678: Social Organizational Psychologist, Jeremy Pollack, on Why Smart Leaders Still Fail at Conflict Resolution

0:27Welcome to the

0:30Jeremy Pollack: Strategy Skills Podcast, where strategy partners teach you the tools and techniques to solve mankind's greatest problems.

0:47Welcome to the Strategy Skills Podcast. I'm your host, Kris Safarova, and this episode is brought to you by strategytraining.com. We have some gifts for you. You can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. You can also get a resume template we use with our clients at firmsconsulting.com forward slash resume pdf. And today we have with us Jeremy Pollack, PhD, who is a social organizational psychologist and a leader in the field of workplace conflict resolution and peace Building, and he's also a founder of Pollock Peace Building Systems, which is an international conflict resolution consulting firm.

1:32Jeremy, welcome. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Happy to be here. So how did you get into this line of work? You know, I started as a coach. I was, I was, I just started as a kind of personal development, professional development coach. And eventually some of my clients started asking me if I could, if I could coach, you know, them through a conflict, whether it was with a spouse or maybe a business partner. And I thought that was kind of interesting work. And I was kind of getting sick of just the general coaching. And I thought, oh, this could be an interesting specialty. So I went back to grad school and got a master's in conflict resolution.

2:09And when I got out, I started a started marketing myself as a conflict resolution person. And then during that time when I was starting and kind of growing my business in the early years, I went back and got a Ph.D. in psychology. And my goal is to be a social psychologist with a specialty in peace and conflict psychology. And so that's that's the that was sort of the trajectory in a nutshell. Was it stressful to study conflict? To study conflict? Not not stressful to study it. A little stressful to intervene in conflicts sometimes, but definitely less stressful than actually being in the conflict itself.

2:46So, well, that was my second question. and I knew you're going to go there. Okay, so let's dive in. I know you have so much to share with our listeners and I think this is such a critical topic because all of us need to always look for ways to be better when it comes to conflict resolution, personally, professionally, and everyone wants to also know how to find peace with certain people in their life, whether it is someone in the workplace and you're struggling to deal with them and have productive relationship or someone in your family. And you had also a lot of things that you had to overcome yourself to figure out how to address some of the blind spots that people are struggling with that keeps them within conflict for a long period of time.

3:38Let's start with what are some of the things people don't understand, some of the key things people do not understand about conflict resolution. So conflict resolution in general. Well, something that I think is skipped a lot. I mean, a lot of people think of conflict resolution as a legal process. But what we do is very relational. It's not legal. It's not financial. So when people think of like, hey, I'm having an issue with someone at work, let's say, like, what do I do? a lot of people don't understand that they, there are mediators or conflict resolution specialists or facilitators that are not legal focused.

4:17They're psychological focused, they're relational focused. Um, in, in those, in conflict resolution itself as well, people are often, they often think like, well, we have to kind of jump straight to solution. We have to figure out like, what is the solution to this problem? Um, how do we take action, et cetera. But I think one of the big pieces that's missing from that is there's a whole piece about relationship, about care, about appreciation, mutual respect that has to happen a lot of times first before you get to solution. Because if people don't feel like understood, listened to, heard, cared for, they you can jump to solution all day long.

4:57But there's going to be a piece of the conflict that remains. And that's kind of the most important piece, because no matter what you do, even if you solve like an acute conflict or a couple of issues, if you have a relational issue underneath it, it's going to affect the way you interact with the person. It's going to affect the way you perceive the person. It's going to affect how you feel around them, your stress levels, whether it's at work or in a family or friendship, etc. So I think it really is important to start focusing on, you know, how do I help? How do I change the dynamic of the relationship?

5:31How do I build some trust? How do I show that I care? How do I register the other person feeling that cares for me if they do, if I think they do? And how do I ask them if they do? And that sort of thing. So like really focused on respect and care and appreciation first. Jeremy and what about situations where you are dealing with somebody who doesn't seem to care back and so the more you display care the more you may be seen as someone to attack and take advantage of yeah well I mean and and this is also important to like recognize what kind of different there's different types of care I would say different types of care behaviors and some are appropriate in different types of contexts if you're if you're in a relationship with someone whether it's at work or at home in some sort of relationship when i say relationship i just mean i work together with them you know um if they don't if they really don't seem to care and and but you want a different type of relationship you're motivated to do what it's necessary but they don't seem to be very motivated um it's it's worth having a conversation about that you know it's worth sitting down and saying hey look because like i i would i would think that you can get to the point, a lot of people get to the point when they're in conflict and they've tried to communicate and they've tried to change things and it just doesn't seem to be working.

6:50And the other person doesn't seem to care that much. You know, at some point you've got to recognize that the relationship is not healthy for you and it's going to be creating more stress than it's worth. And so maybe there's some other options to separate from that relationship. but before you do, it might be worth having a conversation because what else do you have to lose? And that conversation is about, Hey, I, I want things to change. I, I see us going down a trajectory that, you know, isn't very healthy. Um, I care about this. I'm wondering if you do too. Are you motivated to change this?

7:29Do you want to see us relate to each other differently? Or do you actually care about me? Do you care about our working relationship? and just ask those questions and they and they might hopefully they'll say yes and then you'll go okay great let's let's figure out how to communicate better and let's have let's figure out how what what we need to do here to change this and if they say not really then you have your answer and that's like okay well it's probably time to make a change and let's talk about six needs that are usually behind the conflict so once people understand what it may be it may be easier for them to navigate the situation and understand why the other person reacts in a certain way yeah well i think especially so so our in conflict resolution we talk a lot the rhetoric is a lot about underlying needs or underlying interests as opposed to surface level goals so people come come into conflict saying i'm concerned about this i want this you want something different you're concerned about something whatever you know so those are like our surface level goals But if we dig underneath, we start to ask, well, what's underneath the concerns or underneath the goals?

8:36Why do we want that stuff? Why are we afraid of that? What's underneath them? So that's a typical thing to think about. Now, when we talk about needs, when I say need, I write about needs, we're talking about something that has been called irreducible needs, the basic needs. These are fundamental and universal to human functioning. when these needs are not fulfilled we will be in a state of conflict when we are when these needs are perceived even unconsciously as threatened or inhibited in some way we will be in a state of conflict and typically when we feel the needs are threatened we react in a defensive escalated way because it triggers very much the same kind of neural networks that when our physical needs are being threatened.

9:23So if someone, if I'm hungry and someone is, you know, not allowing me to get food, I'm going to go into survival mode and kind of do what's necessary to get, to get me fed. And the same thing's true with psychological needs, which is, which are the mostly the needs that are at play when we're in interpersonal conflicts. Um, so the six needs that I tend to talk about are, are mapped from a series of theories that are over the last hundred years from different theorists and I've sort of mapped their, what they call a need. Everybody calls these things different things, but I think they're talking about basically the same construct psychologically.

9:59And so these six psychological needs, I use this, I use the acronym sapien. And the reason these are important is because if we're in conflict, especially escalated conflict, meaning there's emotional charge around it, there's probably one or more needs being affected underlying, you know? And these can be totally unconscious. We're not even aware of them, but it's worth analyzing. And these needs are, when you look at the acronym, safety, which is security, stability, psychological safety. The next one's affiliation, which is inclusion, belonging, connection, love. The P is for positive self-concept, which is the needs for esteem, identity, status.

10:40The next one is independence, which is the need for autonomy or control or agency or choice. Uh, the next, uh, the fifth is for engaging activities, which is the need for stimulation, um, things that challenge us in a positive way and keep us occupied and interested. And then the last is called noble pursuits, which is what we call higher order needs, self-actualization, purpose, meaning that sort of thing. Um, and so when we perceive, when we are in conflict and we've, we, there's an emotional charge around it. It's worth saying, what is, what need underlying this conflict is being affected in me?

11:19What do I perceive as being threatened? Is it my independence and my autonomy? Is it my self-concept, my identity, my status? Is it my, uh, my need for belonging? Is it my need for safety and stability? Like, what is it? And if we look at that and we find the need or the needs that are being affected in, in ourselves or in someone else, we can potentially get creative in solving the conflict in a new way, not just looking at the surface level goals, but maybe there's a different way to get that need met that we haven't thought about. And I think that's really what the important piece is, is analyzing and understanding what the needs are driving the conflict.

11:57Jeremy, and within workplace, one of the common needs people fighting about is the need for power, the need for bigger bonuses, the need for high compensation, specific project. visibility. So where would it go? Yeah. So each one of those, I mean, could be different and it could be different for different people. Those are all what I would, what I would call satisfiers. Those are surface level goals or satisfiers. Those are to drive the need to get met. So I think when you're looking at career advancement or bigger bonuses or that sort of thing, it's potentially hitting multiple needs. It's potentially hitting the need for security and stability.

12:35It's probably hitting the need for autonomy because the higher you rise, the more autonomy you get. It's definitely hitting the need for positive self-concept, which is your status or esteem. It may even be hitting the need for meaning and purpose, or it may even be hitting the need for affiliation, that connection need, feeling like, hey, I really belong here. So that's one of the interesting satisfiers when people are like thinking about career growth. If that goal, that satisfier really hits a lot of needs, And when someone feels like someone is threatening their career growth or inhibiting it or I can't move ahead, they're going to have a lot of needs triggered and probably feel pretty charged about that.

13:19The reason I ask that is because it seems that there may be a need that is missing that is not a positive need, not a need that is a need with good intentions, because all of those needs are really with good intentions. but for example need for power over others is not necessarily need for safety affiliation positive self-concept independence engaging activities and noble pursuits so power for others is not a need power over others is not it's not a universal need it's not you got to think about the need of what does every single human being need not every human being needs that that is a satisfier so you would ask well this individual because there's a lot of individuals who don't need power over others and there's some that do they want it and so i would say what does power over others get that at least that person what does that person think that power over others gets them why would that be important they will feel significant okay so there's there you go so that's the positive self-concept that feeling of identity of status of esteem that's that that's their need and it's hitting but i think it's more than that there are other things in there it will not be enough for them to just feel good about themselves i think there are other things that i think some people actually enjoy voicing people around and making people feel bad because the person who is voicing people around is more senior so they can but why but why would they enjoy that what like what do you think's dry like what like for instance like so So what does it get them?

14:55Some kind of joy from it. I don't have that niche. I don't know, but I have seen people like that. That's why I wanted to ask you. Yeah, I think that people like that, that, I mean, there's lots of research there. I mean, there's just lots of psychological kind of data, like literature on people who are, they feel insecure or insignificant on a very deep level. And so it manifests in needing to be powerful or needing to have control over others or that sort of thing. So I think that there is a depleted need in them. And they think that they're going to fill that need. I don't think they think it consciously.

15:32I think unconsciously they've been conditioned to believe that if I have control or power and I boss people around, that will make me feel better. I will get the need met. I don't think it's true. I don't think it is going to get the need met. I think you're right that no matter what, like it's like, it's going to be, it's just an unfulfilled need and it's never going to get met that way. It could be met maybe another way. But I think a lot of people that in that, in that role, from what I've seen is they're going, they want a state, they believe that having the power, the feeling of being powerful or power over something, someone else is going to give them the satisfaction that they're looking for, which is, and they probably have a deep feeling.

16:17need that's like, I don't feel very important or special, or I don't feel like I belong, or I don't feel like I have a lot of control over my life. And so they seek it by doing something that's probably unhealthy. Um, it's kind of like addiction. It's kind of like, you know, if I do this thing that makes me feel good, I get joy out of the thing I'm addicted to, but it's really unhealthy. And it's because my brain thinks that if I do this thing, it kind of like fulfills a need in some level. So I think that there's a depleted need that's driving it. You know, I don't know what that is. Each person might be different.

16:53And people with such view, and I know exactly what you're talking about. There's underneath all of that, there's extreme lack of security and not feeling important, good enough. And so those individuals act out this way in a very destructive way towards other people. in a situation like that can we apply what you teach or another playbook is necessary yeah it's it's very tough you know if you're dealing with someone who a has power um like over like in an authority position and they have a deep unfulfilled need which leads them to feel not enough they're not enough and so they're manifesting it as like they need they're like arrogant or they need power or something like that.

17:42Uh, that's a deep inside job that, that is probably never going to change unless they're like really motivated. They're aware of it. They're motivated to change it. They go to therapy or something like that. Uh, so having relationships with those types of folks in a healthy way, that's very tough. That's very tough. It's not, it's not like a place where like, Hey, we bring you into a dialogue and try to resolve a conflict. This is a deep need that's unfulfilled in an individual that needs to do their own self-work. So I don't, I don't think that is a great place for conflict resolution to take place.

18:12There may be some certain issues that if the person was motivated enough, they could change the behave, some behaviors or some operations around certain things, but you're not going to change the way they operate at a deep level. You know? Yes. There's certain people that are very, very tough. I mean, people with very intense victim mentalities are similar people with, uh, you know, very intense avoidance, uh, where like they will not enter confront, interact, you know, hold anyone accountable. They're too afraid of being, uh, you know, rejected or abandoned and not liked. And that's what like, there's different things that people hold onto just deep psychologies that you're not going to change with conflict resolution, but you could put some parameters around, you know, the relationship so that there's rules or some like, you know, systems around things that kind of mitigate the negative effects.

19:07But yeah, you're not going to change the person, unfortunately. I'm glad you mentioned it. That's what I thought as well. So out of those six needs for people without those extreme cases, which are actually, unfortunately, very common. Oh, yeah. So when we're dealing with someone you can reason with, out of those six needs, which one is most common that you see specifically in the workplace? I don't know if there's one that's most common. I would say that the four most common are the first four. The need for security and safety. So safety is kind of a two-dimensional construct. One side of that is security and stability, meaning like, is my job safe type of thing?

19:47But the other part is psychological safety, meaning like I can be free to be innovative and maybe even make mistakes sometimes without being shamed and humiliated or retaliated against. Like that's another important safety mechanism. So safety is one. Affiliation being feeling like you belong there, feeling like you're included in things. That's one. Feeling like you have some respect, esteem status there, even if you're on a low level that you feel like, hey, I'm respected as a human being. And then the other one is also like having enough autonomy where you feel like it's appropriate. it because if you're first starting out and you're just learning, obviously you're not going to have as much autonomy, but when you get to a certain level and you're pretty competent, you should have more autonomy.

20:36And if you don't feel like you have enough control, autonomy, enough decision making power, at least for the things that affect you, if you have no, a lot of people like, you know, they get upset because there's decisions that are made that affect them and they have no say in them. They have no input. Um, those are all those four needs are the ones I see most common, across different workplaces. Jeremy, and of course, you are familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and many of our listeners are, and this is what usually people think about when they think about needs. What about that hierarchy was lacking for you that you felt you needed to talk about it a little differently?

21:14You know, I think Maslow was very right about the needs. I mean, and although those needs map onto various other needs theories and they map onto my needs theories. So I'm including those in my structure. The difference with the hierarchy, the hierarchy has not proven out. They've done lots of research to see if there's actually a quote-unquote hierarchy in the way he put it. And it's just not the case. You know, people that are, that are,

21:46his model was, you need to get your survival needs met before you start feeling like you want your love needs met. Because at first you survive. And then you can go and you can find your love needs. And then after your love needs, you want to get your esteem needs met and all that stuff. But people tend to look for those needs simultaneously. Like even if you're like starving, you still need love. You're not going to like forget that, hey, I don't need a group or my love or my family or anything like that. I just need to get my needs met. People are looking for both very simultaneously. Same thing with esteem, status, et cetera.

22:16You don't need certain needs met before you get the other ones met. They all need to be kind of fulfilled simultaneously. I agree 100%. I also thought a lot about that. For example, if you grow up in a difficult circumstances, you always have this need for safety and security. You kind of have that you can work really hard on it and make some improvements over time, but it's very hard to completely get rid of it. Even if you are very successful from outside, it may look like, wow, this person is doing so well, incredible career and so on achievements, but they will feel that need heavily. Yeah, they constantly fear like sort of scarcity or fear instability and that sort of thing.

23:00Yeah, because it's deeply embedded. They would have to change a very deep story in them and maybe the way that their nervous system works and how they perceive themselves and the world and that sort of thing. Anything that we learn very early on and our kind of brain forms these neural circuits around and we have these early memories and experiences which create predictions in our brains, those are tough to get to let go of. It's possible, but they're very tough. very tough because it's even changes how your brain is structured and works absolutely yeah another need that i see a lot with clients is the need for adventure the need for something different and so for example you even often see a client maybe trying to meet that need in their work and making decisions that are not necessarily good for them or very risky because that need It is not met.

23:58Would you say that that need falls on the engaging activities? Yes, that's it. Yeah. So the needs, people have called this the needs for adventure, the needs for variety, the needs for positive challenges. There's different things that people have termed that need. But yeah, that's part of that engaging activities. Absolutely. And that need is very common and most people don't know about it. Yeah. I was going to say they don't realize that it drives their decision making. and once they see they cannot unsee it it's so powerful to know that need exists so guys and girls listening to us right now if you have that need and you didn't realize you did it can really change your life realizing yeah you have it so you can meet in a healthy way totally totally i've seen that a lot too where people are making decisions to get the need met because they need variety or they need something new and stimulating and yet those decisions are not always the most strategic and they end up, you know, not working out as well, but they still have that need that needs to get met.

24:59So figuring out ways to meet that need in a more, in a healthier, more strategic way, I think is good. What are some of the other needs you see clients don't realize they have and it is driving their life and their decisions? Yeah. I mean, until you kind of, until you studied needs theories, you don't really understand that you have these needs driving your behavior. Um, I mean, people that are people that, so needs theories, they got adopted by the conflict space, but they, they are fundamentally, they're part of the motivational psychology space, motivational psychologists, they're looking for what drives human behavior.

25:39And that's where the needs theories come from. And so folks in those, that come from that paradigm, they really believe I could probably believe most of this too is most of human motivated behavior, not like automatic behavior, motivated behavior, most of it comes from wanting to, even unconsciously, driven by needs, driven by the need to satisfy these needs. You can kind of think, okay, what did that person do? Well, let's, we could map that down to like, they were doing that to fulfill a need, you know? So, so yeah, it's important. I think it's important when, when, you know, most people aren't aware of the things driving their, most, most people are not aware in general of the things driving their behavior, whether or not you believe in the needs driving them or whatever.

26:30People are not aware a lot of times of what's motivating their behavior. They're just kind of going and doing things. And I think it's very important to stop and kind of go, well, why am I doing that thing? What do I think it's going to get me? And what do I think it's going to maybe defend against or protect me from? Why is that an important thing I'm doing? I think that's important to, especially if it's potentially leading to big decisions or maybe big consequences or something. It's important to figure out, why am I doing that thing? And for different people, there seems to be a leading need.

27:05a need they're trying to satisfy much more than not most other people but people with other leading needs yeah i would say so i would say certain people like just because of the experiences they had growing up or in their life they have certain needs that always feel kind of depleted and they're always trying to get that need met yes you talk about reconditioning can you explain to our listeners what you mean by reconditioning and how to do it yeah well that's a it's a how to do it is it gets more complicated so conditioning is a it's a form of learning it's probably what most of our motivated learning it stems from is the way that can our brains work so conditioning is the behavioral output of the underlying brain function called neuroplasticity neuroplasticity is the way our brains change, the way our neurons fire differently.

28:03When we learn new things, our brains, our neuroplasticity is in play. Our brains are changing the way they're wired. And a lot of that learning comes, is manifested as conditioning. Conditioning is basically, there's a, there's a form of classical conditioning, which is a stimulus response relationship. So something is introduced to me or I'm exposed to something and I respond in a certain way. And then there's also called operant conditioning, which is another form of conditioning, which is basically, which is based on rewards and punishment. I do certain things because I believe either they're going to stop me from being punished or they're going to get me a reward, or I don't do different, or I don't do something because it's going to get me a reward or it's going to stop me from being punished.

28:52So there's kind of operant conditioning. So there's different forms of conditioning but essentially what i talk about in my book wired for peace is the conditioning around what we how we respond in conflict what we believe about conflict and what we believe about certain conflicts and how we respond in those and a lot of times people they don't um they they don't like conflict and it's understandable we don't like conflict because it's stressful and my my arguments or my proposal is can we start can we we've been conditioned to look at conflict in a stressful way because we've associated conflict in our minds because of our experiences in our life with stress.

29:35Interpersonal tension means stress, i.e. means this is threatening one of my needs, maybe my need for belonging or my need for safety or something like that. When I'm in interpersonal conflict, it's threatening my needs. So I don't like it. It's stressful. I need to either avoid it or immediately eliminate it in some way. That's the conditioning. That's the stimulus is the conflict and the response is stress. And then all these behaviors associated with that. And so what I talk about is can can we if we want to start looking at conflict and feeling about conflict differently, meaning we want to look at it more as an opportunity, more optimistically, can instead of when I get when I see a conflict happening, I get really stressed out and I want to just avoid it and get away from it, can I instead go towards it in a more effective, constructive way?

30:26Because I believe that it's going to lead to something new, something growth, learning, understanding, innovation, something that's going to be beneficial for everybody involved if we go into this in an effective way. And if I want to start looking at it that way so I can approach it differently, I've got to kind of recondition the way that my brain is set up to respond to it or my nervous system. And so reconditioning means like, okay, so instead of responding to the idea of interpersonal conflict as stressful, I'm going to respond to it as, oh, this is interesting or, oh, this is exciting because it's pointing to something that needs to change and it's going to change for the better.

31:06I believe that. That's a new way of responding to conflict. And I present a few different ways of like trying to recondition this stuff. And we We could talk about that. It's just a little more complex. But yeah, but that's the gist of conditioning. It's like, how do I start to respond to different stimuli in different ways? What do you think most people don't understand about their brains and how our brains work so that they could handle difficult, stressful situations where there's conflict in a better way? Well, I think there's a lot of things that people don't understand about their brains.

31:41And by the way, there's a lot of things that neuroscientists that study the brains don't know about the brains. The brain is still very much an enigma. But there's a lot of things that we do think we know about the brain based on current data. One of the things that I think is important for people to be aware of in conflict is, I think just to be aware of or remember that everything you're experiencing in life, including in a conflict, is a product of your nervous system. you are none of us are experiencing the world directly you are not experiencing that individual directly you're experiencing some combination of what your senses are taking in electrochemically and what your brain is predicting based on past behaviors our brains are predictive processing machines meaning a lot of what they're doing is predicting what we're going to experience and that is what we end up experiencing, just the prediction.

32:44And then some pieces are filled in by what we sense in the world. But we actually experience a lot less of what we sense than we do of what we predict. That's something that they've learned in the last, I don't know, 20 or 30 years doing brain science. And it's a really weird concept to think about. But just to remember, when you're in conflict, a lot of our conflicts that are ongoing conflicts or chronic conflicts are based on what our brains are predicting about the person rather than what we're actually experiencing. Because if you actually experienced that email that they sent, just the email, you just experienced that and you took it in and interpreted it, you probably wouldn't respond in a stress response.

33:26But if your brain's predicting that that individual intends you harm and that email is aggressive and hostile, then you're going to respond in a stress response. If someone who walks in from the third, like this happens to me when I'm intervening and I'm a coach or a mediator and I see an email and they say, look at this email they sent me. And I read the email because I have no experience with this individual. My brain's not predicting anything about them. And I look at that and I go, that's a benign email. It doesn't, doesn't seem hostile to me. And they say, well, what do you mean? Look at what they said.

33:57Like, if you even knew the history of this, this is what this means. Like there's all kinds of past interpretations and meanings about what it means and all this stuff it's because your brain's predicting hostility and that's that's part of what we call biases um so your your brain so i would just say it's important to remember your brain is a protection machine it's not experiencing the world directly it's experiencing some uh some version some combination of what you sense and also what your brain's predicting and that's partly what's contributing to you seeing the person as hostile or aggressive etc etc makes sense so do you think we are wired to fight well that's a good question it's uh i i think that we are our brains and nervous systems are wired to survive so what does survival mean i think if we look at the story that our neurobiology tells us this is the chemicals that get released in cooperation versus conflict i think that our brains more want to be at peace than they want to be in war.

35:01However, because we're wired for survival, we have different things that we are capable of. One piece of what we're capable of is heavy, heavy cooperation. We can cooperate with lots of people. We can collaborate. We can be friends with lots of people we can trust. That's all important for survival. Without that stuff, we don't survive as a species. However, we also have the ability and wiring to defend ourselves. And that's part of our evolved architectures or nervous and neural architecture so we have different capabilities but it's all to basically survive so i think um we're wired for all of it but if you look at how we how we feel it tells a story that i think is compelling towards being wired more for peace than for war if we're in cooperation if we're at peace with each other and when we're collaborating when we're in friendship.

35:56We have all these interesting neurochemicals that are released, like oxytocin and serotonin and sometimes dopamine, depending on the dynamic. And these are all things that make us feel good and make us feel excited and interested. If we're in conflict with people and we feel stressed about the conflict, then other types of things get released that are associated with defense, like adrenaline and neurodrenaline and cortisol and different structures of the brain that make us feel more paranoid. And so those things don't feel very good. And so like, if we're looking like, okay, well, what makes us feel good?

36:31Peace. What doesn't make us feel good? Stress and conflict. I would say that we should follow the biochemicals and say, well, we're probably more meant to be at peace if that's what makes us feel good. You know, if that's what makes us feel more regulated and kind of a baseline, we should try it. We should, we're probably more meant for that and we're probably only wired for defense or for war in so much as like we have abilities to survive in the moment and then we should kind of come back to baseline which is peace so we're never we were never really meant to be in chronic conflict chronic stress that's just a really bad for the body and the mind um and so the fact that we are sometimes in chronic conflict distress i would say that we're kind of fighting our own nature and yeah somehow that is the experience of most people working in corporate world chronic stress oh man yeah well you know now stress comes from lots of different things so maybe there's different types of stress but if you're in a if you're in if you're in chronic stress because of chronic interpersonal conflict at work that's an important thing to recognize i don't think that's healthy you know either either there's solutions to getting out of these conflicts or maybe it's not the right place for you but you existing in constant conflict which creates constant stress and i'm to when i say stress i don't mean good stress i mean distress i mean like a stress response where your adrenaline's up all the time and you're nervous all the time like that's not a good place for you it's not healthy it's not healthy for your body or your mind and on a long-term basis 100 percent what do you want to say about that i always point to this idea again i go circle back to the beginning, which is like, there's two parts to conflict resolution.

38:14There's care and then there's solution. If you're in a conflict that's escalated or that's ongoing and you want to solve it, don't jump straight to solution. Try to see if you can get to a place of mutual care or mutual respect, mutual appreciation first. And then once you feel like there's some rapport built, there's some trust built, then start to talk about the solutions to some of the issues. or you can do them simultaneously, but don't skip the care piece. That's a really important piece. Actually, one more question I have for you today is on AI. I know that you recommend using AI. How would you recommend our listeners to use it to help them with conflict resolution?

38:52I think AI is actually super helpful to act as sort of like a private coach or brainstorm ideas. I think it's a great tool. You could even use it as a role play tool, but I think it's a great tool to, if you're really stuck and you don't have access to a skilled specialist or mediator or someone, use AI. AI has got a lot of information. You could just go in there and say, hey, here's what I'm dealing with. How would you recommend I approach this? What kinds of different things might I do in this situation? Can you help me brainstorm creative solutions that I haven't thought about? like all those can be really really helpful and i think it's yeah i think it's i think it's a great tool as long as as long as we're using it um as a support system don't use it as a replacement for you in other words don't use it to write emails to the person or to write texts or something like that um those are it's very transparent when you people are using ai for messaging so use it as a coach and then formulate your own ideas and use those to interact with the person.

39:57Jeremy, any final words you want to share today? I just remind people again of my proposal here that we are wired for peace, I think, more than wired for war. And we just kind of have to clear away some of the defensive states that we get in in order to get back to our natural state, which is a peaceful state. I think it's important to remember that. And by the way, I'll bet unless you're a psychopath, which most of us are not, I will bet that most of you have cooperative interactions with either family or friends or associates way more than you have conflicting ones. If you don't, there needs to be some serious changes made.

40:37But I'm hoping that most of us are cooperating. Even just a smile while you're passing someone in the hallway is a moment of cooperation. and i think well a lot of us have more of those than we do moments of conflict and so just remember that we're we're we're more at peace than we are at war even though if it doesn't seem like that thank you jeremy where can our listeners learn more about you your work buy your book anything you want to share yeah my new book's called wired for peace you can pick that up at amazon or barnes and noble and then um you can uh go to my if you're interested in conflict resolution coaching or training for your team or in you have a conflict you need some help with with from a mediator, you can go to PollockPeaceBuilding.com.

41:17Thank you so much. Our guest today was Jeremy Pollock and our podcast sponsor today is StrategyTraining.com. You can get some gifts from us. You can get one of our books that we co-authored with some of our listeners actually and clients. It is called Nine Leaders in Action and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash gift. You can also get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies at firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. And you can get our template for a resume. And it is a very good template to use for any level of seniority. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash resume PDF.

42:02Thank you so much for tuning in. And I'm looking forward to connect with you all next time.

42:12Jeremy Pollack: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Strategy Skills Podcast. Stay up to date on all of our latest training by signing up for our email updates on firmsconsulting.com. We look forward to helping you develop your strategy, critical thinking, decision-making, and communication skills next time here on the Strategy Skills Podcast.

42:38Thank you.