- Just ahead on WTVP Leadership Lessons for Home, Work and Life.

We've got tips to help you with constructive conflict resolution.

Tonight's critical conversation brings discussion from four more great central Illinois leaders, and it all starts right now.

(lively music) Good evening, thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Amy Burkett.

I bet many of you are familiar with this African proverb.

"If you wanna go fast, go alone.

If you wanna go far, you gotta go together."

As leaders, we know one is too small a number to achieve greatness, but sometimes, bringing people along sure can be tough.

Screaming matches, hurt feelings and toxic environments are some of the greatest hits of bad office conflict resolution.

When you bring people together with diverse backgrounds, conflict is inevitable, but it can be dealt with constructively.

Let's meet some of central Illinois's great leaders to help us with the topic now.

We begin with James Kemper.

Principal of Demonica Kemper Architects.

James, talk to us a little bit.

How challenging is conflict management for you?

- Ah, sometimes it can be very difficult.

Other times, not terribly difficult.

What I find is you see what the other person is, empathize with them and try to speak on their terms.

Sometimes, that's being kind of a jerk because they might be that way.

So I find it fun.

- Good fun.

Okay, well fun because his better half is our next guest, Christine Bare-Kemper, strategic philanthropy officer at OSF HealthCare Foundation.

Christine, talk to us a little bit about that conflict resolution style that you use.

- I think it really depends on where you're at for this conflict, right?

James and I have the fortunate life to blend five children together.

So talk about conflict resolution.

There's things in life that you have to be able to work through when it comes to family.

Lots of emotions, lots of personalities.

And with work, coming to the diversity.

It's really, I think to your point, it's putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, what is their perspective and what is their background and letting them be heard instead of trying to make what you think that they're trying to say what it is.

So really just listening, I think is the biggest key point to starting resolution.

- Next up.

Let's meet Don Johnson.

He's the president CEO of Goodwill.

Don, talk to us about how you handle conflict management in your organization.

- Well, nothing different than what's already been said, but as leading a company of 400 people, I have to address conflict at least every week.

And I think you understand both sides, you listen.

And I try to help them make decisions, not force my own on them, but make decisions that are healthy for the organization.

And I can address that a little bit differently when I handle conflict at home, because I always joke and say that I'm the boss until I get home.

My wife is the boss at home.

So I call conflict at-- - At least you know it in advance.

You know you've bonded with that.

- Yeah, you choose your battles.

But conflict and being a CEO is there about every week.

It's not just looking at potential growth, but also what comes with that as the other line too, is being the fireman.

Help putting out and solving problems.

When you have an organization that's as large as ours, you're gonna have it, and we do.

- Our final guest for this conversation is Mark Matuszak from Hult Fritz Matuszak & Associates.

Mark, thanks so much for your time as well.

Talk to us about how you handle conflict management in your organizations.

- Well, in all of my business interactions, I've really believed that everything starts off as a conflict.

When an employee comes to you and said, "Do you know what Bill just said to me?"

There we go.

How do you get through that?

How do you wrestle through it to keep the organization running efficiently.

yet get a couple of employees talking to each other when they choose not to?

- It's never easy though.

Christine, talked to us a little bit when you've got, it seems like when there's tension in an organization, everyone in the organization can feel it.

Even if it's only between two people, talk to us about how you might be able to diffuse some of those little challenges.

- I think it really comes back to making sure that everyone feels heard.

If somebody, or if there's that negative energy that everyone can feel.

You can walk into a room and it really feels just as thick on your shoulders and you feel it, identifying what is the root issue of this.

Oftentimes, it's just allowing somebody the time to express and not interrupting, not overtalking them, let them really talk themselves back into what the root issue is.

And as they're able to do that, they feel validated.

I hear you.

And then maybe even restating.

This is what I'm hearing you say.

Is this what you're saying?

Am I hearing you correctly?

'Cause how many times do you have somebody say something and then you walk away and to your point, "You know what Bill just said?"

That's not what bill just said.

That's not what he meant to say.

So really validating and understanding that everyone's on the same page with the message getting to the root of it.

And then for the point of resolution, let's see how many times we say conflict resolution during this, but the resolution part of this is when everyone walks away saying we're now back on the same page, we're on track to what our goal was, bringing it back to the mission.

And at OSF, it's exactly that.

We can go right back to our mission, serving with the greatest care and love.

Is this whole situation bringing us all back to that?

And does that individual or individuals that are creating that negative energy able to release that and be able to move forward positively?

- James, I'm gonna build on that.

What if they're not able to release that negative energy?

How do you handle it?

- Well, that's a good question.

I wish I had the answer for that.

Times that that does happen where they can't release it, Christine mentioned time.

That's one of the things that I really believe is important with people that are hotheaded.

Give them a little time, give them some time to cool off.

Sure, they're gonna go through things in their head, it's gonna happen, but frankly, people have a tendency to forget.

And if you give it a little bit of time, pull it back in.

The levels typically cool off a little bit.

So that's what I would suggest.

Give it a little bit of time.

- Excellent.

Don, in your large organization, you mentioned over 400 employees.

It's just got to be everywhere that people will have misunderstandings.

How do you get past that?

And when it bubbles up to the CEO?

- Well, by the time I get involved, it's a problem 'cause it's not been solved below me.

And so, it's looking and understanding the situation, but also looking at and understanding roles.

Goals and expectations.

Usually when it gets to me and we just had one last week I had to deal with.

But also, behavior moving forward.

Not just roles, goals, and expectations, but the expectations, how I see fit with you and the person you have in conflict with is I understand both sides.

I get them in the same room.

We talk it out and I'd say, well, over 90% of the time, the problem solved, because if it's not solved, then you gotta go somewhere else.

Which is typically not good.

But most of the time, it's getting everybody in the same room and talking it out.

But also I like to talk about roles, goals, and expectations.

'Cause sometimes, when you look at conflict, each person sometimes feels they were out of bounds in my wheelhouse, is kind of where that happens.

So we talk about those three main things.

But get people in the same room and talk it through.

Sometimes take some times as well.

- Mark, what's the key strategy that you've used over your many years of business that has kind of nipped it in the bud.

Can you catch it early before it gets too blown out of proportion?

- No, I don't think you can catch it early, but in a word, focus.

My experience has shown that when there is conflict between employees or divisions or groups or whatever the organization is, there's always something in the background that's driving this tension rather than just the particular issue.

And if I could get both sides or more, three sides even.

If I could get everybody focused on what the real problem is and what that means to the organization, it makes it a whole bunch easier.

And it points out to all of the participants that it's me, not it.

And I think that's been helpful for a long time.

- You know, I wanna build on that.

And Christine, have you found, is it sometimes hard for people to own that it was they're the me?

- Oh, of course.

Nobody wants to be the problem.

Nobody likes, I call it mirror checks.

When you look in the mirror and you genuinely look at this face and okay, what is it that I'm bringing to the table?

It's really easy to point a finger.

It's easy to brush things underneath of the rug.

So no, nobody likes to be the problem or the negative energy there.

Something I was thinking about as we were all talking here is I think another major key thing to this is creating a safe space.

So when you bring everyone to a room and they're in there, and especially if you've got people that are doing this, they're not feeling attacked, that they're going to feel heard and it's validated and they're not gonna be reprimanded for what they're saying in the room to help resolve whatever this conflict is.

That it's safe.

Now, that means that you need to be respectful.

This is not an attacking dog fight, but allow people to be able to use their words.

But from leadership, I think that's where it starts.

The leader has to be able to give constructive criticism and be able to receive it.

And then, are there actions that follow the situation?

So it's easy to say, okay, this is gonna be resolved.

But then if there's no follow up to actually help resolve this and that individual that maybe did that mirror check or is the issue, are you allowing them the opportunity and giving them the right tools to help manifest change to negate all of that?

- Well, inc.com recommends we focus on mediation with these three tips.

People aren't against you, they're just for themselves.

Listen for values, not interests.

And make it a safe place.

Establish those ground rules of communication.

So let's examine each of those principles one at a time when we talk about the concept of it really is a challenge.

People aren't you, they're just for themselves.

Don, everybody's for themselves.

How do you get them to focus on the mission because you've got a job to do to help others?

- Good question.

I think the people focus on themselves.

Sometimes, it gets them into conflict.

They sell themselves to the people around them, where sometimes it's even becoming negative.

Selling themselves versus those good employees.

It always will react to the mission.

Talking values of the organization is over and over again, what we do with our own employees.

But when people sell themselves, you tend to have a little bit more conflict, right?

Without the me into that situation.

- Mark, talk to us about listening for the values, not the interests.

It's my desire to do X or Y, but what's the value in this and how it's connected to our organization?

- Well, if I understand your question correctly, the value really has to come from the individual with the issue.

And I just keep throwing it back to that individual and saying, you better explain a little bit more of what you're thinking about because I'm not sure that really coincides with what we want to do as an organization.

And I think that's very important.

And again, in the heat of the discussion, you always have to determine the temperature of the room.

And in the heat of the discussion, there's a lot of things going through that person's mind and you're trying to focus it on what we need for the company.

So it's not easy and sometimes it's very laborious, but it's just part of the deal.

Or at least that's what I've noticed.

- For leaders, we don't get to back away from conflict resolution.

James, talk to us a little bit about listening for the values and not the interest.

Where have you seen that?

That's not always easy to do.

- As we're talking, I'm thinking about my employees and we actually get along very well.

It's not a lot of drama.

Where the real drama is, is with my clients.

- I was just gonna say.

Clients who does this.

- It wasn't the wife.

Did you notice that it wasn't the wife?

(laughs) It's on record.

(laughs) - If she was not here, I would be saying that.

- It's your wife.

- So anyway, I've the clients.

I've got one client in particular that this rings a bell.

Interest versus value.

This client's interest is to call people and call them names and say mean things and get his emotional point across.

I had to sit him down a couple of months ago and say, hey, what do you really want to get to?

"Is this where we wanna get over here?

Is the goal.

Is this your value, this?"

And he said, "Yeah, James, that's really what it is."

I said, "Well, then you need to shut up.

You need to tone it down.

You need to stop."

So he has.

- Sometimes you've just gotta call a spade a spade.

Is that really kind of the bottom line?

- That's what happened.

- Excellent, excellent.

Talk to us a little bit, Christine, about making it a safe place for this conflict to happen in establishing ground rules for communication.

Does it all?

I mean, how critically important is communication?

- Oh, it's the essence of everything.

And there's different ways to communicate.

You've got body language, you've got verbal.

And so I think understanding that safe place and Mark mentioned it, evaluating the room, what's the tone of the room.

But a safe place is validating.

We as humans all wanna be validated.

And if you know that you're gonna be validated, it doesn't have to turn into a me.

If you have that culture, that everyone is celebrated and it's a team and everyone's moving up, it's going to be a lot easier, I think, to have a safe environment, to be able to grow and have difficult conversations that something positive can come out of, but validation, listening and truly hearing is what creates a safe place.

And then I had mentioned it earlier, but then what are the action items that are taken out of this meeting and are they being implemented?

Because that's the true validation.

Is, I'm hearing you, let's take this.

How can we move forward from that?

- [James] Is that what we do with me?

- Uh-hmm, yup.

I'm so good, you don't even know it.

- Such a tragedy, such important, important life skills.

I think the hardest one for me in leadership sometimes is that number one, that people aren't against you, they're just for themselves.

And how do we really get people past mission, I think, in a lot of non-profits or even in commercial industries.

If people understand the mission of their organization, perhaps that can help them get past.

I just want and fill in the blank.

Sometimes, in our world of COVID, we've seen a lot of employees, the Great Resignation, people quitting jobs, trying to fill staff because they wanna work from home.

Some organizations allow it, some organizations don't.

I've had people in interview processes tell me, "Well, you have to let me work from home."

The organization I lead, that's not an option.

And so how do you deal with that?

Because again, the people are focused on the me, and what's so critical to them.

Any quick tips, Mark, to get them past that?

- Their mission is always different than the corporate mission.

It'll always be.

And if you can convince that individual that their part is extremely important to the corporate mission, which is important to you, that really brings the two sides together.

Or at least I've experienced that.

I wanna backtrack just a little bit for a moment.

We talk about the safe place, having these conversations.

A 12-seat conference table with you sitting at the head and individual number two, sitting three seats down.

That's not a safe place for that individual.

I've always found that, just get out a dodge, go someplace.

Take a walk and or meet at their desk.

Things like that are, I think, critically important to coming up with some sort of consensus.

- Excellent.

Don thoughts to help people move from me to we?

- You know, I think culture as leaders that we set for our own organization's important.

Because years past, I've worked for bosses that didn't understand culture.

And when a problem did arise, they would sweep it under the rug and didn't talk about it.

And you almost add fuels of the fire because-- - Volcano happens at some point.

- And there's some people have that mindset and that's not a good culture regarding safe place.

Everything that Mark just mentioned, but you have as leaders, set the culture regarding the expectations of your employees.

The values of the organization, the behaviors, and all that.

You gotta call them on the carpet because if you ignore it, it's not gonna go away.

It'll come back worse than ever.

And I've learned that in my past 36 years experience.

So all those things are important.

- Thank you, Don.

Well, in the most difficult circumstances, experts say, sometimes, resolution doesn't happen.

You can have a good working relationship without agreeing on everything if you learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

So friends, let's talk about how can we disagree without being disagreeable, and we're gonna begin with Christine.

- How many times have we said, okay, we're just gonna agree to disagree on this?

And if you are doing that respectfully, we're not gonna see eye to eye on this.

And I think that it's probably different if it's a leader of an organization and this individual is truly just not going to be on part with the mission, then you have to let them go.

If there's not the right fit for the culture that is created fulfilling this mission moving forward, you've gotta have a full team.

And if you've got that me individual that is constantly causing conflict and is not willing to agree to disagree, is always stirring a pot, then you've got to be able to remove that negativity for the greater good.

Because more people are gonna come down then bringing this individual up if they're continually sucking.

So sometimes, you just have to agree to disagree and offer them an opportunity to be successful elsewhere.

'Cause they're not gonna be successful with this mission or vision.

- I often call it, freeing them to find their joy.

- Exactly.

- Elsewhere.

Don, talked to us about that.

- You know, the first thing that comes to mind is I work for a very well-known boss, 'cause I wasn't always a CEO, right?

You gotta start and you climb the ladder.

But we had a disagreement and there were other directors in the room, maybe five, six people.

And I did not, in the values in the way I was brought up, I didn't wanna go along with that decision.

So after the meeting, I didn't wanna do that and voice that in front of the whole rest of the key leadership.

After it was over, I did say, hey, I don't agree with you and this decisions because when you think of these angles, that cause an effect, this could happen with that decision.

But you are the boss.

I value the relationship we have.

I just want to be heard.

But if that's what you want to do, I'll support that.

But I wanna be heard first.

So that is the way I handled one of those.

But just like you had said too, when you have things that are not solved, then you have to make tough decisions to protect the organization.

If it comes down to having to terminate a person because of that, that happens every day.

And people as leaders, we can't be afraid to do that because we protect the organization.

And sometimes, when you look at how bad the situation is, that's the only resort.

I love to take notes regarding any conflict.

I write down notes.

I think about the questions I'm gonna ask to having answer back to the values.

Because trying to really get down to all these things and making the decision that down the road, you might now, wow, three months later, you might have to pull those notes out again.

Because sometimes, when two people have a conflict, very rarely those two does it go ever away again.

Sometimes it comes back with the same two people with a different storyline, but the meaning of the cause of that, the underlier is still there.

- James, I wanna build on something Don said earlier in that statement.

He said when he disagreed with a boss, he said, "Well, I respect your opinion and I'll do it your way."

Do you see sometimes with younger employees, that's not always the case that they respect the boss's direction.

- You know, I wouldn't be where I am right now if I wasn't cantankerous.

And I do respect some of the cantankerism, if that's a word, I don't know, but well.

- Well, it is now.

It's all good.

- Those employees that do that.

Going back to the mission, that's the big one.

In my firm, it's great architecture, have fun, make money.

And if you can do those and if you like those, and we say this at the interview.

If you can do this and you can wrap yourself around this, you can kind of be however you want.

And I do have those cantankerous employees that keep pushing the skunk and keep pushing the skunk.

And sometimes, they're right.

And I learn from them.

- Excellent.

Mark, we're gonna let you have the final word on this before we run out of time.

A little bit about, I love that phrase, pushing the skunk.

That's a new one for me.

- Poke the skunk.

- Poke the skunk.

- Poke the skunk.

- Poke the skunk.

- This may be an odd way to answer that, but... Take a look at Congress.

They disagree.

They don't like each other.

They're not getting anything done.

And how is this a good example for any business, any employee?

- What not to do?

- What not to do.

That's the best example, what not to do.

But it slows everything down by having these contentious arguments that go on forever.

And that disturbs me.

And that's not a good example for business people.

That's not a good example for people who are in school now and wanna get into a business eventually.

It's just a very sad situation, I think.

- Well, we've had another great conversation.

Thank you to all of our awesome panelists for sharing their wisdom with us.

Next week, on Leadership Lessons for Home, Work and Life, we're talking about the great reassessment.

Millions have quit their jobs during the pandemic, creating worker shortages and supply chain challenges.

You definitely don't wanna miss the conversation next week.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Good night, my friends.

(gentle music)