5 Tips to Help Resolve Conflict

Episode 039: Conflict and disagreement in your life and workplace are inevitable. It's not easy, or comfortable to resolve your differences and make peace, but oh, so necessary! Vonda and Lori identify the 5 types of conflict in the workplace and share 5 Tips for resolving those conflicts.

More info about Vonda LaFever AIFD, PFCI and Lori Wilson Director of Customer Success at Flower Clique and The Business and Pleasure of Flowers

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

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Speaker 2 0:04

Tip number two, the thing about conflict, it's going to be awkward. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's never fun. It's never fun to have to sit face to face with somebody you're in conflict with and have to walk through it. Right?

Speaker 1 0:28

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Speaker 2 0:29

Hello, Lori . Hello Vonda. I am so excited to see your little face to know you did not blow away last week. Our new friend, Sally, hurricane Sally. Yes. I didn't take you away on a little trip. Well, it wasn't the wind from Sally that would have taken us away. It was the water that would have rushed through and swept me away. If I was there too long, you're in a pretty safe, relatively safe, and we're on a Bay. So it is relatively safe. But whenever you have a storm surge, it is actually fascinating. Lori . That's what I was going to say. I loved your videos that you were sending us our little flower click group, which Ellie was saying, you'd be the best. Whether a woman, like you wrote that I was fascinated at how massive and how much destruction I saw. And then the next morning you sent that . Well, even by that evening, you were like, look, it's starting to recede. So it was fascinating within 24 hours, that water was backed down. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. And the other thing that I love is that you have wonderful neighbors. You're in a great neighborhood that everybody helps everybody out. Like you said, you were walking around looking for your doc boards and other people were doing this out . I think this one's yours. Oh, this one's yours. You know, you gotta make the best of it. So we're all out there claiming our parts and pieces. As we say, we were very blessed, very blessed. We're very blessed. And everybody got along, which is the opposite of what we're going to talk about today. Yes, that's true. The only conflict we had was with Sally. Yes. You did have conflict with Sally. And I think when we go through the types of conflict and how to resolve it, I don't know that you would resolve conflict with Sally. She's going to win every time she is going to win that . Exactly. Right. So last week we talked about comparison, the danger of comparison, and we already got feedback that makes me so happy when people listen to our podcast, even apply it to their personal life too. Yeah, absolutely. I think this one, a lot of people will be able to apply conflict and disagreement in teams really are inevitable. Yes. And then trying to resolve those is kind of difficult sometimes. But I think first let's talk about the, of conflict that we see in workplaces, what causes those conflicts. And the first is really interdependence conflicts. It's like when one person is working on a project and they expect the other person that they're working with on the project, to be able to do that in a timely matter, the same type of way they're doing it. And it's like, I don't like the way you're doing that or she's not doing that the way I want. And that can cause some conflict. Yes. It very much can. I can remember one time I was in college, we got put in small groups to do a project. And there was one particular man in the review was older than the rest of us. We were not as into it, but you know , you're all assigned a part that you have to bring to the group project . So he kind of assigned to the part and he was in charge of it. He did not like that. We weren't doing things the way he wanted for someone like me, I just backed down. I'm like, well, if you like your way better, if you want to do it better, that's fine. As long as my name's on it, I don't really care. But other people, it's a personality thing right on how you're going to react. I knew as long as the project's done, if he wants to stay up all night, doing it more power to him, I did part I can prove I did it. He doesn't like how I said , so we'll move on. But that's what I was thinking of during this, there was always one of those people he's working on corsages, the boot nears, and you have somebody prepping the setups, but it's not the way that I like to do my setups . And then I get frustrated I'm depending on the person to do it the way I wanted to. And they didn't caused us a little conflict. But Vonda, my question to you is what's the outcome the same? Was it your issue? It was my issue. We're going to look at as far as tips on how to take care of that conflict or diffuse it. But I think it's interesting to see what is causing that. And it's a reality that's in our mind sometimes it's not real. Does that make sense? No, it totally. Doesn't it kind of leads to your next one here. Yeah. The differences in styles, I think of when you and Julie or both teaching me during our flower prep school filming you both taught me how to make a bow. I know people are listening going, are you kidding? Or he didn't, but it was a certain kind of bow, but you guys had two different ways, right? Absolutely. And you have learned it's okay. I do it this way. But the end result, they didn't look different because I tried poison . Then even Ellie came in and was like, Oh, well I don't do that. I do it this way. It was a third way. This one was interesting, Lori , the next one. Oh, the difference in backgrounds and gender. Yeah. And culture, you know, we were all raised differently. We all come from a little bit different. So how we see things are going to be different. Absolutely. The next one differences in leadership style, I think we're all comfortable under a certain type of leadership. And if we find ourselves in a leader that we are not comfortable with, or we don't believe in that style, it can definitely cause conflict. I agree if you're an employee and you're dealing with an owner and a manager, depending on how big your shop is, you're dealing with all different leadership styles. You're gonna butt heads with certain types. It's just part of life. And the last one, which to me is the overriding. One of all of these is we just have different personalities. You're not going to be best friends with everybody. We are called to love everybody, but we don't have to be best friends with everybody. They're a different, if what they say is the biggest conflict in the workplace, before we go into the other part, I just want to say it's so interesting to me. I feel like every time we do research for a subject on a podcast, we're getting ready to do. There's always something that happens like the week prior that I can apply. If you will, what I'm learning. And that last week we had our monthly zoom shop talk meeting with all of our members. We had two different ones and both meetings. This was brought up because people were struggling. Whether they called it drama or conflict, they were having trouble with it. One of the shops that isn't having trouble with it, I thought was interesting. He said, when COVID happened, everybody had to leave for a while. And he said, and we only asked back the people that don't cause the drama. I was like, well, that's one way to exactly. No, I think that's awesome. When they said that, I was like, you know what? That is smart. Yeah. That, you know which ones, most of us are pretty intuitive. You know who the Igniters are. So we know it's inevitable . Yes. What are some rules for resolving it? So we have come up with five. The first one don't try to be right. I think of raising my kids when there was conflict and I would have to grab them and say , who started it? They said, don't do that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're the owner or the manager, whoever they're coming through. The goal isn't to determine who started it, whose fault is it? The goal is to solve the right. I get that. And you've got to leave your ego behind. Yes . It's really hard to do that. Our human nature is you want to go straight to who started it or whose fault is it that of going straight to okay. Identify the problem. Let's come up with some solutions. And I love this. The tone you said at the beginning of the conversation is key. Yes. I think I've talked about this before on one of our podcasts, something I learned a long time ago, when it comes to your tone of voice. I learned this when I was teaching school and we were up in service day teacher instruction and they were talking about dealing with kids that get angry easily or you know , whatever. And they said, think of Winnie the Pooh. If you ever watch Winnie the Pooh, he's very calm. He never gets overly excited or underly excited. He's just gritty . Even keel. It's called low expressed emotion is when you're dealing with people, the more elevated they get, the more you need to think of Winnie the Pooh. I always do that. I don't do it , do it well, but I do try to think of that's really interesting. Yeah, that's true. He's just even keel. Number two. The thing about conflict, it's going to be awkward. It's going to be uncomfortable. It's never fun. It's never fun to have to sit face to face with somebody you're in conflict with and have to walk through it right now . Yeah . It's not fun at all. It is uncomfortable. That's why so many managers or owners avoid the conversation because it is uncomfortable and they don't even want to talk about the conflict. They just rather let the problem continue. Then try to solve it. Right. And it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And the problem is if , if the leader doesn't go into those awkward conversations with the two people in conflict, if they're ignoring it, what I've seen happen in shops, those two people in conflict are going to grab everybody else on that staff to get aside because they need somebody on their side. And then the whole environment is toxic. Totally. That's when it really gets out of hand. And that's why it's important to hit that conflict. Head-on right . As soon as possible, right. As awkward as it is. So when it comes to conflict and when it comes to resolving it, one thing a friend of mine told me years ago, and she's an attorney. So she deals with litigation and mediation all the time. And she said, when you're resolving conflict, you have to have both parties reach, do negotiation. They have to have a compromise. And she said, what that means is when it's resolved, they should both get up from the table and walk away feeling like they had to give something. Hmm . One of them walks away knowing I was right. I want that. Wasn't a negotiation that wasn't a compromise. So I think that's really smart. Both have to give a little. And I think the key is listening, right? It's listening to the other side. I'll never forget. One time. I was a cheerleading coach, you know, back in the day. And it was a group of eighth graders and there was some drama and I was not about the drama. This doesn't segue right into tip number three, which is check your assumptions. But I want to tell you, my assumptions were right. I knew these girls. I knew them all too. Well. I had them in class. I knew them outside of class and I knew the instigators . So my point is I took the two girls that I knew were causing the conflict. I took them and I put them in a classroom. We were in a hallway and I just put them in the classroom. And I gave them some parameters. That's very calm. I took no side. And I said, I'm going to keep checking every 15 minutes when you guys have figured out a solution and you're ready to present it to me, you can come back to practice. The other part of it is they don't go to practice. They don't get to cheer . So, you know, I had some things I could hold over their head as a teacher, I guess, but it worked, it only took one 15 minute rounds and it was done. So what you're saying is check your assumptions. And sometimes they're right. And sometimes they're not right. Yeah . And what I think they mean by check your assumptions. It's hard. You know, we all do have a favorite. You might have a favorite employee. We tend to favor, but don't assume even if you know, in your gut to be true, don't assume it because they're going to feel that vibe from you. Right. They're going to know if you're doing that when you are the manager and you're dealing with the two people, your two employees, it's important to keep that open mind and focus on just the facts. Here's what happened. I don't want to know how you feel. I want to know what happened. Right? Who was to deliver the flowers whose wires got crossed here, like just got to know tip number four, the more you run, the bigger the problem becomes. And this is kind of what I was saying. A lot of people just don't like to face that there's a conflict here. Yeah. I was looking through all of this before my flattering . I'm like, it's kind of like in a lot of marriages just doesn't want to deal fine and walk away. Like, yeah , this is how we are. And the person that we got a lot of art feedback from, he says, he looks back and he was a horrible boss. He didn't mean to be, he wasn't a horrible, because he was mean he was a horrible boss because he just didn't want to deal with it. It made his entire team dysfunctional. Right. Because unaddressed problems just grow and grow up . And then the conversation becomes more and more difficult to have both parties involved or all the parties involved. Cause sometimes not just one or two people, you know, bond that I wonder too, if when you let something like that go for so long and the employees, cause there's got to be at least one or two employees sitting there waiting for the manager to intervene. Right. And deal with this issue. Especially once it's clear, they're aware of the problem. If I were an employee in that environment, because I'm kind of a rule follower. Like I can't stand if people don't follow a rule. So I would look at that in a , he or she is not dealing with the conflict. I would really lose a lot of respect for them. Yeah . Yeah. And I think that's what happens a lot of times is that the longer it goes, the easier it is for an employee just to walk away and say, if this person can't deal with it, I don't want to be here. Yes. Right. I think that is where a lot of employees will walk away. And like you said, like marriage, it's the same thing longer and longer. It's too difficult to deal with the problem. You just want to walk away. So just don't let it fester. So what you do because you're a shop owner or you were a shop owner for so many years, what do you do? If it is just so incredibly uncomfortable for you to put yourself in that position, do you, what if your manager wants to do it? I'm just trying to figure out if it is so out of your element to sit there and do any kind of conflict resolution, then you need to find somebody that will. Yes. But really you as the owner manager have to deal with it. And my suggestion on that is you take them one by one, Laurie , I'm going to take you into my office and say, why do you have this problem with Camden ? Right. I know isn't a problem, but what, what is it that's bothering you that she does because there's got to be just a little something. Cause it's, doesn't seem to be your personality. So what is it that's really getting on your nerve that is causing this conflict. Now, then you're going to go back in the other room and I'm going to call Cammie in . And you know, with employees, when you're working in close proximity to one another, the person who brushes his teeth and doesn't do the toothpaste the way you want it, those little things, why doesn't she clean off her table? Every time she works? Well, she just doesn't and we can try and get that to happen, you know? Okay . We've been working virtual for so long. I know that I could work alongside somebody five days a week. Just not even so much that they would bother me. I would drive them crazy. I know that because I know who I am. I know that I'm like, no, it would be bad. I would feel really, I could see a lot of people getting annoyed by me. That's okay . Would they be saying, could you get her an office with a door on it? Exactly. Exactly. They would do something. I don't know what, so I like this undress problems only grow in size. And I think you said that earlier , um, they not only grow in size the longer it goes, the harder it is to bring it up. It is you're so right. So right. So the tip is to deal with the problems as close to the time that they appear as possible. Right. And know that you are approachable as the owner because you want to hit it head on. Right. And we've talked about this so many other times, make sure your employees know you can be trusted, what your expectations are amongst them. Meaning you do not want this kind of stuff festering. So they know they can come to you. That's true. That that makes all the difference in the world. For sure. Yeah. Okay. Tip number five. Realize confrontation is healthy and it's normal. None of us are perfect. We researched lots of different studies and most of them showed that unresolved anger releases, cortisol, which increases your stress and fatigue. We got to get our angry stuff out, which is why I'm so excited. Football season is back. I can yell at my TV. I can get my cortisol up. I can get it all up , but you know what I mean? So if we keep it in, yeah , for sure. What causes a lot of health? What is it? People get migraines, high blood pressure, heart problems, physical back problems, relationship problems. You've got to have a way to get it out. One thing that I've noticed since we're all working from home, now that my husband's been doing lately, that I see as him getting those things out and he's not conflict towards me, but maybe work-wise is in the middle of the day. He might go get on his bike and just go on a bike ride. And I feel, yes, it's good exercise. But I think it just clear in his head after that meeting or after that, one-on-one, I've noticed. And I'm like, that's good. You come back home and you have a little bit better of a perspective. Absolutely clears your head. Yeah. It takes you away from the situation. It gets your body and your mind both away from the physical location, which really puts you in a better space. You know, something that I do, I rarely get in that space within work. But if you , I will type out an email and I'll usually send it to Tammy or I've sent it to Ellie or you, I think I've probably sent all three of you and said before I send to the person, send it to somebody first, because the next day you might think that you didn't want to send that . That's true. Have somebody take a look at it first? I think we have resolved. Just , just go through those all five right in a row. First one. Don't try to be right. And the second one, it's going to be awkward and it's going to be uncomfortable. Do it anyway. Check your assumptions is number three . Number four, the more you run from it, the bigger that problem's going to become. And number five, realize that confrontation is hell it is healthy, but can become unhealthy if you don't resolve it. Perfect circled or back around. Sorry. I'm circling again. What are you grateful for? Vonda . Sue ? I tell you what I'm grateful for was giving me life right now is actually the neighbor's internet. I have no internet, no cable and no television. So I have some really good friends, the groats and lawless condo that's they said go over . Nobody's there or use our internet. So that way you and I can talk to each other and get this podcast recorded. Scene two is you actually have electricity. We do. Our electricity came back on, but just no internet or cable. So who are very blessed because a few of the neighbors don't. Yeah , not that comfortable. No, but it does make you appreciate all of those things that we take for granted. Snows . How about you, Lori ? What is giving you life? What are you grateful for today? I am grateful for a friend. Also. My friend is a friend I have known since I think fourth grade, fifth grade. And his name is Glenn Frazier . He is a Thai artist. Ooh. A little store on Etsy. It's called like yummy tight eyes or something. Anyway, he sent me all of these masks . I'll post a picture of them. When we post our podcasts , they are the cutest face masks and they're incredibly sock . He just sent me a whole bunch of them. Oh, that was so swinging me . I know. So I just wanted to give him a little shout out because it was so thoughtful. I asked him, I didn't know if he even did masks , but he does beautiful shirts and things. And he just said, I have some, I'm going to throw them in the mail. And he sent me a bunch. They're really cute. And they're super soft. So thank you, Glenn . That's a great thing to give you life today. It is. It is. So anyway. All right , we'll see you all next week. We have certainly enjoyed our time together today and we look forward to being with you guys again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you. You can always email Laurie at flower, click.com. Also, if you enjoy our little podcast , go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us and you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week. Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take to new levels in your life and business.

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