#72 - Three Habits to Healthily Navigate Disagreement

Welcome to the Communication Mentor Podcast.

This is your host, Chris Miller.

If you've never been here before, first off, I am super excited to have you here.

Second off, the purpose of this podcast is for us to become better communicators so that we can better articulate our thought, be more resilient to life stress, and grow in our careers.

We believe that life is better when you talk to people, and one of the biggest investments that we could make is our ability to connect with those around us.

This episode is short.

It's going to be something that's been sitting on my heart for quite some time, but something that is very important.

We're going to walk through three helpful tips that will allow you to navigate disagreement.

Conflict is one of the biggest pain points in relationship.

We often fear conflict almost more than most other big fears, more than snakes, more than spiders, more than heights, more than running out of gas.

We fear relational conflict.

One of the biggest mistakes that we run into whenever we're having conflict is we conflate the person with the problem.

The reason why we do this is one, we want there to be a figurehead.

We want there to be a representative.

Our brains really like associating people with certain stances.

Think about politics.

This is a lot of what politics is.

A lot of people will either vote for the left or they'll vote for the right.

Like, I won't vote for you because you're not blue.

I don't care who, but I'm voting blue.

I'll be voting red till I'm dead, right?

Like people put themselves in these boxes, and then they put people in the boxes as well.

And the people are illustrations of all the stances that they stand for.

So on one side, you have someone like Governor, or let's, yeah, let's go to California.

On one side, you have Gavin Newsom, and then he may stand for all the Democratic, or the Progressive, or the left.

And on the other side, you'll have the Mitch McConnells, or you'll have the Donald Trumps, or the Barack Obamas, right?

Like, all of these people are representatives of certain stances and certain problems.

But what happens is when we're in conflict, we can easily conflate the person with the problem by getting upset with an individual, rather than focusing our attention on the problem.

One way that we can do this is by being able to say, hey, this isn't against you at all.

Rather, I just want to focus on what's happening at hand.

There's a really good phrase, and it's called be light on the person, but hard on the problem.

So if something were to happen, and there was a disagreement, there was something that you weren't happy about, you didn't stand for, you could say, hey, I love you, or hey, I really care about you, but that action, regardless of who committed it, regardless of who did it, would upset me.

And here's why.

If we can remove the person from the problem, we're going to be able to more than likely have a much more positive interaction, because people are much more likely to open up and be truthful whenever it doesn't feel like there's a critical nature, when it feels like there's a forgiving nature around them.

It could be a light, it could be jest, there could be levity, but by saying, but I really do want to focus on what's going on here.

I see this happening often.

What could we do to make sure it doesn't happen again?

Or this isn't happening very much.

What could we do together to make sure that it does happen more?

And separating the person from the problem is going to give you that platform to do it even better and to navigating that.

And that leads us to our second one, and that's the difference between interests and positions.

This is something I learned from the How to Have Difficult Conversations, the Harvard Negotiation Project book.

I have it over here.

How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.

This is one of my favorite books, but they talk about the difference between interests and positions.

Now, let's go into what this means.

So in conflict, we first see the position.

I imagine there's an orange, okay?

You really want this orange because you want to make orange juice.

But I don't know exactly what you want to make with the orange.

I just know you want the orange.

So that's your position.

Meanwhile, I really want the orange because I want to be able to take the peel and put it on a grater and get like orange zest.

But you don't know that.

All you know is that I really want the orange.

So if we have one orange in the room, then there's a problem because we both want the orange in order to do what we want to do.

The position that we have is that we want the orange.

But if we go beyond the position and we go to the interest, what we'll find is that we actually have different interests.

The outcomes that we're pursuing could be obtained by us theoretically both having the orange.

I could approach you and say, hey, what if you get the orange first, you can juice the orange, and then I'll take the peel from you.

That way I can zest whatever I want to make.

And just by separating ourselves from the interests and by emphasizing our position, we're no longer at odds, we're no longer in conflict, rather we're working together.

That's a pretty easy example for us to understand the difference between interest and position.

But when you put it into the real world, it can get a bit more complicated.

But there are a few ways that you can ensure you're remembering this.

One way is to be creative and be open minded.

More than likely, the best way to resolve what's happening is by information seeking.

It's by asking questions.

The more data you can collect, the more you'll know how best to resolve the problem.

It may just take a question of, so what are you going to do with the orange peel?

Or it may take a question of, let's put it in a different context, why is it that you need another $15 or a $3 hour pay bump?

Your position seems to me like you just want more money.

What's the interest behind the position?

What's the interest behind you returning my car late?

To me, it just seems like you're forgetful and untrustworthy.

But what actually happened?

And separating position from interest makes arguments one, more human, but two, it gives us an ability to be creative, make sure both of our interests are met, and we need to be willing to be flexible with our position.

Because just me saying, I want the orange and I want it now is much different than me refining my position and saying, oh yeah, as long as I can juice the orange, sure, you can have the peel.

Last, let's talk about something that I see often.

This is really big in relational conflict, in marriages, dating relationships, sibling relationships.

Typically, the more enmeshed you are with another individual, the more likely you are to see this.

We will argue about something, even though we're arguing about two different things.

Yet simultaneously, we're in the same conversation, arguing, yet what we're looking for is much different than what the other person's looking for.

Let me paint you an illustration.

Imagine there's a, I'll flip the gender roles here, or the typical tradition.

Imagine there's a dude who's working at home, stay at home dad, he's cleaning up the whole place, and he is super tired, super toast, and his wife comes home, and she's been working really hard at work, and she walks in the door, and she's like, hey, it's so good to see you.

And then she's like, hey, I'm going to go.

I've been working all day.

It's really hard for me to catch up with my friends since I'm working such a long hour, so I'm going to go meet them real quick.

And then the guy's like, whoa, hold up, what's going on?

You know, this isn't something we talked about.

I was really looking forward to seeing you.

And then a conflict pops up, right?

And it's like, hey, well, I can go see my friends if I want to go see my friends.

And it seems on her side, like it's a conflict about autonomy, the ability to go see friends.

Hey, I've been working all these hours.

I need to be able to see my friends because it's replenishing and refreshing.

But on his side of the house, he may be arguing, and he got put in this argument about like, no.

But really he thinks he wants you to go see your friends.

He wants you to be refreshed and replenished.

Yet deep down, he just wants to receive some affirmation of all the work that he's done to watch the kids or to care for the family.

And being in this argument, regardless of who wins, he won't feel satiated.

He won't feel satisfied.

He won't feel acknowledged or affirmed unless he's able to recognize what's going on and say, no, no, no, I want you to be able to see your friends.

I'm completely game for that.

I think that's incredible.

That's very important to the both of us.

I think I may be approaching this because I really would like to know how important it is some of the work I've been doing.

And I know you've been working really a long day, so I imagine you're already thinking that it's just we haven't talked about that.

That's one scenario.

We can flip it.

The first time I heard it, it was actually a man bringing home his wife some flowers, and he got her the right type of flowers.

They were like roses.

She loved roses.

He's like, hey, here you go.

And she's like, thanks for the flowers.

And she's in a bad mood.

And he's like, well, what do you mean?

I just brought you home flowers.

And she's like, but you're not recognizing all that I'm doing at the house.

And everything that I've done, we haven't talked about it.

And so argument ensues, not realizing under the surface, there are two different motives driving this argument.

And unless a crazy happenstance happens, a crazy happenstance happens, what is that?

Unless there's a crazy happenstance outcome, you're not going to be able to solve both of them at once.

Because first, you need to delineate, separate the two, and say, what are we really arguing about?

I want to make sure we're on the same page.

Obviously, we don't want to be in conflict.

So let's make sure that we're actually in conflict about the same thing.

Practical ways that you can do this is asking, clarifying questions, such as, hey, could you share with me, like, what exactly made you upset?

And then, hey, what I'm hearing from you is that you feel, blank, blank, blank, because of blank, blank, blank.

And knowing, like, okay, here's a conversation that we're having that's about feelings.

I'm going to make sure not to have a conversation about action, about solving.

I'm going to make sure to have a conversation that's not about, like, identities, like, hey, I am this way because, like, no, no, no, we're just talking about feeling.

Those are three of the biggest ways we get in our own way in conflict.

But knowing them will help us navigate conflict moving forward.

The first is being able to separate the person from the position, separate the person from the problem.

Be hard on the problem, but soft on the person.

The second is being able to separate interests from positions.

We may be positioning or posing ourselves in a certain way, but we don't exactly know the interest until we get below the surface.

And once we are below the surface, the third thing is ensuring that we're actually arguing about the same thing.

The more of a relationship that we build, the more connecting points that we have, which also means the more chances we have to cross wires.

So because of that, we need to be diligent, especially if we feel like there's conflict bubbling, to make sure we are addressing the actual problem.

And even more so, the more that we can learn, the more that we can ask, the more that we can discuss and be open to share, then the better likely we are to actually address the root issue.

I think there are many relationships that go by the wayside because we fail to do one, if not all three of these things.

And if we could implement them into our relationships, not only would our current relationships be better, but it would give us more wisdom looking back in the past on our former relationships and make us feel more prepared moving forward for all of our future relationships.

I believe that life is better when you talk to people, but it's not just all about creating new relationships, rather it's maintaining the ones you currently have.

And I want you to feel as equipped as possible for relational maintenance so that you can live a fuller life and be more resilient to life stress.

As always, if this episode added you any value, I'd love for you to share it with at least one person.

Leave a rating and review for the podcast.

This is a Thursday episode, which means come Monday, I'm going to have a fresh new episode.

Have a killer week.

And we'll see you next time, folks.