Managing workplace conflict: what to say and how to say it - with Karin Hurt and David Dye of Let’s Grow Leaders

#185: Karin is the founder and CEO and David is the President of Let’s Grow Leaders, a global leadership development and training firm.  They explore the phrases and strategies you can use in workplace conflicts, how to approach a difficult conversation, and the words you can use to defuse any difficult situation.

What you’ll learn

• [2:32] What it means to be human-centred.
• [4:00] What the Powerful Phrases book is about.
• [5:57] The workplace research that went into the book.
• [8:30] The four dimensions of conflict and collaboration. 
• [10:40] Why phrases should be worded in a particular way.
• [13:40] What to consider when asking for a raise.
• [17:27] How to communicate  positively about your pay.
• [20:16] Identifying who to ask about getting a raise.
• [21:07] What to do if your manager says you're too valuable to get a promotion.
• [26:25] How new managers should treat employees who expect a promotion.
• [29:33] What to do if your manager micromanages you.
• [37:43] The two phrases that will work in any situation.

Resources mentioned in this episode
Please note that some of these are affiliate links and we may get a commission in the event that you make a purchase.  This helps us to cover our expenses and is at no additional cost to you.

• Compassionate Accountability, Nate Regier
• Thomas-Kilman Diagnostics

For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/managing-workplace-conflict-what-to-say-and-how-to-say-it/

Re-assessing your career?  Know you need a change but don't really know where to start?  Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

Transcript

0:00

If only I knew the words to say. When you're having a disagreement with someone at work, sometimes it's just really hard to figure out what it is that you need to say which is going to diffuse the situation and enable you both to move forward in a constructive way. So, how do you figure out what to say? That's what we're going to be talking about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline and this is Change Work Life. Hello and welcome to the Change Work Life podcast, the show where we're all beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. If you want to know how you can enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life, you're in the right place. I don't particularly enjoy conflict, and I've never liked conflict at work. I remember a colleague who had a, shall we say, quite direct and abrupt style of communication, and how anytime I was about to have a conversation with her, I would feel anxious. Conflict at work is probably inevitable and in the right circumstances can even be healthy. But how do you know what to say which can de-escalate a conflict situation and turn it into a positive one? That's what we're going to talk about this week with my guests, Karin Hurt and David Dye. Husband wife team, Karin and David, are respectively CEO and President of Let's Grow Leaders, through which they help human-centred leaders find clarity and uncertainty, drive innovation, and achieve breakthrough results. Sorry, that's clarity in uncertainty, not clarity and uncertainty. Their latest book, Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict, provides over 300 phrases you can use to de-escalate common workplace conflict situations, build trust, and make better decisions. Karin, David, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having us. Pleasure to be with you. So, why don't you start by giving us a quick introduction to yourselves and the work that you do? Yeah. Well, you said it in the bio, but we love working with human-centred leaders who really want sustainable results. So, not people who are like, oh, let's bring in some leadership training so we can say we did leadership training, but to be able to actually go in and give people very practical tools and techniques to get their performance and their influence to the next level. When you say human-centred, what do you mean by that? Get results and stay a decent human being along the way. Our first book was called Winning Well, a Manager's Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul. And by soul, we mean that you are not burning yourself out, you're not doing things that are out of integrity, and you are really interested in making genuine human connections with the people that you're working with. And the part that I would add as well is, when we're talking about human-centred, you don't see human beings as a means to an end. They are not just there to perform their function. You're seeing the entire person, the human being that's there. So, that's who you're connecting with, that's the person that you're talking with, and there's room for all of us to be that full person on our teams at work. And so, we're leading in that way, in a way that also achieves the results that we're there to achieve. And that must feed into the sustainability point that you were talking about, Karin, that if you can be your full self as a human, then it's going to be easier to carry on doing it. Yeah. Absolutely. David likes to say everyone's a volunteer. Right? Even if you're paying someone, their discretionary effort is volunteer, and you'll get a lot more discretionary effort if you are showing up and really care about the humans that you're working with and have their best interest at heart. So, let's talk about the book Powerful Phrases. What's a quick summary you can give us about what it's about? It is meant to be a resource guide. So, you can certainly read Powerful Phrases from beginning to end, and we have done a lot of extensive research that grounds the book, which we could talk about. But it is also meant to be able to, if you are in what we call an ACE, an Acute Conflict Emergency, you can go to the table of contents and say, oh, my boss is a micromanager, go to this chapter, or I'm dealing with a passive-aggressive co-worker, what do I do here? My remote team is in conflict. What do I do? I feel invisible. Someone stole my idea. And for that, we have very practical, powerful phrases to address all of those scenarios. The other element of the book, Jeremy, is that it is also, in addition to being a resource guide to deal with specific scenarios, it's meant to be a principle-guided text so that you can invest in what we call the four dimensions of conflict and collaboration and minimize unnecessary or destructive conflict before it ever happens, and make the constructive, productive, collaboratory kinds of conversations you need to have way more productive by investing in those upfront. So, it's both an immediate resource guide to solve a problem, as well as a set of principles that will, as you said in your intro for your show, make work life better. And in terms of your audience, I mean, this sounds like something which pretty much anyone who works with other people could benefit from reading. Yeah. Absolutely. This is different than our other books. Because our other books are definitely leadership books, leadership and culture. This, on purpose, we made it so that it could be accessible to anyone who has ever had a job, a co-worker, or a boss. You mentioned the research behind this. I'm curious if you could give us a sort of a heads up on what is the research, what is it that makes the phrases that you've come up with research-backed, if you like. So, our publishers actually came and asked us if we would be interested in writing this book, they saw the need for it. And so, we said yes, but as we thought about talking about workplace conflict, we really wanted to know what was current, what was happening now. You know, the pandemic was such a global event and had such an impact on everything that we wanted to ask what's happening. So, we went out with a global, a world workplace conflict collaboration survey, and we asked a number of questions that were quantitative and qualitative. And on the numbers side, we asked, starting big umbrella question, are you experiencing more or less conflict at work over the last couple of years as compared to the past? And it turns out 70% of people, and we interviewed or surveyed 5,000 people plus across 45 plus different countries, so very global input. And those 5,000 plus people that we surveyed, 70% of them said they're experiencing the same or greater amounts of conflict in the last couple of years as in the prior years. And when you look at the reasons why, we asked that too, some of the big reasons why, overwhelm, burnout, understaffing, was tied with poor management practices. Those were the top two, and I'll come back to poor management practices in a moment. But then, we also saw pandemic-related mental health, anxiety, the lingering effects of this global event, less tolerance, understanding of others, that more polarized environment that so many people are experiencing. And so, those are some of the bigger causes and contributory factors that we found. And going back to the poor management practices, that one, when you tease it out a little bit, there's a lot going on for managers as well. It's a more complicated workplace, there are increasing needs for employees, and these are good needs, when we're talking about human-centred, to be more connected, to be more supported, to have a greater level of transparency, authenticity, purpose, and meaning in their work. You've got all those needs that their workforce have. Well, then you've also got the structural needs that we see increasingly across time zone, cross geographies, hybrid, remote workplaces. You've got a lot of these challenges that all fall on the shoulders of managers who aren't necessarily equipped for that yet, and everybody's figuring it out. So, you've got a lot of stress that comes for everybody as a result of those kinds of changes. The phrases in the book, I'm curious as to how you came up with the specific phrases and the importance of the words themselves. I'm thinking back to when I did my coaching qualification, I came across something called clean language, which you guys are probably familiar with, and we were given these eight phrases with strict instructions not to deviate from the exact wording of those phrases, because there was the research that had gone into them. So, is that the same with the phrases that you've come up with, or is there a little bit more leeway? Is it more about the message than the words? We're really grounded in the four dimensions. So, the four dimensions that David mentioned earlier are connection, are we connected as human beings, clarity, do we have shared understanding of what success looks like, curiosity, are we showing up genuinely curious about one another and what's possible, and commitment, do we have a clear agreement going forward. So, all of the phrases, we have 12 GOATs, greatest of all time powerful phrases, three for each of those dimensions, and then any of the other 300 all connect back. So, it's those dimensions that really emerged from the research. Right? These were the things that again and again, and we're not super fussy about exactly how you say it, because we feel like you need to do you. Right? And so, what is going to come across and connected in a conflict is not going to come up, if you sound like you're reading from a script, I think you're going to have trouble. But if you can say, okay, my intention is to really show up curious in this, what is going to sound like an authentic curiosity phrase? And so, the reason we've actually given you very practical ones to use is so often, when we're in coaching conversations, or we're working with executive teams, or we're working at the front line, people say, 'Just give me the words. Karin and David, just tell me what to say.' You know? And so, we kind of role play through a conflict with people, and we find that helpful. But the best conflict phrase is the one that feels genuine to you, that is following the principle of what we're trying to do here. And what I would add to that, expanding on those four dimensions and the principle, the most important thing, have the conversation. Don't let exact wording get in your way. Have the conversation is always going to be our number one piece of advice. Invest in those four dimensions, go for it. And then, that said, Karin and I also did really wrestle with the exact wording of some of these phrases. And I'm just going to use one example. Karin mentioned the 12 GOATs. So, our most important clarity phrase that we suggest is, what would a successful outcome do for you? And that really is very intentionally chosen wording. And the reason for that is, so often we get into conflicts because we stake out our position. We stake out what I want, and the other person has something different that they want. And so, we're arguing about the thing or the time or the project, when in reality, there's something behind that. So, when we say what would a successful outcome do for you, now we're starting to explore what is it that we actually need to achieve. That opens the door to multiple different pathways to get there. So, once I know what a successful outcome does for you, what it does for Karin, and what it does for me, now the three of us can start to cocreate a potential solution. But if we just start with, well, what do you want? You know, then now I'm stuck. So, that's an example of where you don't have to use that exact wording, but you do want to draw out what's behind whatever it is that the person is staking out. Once we do that, we can create a better solution. So, the suggested wording will definitely help you get there. Yeah. And I can see the power of words like 'do for you'. So, I would probably say something like, what does a successful outcome look like? But the fact that you've said 'do for you', that really personalizes it and encourages the other person to think about what will it do for me, and so you can get to the crux of what they want. Yeah. It gets to the unspoken motivations pretty fast, too. So, I thought rather than just going through various interesting phrases in your book, that what we do is look at some specific conflict situations and see what phrases come to mind that might help the person in a particular conflict situation. And we'll relate these all to a person which regular listeners will know and love, which is Tom, who's a listener avatar I've got. So, we can advise Tom in all these situations. And rather than just use my imagination and make things up, these scenarios, they're either founded in my own personal experience, or I've gone to my favourite resource, and that's Reddit. So, if there are any Redditors on here who recognize the words, then, well, that's why. I have taken your post as inspiration for this conversation. So, first scenario. I recently found out that someone in a junior role and less industry experience is earning 5,000 more than me a year. I confronted my boss, gave the reasons as to why I felt I wanted my pay to increase. My manager took this away. I found out today that I would not be getting the raise I requested, which, while it's their right to do so, has left me annoyed. So, what phrases come to mind that might help Tom in this situation? Yeah. The first thing I would say is, who are his phrases for? Right? So, you know, his conflict, even though he's frustrated with his co-worker, this is not a co-worker conflict. And even though he's frustrated with his boss, this is not exactly a boss conflict, as much as it is a conversation to have with human resources. It's always good to start with your manager, but Tom, poor Tom, bless his heart, has done that, and it does not work. So, if he wants to continue to escalate the conversation, I think it's a conversation to go have with HR. And I spent a decade in HR at Verizon. So, I've had many of these conversations with folks. David, do you want to share a couple? Well, part of what comes up for me, Jeremy, as we hear Tom describe his situation there, is he said he confronted his boss about it. It's a pretty aggressive language. I confronted my boss. And I am always curious in these, and the coach in me also wants to tease out, like, okay, what's happening here? So, tell me what that looked like. What happened? What were the words you used then, and so forth, about why I deserved it and so forth? And so, it's one of those that, when we get back to the four dimensions about connection, clarity, curiosity, commitment, part of it, I start with clarity, even going back to that conversation with the boss of, do I have clarity about the pay grades, the pay ranges? I was just having this conversation with somebody two days ago, a client, and they were struggling with what to do in a particular situation. But that data, that clarity is a starting point. So, let's know what is, first, and then we can make the case about is something just, unjust, what do I need to do? Going to curiosity, I'm curious how this looks from your perspective. What do you suggest I do to be deserving or warrant that level, if that's an appropriate conversation with that manager? As opposed to taking a confrontational perspective on it. Who knows? There might be really good reasons. We don't know. And so, to invest in the conversation, to create the connection of, hey, I really am motivated, I really care about my work, I want to make sure that I'm being compensated fairly, and if there's something else I need to know, I also want to be open to that. It's a whole different conversation. Where do I fall? So, what is the range? Where do I fall in this range? And that's why I say you go to HR. Because a manager might not even know what the range is. Right? So, am I at midpoint? Am I below midpoint? And the other thing you can do is do some market research. And if your position is unique, and your organisation is not sophisticated in the sense that it doesn't have ranges, which a lot of start-ups don't, then you could go and do some market research and say, 'Hey, from what I can see, it looks to me that I'm paid 20% below market. Does that align with your research?' Right? And so, you're having these conversations. The powerful phrase is not to say, and I say this having had people say this to me hundreds of times over the years, 'I need this money because I have a new baby, I just got married, I'm buying a house.' Your financial need really has nothing to do with how much the pay is worth. So, you want to make sure any conversations you're having are around equity and then the contribution and that you're getting paid fairly for the work that you're doing. And if you're advising Tom on either before he started to have the conversation with his boss, so it was not confrontational, or to tee up the conversation with HR, what's a good way either in an email or in, I don't know, a precursor conversation, that Tom can communicate in a positive way there's something I want to talk to you about here in relation to my pay? Yeah. So, I actually had a woman, who worked directly for me, successfully navigated a 20,000-dollar raise, and this is how she did it. She came to me, and she said, 'Karin, you know how much I care about the work that we're doing. I am deeply committed to this work. I am deeply committed to this organisation. And I really just want to start there. And I really am concerned that my pay is out of alignment.' And in this case, she said, 'And I'm Asian. And I'm a little worried that I'm being discriminated against here.' And, I mean, like, she just laid it out. But she started, she was like, 'This is not personal. I care about all this, but would you be okay if I went to HR and had them review my salary?' And I'm like, '100%. Please go.' And she was right. They did an analysis, and she was being paid 20,000 below what was really equitable for people in a similar role. And it was her tone of voice, it was caring, and it was very clear, and this is what I want to do just to make sure. And I thought that, I mean, it worked. But if she had come to me, 'I'm really frustrated. I think I'm being discriminated against here, and this isn't fair', that puts people on the defensive, and that makes people less inclined to want to help you if you're on your back foot in a conversation. A principle here that Karin and the person she was mentioning just illustrated is that anytime we're opening the door to one of these conversations, our goal should be to open the door to allow people in with us, so that we can have a meaningful conversation. And one of the best ways to do that is start with your intent. And so, my intent for this conversation is, she starts with that connection, I really care about the work I'm doing, I really care about the company, I love what I'm doing here, I have a concern about an inequity, and I'm confident we can find a solution. My intent is for us to find a solution to this. I think we can do that. Right? Starting with that kind of intent that is bringing everyone in, she may not get the results she wants, there's no guarantees in life, but she's at least opened the door to a meaningful conversation. And something, Karin, you said that was very interesting at the start was who is this conversation with. So, clearly, there's no point in Tom speaking to the colleague who's getting paid more than him. But it was interesting that you said this is probably not a conversation for the manager, because they won't necessarily know about the pay grades and how it works. It's most likely a conversation for HR. And I think that really highlights the importance of identifying who it is who, I suppose, can help you. Who's the decision maker? Who do you have to influence? Right? And, sure, give your boss a heads up that you're doing it. I think that is very appropriate. But most of the time, most managers I know just can't write a check and give you a raise. Right? It's HR who has to approve those decisions. Let's go on to the next scenario. So, this one says, about three months ago, I got a new manager due to an internal organisation. My new manager and I had a discussion shortly after this reorganisation where I expressed to him my desires to become a manager and mentioned the plan that my previous manager had laid out. Long story short, this new manager said I was too valuable to become a manager at this time. He says that my skills as a developer are needed right now because we have weak engineers and that he needs strong developers to keep things afloat. So, there's a couple of things going on here. There's been a previous manager who has talked about Tom, in this case, having managerial responsibility. There's been a new manager who's come in and has basically said, 'We don't need you as a manager. We need you because your value is in being a developer.' So, over to you. Well, I'm smiling at this one because I could almost guarantee Karin and I will have different perspectives on it. And this is so true of life and these kinds of scenarios. So, when I hear a manager say words like, 'you're too valuable to', that immediately sets off warning bells for me that the manager's being disingenuous, and who knows why? They could be insecure about their ability to get the team's performance where it needs to be, and so they're using this language, oh, you're too valuable and that kind of thing, when what it really is, everybody else is not there, and I don't trust my own management to get the team up to speed. So, that could be what's going on. It could also be that this person is not ready for management, whatever the previous manager said, and that this manager hasn't found the language to say that yet. And those are just two possibilities. And I'm going to use a phrase from our curiosity greatest of all time, Karin, how does this one look from your perspective? Yeah. So, when I think about this, the first thing I would do is create a connection that I'm deeply committed to the success of the team. Because if you are going in like, my career, my career, my career, that's important, but you've got to think about it from your boss's perspective. So, gosh, I get that, and if you see it too, you'd say, 'We are in an acute situation where we may not have the skill sets that we need.' So, here's the thing. I really want to be a manager. This is what is really important for me. So, what I'd love to do is sit down, and we actually have what we call a developmental discussion planner, which is a one pager where it talks about your role and your future role, your desired future role, and it asks questions like, what skills do I have that are good here for this, who do I need to know, what relationships do I need to build, all these things. So, you could say, 'So, if I want to get to here, let's talk about my readiness for that. So, are you actually saying, let's go through this, that I am ready, but the organisation's not ready? If that's the case, if you think I'm actually ready, but the organisation's not ready, how much time do we need to take, and what can I do to help to get these other people ready? Because I'm thinking six months, or whatever it is, and can we make a plan to get everybody else ready?' If the answer is I'm not ready, okay, then what do I need to do to get ready? So, you are driving the conversation towards a path forward, but you're grounding the conversation in the business outcome, as well as your career outcome. Most frustrating conversations I've had with employees over the years is when they are only worried about their career, but they are not worried about the business outcomes, too. And so, I think if you show up with both of those, you're having a more balanced conversation. And harkening back to the dimensions of collaboration and productive conflict there, so Karin started that conversation with connection and then the clarity with the developmental discussion planner. Is it that the organisation isn't ready, and I am? Or is it that I'm not, and there's some work to do there? So, getting that clarity, getting the curiosity, what can I do to invest in either of those outcomes? And then, the commitment phase of creating a shared agreement to move that conversation forward. So, okay, boss, what I hear you saying is this. Do I have that right? Good. Okay. Can we agree to, and then depending on which was the path, if I need to invest in myself, or I need to invest in others, what are the specific things that we're going to do to get there, and what's the next step for looking at my career advancement in that process? And so, getting those practical next steps defined, what's one action we can both agree to as a next step, might be a specific phrasing you could use there. Yeah. You're engaging this manager to be on your side for this thing. What doesn't work? I'm always with the what does work. What doesn't work is ultimatums. Like, well, fine, if I can't be a manager here, I'm going to go be a manager somewhere else. And that is a choice that you can make, but I think it's counterproductive to say that out loud. And so, if you have this reasonable conversation with your manager, and they're like, 'Yeah, no.' Then, that's a choice. Now you have more information and more data, and you may make a different choice to leave the organisation. If you were advising the manager in this situation, so this new manager's come in, they're made aware of this apparent promise made to Tom, which you're not going to be able to deliver on, what are some of the phrases that the manager could use in their first conversation around this with Tom? That's a great question, Jeremy. And so, the first thing is the conversation with the manager with themself is, in their assessment, how do they really see Tom's performance? Or do they have that data? Maybe they don't have that yet. And so, that's part of the equation in all of this. Is he really as good as he thinks he is and as good as that previous manager was reported to have thought? And if so, that's one conversation. If it's not, and it's the other, then it's a different conversation. And so, starting again with intent, hey, my intent as your manager is to help support your career and to support the success of the team, and so I'm getting all the information I can to make sure I'm doing both of those well. And so, here's what I could use from you in that process. It's just as the introductory, opening the door part of that process. Then, let's say that you get to the situation where he's not ready. In your own estimation, he wants that management position, you're looking at it, and you're saying, 'Okay, now it's important to be very direct and very clear. Hey, listen, I care about you, I'm here to support you. And if you genuinely want to be in a management role, here is a skill that you want to be investing in, or here are some key relationships that you need to be building, or here is some experience in some specific problem solving that you need to have, that you have not had yet. And I want to make sure you get that, so that you're ready when the opportunity presents itself.' So, those would be specific examples of how you might invest in that. Yeah. I actually had this exact scenario come, and I was the new manager that was brought in. And I had this guy on my team say, 'Hey, I've been told I'm ready now to be a director.' And I knew of his reputation. And I said, 'You know, here's the thing. Director was an executive level, to get promoted to director, it's not a one person's choice. It is a conversation, a bunch of people sitting around the table saying, in succession planning, is this person ready? Here's what I need you to do. I need you to go talk to these people and ask them whether they think you're ready. And if not, what is it that you need to do?' And he went, this is what we call listening tour, and he came back. He's like, 'Oh, wow. I really got to get better at some politics.' Right? And so, that's what I would say is our friend, Julie Winkle Giulioni, she does a lot of really good work in careers, she says, 'Ask people to bring a plate full of feedback to the conversation.' So, it's not just you having this. They are gathering additional data, too. I wonder if we can squeeze in another scenario. And this one, I think, might be quite interesting. I'm not the biggest fan of my manager. Well, that's a good start. Though she's okay, I think she micromanages me too much with little to zero actual contribution. I'm very busy in my role, literally doing the role of at least three people. I've brought the lack of support up with her before and suggested one way she can help is actually just telling me what to do and spelling it out. It's time for us to set objectives for the quarter, and she's asked for my recommendations for my objectives. No problem. I've written these down and submitted them. But now, she's coming back with all these half-baked suggestions like, 'I think we should tie your objectives to X. Can you reword it to sound more precise?' Some of this is familiar to me because I remember drafting some legal advice and getting it reviewed and hearing things back like, 'I think we could make this a little bit beefier.' And I was like, great, but I have no idea what I'm actually supposed to do with the advice. How can Tom approach a conversation with this manager? There's so much interesting language in this scenario that, again, causes me, this time in the writer, to question what's happening there, because there's some very put-upon wording in some cases, but then it seems at odds with other things that the person says. So, taking that as a starting point, when you're talking about a manager that you think might be a micromanager, there is always the chance that you're actually an employee who needs a lot of extra help and support. And so, one of the first things that you want to tease out, this is a conversation you start with yourself, some powerful phrases to use here. How am I doing really? So, this person says, 'I'm doing three different jobs', and they feel very put-upon and so forth. My question for them to start the conversation is, okay, how are you actually doing? Can you document your success relative to the specific KPIs, business metrics, the outcomes that are most important for your manager and for the organisation? I think that's important because when the manager then is asking them to tie the objectives that they've asked for to specific outcomes, that sounds like something that the person is having trouble doing. So, it may actually be a really important conversation here. I think I would also get really specific. And so, okay, tie my objectives to business outcomes. All right, I love that. Honestly, I have no idea how to do that. Can we take one of these objectives together and work through it, so I can see what success looks like? So, this is a clarity conversation. Can you show me, I don't think you need to help me do them all, but if you can show me what do you mean, are we tying it to end net promoter score, are we tying it to revenues, those big things, or what are we talking about? And then, have them come back with something specific. Because I agree, this can sound very vague, but it may be that this manager has something in their head of what success looks like, and trying to guess, you're going to go around and around without a specific example. And let's assume that this really is a manager who is doing some micromanaging behaviours, we don't necessarily have those spelled out, but let's just, for the sake of the scenario, assume that this employee is experiencing what feels like micromanagement, and they believe their performance is where it needs to be. So, one of the things that you can do in that situation, again, starting with,'Hey, listen', talking to your manager, 'I really care about doing a good job here, it's important to me that I'm getting this right.' And this is a conversation I actually had with my CEO at one point in my career. I said, 'Look, I've noticed that this is the fifth time today that you have asked this question and followed up on this item. And I've given you the same answer every time, and that is that I have it, and you'll have it, and you'll have it by this time frame. I'm curious what's going on here for you. What's happening? What's happening for you right now?' So, calling attention to what it is I've noticed, this is the fifth time you've asked today, and I'm curious what's happening. Do you have a concern? Do I need to be doing something differently? Can I better inform you? And then, once again, once I know, and it turns out he was stressed because there was some board pressure, and he was under a lot of pressure, so he was just basically venting that pressure in some way. So, then we're able to say, 'Okay. So, what you need is confidence that you're going to be able to say this, that, and the next thing.' And I got curious, get to curiosity phase. Can I create this kind of a solution where I'm going to inform you of the progress in this way, so I can give you a 90-minute update, so that you've got that, you know that it's happening, you can help guide it, you have the confidence you need? That structure then prevents him from coming in, interrupting my workflow, and actually slowing down the process, but he's getting what he needs, too. So, you can then ask those kinds of questions. You might get an answer that's like,'No. Your performance has not been here, and we really need to get it there.' And then, that's a whole different conversation. Yeah. My favourite way to handle a boss that is, like, meh, is to say, 'I want to be a rock star in this role. What is it going to take? Paint me a picture of what a rock star looks like, that at the end of the day, one year from now, you are rating me, and you're like,"She is exceeding expectations". Break that down for me.' I have asked that so many times in my career, and I will tell you, because then you have the rubric. Right? And you may be surprised of what they think success looks like in that role. And so, you want to know how you're being evaluated. And, plus, if they describe that, and then you go do all those things, it's nearly impossible for them to not rate that you exceed expectations, because they mapped it out. You did it, and there you go. And everybody's happy, because your performance is great, and you're being evaluated well. I suppose something to mention here is that you can't necessarily control the reaction or the response that you're going to get. So, you might ask that question. What's it going to take for me to be a rock star here? And you might get a very meh, vague answer. Yes. And, you know, you can't control that. But you can control asking the question, you can control using the phrases, you can control the way you approach these conversations. And you can take it at level deeper. And I know Karin and I both had these conversations with different managers in our lives and our careers where you get that vague answer, but you can take it a level deeper and say, 'So, it sounds like you're saying, okay, this, can I take that a level deeper? What would a successful outcome here do for you, going back to that? What would set you up to be successful?' And if they're really having trouble because they just don't think that way, then I might put it in ranges. Well, what if it were here versus here? Which of that feels like that's what you're after? Okay. Great. How about this versus that? And I can help tease that out and then put it in writing and say, 'I really appreciate the conversation. Let's revisit this.' This just goes back to one of our commitment phrases. Can we schedule some time to look at this again and see how we're doing? So, we get eight weeks or three months down the road. Let's revisit this and make sure it's still aligned. So, you can take responsibility for that, even if your manager is not good at that, you can help drive some of that clarity and help them to help you have that map. Tempted as I am to go into another scenario, I think I'm going to stop the scenarios there. What I would like to know is whether you've got a greatest of greatest of all time. So, is there like the one tool which if someone's mind has gone completely blank, this is the one thing which is pretty much going to work in 99% of scenarios. So, we each get one? Sure. So, for me, one of them is, especially if there's a very emotional, like if somebody's coming to you like, 'Blah!', and what they really need is to feel heard. And so, one of the things you can do, and your tone of voice matters, your sincerity matters, but to say, 'Tell me more.' Because the last thing you really want is more. Right? Because they're screaming at you. But if you're going like, 'Tell me more', they're going to slow down, because they're like,'Oh, really? You want to hear more? Okay.' And so, I think that's a connection GOAT, greatest of all time. I already mentioned what would a successful outcome do for you, and that's one of them. But if I had to leave us with one more, I would go with the curiosity one, which is, 'I'm curious how this looks from your perspective.' This is one that I am trying to invest in more and more myself personally and walking our own talk. And the power of this one is that when we feel ourselves getting frustrated, it's because we're feeling unsafe, disrespected, unseen, any of those kinds of things that cause our body to start tensing up. And it can be really difficult to get out of that cycle. And so asking,'Okay, I'm curious how this looks from your perspective.' If I can trigger myself to ask that, automatically, it takes me out of my amygdala, it gets into that frontal cortex where I'm going with curiosity really hard. It's almost impossible to be furious and curious at the same time. So, if I can get curious, it's going to help manage all the emotions going, and I'm going to learn something important in the process. It's not always easy to do. I don't want to oversell it like, oh, you just do this. But as a powerful question, I think it is incredibly powerful, because we learn so much and it helps us self-regulate. I'm now mentally designing a t-shirt which says, 'be curious, not furious.' David, Karin, this has been, absolutely fantastic. For someone who wants to find out more about workplace conflict, workplace relationships, what other books or tools have you come across which you thought, 'Oh, yeah, that's a good one, that gives you a good insight'? You know, it's interesting because we are including expert insights throughout the book of other people who've written books. We have so many to choose from. But Nate Regier has a concept called compassionate accountability. And he has a book about that, he has a podcast about that, and we're very aligned. He'll say things, and we're like, Yep, 100% agree with every single word that you just wrote there.' And his has research to base, so I think that's also an important resource worth checking out. And I would add for, if you're wanting to do organisational level assessment in this realm, the TKI, Killman, and we have talked with Ralph Kilmann on our shows, and just brilliant decades and decades of deep research in this field and some really powerful tools that you can use, if you're talking at more like an organisational level to do some of that kind of work. Yeah, 100%. His stuff is so good. And where should people go to get your books, find you, find out more about what you're about? Yeah. So, the book is Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict, and you can go to our website, so letsgrowleaders.com, and you can see access to all of our books and all of our training and all of that. And then, of course, it is available everywhere books are sold. And a lot of people say, 'I don't read anymore. I like to listen.' And it is read by us if you want to go with the audible. Brilliant. Links will be in the show notes of this episode. Well, Karin, David, thank you so much. This was a lot of fun going through those scenarios. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you. It's been absolutely our pleasure. Thank you, Jeremy. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that interview with Karin Hurt and David Dye. One point I hadn't really thought about which came up in the conversation is the importance of figuring out who it is that you actually need to talk to. In that scenario about the pay increase, Karin and David identified that it might not necessarily be the line manager who's the best person with whom to have the conversation, but it might be someone in HR. Sure, tell your line manager what you're doing, but they might not be the person who's got the relevant information to hand. I also love what they said about needing to engage with someone to be on your side. You might feel like raging against someone and getting your point across, but is that necessarily going to be very constructive? Is that going to move you forward? If you can get someone to be in a position where they want to help you, then you're much likely to achieve an effective resolution. Go visit the website for the show notes for this episode. They're at changeworklife.com/185. That's changeworklife.com/185. And this is one of those episodes where people need to hear some of what Karin and David had to say. If you've never had a workplace conflict situation, then either you're extremely lucky, or you've spent your entire working life in a cave. So, if you can think of just one person, maybe someone you know who's having a difficult time at work, and you can share this episode with them, well, you'll definitely be helping them, and you know what, you're going to look good, too. There's another great interview coming in two weeks' time, so subscribe to the show if you haven't already, and I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.