Mashup - Creating Community and Diffusing Conflict

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Reciprocity Podcast with AG. Your host is Andrew Gadomski and the show is a compilation of shared thoughts and experiences that impact lives with grace and authenticity. AG spent 15 years residing as an interim workforce analyst for Fortune 500 employers who provide financial and or healthcare services, supply chain access or consumer basic needs.

[00:00:23] In 2022, he swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and faithfully discharge his duties in the coveted role of a Senior Operations Research Analyst. AG is part of the mission to deploy cybersecurity and AI workforce skills and shed light on how these skills develop and benefit the American people, US citizens, its residents and tribal nations.

[00:00:51] Welcome to the Reciprocity Podcast with AG. The podcast brings together different people and personalities and each guest's experiences in giving and receiving knowledge, inspiration, love and life.

[00:01:25] Your host is Andrew Gadomski. He is a data analyst, passionate about the interaction between people and professions, and a lover of learning. Gillian Snavely Community versus conflict. You got to pick one. How do you create community amongst a team or how do you diffuse conflict to strengthen connectiveness?

[00:01:55] So when you gave me the idea that this might be a question, I actually asked one of my leads how I create community. Because I think I know, but I wanted to hear from one of them. And I think it is the grounding in that I build rapport and it's almost like my family. So I think a lot of us can relate to spending more time in our work environment than in our personal environment.

[00:02:20] And I work really hard to want to understand the inter-workings of my people and the people around me and what they're experiencing at home and how it might reflect in their work or impact their work. And so building that rapport and that community of friendship and family, but then also being able to drive and get to outcomes and to be effective leaders or be effective employees.

[00:02:48] I think people are passionate to want to do that because they feel connected to me personally. They know my family. They know my kids. They know my husband. Some of them have my husband's phone number. I mean, like people interact with my family as if it's part of their family and how that connects to the conflict. Because we talked about this is that I think they're more comfortable to bring conflict to me because they know that I am forgiving. I am compassionate. I am open to helping them learn in the situation.

[00:03:16] The conflict isn't as hard because we have that rapport built. And a lot of the people who work for me have worked with me for many years. I think it's because there's that culture of we're family. So I have a follow-up. Did you experience that and then apply it? I think I experienced the opposite. I experienced working in a culture that wasn't there.

[00:03:40] I remember very vividly struggling in that culture and being committed to myself that I would never allow to lead in a culture like that. I think I learned the opposite and wanted to not be like that. And what I thrived for was that connectedness and community of family. It was just something that I built in my own leadership style because I learned from what I didn't like. Okay. That might be your quote right there.

[00:04:10] Sure. Great. Travis Furlow. Okay. Let's move on to our next business-oriented question where we talk about community or conflict.

[00:04:32] I want you to pick one and tell me how you create community amongst a team or how you diffuse conflict when it exists in the team. Let's start with community because I'm going to do that thing that I love to do where I won't pick one because I think they're interrelated. Because you're a good consultant and you just do both? I just do both and then I can go either direction with this. Let's start with community.

[00:05:01] I think most would agree that teams have their own community, have their own culture, and those teams feed into bigger teams, and those teams have community and culture and all the way up the chain. So I think building community for me, as cliche as it might sound, is a trust thing.

[00:05:23] And I think organizations, some that I've been in, I'm blessed to be in one now that I've been with for almost seven years. And one thing we agreed to together is that we're business partners and we're going to listen to one another. But that took time before you could say that and have it really, truly absorbed and believed by all who were listening and hearing it.

[00:05:53] So I think sometimes as leaders, we might step in and assume that we'll instantly be able to have trust built. And it just doesn't work from my perspective. It takes time. Trust is incremental. So trust is I'm going to show up to meetings on time and I'm there. Trust is if you say, hey, I'm always here for you. How can I support you? The very first time someone needs support and you're like, because I've got another meeting with my boss and I can't get there.

[00:06:20] I am very purposeful when I step into new leadership roles that I work for months to get trust built. Because when trust builds individual component pieces of the direct reports you have, then I start bringing meetings together that might not typically happen where groups of, at least in our business, we have individual P&Ls for client relationships. So you can easily go into the silo of your client partner team.

[00:06:50] I spent months, and this was a handful of years ago, spent months building individual relationships and then brought those relationships together. Everyone was comfortable with me. I was comfortable with them. Now it was time to allow that same process to happen for them with each other. And that took a handful of months, if not the best part of the year. But what ends up happening is you go from building individual teams into a community.

[00:07:19] Then I'll go back and answer, pull the consulting route. Then I go back and say conflict. Well, if conflict happens and you are perceived to be a stranger, it's going to be conflict magnified. If you have community, when conflict occurs, that's a natural part of being human. Conflict occurs and we've learned how to deal with it with one another. So I think if you say pick one, conflict or community, my ask back to you would be, how do we do that?

[00:07:49] I think you need to build community to either prevent, maintain, or mitigate conflict. So that's how I see the whole thing. Give me your thoughts. I think it's a great approach and that needs to be understood. If you were to apply that without talking about its premise, I think people might be, maybe they're going to be confused. Maybe they're going to like, why are we doing this? Versus this idea of we're all going to work together.

[00:08:19] And sometimes it's going to be easy and sometimes it's not. And sometimes people are going to be confused. And sometimes people are going to speak up more than others. What's the most important thing is to create this community. So when things come at us or when conflict arises, we have that level of trust to work it out together, to challenge each other.

[00:08:41] Or maybe we can recognize when conflict might arise so we can go ahead and initiate a program or a process so it doesn't happen at all. Agreed. Agreed. I think a good example of that might be the way that baseball teams operate.

[00:09:03] And one of the things that would be hard for a baseball team that is moving around the country so much is where individual players have to be aware of their own logistics and equipment. That would be almost impossible.

[00:09:48] And one of the things that they're going to be able to do is to make sure they're going to be able to do that. And I have enough trust in everything that you're doing to make sure I have all the things that I need to perform in front of 50,000 people, 162 games a year. You have to explain that first. And then you understand it. You do. You're right. And I think if we take your example and lay it back over the business scenarios that we all get into,

[00:10:19] the equipment manager might be akin to an IT leader or an HR business partner or a finance leader. And when I took this role on and we expanded the capacity of what I was doing, I went individual. It would be as if I went to meet with all the outfielders and then I met with all the infielders and I met with the pitching teams. And I went individual.

[00:10:47] And then from individual started to form small groups. Once I had our leaders comfortable, I was attending all of these team meetings so that the day-to-day operators and delivery engine knew who I was and what our purpose was as being the business partner to their director. Then I brought the directors together. Again, a little awkward because it hadn't been done and it took us a couple months to get into a rhythm. Then a number of months after that. So this is about an 18-month process.

[00:11:16] Then I brought the functional leaders into my monthly meetings. Now finance is hearing real time from people and they're seeing names and faces. And so when you get into a spreadsheet situation and a client might have a dip or an explosion of growth, this is no longer spreadsheet management. This is human-to-human connection. And that's all I'm after. As a leader, that's all I want. So I think your baseball analogy is a good one because we do the same thing. It's 365 days a year. So what do we get?

[00:11:46] Three weeks, four weeks, depending on organizations. They're working huge amounts of time. And if we have an IT issue, it's impossible for me to think that you could be running a business and handle all your HR issues and handle all your IT issues and handle all your finance issues. Now we've congealed everyone. It just seems to run a bit more smooth. So yeah, it's a concept that's worked well for us.

[00:12:18] Either community or conflict. How do you create community? Or how do you diffuse conflict? This way you can increase connectiveness. Yeah. So I'll take the conflict one because I think for us as professionals and as leaders trying to bring different change in the workplace, we run into a lot of conflict or pushback.

[00:12:47] People generally don't like change. When you have a certain approach, like for me, the data-driven approach, it's the skills-based approach. You will always meet people that do not agree with you. The thing that think, for example, that hiring is more an art than a science. That interviews should be held as conversation. I run into these when I implement new processes or a product in companies.

[00:13:15] A simple technique for me to diffuse conflict is to acknowledge the common ground. Even if I meet a hiring manager that doesn't believe in structured interviews or skills-based hiring, both of us are here to hire the best people for the job. We want the most qualified people. We just believe that there is a different approach into finding those people. So first of all, acknowledge what do we agree on?

[00:13:42] Listen, before I come with all of my knowledge and expertise, like I'm a person, they're a person. Let's talk. Let's get to know each other. Let's understand what we have in common. Even besides the professional part, even as humans, it's much easier to start a discussion. People are less defensive then. Nice one.

[00:14:15] Philip Dana. Next one. Either community or conflict. How do you create community amongst a team? Or how do you diffuse conflict to strengthen connectiveness in that team? Yeah, I think creating community in a team. I've been blessed with a military background. There's always a common purpose, commander's intent. Very, very well-defined mission orders typically.

[00:14:44] And then I've worked for companies like Amazon and a lot of life science companies where, you know, the North Star, the compass is pointing at, we are going to cure Parkinson's disease in this gene therapy company, period. And it really galvanizes everybody and gets them in step. But if you don't have that clarity, it's still equally important to define the vision, the mission, the behaviors that will help us get there, left and right parameters.

[00:15:12] I call it commander's intent, just with my background. But if everyone understands it, they'll move together. They might not always agree with it, and that's okay. And as a leader, you need to explain that as well, is there will be times where I have to make a decision without your input. And other times where I will gracefully request and demand your input. So there's also some rule setting and expectation setting. But yeah, to form a community and get a team moving, you know, have a clear, true north.

[00:15:54] Let's move on to community and or conflict. So I'd like you to pick one. And how do you create community amongst a team? Or how do you diffuse conflict that's within that team? Don't do the thing where you say I have both. Pick one. No, just one. Just one this time. I think growth and innovation often happens when we are outside of our comfort zone.

[00:16:23] And I've heard that quote so many times. And I really believe that there is something in that. Healthy conflict is good. So I would choose healthy conflict as long as there is trust and psychological safety. And again, this is something that happens day to day in many organizations and in many teams. And I really believe that if you have a good foundation where there is psychological safety,

[00:16:52] no judgment, everyone is encouraged to speak their mind. And without fear of retaliation, I think healthy conflicts can really drive innovation. So that's where I would lean towards, but also asserting some healthy boundaries as well, along with that. Sean Shepard. Community or conflict.

[00:17:22] How do you create it amongst a team? Or how do you diffuse to strengthen that connectiveness? So pick one. Yeah. Building community should be centered around some sort of common vision, goal, or mission statement, right? What does that look like? And how does it align with everyone's self-interest? Because at the end of the day, we're all humans and we all act in our own self-interest no matter what we say or do. It's human nature to act in one's own self-interest.

[00:17:50] To not be selfish is a very selfish act. Because you have to be intentional about it. So try to understand everyone's self-interest and gain alignment around the set of things that matter most. Communicate that in a way that gains that alignment. And allowing everyone else to feel heard and recognized throughout that process is also super important to building community.

[00:18:22] Megan Capicell. Let's talk about community or conflict. I'd like you to pick one. And talk about either how you create community in a team or how you approach diffusing conflict in a team. Like this podcast and its transparency? Then you will love Aspen Analytics.

[00:18:52] Their audit documentation enable employers to share with investors, analysts, and regulators how their chosen HR practices using AI, wage equity, and analysis reduces significant business risks. Remove these risks before they become real problems. Find out more at www.aspenanalytics.io.

[00:19:10] I think community is interesting in this virtual environment that we predominantly all work in now. There was a point when COVID happened, we'd all gone virtual. But the team predominantly had all been together.

[00:19:36] When I was a supervisor in my previous role, I had a great team. But we all had been in person together. And then COVID happened and we were immediately virtual. There wasn't a lot of hiring that happened at the beginning of the pandemic. But then we started to resume a little bit more normal operations and started hiring new people to the team that had never met in person or been into the office.

[00:20:03] And it created a new challenge to get to know people. Because unless you're in a meeting with that person or had a need to be in a meeting with them, you wouldn't really know them. So as a supervisor, I was challenged to help create a sense of community. We had tools.

[00:20:28] We started using, you know, video conferencing and other tools. But we never had to use those the way we all of a sudden had to do it and didn't even really know how to operate as a team using those. I read an article a long time ago, and I can't remember the specific name of the article. It was something to do with coffee chats and how highly effective coffee chats can be.

[00:20:54] And so I thought, I'm just going to bring this coffee chat thing to the virtual world. I started having my team get together for at a minimum 15 minutes, at a maximum 30 minutes. And I would set people up with different coffee chat experiences each week. Like, you could talk about the weather. You could talk about the baseball game. You could talk about some sort of meme or current event or something.

[00:21:23] It was just a way to help get to know each other and to really build those relationships and rapport. It might not mean as much for somebody who's more senior. And we certainly had a lot of senior people on my team. But we started bringing in more junior people who would maybe be a little bit more reticent to speak up and to get to know people or know what the right thing to do is. So it helped them build a level of comfort.

[00:21:49] And it helped just everybody to just get to know each other a little bit better on a personal level and personality-wise. I think that they were effective, but I was also the supervisor at the time, so maybe I'm biased. I think it's important to create water cooler moments and those opportunities for just exchanges that are just more authentic.

[00:22:18] We're both in workforce planning, and I came from a world of it's all about talent. It's all about talent. It's all about the people. Well, I started realizing that there's a big difference between the people and the position. And the knowledge, skills, abilities, and tasks, and the duties, that's the position. It doesn't really matter who's in that job, provided that they can execute that work. But that's not the person.

[00:22:48] And that's why I think community and conflict are so important to identify with all the automation that we're seeing. I guess the question is, can you replace the people? I think that's a challenge that we're all going to be facing and probably facing now. The podcast and its series is powered by Aspen Analytics and how employers use Aspen to remove business risks they have related to AI, wage transparency, and pay equity.

[00:23:16] You can learn more at aspenanalytics.io. And now finally, closing thoughts from our host, Andrew Godomsky. When I think about creating community and or reducing conflict, realize that as an analyst and a scientist that leverages data for others, I tend to be doing both.

[00:23:39] One is removing the conflict because people tend to have hunches or inclination or ideas or practices that they've used in the past that they can apply to a situation. And at the same time, people have conflicting ideas. They may have community or consensus around particular ideas.

[00:23:59] But just because they agree doesn't mean that they've looked at all the data to make sure that they have all the information that they need in order to be successful and make decisions that de-risk or create strong return on investment on the path forward.

[00:24:17] And that's a tough road to go into a room and know that there's probably conflicting ideas and there's probably consensus already in the room. And that could be between you and one other person who's next to you. Or that could be between lots of different people in a room.

[00:24:43] And it could be hundreds of people in a room who are all going to raise their hands one way and then raise their hands another way when you engage the audience. So here's a set of methods that I've learned and just recently got reinforced by a family member. And I thought it was good to share on how to address community conflict and their intersection.

[00:25:13] When you have an idea and you're addressing a situation and you have to create community or diffuse conflict, I first state the facts that I see. This is the story that we have in front of us. This is the situation. These are the conditions. These are the problems that we're having.

[00:25:41] And you set the tone very early on what is the fact of why you're there. And when you're doing that with data, you tend to do it like you're telling a weather forecast. You say, where we are right now. What does that mean? It's this many degrees. This is going up. This is going down. These are our observations. You then talk about trends.

[00:26:08] You say, we were here and we're likely going to be there. And so you're forecasting. You have to be very clear about saying that was likely to happen. But then you create more around context. And you state, here are also things that we know to be factual. And this is up. This is down. This condition exists for us. That condition exists for us. This has not been considered. That has not been considered. That's stating the facts.

[00:26:37] Now, in order to diffuse conflict and create community, you start going down an emotional path. And offer, this is what's in my head. Based on the story that I just told you, this is what I'm seeing as an expert or as an analyst or as a person of consideration. Then what you need to do is say what you feel.

[00:27:04] Remove yourself from the data analysis. Vulnerability is a good thing when you're trying to create community or diffuse conflict. And not in the position of being the aggressor. People recognize you have empathy. You can sympathize. But more importantly, you're as vulnerable as they are. Once you tell people how you feel,

[00:27:28] you can then talk about recommendations or what you think should happen differently. Based on everything you've said so far. And thus far, it's very difficult to not have community or to create conflict on what you've said thus far. You've stated your fact. You've talked about what's in your head. And you say, this is how I feel. And then, this is what I'd like to see us do differently.

[00:27:57] And that's when you say, I also am interested in understanding what you believe we should do differently. And there's no wrong answers at this point. You just need to make sure that you're letting people understand what you think. And then, you have to open up the opportunity to say what they think. And that's the last piece is asking that. What are your ideas?

[00:28:23] So, what you've done is gone into a room, a lecture hall. Or you've gone in one-on-one and you're at a coffee shop. But rather than trying to choose between creating community or diffusing conflict, realize that in order to diffuse conflict, you need to create community. And that's my perspective on this.

[00:28:52] Thanks for listening to the Reciprocity with AG podcast. You can enjoy more episodes by favoriting the podcast at leading podcast platforms. On behalf of Andrew Godomsky and all our guests, we enjoyed the time spent with you and ask you to consider reciprocating powerful learnings to and from all you meet. Thanks for listening to the Reciprocity with AG podcast. You can enjoy more episodes by favoriting the podcast at leading podcast platforms.

[00:29:20] On behalf of Andrew Godomsky and all our guests, we enjoyed the time spent with you and ask you to consider reciprocating powerful learnings to and from all you meet.