From Chaos to Harmony: Understanding and Navigating Conflicts

Are you ready to turn your conflicts into stepping stones to success? This episode brings you deep into the intricacies of conflict, power dynamics, and transformation. We, your hosts, Kat Koppett and John Register, are on a mission to equip you with the tools you need to navigate conflict and emerge victorious. Unpacking the nature of conflict, we shed light on the different modes you can adopt to advocate for your needs, highlighting the essential role of honesty and openness in conflict resolution.

We love to hear from you about the challenges and changes you are navigating, or any other thoughts, insights, question or celebrations you'd like to share!

Be in touch!
kat@koppett.com
john@johnregister.com

Transcript

John Register: If you've ever wondered what it takes to achieve remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, you're in the right place. 

Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change. 

John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and Combat Army veteran and author. 

Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser. 

John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity. 

Kat Koppett: You are here with us, live on LinkedIn. We are also up on Apple, Google, most places where you can catch your podcasts. So download and spread the word. 

John Register: Yes, if you've been at the end of these episodes, please select the notification bell and share it with a friend. We have a wonderful show, I think, for you, because we've been talking a lot about conflict and to kind of tee this up, Kat, you know there are times in conflict that come to us either when we are going to make a transition in life, possibly, or when we and we and we know that things are coming up like, say, of retirements, so we know we're going to end our service to whatever we were devoting our life to, or it's thrust upon us we have something that immediately just changes and shifts in our life and it causes conflict to come up. What are your thoughts around how we navigate that change and shift our performance when it comes to conflict? 

Kat Koppett: Well, one thought you know just right off the bat, and I think we can explore both what it is and you just said a lot, and also we'll come to some solutions. But one thought just right off the bat when you say that is, when we recognize that we have choices, then we can always, you know, by definition, up the possibility that we will be aligned with our intentions and resolve things that are unresolved. Right. So, in conflict, recognizing, expanding our awareness of what are my habitual ways of showing up in conflict, what's my relationship with conflict generally, and then being able to expand that range so that the way you typically would involve the engage with conflict, maybe unconsciously or habitually, it can be more consciously and deliberately attached to what you want. So I think there are frameworks that we can talk about around conflict modes, right? How, for example, I, for the longest time, I grew up in a household that was very stereotypically argumentative in a sort of in a words kind of way, and there was a lot of debate, and so I always I was comfortable with that, with sort of intellectual debate, and I always thought of myself then as someone who's comfortable with conflict. I didn't self identify as someone who was averse to it. But what I realized over the years, especially as I became a leader and I did some 360 feedback from the people I was leading, is I actually realized that habitually I fall into a style of avoiding conflict like real conflict.When I actually feel it, I tend to be really accommodating or avoidant as opposed to really advocating for my needs or addressing, like giving hard feedback, and that's not a strength. We get rewarded in lots of ways, especially as women, for being nice, but I wasn't doing anyone to disservice with that, so.  

John Register: You know I was, I'm laughing because I definitely avoid conflict and I and asking for my what I need has been a struggle at the times, and so, before I jump too much into that, I want to honor some folks that are in the room. We have Consuelo Hodges. Good morning to you, good, kind sir. Thank you so much for being here. Dr Shabib, Din Achmed. Thank you, greatest right there, awesome in there. And then Amy C Horner is back in the house. Good morning to you, says to John and Kat. So thank you all for being in this one. If you have any questions for Kat and myself, especially around conflict, we would love to have the dialogue around this. When you, I noticed what came up for me when you said avoiding conflict was the first time I remember recall avoiding conflict in my life. So I'm walking on the street old park, Illinois it's on the west side of Chicago and I see a group of guys coming my direction. So I quickly just walked across the street. I assumed there was going to be conflict, didn't know there was going to be conflict, I just assumed there would be and I'm going to get myself out of that situation before it even arises or puts or put myself in that situation and so I found, you know, over my life I have done that, I've kind of just I just go this direction, this direction which, you're right, it doesn't really serve, and sometimes it might be safety, but sometimes myself, safe in the moment, instead of getting engaged. I've learned to notice those times now in my life and lean into it, but it's still not easy to do. I just recognize it and have to lean in. So I loved you know some of those things, when you avoid conflict, what are some of the ways in which we show up or don't show up, and you said a little earlier I'd love for you to expand a little bit on when you are not showing up or advocating for yourself and your needs, how that might be detrimental to the project you might be working on, to the goal of the group that you're working with, and it might actually hinder the progress. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, I mean, I think anytime that we're not naming what's true, we're leaving value on the table, right? And so there's a great, you know sort of one of the seminal works in the field of negotiation is a book called Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury, Bill, William H William ah, I'm not going it right anyway, Ury and Bill Ury, who was the co-author of that book, and that's where this that sort of popularized the idea of win-win negotiation, right, and expanding the pie and not seeing things as if I get more, you get less. So very, very important, profound book that influenced our culture in many ways. Years later, Bill Yuri wrote a book called the Power of a Positive No, because he was like, oh no, what have I done? I've written this book, I've talked about this win-win negotiation and what's actually happening in practice is, under the guise of collaboration or looking for win-win solutions, lots of people are undermining their own needs and interests and not speaking up for themselves. Now, when I say, expand your range of options, there are plenty of people who maybe are on the competitive side and always advocating for their own needs, and the way they need to expand is to notice other people. So we can talk about that too. But just sticking with this idea of when I discover that maybe I'm not willing to articulate if something's bothering me or advocate for what I need or want, I am, you know, I think, leaving value on the table, because at best then we're compromising or accommodating, or half of the people in the room are getting what they want, and that isn't sustainable over a long time if I keep sublimating my own needs. 

John Register: It's interesting. I'm going to what I went through maybe less than two years ago. So it was a, um, and then Consuelo has a question, so I want to get to his question coming in here. It was, I named it to a team that I was leading, so I wanted to show where I struggle so that they would model and kind of have, they could show where they struggle so we could, you know, build more cohesion for the team. And then I found them trying to exploit some of those things to put me in those situations, thinking that I would not dive into it, even though, because I had named, we know something, that was a struggle for me. Oftentimes we just want to just show our strengths and we don't want anybody to see our weaknesses or even our weakness or they might be a weakness to us. But you know, you get somebody else that might be strong in that area. We named Alice earlier. Alice is the antithesis of me. She's gonna name what she wants and that is great because that strength of like wow.

Kat Koppett: Amen.

John Register: I can't do that. Right, I'm like man and that's what I think. That's a great attraction for me to her and I realize how much I still have yet to learn to move forward. But when somebody is, you kind of name that in a work environment and you're going around and you're saying, okay, whatever you take Myers-Briggs or whatever the widget might be, and you find that you are not as strong in some areas as other areas and other people see that. How do you work around the folks that will try to maybe exploit some of those things? 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, so many things. Again, this is such a big, rich conversation. I think that a couple of things come to mind. One is there are you mentioned, Myers-Briggs? There's a framework that I love that we use at Koppett a lot, called the Thomas Kilmann model of conflict, and the two axes of it are advocating for myself and the needs of others. So I can be low or high along a spectrum of caring about our understanding or wanting to serve other people's needs, or I can be higher low in terms of serving my own, and that if you combine those on the XY axis, you come up with five conflict modes or ways of engaging with conflict, and which we could walk through if you want. But what I like about that, as opposed to something like Myers-Briggs, is that it's not about my personality, it's not about something innate to me. It's about a way of engaging and at different times in different ways and different relationships and different contexts. Different ones of those modes will serve me right. So if you can figure out how to use the best, most effective mode rather than just habitually sticking in one style or way of engaging, I'm opening up possibility for myself and for others. 

John Register: Yes. 

Kat Koppett: The other thing that strikes me when you ask that question in work situations a lot, but also in life is that conflict is the issue of power, right? So it's fine to talk about all of this, but when power dynamics are not equal and they never are right, not everyone in a system has the same options. So I just feel like I want to pause as we talk about that and say some people have more of a chance and less of a potential risk for advocating for themselves and yeah, just seems like we should name that.  

John Register: Right. For sure. Matthew Thompson just came in here. I'm going to Consuelo's question in a second. Matthew Thompson, amazing I've been. We've been meeting up like everything with this company I'm working for, like I have like 20 opportunities with them, and then Matthew's been like three of them. He is the incredible. We call him Captain America. This guy's built and he's and he's running ultra-marathons, like marathons. 

Kat Koppett: Oh, my goodness. 

John Register: Yeah, he does triathlons, triathlons, I want to say triathlons. So he's what's it called? The long, the Ironman, Ironman, yeah, so that's it Really, and so Consuelo was talking about here, are there any underlying issues or patterns contributing to the conflict that might need to be addressed? I think you said just name one of them right there. 

Kat Koppett: Well, power absolutely. 

John Register: Power, right yeah. 

Kat Koppett: You know, this makes me think about a framework. I think it's the- I'm having conflict with my brain that is not remembering words today, but we can put it in, crucial conversations, folks have an acronym, that is CPR and the C is, I think, content. The P is for patterns and the R is for relationships, and the idea is, if you're interacting with people, you've had conflict with someone the first time it might be about the conflict. You said something that hurt my feelings, or you didn't. You said you were going to meet this deadline and you didn't get me what you promised on time, and we can resolve the conflict around the content, because that's what's up. But then what happens is, if that happens again, or it doesn't get resolved after we talk about it, or we don't talk about it and it keeps happening, then it becomes a pattern and at some point the conflict that we need to resolve and what we have to talk about is a pattern of behavior as opposed to an incident, and if we just keep talking about the one incident, we're not actually getting to the underlying issue, which is this is a pattern. That's making me feel like, you know, I'm noticing it more once would have been fine. Everybody has things come up, but if it's a pattern it has a different impact and then the R is for relationship. If that pattern goes on for long enough, or we try to resolve the pattern but it still continues, then I start to not trust you and it can hurt it can actually hurt the relationship. So I'm not sure that's the only question answer to Consuelo's question, but it's, it's one of the things to look at is what? What's the level of conflict? 

John Register: You're on with Kat Koppett and myself, John Register on Performance Shift and we're talking about conflict today. If you have a question, if you want to put in the chat, we can see it. We just answered a Consuelo Hodges question that he put in there and if you have a question, just go ahead and do that and put it there. Anisha Pickett, good morning to you, as you are in as well. We have a LinkedIn user, comes in. It's if power plays a part. It's difficult to resolve conflict. In order to truly resolve the issue, parties have to be on the same playing field. Oh my gosh, that's going into another area. I've linked from this LinkedIn user that that's really good for that. You have a thought, because I definitely have a thought on. 

Kat Koppett: No, I've been talking a lot, so I'd love to hear yours. 

John Register: No, this has been great. I've loved hearing your insight. You know, one of the things that's coming up for me with that this, this user and difficult to resolve conflict and the parties have to be on the same playing field. Arbinger Institute has a way of looking at this and they're out of Utah. I was gifted the opportunity to go through their class Right after I was let go from a former employee. We were at odds and we had conflicts and there was. They want to go off in one direction, I want to go off in a different direction, and so we were at odds with one another. It wasn't, you know, bad, it wasn't a like. A horrible split was just once your values don't align any longer. You have to make a decision either going to stay in that you know the hamster wheel and just take it, but I'm not going to change the value structure of this big association. I was going to make it to make it to choice they. I was going to make it in February. They actually made it for me in January was great because I got my severance package, got everything else. It was actually pretty good. But when I went to the Arbinger Institute and talking about what this LinkedIn user is saying here and truly resolving the issue do we have to be on the same playing field? That was challenged for me, because they were talking about conflict in a way of, I guess, provoking the same problems that we are complaining about. So others can sense how we see them and they can sense when we blame them, often responding in kind and this way, blaming another person often acts as a self fulfilling prophecy. The more two people are operating in an inward where they call an inward mindset where I'm kind of inward because of another person, the more they provoke the same behavior they actually criticizing and they give each other excuse for them behaving badly. So Arbinger calls this mutual structure behavior pattern, called a collusion. It's amazing. I said, oh my gosh, it just kind of just riveted me because I see, so, Kat, you might do something that I'm observing your behavior and then I see you do something. Maybe you drop a piece of trash on the floor. So I see you do that. Then I do something else and I might say in my mind, oh my gosh, we want to catch around that piece of trash on the floor. She knows she should pick that up. And nothing has changed about our relationship except for me seeing that you do this other thing. And then I do an act and then you see me do that why is John acting like that? And so then, when you see me do that, then you do another behavior. You do something that's responding to the behavior that I'm doing. That was responding to your behavior and then it goes right back down to what you do based upon that as well, and then it goes into this big round. We're in the circle and so when we're in the circle of collusion, the only way to stop it is we think that the other person is going to turn towards us. We're going to turn together. We'll be in the same room to solve it. But usually that's not the case. If I'm in a conflict with my wife and she's seeing it one way and I see it a different way, we are totally turned outward out on each other, me saying that she just needs to see it my way and she's going to turn to see it my way. It's ain't going to happen. This is not going to happen. So the only way to stop it is one person has to turn and not admit fault or wrong doing, but turn just to see the other person's point of view first, because when we do that I'm no longer complicit in the collusion of that. So that's one of the things I learned. So when I go inward what Arvin just says, when I go inward into myself, there are kind of four buckets I can wind up in. The first bucket is a better than bucket, where I might see myself better than someone else, or my self view as I'm superior, I'm important, I'm virtuous, or I might feel in that area I might feel impatient, oh, just get it done. I might feel indifferent, I might feel some disdain, or I can be in an I deserve bucket, I deserve this. So my self view might be meritorious. I might be mistreated or unappreciated, but I might feel entitled or deprived or resentful and then Arvin talks about in the inward ways. I might also see myself worse than somebody Like we're talking about in conflict we don't want to avoid it, Right. I might see like my self view might be deficient or broken or powerless, but I might feel depressed or envious or maybe even resigned. Or the last bucket is I need to be seen as I got to be seen as the self view, as being watched. So I'm at risk, I'm being seen as being judged or I may feel anxious, stressed or overwhelmed, and I think the way they look at that and how they broke that down was just, it was so rich into how I was feeling. I actually started calling people and apologizing for some of my behaviors that I was, that I had done Because I was wrong and I had to. You know that's. You have to resolve those things, yeah, so yeah, some thoughts. 

Kat Koppett: Well, one of them is linking back to this question about power that you started with. 

John Register: Yeah. 

Kat Koppett: Is how I see myself and recognize my power in a system is a big part of what you're talking about. Right, it's a big part of why we choose the conflict modes we engage in, why we might turn inward and say something or not say something, the stories we make up in our head, which is what you're talking about, and power will clearly be a whole. You know, we should do a whole conversation, or six, on power and have a wonderful guest for us to do that. But fundamentally, one of the things that is true about power is that we are very keyed to feeling to be to identify where we feel powerless and very unaware often of where we are powerful in a system. Now, I want to be careful when I say this, because it is actually true systemically in lots of organizations that some people have more power than others, whether it's formal authority or affiliative power or just you know, a way of being that is more influential. So it's not true that power is always equal. But what is true, I think, in conflict is sometimes we can especially those of us who may be avoiding it can over rotate on feeling powerless. That's one of the reasons we avoid speaking up and naming our names like oh, nobody's going to care. I can't have any influence, nothing is going to right. That's one way that not being aware of our power can keep us from speaking up or setting limits or boundaries. The another way that we can be unaware of our power is we can abuse it by just saying well, everybody's equal. You should speak up if you want, and you know you didn't say anything when in fact I'm doing something as a leader, or to shut that down. 

John Register: Yeah. 

Kat Koppett: So, from both sides of the equation, whether I feel like I don't have any power, sometimes just articulate well, you know, right now there's a couple of big strikes happening in the world, right? The car industry, the writers just resolved a strike, the actors are still on strike. One of the ways to get to equalize power is to have colleagues right, to have allies with you and just recognizing oh wait, let me look at do I have power in this system? And if I do, how do I use it for good? Sometimes that's advocating for myself, sometimes it's serving the other person, right? So if I'm the leader of my company and people are working for me, I have to take more than my fair share of power and people are working for me. I have to take more than my fair share of responsibility to ask them what they need to help to resolve conflict, if I see it, even if they're not saying it, or to request feedback, because it's much harder for them to bring it up to me than it is for me to bring it up to them, no matter how much I say oh, I wanna hear it, yeah. 

John Register: Yeah, what's coming up for me are two things. One, what you just said in how we advocate for our needs, Dr. Harry Edwards. He's a sociologist out of Cal Berkeley. When I was trying to figure out for this other company I was working for this way for the Paralympic athlete who was in like a youth program, a youth group that needed to be advanced, so a dependable, developed pipeline of talent. We're trying to build that Now. I was trying to build that out because the NCAA kind of has that for our Olympic athletes. That's the kind of feeder system for the most part of the reason, that very loosely. But there is nothing really for the Paralympic athlete because there's no aggregate of people in one location or a group. You know it's starting to grow a little bit but there's nothing that's big for those disabilities. A lot of folks don't have access to them, only those that have insurance or you know they're kind of a little bit well off. They are the only ones that have access to some of the programs because they hear about them and a part of the rehab programs, whatever that might be. So there's the access issue with there. Kind of like the parallel in Olympic sport might be sports like volleyball or soccer, where all you really need is a ball and net and it doesn't really cost a lot, but they become like golf, where it's so expensive to get in to do things. We're really not measuring those sports. We're not measuring themselves against the best talent, it's only the best talent against those that can afford to pay the money for that and so then we lose the World Cup, we don't get in and we're wondering what happened? Well, because we don't have the best talent. Oh, yes, we do. We know it's only the best talent of these people so that we could beat, because other countries they just get the best talent from everywhere that comes in into. So that's the one. So, Michael, so Dr. Harry Edwards talks about this you have to have three things in place for sustainable change. He uses sustainable change, but I started using it for a lot of other different things, and that was he talks about having dependable, developed pipeline of talent, a pervasive demand, which you were talking about. Somebody's advocating for the talent or taking could take the power, possibly. Or the institution being oppressed upon a change actually has to want to change. So if you have all three of those in alignment, you have the perfect storm. It's great. You can build anything you want. If you have something that's askew in one of those, you usually get a quota system that comes up, and so the pervasive demand is advocating for this talent. But the organization on top doesn't really want the talent. So then they just pick a few to give them voice, to give them perceived power. But it's really not power. It's really what was it? It's like a status. They elevate status inside of groups instead of really giving true power and I think that's what was coming up for me when you were explaining that, and the second one was around. Let's see if I can get this right. We had a session with our entire team one of us working for this company and one of the things that came out was you have to, when you're in conflict, you need to talk to that person right away. Right, or just resolve it. Don't bring it up to the highest level, resolve it at the least common denominator so it doesn't really bubble up. So that's kind of what came out of it and then I get to an event where I'm checking into a hotel. We're about to do a big function, with all of our teams going off to the next games Olympic and Paralympic games and we're gonna do all these things. I'm doing my role. I'm on the role of the team to give out uniforms and things, and my boss at the time comes and tells me, pulls me aside and really kind of chewing me out about. I heard that you were at the front counter and you were just being belligerent. You wanted your demanding upgrades on the rooms and everything and I was like, if you know me at all, that is like the antithesis of me. I don't even wanna avoid that. I'll just whatever you got I'm gonna take, just go to my room. So what happened was somebody had mistaken me for somebody else and went to that person who was also in our group, in our room, to say if there's any conflict which could have been resolved at the lowest level, and went to the boss to say that this was what they my behavior, that I was observing. So then I and I told you I avoid conflict, but when it's usually about me and attacking character, that's when I stand up right, that's kind of most of the time. So then I said to him I said, number one, you told us last a few weeks ago that if there was a conflict then that person should come to the individual. That person didn't come to me, so they number one. You should have told them to come back to me First of all. That's number one, I said. Then number two I said until they do, I don't know their motive or intentions. So this conversation's over, right and I just walked away and it got resolved, so that he went and did that and found out that it was mistaken and I told them. I said number three if you thought that my characters like this, after six or seven years being with me, you have no idea who I am. And I walked away. So that was the conflict of resolution. I did, but I was doing it in anger, more than you know, trying to build a relationship at that point. So the Slington user comes back and says the root of all this is trust. We truly trust him when boss or organization partner perceive power diminishes thoughts on that. But go back. I know you had some thoughts on what I was just saying there. 

Kat Koppett: No, well, I think they're connected. Right, I mean trust, and Matthew said something about you have to compliment power with love, and I think healthy resolution of conflict means that you are trusting yourself and the other person. Right, that we can resolve this, to articulate your real needs and to and to work towards a solution together. Right, and we may not agree on our Fisher and Ury talk about positions versus interests right, so my position might be I need this $10,000, you're not paying me enough. I need $10,000 more in salary. But the underlying interest might be I need to feel valued, right? Or I need to sustain my family, right, all sorts of things. And so, depending on the type of conflict and the person you're with, it can be more transactional. Or, you know, if I'm buying a car, maybe I don't trust the person I'm buying my car from and I don't have to and I'm just gonna be sort of competitive and advocate for my own interests. I don't really care about the car dealer's interests. It's a one-off thing. But in most relationships, in work or in our lives, we have relationship interests, right? So in this case, in your example, you felt like how could you not trust me? There was a break of trust on both sides, right, like? He felt like oh, you made me look bad, now maybe I can't trust you. When I thought you did, you probably felt like how could you not trust me? How could you think I was this person and come and accuse me without asking, right? So then the question really becomes if trust is at the heart of being able to advocate and resolve conflict, how do we build trust? What is it that we need to do? To do that and I think that that's you know there are elements to trust. We're spraying a lot of frameworks today. 

John Register: A lot of frameworks Right. 

Kat Koppett: One of them is that I have credibility and I'm. Another is reliability you feel like I'll do what I said I did. We talked about that. And the third is intimacy, and I think that's the piece of trust that people are really talking about. Do I feel like you understand me, you have my best interests at heart, you care about me right, and is that reciprocally felt? And then how does that relate to how much I feel like you're self-focused on your own interests and are you willing to balance my interests and needs and care for me? Do you care for me? Do you love me? And if I don't feel like that, then I won't be willing to risk making myself vulnerable, which is one of the things you're saying you have to do. 

John Register: Lots there on trust, lots there on feels like it's time for, like an improv. 

Kat Koppett: Oh, an improv game. 

John Register: Yeah, an improv game. Well, what do you think there's something real new about it? 

Kat Koppett: Here's what I'll say as we do this, we have done a disservice in some ways to everyone by just like opening up this topic and which we could spend many, many, many hours on. We'll list some of the things in our show notes that we've mentioned Arbinger's group, the Kilmann conflict modes, crucial conversations, all of those things. But at the heart of it all, as we start to talk about trust here, I think if we're going through an improv lens, one of the big skills is listening right, is being able to really feel heard and understood by the other person and taking the risk to share yourself so that you can be heard and understood, because before we do that, we can't even know what the conflict really is. So my impulse is to play my favorite listening practice game. It's less of a game and more of like a little activity. Are you game? 

John Register: I'm game. Absolutely, I'll respond to Matthew. 

Kat Koppett: So here's how this is gonna work and you get to choose your role. So one of us is gonna share something that annoys us or is a pet peeve or something like that Doesn't have to be big trauma, just something that happened recently that was annoying or a pet peeve or something. The other person is then going to listen and feedback two separate things. The first is here's what I heard you say, and the idea is there is to really understand what is the content right? What happened? Did I get it right? So I'm clarifying and confirming my understanding of what happened. And then the second thing is they're going to say here's what I hear you care about, and that's really about understanding the interests, values, emotions, intentions underneath what is being presented. 

John Register: All right. 

Kat Koppett: So do you wanna rant about something that was annoying, or do you wanna listen back? 

John Register: Well, I was gonna say something that was annoying, yeah please. 

Kat Koppett: Oh, that's what I was hoping you'd say. 

John Register: What annoys me is when people talk on the phone and they're eating food at the same time and I hear the crunching and the smacking in my ear and I even can say food. I can hear like a fly food's popping out of their mouth at the same time. I got these images, that's just. That's just going on. Yeah, so people talking on the phone with food in their mouth and can't even get words out because I think it's called the right word. Yeah. 

Kat Koppett: Okay, so let me see if I can do this. So what I heard you say is what annoys you. One of your pet peeves is when people are talking on the phone and they're eating and that you hear the sound and you will have images of like food actually flying out of their mouth and their ability to speak is interrupted because they're eating, and that's you find that very annoying. Did I get it right? 

John Register: That's right, absolutely yes. 

Kat Koppett: So here's what I hear you care about. I hear you care about, first of all, respect for being present and clean. Like like you, you want to feel you care about being respected and people showing up in ways that are not unattractive, in a sort of animal way, did I? Get that right. 

John Register: Yeah, I think this was respect. Yeah, for sure. 

Kat Koppett: Another thing you care about is not being bombarded with negative sounds or images, so you just don't. You know there's just a sort of trigger there that you don't want, and another thing you might care about is being able to understand people and communicate without interference. 

John Register: That's right. That's probably the biggest one Communicate clearly without your mouth. 

Kat Koppett: Who is it Like? The Greek guy who put marbles in his mouth so that he could practice? 

John Register: Yeah, practice speaking, but he's not talking to someone on the phone. 

Kat Koppett: No, not on the phone. So that's the activity and obviously the way it- it's one of the things that I love about that activity. One is sometimes, especially in the US, we can have a sort of over rotation on a positive culture where we you can only come to me with a complaint if you have a solution already, or you should say things that are positive and in fact, the things that bother us, the things that annoy us, are little flags that say there's a need here or there's a value here, there's something that I that matters to me here. So if we're able to share those and receive them and unpack them to get you know, oh, you're not just complaining, but there's something that you value, then that allows us to open up. How do we support each other? How do we resolve the conflict? Oh, I just was trying, I'm just busy and I'm trying to like, be with you and eat. I didn't even know you could hear that. I didn't know it was, you know, offensive or you know. So what you care about is not that I don't get to eat, you know, or you care about being able to hear me. Well, if I know that, then maybe I will, you know, say can we have our call in 10 minutes so that I can scarf food. 

John Register: Yeah, right for sure. Yes, and then I should be able to ask for that right. 

Kat Koppett: I mean, it seems like it's such an easy thing, but because we make up these stories right, like, oh, he thinks I'm a slob, he thinks I'm a terrible person, or he's judging me, like no, I just, I really want to be able to be present with you and understand and listen. 

John Register: Absolutely Fantastic. This is great conversation today. Who knew, yeah, who knew Matt had to drop off LinkedIn user, I think, applauded the comment that you said to that person's response and Matt was also saying you know, how do we find more about this entire discussion? So, Kat, you want to tell him how we can. You can find out more about us. 

Kat Koppett: And we'll put some of the links in the show notes. As I said, to some of these frameworks, John and I both speak and train. Conflict is one of the topics that we do experiential learning on, so if you're interested at that level, please reach out and, and yeah.

John Register: Absolutely, Toby, one more comes in here and says I'm really enjoying this over rotated, such a helpful term concept. Yes, you will find that Kat is she is has so many helpful concepts that are out there because she's such a student of this and an amazing improviser for life as an instructional designer as well. So today, if you have enjoyed this we hope you enjoyed it and if you have gained some valuable insights you can, if you can, apply for your own work of life. Make sure you're following the show, we're going to be up on all those, the podcast platforms. This one will come up in about two weeks, so thank you for tuning into another episode of Performance Shift. We hope that today's conversations left you feeling inspired and ready to embrace the change that's in your own life. So until next time we will say goodbye. I have a new saying Kat. 

Kat Koppett: Okay, let me have it.  

John Register: A new thing. So we talk about breathing life in the others. I was with us this, this person in a in a Uber, and we had this great conversation and from it came the breathe life in the Latin, which is Vitam Inspirare. So everybody out there, Vitam Inspirare, go breathe life into your world on this, on this wonderful Saturday. So forth and inspire your world, everybody, we'll talk to you soon.

Kat Koppett: Bye.