16. Strengthen Your Team Culture: How to Become Conflict Capable with Anna Nielsen
Also available on YouTube!
Are you a fan of conflict?
I’m guessing you probably answered, “Absolutely not!!” to that question. You might have even thought, “I’d rather get a root canal.”
If you’re like most of the business owners we work with at SproutHR, you don’t enjoy conflict. I can’t blame you! Most of us weren’t taught how to handle conflict effectively and some of us learned through a lot of trial and error (raises hand!).
As you grow your team, however, you will be faced with conflict and it can either break your business or amplify it. That’s why I asked my friend and conflict expert, Anna Nielsen, to join me on this episode of The Impact Ripple podcast.
Anna begins by sharing her powerful story of how her personal life led to a fulfilling career helping others navigate conflict more skillfully.
She shares insights on how to move beyond conflict management to being conflict capable and what the difference is between the two.
One part of our conversation that I especially loved was the importance Anna stressed on having a plan in place for how you and your team handle conflict, including specific language, skills, and techniques.
Anna suggests that conflict should be seen as an investment, rather than something that we avoid. And we have a great conversation around how most conflict isn’t personal, but we often treat it that way.
With her extensive experience in civil mediation, conflict resolution consulting, and facilitated dialogues, Anna believes that conflict is the number one thing stifling amazing, mission-driven companies, and holding them back from reaching their highest potential.
By leading with your values, creating spaces for psychological safety and emotional intelligence, and becoming conflict capable, teams can unlock innovation, boost engagement, reduce stress, improve mental health, and retain team members.
I don’t know about you, but ALL of that sounds great to me!
If you tend to get super nervous when conflict arises or you try to avoid it at all costs, hoping and praying it’ll go away on its own, please join me for this comforting and empowering conversation with Anna Nielsen!
In this episode, you’ll learn:
The difference between conflict management and being conflict capable
Why conflict is often viewed as negative and how to welcome it into your business and team instead
The importance of leading with your values and creating spaces for psychological safety and emotional intelligence when approaching conflict
How being conflict capable can unlock innovation, boost engagement, and retain employees
Mentioned in This Episode:
Transcription for Episode 16 - Strengthen Your Team Culture: How to Become Conflict Capable with Anna Nielsen
Ashley Cox 0:06
Welcome to the impact ripple podcast. The go to source for hiring and leadership needs simple, doable and fun for visionary female business owners. I'm your host, Ashley Cox, author, certified HR expert and founder of sprout HR. And I believe that you don't have to change who you are to be a great leader because you already are one. Join me as we kiss uncertainty and overwhelm goodbye, and say hello to the tools and support you need to grow a profitable, sustainable, impactful team with more confidence and ease.
Ashley Cox 0:44
On today's episode, I'm joined by Anna Nielsen, the founder and CEO of conflict capable solutions, where she is revolutionizing how people approach and handle conflict. For many years, Anna was an Executive leader for mission driven organizations that were stifled by conflict. And now she's on a mission to help people level up from conflict management, to conflict capabilities. With her experience and expertise in civil mediation, civil mediation, training, conflict resolution consulting and facilitated dialogues. Anna and I had an amazing conversation, we discussed what conflict is, why we're so afraid of conflict and how to welcome it into our businesses and teams instead. Yes, you heard me right, how to welcome conflict as part of your business structure. We also chat about the difference between being conflict capable and conflict management. And it's a pretty significant difference. So you're not going to want to miss that part of this conversation. We wrap up our conversation by talking about how conflict can drive business results, financial and otherwise, in really powerful ways. As well as how it's a big opportunity to retain amazing talent on your team. This episode will definitely have you thinking about and approaching conflict differently in all the best ways. So here's my conversation with Anna Nielsen.
Ashley Cox 2:23
Hey, welcome to the show. Anna, I am so excited to have you here. Thank you for being on the impact ripple today.
Anna Nielsen 2:30
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Ashley Cox 2:32
Fantastic. So Anna and I recently met just this past year 2022 At a conference for human resources professionals. And we hit it off right off the bat. As soon as I have listened to her presentation, I rushed to the front of the room and it was like we need to be best friends. I love you. Right. Is that how you remember it?
Anna Nielsen 2:54
I remember it too. I remember it just like that. I think I said I love you back and it was pretty much just love at first sight.
Ashley Cox 3:00
So it was and now we're texting BFFs we text all the time and obsessively about our handsome little pups. Morris and Reece, right?
Anna Nielsen 3:09
Yes. So we kind of go pick for pick, as they say, as the kids say. I'll just send a picture. And then I'll get a picture back. And if I don't I say where is my picture of Reese?
Ashley Cox 3:21
Right, right. I mean, she is really, she is on top of it, for sure, for sure. But one of the things I really love other than Morris obviously totally obsessed with him. And one of the things I really love about you, Anna is your work that you do around conflict. And I have not seen many or maybe any people who are talking about conflict in the very focused way that you are. And I love that about you. I think it's so special. I think it's so powerful. And everything that you talked about in that presentation that I attended was just so spot on. And it felt like yes, this is the way to talk about learn about and embrace conflict. So I knew when we started inviting guests onto the impact rebel, that you had to be among the guests on the impact triple. So I would love for you to just talk to us. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be focusing specifically on conflict.
Anna Nielsen 4:21
Sure, so I am the only child of alcoholics. So that's sort of where it all began. As a kid I had a really hard time with conflict because things would get really explosive in my family of origin to the point where I might move out of the house and move back in and we're never talking about what happened or what's going to happen next. Super isolating and very common experience both in families and in workplaces and in our personal life. So all of those things, but it was really difficult for me and fast forward to my professional life many years later and I'm an Executive leader, and I ended up working at a community mediation center. And in order to become an employee, I had to become a civil mediator as well kind of said, welcome aboard. And also you're going to do this? Well, surprise. Yeah, so the only child and me thought, you know what this is gonna be great, I'm gonna be bossy. And I'm just gonna get to tell people, what do they need to do to solve their problems? I love it. So mediation is actually about bridge building, and getting people to see their similarities and to actually seek them out. Anyway, as part of this, I got trained in all these nerdy facilitated dialogue methods. And one day, I'm in a county jail, giving some conflict resolution skills training to some guys that were incarcerated. And after the session, someone walks up to me, and he says, Anna, if I had had these skills, when I was younger, I wouldn't be in here. And I saw myself and other possible paths in that person. And it was the moment that I knew that it was my calling. And so as I went on in my career, I saw that conflict was the number one thing stifling amazing, mission driven organizations, keeping them from reaching their highest potential. And so conflict capable solutions was born out of that.
Ashley Cox 6:26
I love that, what a powerful story and hearing directly from someone that had they had the skills to not only manage but be capable with conflict conversations, conflict resolution, conflict, you know, maybe there's some sort of give and take there, right? You know, conflict involves so many different elements, that if they would just have had those skills, they wouldn't be incarcerated, that is so powerful. And maybe everybody that's listening is like, Well, I mean, like, I'm not going to, like, I'm not going to be incarcerated, right? But how much more effective? Could our relationships be right, with our families, with our friends, with our workers? And I know from being in HR for the past 17 years, conflict is a part of every business regardless of how successful or effective or high performing you are, right, so let's maybe get some some clarity around what exactly is conflict?
Anna Nielsen 7:36
Oh, this is a great question, pop quiz. So I think that the perception of conflict is definitely different than what it is. So people perceive conflict as only divergent points of view, they're on some sort of binary, where you're on some sort of polar opposite extreme, from my Polar, opposite extreme. And there's just so many more pieces to that puzzle. We aren't always just all the way on one side of the spectrum, and all the way on another spectrum. So I think that is how people perceive it is these opposite sides. But what's really going on is opportunity after opportunity. So that's what I work to help people see. And I think it requires actual skills, a goal and a vision for what that is, we put our goals around everything else and metrics around everything else that we do. And when it comes to conflict, we just seem to straight up ignore it.
Ashley Cox 8:39
Hmm, I love that you you bring that up, because I read something on your website that talked very much about this, that we've got, you know, this this process for how to change the ink cartridge, we've got a process for how to request PTO, we've got a process for how to submit an invoice. You know, I very clearly remember reading this word for word on your website, and, and that there were no instructions on how to handle conflict. So tell me a little bit more about what that you know, that skill, that vision looks like how, how do we bring that to life? Where do we even start?
Anna Nielsen 9:13
I think that the most important place to start is with intention. So again, you know, you saw that I tried to be somewhat funny on my website, but I'm trying to really like you said, bring to life. The fact that you're giving people directions about everything I can go find your wealth spilled on manual about how to make coffee and your big, you know, church basement coffeemaker, but I don't know what to do when I'm experiencing conflict. So we have to set out as people as individual leaders to say, We've got to change this for employees, because I believe that conflict capabilities are the greatest driver of success and organization. So the first step is definitely just setting an intention to do something different
Ashley Cox 10:00
I love that. I love that. And I would kind of want to build around this conversation a little bit more about, you know, is all conflict bad? Is all conflict negative?
Anna Nielsen 10:11
Oh, wow. If you're asking me a nerd like me, all conflict is positive in some way. And now people will say, No, you're taking this to you, I can take this to an extreme. But I really see that conflict is about being invested. So if we can reframe what we believe about conflict to say, it's showing up in all sorts of ways, it's showing up as arguing or silence or storming out, or whatever the behavior is, if we can say, but that's happening, because people are invested in whatever the topic is, whatever the outcome is, whatever the process is, if we see it as investment, again, that's a start.
Ashley Cox 11:00
That's so good. That's so good. And if you know, one of the things that we talk about at SproutHR a lot is, let's get curious around things. And I think that conflict is one of those areas where we can pause and say, Why is this happening? Would you agree?
Anna Nielsen 11:14
Yeah, I think it's why is this happening. And I was just thinking about this actually, yesterday that what happens when conflict comes up is we get stuck on this notion that there's a conflict, there's a conflict, there's a conflict, there's a conflict, that bat bat, bat, bat, bat bat, as opposed to focusing on the conflict with new perspectives. And saying, I have the skills to try to figure out what's going on here. I have a goal for why I'm able to show or why I'm willing to show up in these conversations. My goal is this. And so that's one of the things that I think is so powerful, is helping people reframe and actually have sort of a mission statement for what it is that's making them commit to hard conversations.
Ashley Cox 12:00
Oh, that's so good. And I know you use some very specific language around conflict. And I would love for us to talk a little bit about, you know, what does it mean? Or what do you mean, when you say being conflict capable, versus what we traditionally hear as conflict management?
Anna Nielsen 12:19
Well, conflict management sounds like some sort of terrible, like rash that we're trying to make go away. Nobody wants to come talk about conflict management. To me, the word management means Be quiet. And it means we're not that that behavior, or these things aren't really welcome here. Whereas being conflict capable, is something I see as a specialized skill set. So you are able to have goals, strategies, and intention around why you're showing up the way you do. And it's not as it's not as mystical as just saying, talk it out, right? We can't just tell people, how we can just tell people to talk it out, we have to tell them actually word phrases and skills that they can use to do that. And ideally, the culture is driving and reinforcing that. So here, we're a conflict capable team. So you're going to learn these skills, and you're expected to use them with each other. So it's really about a systematic method. That's not complicated that almost oversimplifies what's needed in order to get to a place where we can capture all the innovation that's possible.
Ashley Cox 13:40
I love this is just brilliant. This is so brilliant. Because now I have this really great visual in my head of conflict management of yesteryear is basically man handling people into be quiet, behave, just do your job. I don't want to deal with any of this. Conflict is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Where as conflict capable, is we're in this together. We're having productive conversations. We're uncovering the mysteries of why, you know, this is coming up, but it's most likely related to people being really invested and really caring about the business, about the goals, about the direction that we're going and I know, our clients, that's at SproutHR, we are always hearing, but how do I get people to care more about my company? How do I get people to be more invested? How do I get them to be engaged and and really taking ownership and it sounds like maybe being a conflict capable team could amplify that?
Anna Nielsen 14:43
I think so. I think you know, what it does, it says, here's, here's some facts that you can lean on. So one of the things that I talk about a lot is leading with your values, so the conflict capable leader is always doing that. So name a name a value of sprout HR, for instance.
Ashley Cox 15:05
Yeah, well, one of our values is we all lead.
Anna Nielsen 15:08
Oh, you all lead? Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. Thank you. So if I'm experiencing, you know, we get into some sort of conflict, and I'm working on your team, I know that I can bring up something that's not disputable. So I can say, hey, actually, you know, the other day, I got left out of an important meeting. And I know that we value everyone leading. And I didn't experience that, when that happened.
Ashley Cox 15:39
Beautiful.
Anna Nielsen 15:40
So I have a roadmap, I can always if no other conflict capable skill that sticks with me, I can always lead with my values. And so I teach people that because we can see that mission values and vision on the wall, or on our website, or wherever it is. And in order to show your team or your culture that you're willing to live that out. This is one way to stay deeply connected to that in a really tangible way and drive the conversation forward. Because now you have to, you can only say, Yes, that is our value, that is one of our values. And now we're having a conversation. You can't say no, that's not true.
Ashley Cox 16:22
Yeah. And this is one of the things we talk about a lot, right is our values. And we're creating a foundation and what a beautiful, simple and elegant way to further integrate those values into every single thing you do. And I think it also takes the blame game out of factor, right?
Anna Nielsen 16:42
Absolutely. It's a totally different experience than me saying, hey, actually, you left me out. Because you can't hear me after "Hey, Ashley, you" You can't hear no one can hear as soon as it's personalized. And not to say that it would never be personalized. Of course, there's time and space. For that, you might get to a place where the frustration has gone on so long that you have to do it. But as a starting point, we lead with what we do want. So we're always working in abundance. And that's another primary factor of being conflict capable, is that we're just we're always leading with more what we do want, I want to lead just like our values, say, I didn't experience that.
Ashley Cox 17:20
Hmm. And I love being able to pull that in from both perspectives are really all three perspectives, I should be able to say that to my team members as the leader, right, my team should be able to say that to me, as their boss, as their leader, as the person that owns the business. And team members should be able to say that amongst each other. So it really is threefold. Right? Yeah.
Anna Nielsen 17:45
And what it does do is it also works on minimizing some of those either perceived or real power differences. So CEO or not CEO, the culture is dictated or my team has said, I'm expected to use these skills. And so it doesn't matter that you are the the in the hierarchical sense, you're the you're the the biggest leader, the highest level on the org chart, this is what we've agreed to. And so it's really powerful for people who don't feel like that their voices heard, it really gives some structure to that.
Ashley Cox 18:21
Oh, that part! It gives people who their voices, they don't feel like their voices are heard, it gives them an opportunity. And that's, I think, something that we're seeing more companies intentionally bring to light and attempt to create. And this seems like such a great process to do that. And to really give some legs to the concept of, you know, we want to hear your voices. Okay, well, we can say we want to hear your voices all day. But if we're not actively doing something to allow people's voices to be heard, then we're really no better than companies of the past who didn't want to hear anybody's voices period.
Anna Nielsen 19:03
Absolutely. And we want to hear dissenting voices. We don't want to just hear your great your clapping and your happiness and your I love it here. We want to hear how you believe as a person who is a stakeholder here, how things can be better. And we're going to give you the roadmap to be able to do that, and people around you who will help you practice and accept you for doing so.
Ashley Cox 19:31
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's such a big part of, of a company. If you really truly have DEI initiatives, diversity, equity inclusion, if you really want to make everyone on your team, feel a part of the team, you have to create the space for that. So let's talk a little bit then about how does a leader start to create this kind of culture where conflict is not only it doesn't just just happened, but it's welcomed.
Anna Nielsen 20:03
So like I said before, I think the first step is to set your intention to do so. And then figure out, you know, how can I shift my mindset to see it as investment. So I have somebody coming into my office, they're really, really upset. Well, they're really, really upset because they care about something, I'd rather have employees that care about something. Now, the behavioral parts are, you know, there's more complexity to that. But we want people to come to us. And if we, if we want that, we have to show them. I said yesterday to a group I was talking to, we have to show people we believe their experience. And I think from a DEI perspective, this is a huge piece of it. We're gonna say that didn't happen, right? You're telling me your lived experience, I was rude to you, you felt marginalized, you were left out. That's not the right language to use whatever it is, and I don't believe you. And I'm telling you that by just undermining whatever experience you've had, so it's, it's about having the intention to see it as investment. And then believing people, when they tell us they experience something with us. And that's the hardest part. But most conflict is mostly not personal. And that is a big shift for people. And so I think that's, that's kind of where we have to start.
Ashley Cox 21:40
Yeah, it feels like almost a sigh of relief to think, oh, wait, conflict isn't personal. This isn't about me as a human. It's not about this other person as a human. It's about a thing that happened, right? What is what is conflict about? Primarily? What are you seeing in your work?
Anna Nielsen 21:55
Oh, great question. I think conflict is actually about lack of clarity. So we need we need as humans, we have a need for certainty. That's a huge part of what what we're missing. And we have all these great leadership tools that are out there right now in psychological safety, being one of them emotional intelligence, all these great, really great tools. And so we have to create those spaces. So it's not, it's not just saying we want to be this thing. It's about knowing how to do that.
Ashley Cox 22:31
I love that so much. I love that this has been such an amazing conversation. I, I really hope that people walk away from this conversation today feeling like, okay, conflict is not a bad thing. And I could actually grow my skills in this area, because I fully believe you know, and I know you talk about this a lot. And that conflict is something that we can become very capable at. It can be something that we can learn tools, we can learn skills, we can practice, because you don't get good at something if you don't practice it. Right. But it's probably going to cause a little bit of discomfort at first, I would imagine, right?
Anna Nielsen 23:10
Yeah. And I think the discomfort should actually is actually coming from the wrong place. Like I said earlier, you just, you're focusing on how there's this conflict, bad conflict bad, what you're what you should be focusing on is, what would happen if I don't capture these ideas? What will happen if we don't solve for these difficult relationship dynamics? The intellectual capital loss, in my opinion, is one of the things that gets missed. If you and I have a great idea, and it's only our two brains that have this idea. But we're not talking because and I hear this often, we've just decided the best thing for us to do to resolve it is just just stop talking. But it's only Anna's brain and Ashley's brain who have this world changing idea. Well, it's gone now. So you got to look for what is going to happen if we don't.
Ashley Cox 24:05
That's a brilliant question. What is going to happen? If we don't address conflict?
Anna Nielsen 24:10
Yes. And not just people are going to be mad. That's, the tip of the iceberg. It's all these other things is you want to hire you want to retain people. Yeah, you want to show people that you care about their mental health, their well being, their ability to grow into leadership skills that are going to change them. These are the kinds of things that really make an impact.
Ashley Cox 24:36
Love it. So let's talk a little bit more about those benefits of being conflict capable. What does that look like for the leader? What does it look like for the team? What does it look like for the business? You know, the name of the podcast is the impact ripple. So how does conflict capability benefits ripple out into wherever it can ripple out into?
Anna Nielsen 24:56
Sure. So you know, in your world of HR, and it's people in HR aren't equipped with these skills either we know that 60% of people have never had one minute of conflict resolution training, skills training. And so all of the conflict gets sent to HR, who are also not equipped to handle it. Stress, confusion, adding to the plate that's already overflowing. And then you've got people who are experiencing stress in their day to day work life, they're calling in sick, they're not able to be as productive. So it affects everybody from a mental health perspective, and from a stress perspective, but it also affects every part of the business. Because things are slower. Things are less efficient, people are less happy, all of those things. So if you want to see happiness, and job satisfaction, and retention, these are the things that truly have an impact. Because conflict can be the thing that's in the way of every single achievement you're striving for.
Ashley Cox 26:09
Boom, that is the mic drop moment of today, I believe. That's, that's, it's so important, just to understand, how could this one part one part of leadership of running a business of you know, being in business, literally impact and change every other part? And I think that, you know, what you say on your website, again, is about transforming mindsets from, you know, conflict, being something that's feared, or like we've talked about today, conflict is bad, bad, bad, to a tool for progress, for innovation, for happiness, because happy people actually are productive people and productive people, you know, contribute to the business and they stay, you know, retention, huge part of today's culture, you know, is how do I hire amazing people? But wait, how do we actually keep them because they are leaving in droves? Because of toxic workplace cultures. And so I think that you've really hit the nail on the head here with conflict capability.
Anna Nielsen 27:15
Yeah. And I think it's about actually giving people a method. So we're over the days of saying, talk it out, or we have an open door policy, tell me how because the other thing is, I don't know what's expected or acceptable. You haven't told me and my behavior is tied to my livelihood, my paycheck. And so I need you to tell me exactly what to do, and then reward me for doing it. So that's my hope is that we can take that stress away, and give people the tools and skills and sort of revolutionize how people approach this.
Ashley Cox 27:54
Fantastic, fantastic. So it's time now for our favorite and final segment of the show. Imagine the impact, where we get to envision what it could look like to take action today towards being more conflict capable. So Anna, I would love for you to paint the vision for the kind of impact that our listeners could create with one key thought a takeaway and action item from our conversation today, or maybe something you haven't had a chance to share just yet.
Anna Nielsen 28:22
Sure. So I think that the vision for being conflict capable, is really to get out of your own way and create places where people can do that, too. So from a management perspective, you're never hearing about the conflict because it didn't come to you. And these people are not having your employees are not having to sit around and worrying about what's going to happen, or what the outcome of a tough conversation is going to be. Because you've created a space where they believe that possibilities are what come from it, that we're not stuck anymore. So helping us get unstuck is really the vision for what being conflict capable is and it obviously pours over into your personal life as well. Just having that confidence that you can go into hard conversations and show up as the best version of yourself.
Ashley Cox 29:17
Yes, imagine the impact that showing up as the best version of yourself can have in your business, your community, the world around you. That is such a powerful thought such a powerful belief that we we get to choose to say, I could be conflict capable and I could show up as the most powerful version of myself, for my family, for my friends, for my co workers for my boss for my business for my for my for my for my, for myself, for myself. Yes. I love that. So Anna, what is where's the best place for folks to connect with you learn more? Learn how to be conflict capable.
Anna Nielsen 29:57
Sure. So my website is conflict capable dot com. And you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm just Anna Nielsen. And I do create quite a bit of content there trying to give people some motivation to think about and spread these great ideas so you can find me there.
Ashley Cox 30:16
I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much, Anna, for joining us on the impact level podcast today. It's been brilliant and insightful. And I hope that everyone walks away feeling a little more confident that they could handle conflict in a really productive way in their businesses. And thank you so much, dear leader for tuning in to our conversation today. I hope that you got so much value from this conversation, please go follow Anna. I will link her website and her LinkedIn in the comments in the show notes. And as always, it is an honor and a privilege to be here with and for you in your leadership journey.
