Each Sunday, our goal is to share a piece of gold with you. Some small piece of information that helps you to have a better week and achieve a better outcome.  

This week, I want to talk with you about People Puzzles— some of the hardest things to solve in business. Through the years in working in business, I’ve had the privilege to work with some amazing people, some fun people, some very challenging people, and some straight up assholes. Through each of these situations, I’ve learned something valuable—even when working with those incredibly challenging individuals.  

Some of the most important lessons that I have learned are:  

In order to build a sustainable and positive culture, you have to start with psychological safety. People in your organization must believe they can share their thoughts, opinions, and feelings without being criticized or dismissed.  

The process of creating and facilitating this trust is not easy. It takes time and intentional energy focused on listening to understand instead of listening to respond (which is what far too many people do). It takes a humble leader to hear that their communication is poor, or their explanation of a decision was incomplete or wrong. What I have learned over the years is that it is not the job of a leader to provide a better explanation or to “tell” something better, but instead it is the job of an effectively leader to ask better questions.  

This is especially true when dealing with conflict. When two people on a team are at odds, it can create significant pain and frustration for all others around that situation. It will often make people feel very uncomfortable so that they try to avoid the situation as much as possible. Especially if the challenges are between someone that has been in the organization for years and their supervisor.  

To deal with these types of conflicts, we have found a few tenets to be helpful: 

  • Always start with honor. The purpose of any conversation should be to honor the other person and help them feel better about the situation.  
  • Listen and repeat what you heard so they know you were listening.  
  • Ask questions such as: 
  • What lead you to this situation?  
  • What feelings do you have about the situation now? 
  • What frustrations do you have about the situation?  
  • What do you think were the intentions of the person/people involved in this situation?  
  • Why do you think they behaved in this way?  
  • Could you have done something wrong that caused or contributed to this behavior?  
  • What fears do you have because of this situation?  
  • (If you are dealing with a conflict with another person) 
  •  –What do you want for [insert name] coming out of this?  
  • What would you do differently if you could?  
  • What do you wish [insert name] would have done differently?  

Sometimes we have to ask more challenging questions in order to get to the facts of a situation. Things like: 

“Bob, I would like to ask a challenging question and I’m not quite sure how to ask. Is it okay with you if I just blurt it out in a way that may seem a little clumsy?” 

“Of course,” Bob replies.  

“Thanks. Here goes… I’d like to know if you really want to work here any longer? It seems as though you are pretty distracted and frustrated…”  

When we create psychological safety and start with honor, we can work our way into challenging conversations and come out learning and operating much more effectively.  

To learn more about solving People Puzzles, sign up to receive notices about our upcoming master class here.  

The goal of AoD is to build better leaders who run better companies and change the world. Being a better leaders doesn’t just mean in the office, but at home too.

If you’d like a copy of our Perfect Week Template, purchase your copy of Adapt or Die here and then go to adaptordie.com/assets to get started.

I hope you enjoy it and figure out your perfect week!