lentoni actually has a book, I think it's called Get Naked, all about vulnerability. So if anyone wants to really take a deep dive into this, you can go check that one out. But I absolutely agree with you on the vulnerability. I led a team workshop last week. It was primarily men. And one of the guys was really open and he just said, you know, I'm an emotional guy. I'm not usually crying for me. I'm not crying over criticism. I, you know, I get upset because of my team not getting what they need or what they ask for.

Tessa (01:26.273)
Yep, yep.

Desiree (01:52.551)
And I'm sitting here thinking, this is that, that's awesome. Good for you. Like, yeah, it's probably really uncomfortable when those situations arise, but like, it's okay to be vulnerable sometimes. And one of his teammates was not feeling that way. He, you know, kind of was like, I don't respect men who cry at work, et cetera. And after some conversation, what we found out was that wasn't the case. You know, he admitted to, you know, getting emotional at work too, but it was the reasoning behind the vulnerability.

But had we stopped at, don't respect men who cry at work, we would have missed the entire understanding of, you know, he's frustrated when people can't take criticism and take feedback. And so it was like it was the perfect learning opportunity of we can't stop the conversation at someone's bold statement. We have to get more vulnerable than that. We have to get more curious than that and push past how awkward that situation feels and keep going.

Tessa (02:32.46)
Mmm.

Desiree (02:49.533)
because there was so much more to that that I personally hope is going to impact that team for a long time going forward and their relationship one-on-one with each other, et cetera. And I don't even know what we're talking about anymore, but that conversation will impact me for the rest of my life.

Tessa (03:05.387)
Yeah, what I love about teams that are willing to embrace vulnerability, and in every session that I do, we do some level of them getting vulnerable, even if the session's not on vulnerability. I find that vulnerability becomes contagious. I just did a disc workshop a few weeks ago, and my very first question is, my very first activity is always about connection. And so I do this connection activity, and

One of the questions I ask, especially if it's in a communication workshop, is how did you experience communication growing up? And what I'm wanting them to share is that experience so that they can make a connection between how they experienced communication and how they communicate today. And a gentleman shared a story of his upbringing and his parents and his mom with her mental health conditions. And he went first, which was really interesting too. He was the first to share.

when I said, okay, so what struck you about your conversations? Like tell me, and that was the very first thing. And you could just see everyone else in the room almost relax. And it's like it gave, and he wasn't, now these were all senior leadership team members, but he wasn't like the leader of the team. But him starting with that allowed everyone else to then follow suit. And it was...

the start of the day, this was a full eight hour day. So by the end of the day, they were fully vulnerable and open. But that's what I love about this topic of vulnerability is it's contagious. And if you are the leader, you have to go first, right? So trust, we're talking about vulnerability based trust here. It has to start with the leader. And if you open up that door, the rest of your team's gonna open that

and it just becomes a beautiful, like I just think it's so beautiful when people are willing to open up about those things.

Desiree (05:00.521)
And that's actually Daniel Coyle's first point is that the leader needs to go first and they need to go often. In other words, and you said this in the last episode too, it's like this is not a one time you would be vulnerable and then you and you're done. It's every day with every opportunity that you can be a little bit more vulnerable than you have been in the past.

Tessa (05:14.135)
Yeah.

Tessa (05:22.721)
And you know what I love too is I vulnerability sends a signal that says it's safe to take risks here because vulnerability is essentially I'm taking a risk to show you a piece of me that could potentially be held against me really like the story you gave of a gentleman crying like that could be held over someone's head. Remember that time you cried in that meeting like you're taking a risk every time you decide to open up and be vulnerable with someone and

And I think that's also a beautiful thing on Teams. It's saying you can take risks here and we're not going to use it against you.

Desiree (06:01.927)
What I found really interesting in this book, something that I hadn't thought about before, especially when it comes to vulnerability, is that, yes, it takes a lot of guts, courage, et cetera, for the first person to be vulnerable. But the person that accepts that vulnerability, the person who takes it in stride is actually the key for this, what Daniel Coyle calls the vulnerability loop of like, like you said, if that first person is vulnerable and it isn't taken well.

that's gonna stop that person from wanting to be vulnerable again. It's the person on the other side of the person being vulnerable to accept that, to be open to it, to ask clarifying questions, to not make fun of them or talk down to them or whatever it might look like in your team right now. It's that second person who's gonna open up the possibility of that happening again.

Tessa (06:49.163)
Yeah, yeah. And I love the story. I'm hoping it was from this this chapter, but if I remember correctly about Pixar where they would openly screen their plays or their shows early, right? So flawed versions of of it and invite people to critique it like that to me is like ultimate vulnerability. We're going to expose this to you and we want you to tell us what's working. What's not working?

Desiree (06:58.089)
Mmm.

Tessa (07:18.845)
And I think the challenge with vulnerability is most of us want to protect our ego. And so if I only show you a part of myself and I don't admit my weaknesses or I don't go into a space where I show you a little bit of who I am, then I'm essentially protecting myself. And who knows? Again, you have to understand where people come from. Maybe their vulnerability has been used against them. Maybe it's just men don't cry.

So don't cry, right? Maybe it's the words that were said as you were growing up. But I think if we let go of the idea that vulnerability is a weakness and we embrace that it's actually status neutralizing behavior, I guess you can say in a way, right? Where it's like, we're all, what was it? Fallible? We had a hard time last time. We're all fallible here, right?

Desiree (08:12.521)
Yeah

Tessa (08:15.733)
And so it doesn't matter if you're the leader or if you're, you know, SLT or whatever. We all make mistakes and we all have weaknesses. Let's talk about it.

Desiree (08:26.313)
So I got up and spoke in front of a bunch of high schoolers a couple of weeks ago for a student entrepreneurship conference. And I told the story as I normally would that I was not a great leader when I started. I was 24 years old and with no experience, nothing but a college degree and et cetera, et cetera. I told the story, had a follow-up call with someone the next day and they're like, I don't think you should tell that story. People don't necessarily want to hear that you are a bad leader when you're teaching leadership.

And I said, I respectfully disagree. I said, I think that the biggest impact comes from when people see people like them getting better and growing in something that they feel is really hard and almost seems impossible right now. And could I say it more eloquently? Yeah, 100 % I could, but then I wouldn't probably be me. But I'm curious on your standpoint on that of that vulnerability of saying like, yeah, I used to be

Tessa (09:18.573)
You

Desiree (09:25.541)
not great at something or yeah that was really hard for me too or etc etc.

Tessa (09:30.712)
That just makes you human. again, like going back to the whole concept of protecting your ego, I think if we have a problem with someone sharing the reality of leadership, that's what you're doing really, is you're sharing the reality. Because there's tons of leaders out there who had no idea what they were doing when they stepped into their leadership role. And if they're honest with the world, they would probably share the same story, right? Like most people get leadership training.

Only months after they're in a leadership position and they're failing, do they bring us in? Not, I'm preparing for a leadership position, so I need training on how to be and develop my leadership. And so I think people just aren't used to hearing that. Now, you and I live in this space, so I feel like I hear those stories more often than not. And maybe that's a new leadership thing where the next generation is just very open.

with their failures and with what didn't work. But how can I connect with someone if my story is I'm way up here and I've always been up here and if you want to be a great leader, this is where you need to be. And yet you're down on floor number one and here I am on floor number 20. There's just way too big of a gap. And they're gonna think, well, I'll never be that. So I think this is almost the reason why

We need to share those stories is to help people see that it doesn't matter where you are today. You can get to anywhere you really want to go, you know, with hard work, maybe not anywhere, but, you know, don't don't think you have to be this amazing leader when you start because the reality is you probably won't be. Right, like I know John Maxwell will often talk about you're never good the first time or he talks about his book. You know, my first book was terrible and.

you know, all these things and it was probably true because you've never done it before. If you've never been a leader, you're not going to be a great leader. You have to kind of work up to that. So.

Desiree (11:30.089)
Mm-hmm.

But what I would love to say is if you happen to be listening to this right now, you are putting in a lot more work than a lot of people in your position. It took me over a year of feeling like I didn't know what I was doing in leadership before I searched for help. I did not feel safe in my environment to the point where I would be vulnerable enough to go and say, hey, I need help or hey, I need a mentor. need someone to give me a good kick in the butt or whatever your style of feedback is.

And so if you're listening to this, you're already one step further than I was at this point and you should be really proud that you're willing to get vulnerable with Tessa and I.

Tessa (12:10.401)
Yeah, I think that you can't grow without admitting, I guess, some of those areas that we're not strong in, or the areas we need to grow. And that's really what vulnerability is. Now it's also saying, here's where I'm really good. I think part of vulnerability-based trust is also being able to show up and say, I'm really amazing. Maybe not amazing, maybe that's pushing it, but I'm really good at these three things. So please let me do more of that. That requires vulnerability too, because

On one side, people can see that as, you've got a big ego. So they're not going to, right? Psychological safety will be damaged. Like how dare you come here and speak like that? Like who do you think you are? But it's vulnerable to even recognize where you're strong. Like what are your thoughts on that?

Desiree (12:57.289)
I just did a mini episode about this because so many people think that having humility means that you just don't talk about yourself and that you need to play it small and not recognize your own accomplishments. And I disagree. I think that that is almost a lack of humility because you just don't even recognize your own value enough to be humble and to be able to say, yeah, I'm really good at this thing, but I don't need to shout it from the rooftops. I can prove it through my actions and being kind.

There's over-arrogance, but there's also a lack of self-confidence and humility is somewhere in the center of it. Being able to say, am really great at what I do and I value what I bring to this team, but I also know there's a lot of things that I'm just not adept at. And yeah, that would be my thoughts.

Tessa (13:44.514)
Yeah, yeah, I don't think it's a sign of humility to withhold those things, right? Like, I think it is important to acknowledge it. But again, we live in a culture that is so interested in personal, like personal development plans, which are based on someone's weaknesses, that for any, you for someone to step into a room and say, I actually want a PDP plan on my strengths.

I wanna develop a plan on how I can get better at the things I'm good at. Like that would be a little bit shocking, I think for someone to take that route, but that's what I advise all my clients, make your personal development plans about getting better at what you're really good at. Now, essentially, I know you and I sort of bonded over this topic, which is why we love each other so much, but.

I'm not saying if you have a character flaw, a very bad character flaw, that you don't have to work on that. That's not what I'm saying. Please, anything to do with how you treat people, if you have weaknesses, you're impatient, all that stuff, please work on that. I'm talking about actual task type things. If it's like, oh, I wish you would just be better at data management. Let's put you on a plan to get better at it. No, why would you do that when the person is really good at dealing with people? So yeah.

Desiree (14:47.859)
Bye.

Desiree (14:59.751)
Mm-hmm.

And you actually hit the nail on the head. One of the tips that he uses in this book is separate performance reviews from development. In other words, like we I see this a lot with team leaders as they wait until that yearly review where everything is lumped into one. The good, the bad, the raise, the, you know, performance improvement plan if one is necessary, whatever that looks like. And it's just you either focus 100 percent on the negative or 100 percent on the positive as you leave that room and

Neither is good, and neither is where you want to be. So I always encourage individuals in those one-on-ones to focus on what are you really good at? Ask them questions to allow them to be vulnerable. Where do you need my help? Where have I not been supportive enough? What do you need from me? Types of questions that they wouldn't likely feel confident enough to just come up and ask. Some will. I would just go ask. But some are going to struggle with that. And so we need to be

helping them to build that vulnerability by separating the good, the bad, and kind of making them their own things.

Tessa (16:08.097)
Yeah, and don't just wait until the end of the year. Like I, I'm not a huge fan of those annual performance reviews. I know you got to do them. That's fine. But I think if we're going to embrace vulnerability, share like the worst thing, I remember hearing a story of someone who was not performing well in their job. And, you know, they, they kind of gave very vague, ambiguous, you know, suggestions on how to perform and what to do. And this poor person.

Desiree (16:11.258)
percent.

Tessa (16:35.637)
work there for a full year and then they go in and their performance review and they're fired. And it's like, why would you do that? Like, and they were completely shocked because all the things they were told they weren't doing right. No one ever actually sat down with them and clearly said that. And again, it's like, if we're talking about vulnerability, you might be afraid to be like, Ooh, I don't really want to tell Tessa. She's not strong here. We'll just see if she can figure it out. Well, I may never figure it out. Right. And so like,

Desiree (16:40.271)
no.

Tessa (17:05.129)
even being vulnerable enough to go to someone and share something that you know may not be received, well, you can communicate that in a way that is still showing love and care for that person. But I think, you know, vulnerability means we're going to be kind to people in their weaknesses and in their strengths. Like, we're not going to wait a year before we share that with them. And so let me ask you a question because this is about the culture code here.

Do you believe that we can create really great cultures without vulnerability?

Desiree (17:42.218)
I haven't seen it done yet. You know, I get the privilege to work with teams who are struggling where they call me and they have a lot of frustration. They have two people who really don't like each other. They're really struggling in some way, or form. I get called into those situations, vulnerability and deep conversation, apologizing to one another. These are all things that happen as we're working towards helping their team to grow.

but I also get the privilege of working with teams that are just investing in development. And those always come down to how can we be even more vulnerable and connect more as a team and be more honest with each other and ask for what we need. It's still vulnerability, even if they're not trying to fix a quote unquote challenge, they're just wanting to grow together. I have.

And maybe there are those out there that are just run like a machine and that's okay. And it's everyone's expectation and that is the culture. That's what they want. That's fine. But I have yet to see a company that prides themselves on a lack of emotion in their business, which is what vulnerability is.

Tessa (18:52.215)
Yeah, I definitely agree. think, you know, if we're saying healthy culture, not just culture, because you're right, you can have cultures that lack vulnerability and they will have a culture, but a really healthy culture will embrace this and want to learn more about it. I remember a client, you know, about a year ago asked me, I came to teach specifically to this topic. We want you to come and help us be more vulnerable. And I was like, this is amazing.

Right? Like what a great, and they are a company that are working with people in their most vulnerable moment. So it made sense. It's like, you're working with people when they're vulnerable. And if you're not willing to be vulnerable, there's going to be a disconnect between you and them. Right? And I just thought that was like vulnerable enough to like, that's a step right there in vulnerability. Hey, come and help us become more vulnerable. And yeah, it was such a fun session, but I agree. If your culture is lacking vulnerability,

in the sense of we don't share our weaknesses with one another. We don't share our strengths with one another. We withhold from one another. Then it's probably also lacking psychological safety, let's be honest. So you're missing these two first key ingredients that make up pretty much more than half of this book.

Desiree (20:04.487)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (20:09.425)
So to finish off this conversation, I keep coming back to this massive roadblock with companies. I explain to them and I'm like, I'm not gonna lie to you and say that this is gonna be just a fun, loving workshop. Like when I come in, we have deep conversations. Sometimes they're a little uncomfortable. That's the goal is to create some real change in this time. And some of them are like, well, I'm not gonna invite this person then, cause they won't like that. Or,

you know, I'm going to have, I'm to pull these people in or this team in, but we're not going to touch the other guys because they won't like it. And I'm like, I, my recommendation is you include everyone. You are never going to create the culture you want going forward. If you're allowing individuals who don't want to participate to not participate, like it kind of defeats the whole purpose. But I would be curious as to your experience on those roadblocks of

of individuals on teams or even the team leader letting individuals off the hook and not needing to participate in the vulnerability.

Tessa (21:10.958)
yeah, I've had team leaders who have cautioned me or want to see exactly everything I'm to be talking about because, I think from part of it is also they don't want to maybe lean into that vulnerability themselves. So let's make sure this fits our conversation, right? But again, my head always goes to, we truly understand that individual and the situation? Perhaps it's not that they're

not going to be able to engage with this topic. Perhaps this person is someone who's curious and challenges status quo. And that's part of vulnerability based trust, right? And you're seeing them as someone who's not willing to be vulnerable or someone who's disruptive or someone who's going to shift it. But in fact, they're leaning into vulnerability. It's just not seen in that way. And so just like you, I will say, get everyone in the room.

so that we can all have a conversation around what this is and what this isn't. And I can take care of those people. Let me take care of those people, right? Let me engage with those people. And I think I'm a pretty good, I have a pretty good read on when someone's feeling uncomfortable or something's going on. I don't interpret and try to make a story of what's going on in their life, but I could then maybe reach out to them and be like, hey, you know, in a break or at lunch and start a conversation and you...

Oftentimes I find out things where I'm like, wow, this is why that person is showing up that way. So yeah, just like you, I do my best to say if they're on your team, they don't get to bow out. They need to be here.

Desiree (22:48.733)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And what you said about, you know, kind of creating that expectation, that language. I like those other individuals you were talking about might kind of throw a wrench in things. Sometimes I love to play the devil's advocate. I'm kind of that disruptive person. Like, why not try and make it even better? But that sometimes comes across as negative or as a disruption. But one of the.

the tips that he put in here for embracing vulnerability is to create a shared language around things like expecting that there's going to be some of that discomfort and yeah, knowing that that's okay and making those words not seem so scary. Like vulnerability is one of the words that people just immediately their shoulders go up and you can see that they have no interest. And I think that we need to actually use the language more often.

Tessa (23:30.337)
discomfort.

Tessa (23:36.566)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (23:47.303)
around what it looks like and not skirt around it.

Tessa (23:50.539)
Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever listened to Brene Brown's braving video where she talks about trust and she braving as an acronym. And in there, she talks about, you being, you know, vulnerable and setting boundaries and all those things. And I think, again, when we speak to vulnerability, we're not asking you to share your deepest, darkest secrets. That's not vulnerability. Vulnerability isn't you putting yourself down, right? but

Vulnerability is uncomfortable. There's no way around that. And I think you're right. I think if you can prime, I love to prime my groups. I love to send them emails the week before. Here's what to expect. And here's what I expect from you. And I think you're right. If you give them the language and the permission to say, this is going to be uncomfortable. And I like to challenge by choice. So I don't know if you've ever used this in your workshops, but I will challenge by choice, which means you don't get to not participate.

but you get to choose how. So if we're doing certain things, you may choose to observe and that's your participation. Now, observing needs to be full body, feet present, be where your feet are observing, like observing, not a phone in your hand and just quite, you know. But that might be how you choose to participate in that particular activity because maybe there's a trigger for you in the thing I'm asking you to do. I don't know. So I believe in here's,

your choices and how you get to show up today, but you don't get to not show up today. And then that gives people the permission to go, okay, this is a safe space. I'll be vulnerable and I'll choose my level of vulnerability based on what's going on in my world. I can't force them to go to a 10 level deep vulnerability. Something may have happened yesterday that I have no idea, but I'll give them the choice, but they never get the choice to bow out.

Desiree (25:49.383)
What did you call that?

Tessa (25:51.125)
Challenge by choice.

Desiree (25:52.746)
challenge by choice. I don't do that. I'm a little more aggressive than that. And I usually, I let them choose as to how much they want to share. But I may need to adopt that in certain situations. So thanks for that. Any last thoughts, anything that you had prepared for this part of the conversation that you feel like we missed?

Tessa (25:56.022)
Hahaha

Tessa (26:12.469)
I so, I think we covered quite a bit in this one. I'm good.

Desiree (26:15.313)
Awesome. Okay. Well, friends in the next episode, we are going to cover the third and final core skill, which is establishing purpose. This is one of my favorite ones, especially as we're talking about building a sense of urgency. That term has come up a lot with the teams I've worked with lately, building those high performers and making sure that they can stay sustained in that. So make sure that you come back for the next episode where we're going to cover that core skill from Danielle Coyle's The Culture Code.

And just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it is also a really big responsibility and you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?