Humanity Working
Humanity Working is a podcast focused on how new technology such as AI is changing the experience of work, and how humans can thrive in this new world.
Each episode we explore what is changing, how it is affecting the way work gets done, and the impact it has on the people doing work - with a particular focus on those who have a creative aspect to their work.
The podcast is hosted by Paul Slater - Principal AI Technologist at Adobe Systems, often alongside Matt Neal - Innovation Leader at BeOne Medicines. We frequently feature authors, business leaders and top tier academics.
Join us as we navigate the ever-changing landscape of work.
Humanity Working
Conflict Resolution, Fixed
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Why is conflict resolution degrading as a skill in the workplace, and what can we do about it?
In their last episode before the holidays, Paul and Matt explore how factors like the personalized internet, social media, and AI are conspiring to make it challenging to handle conflict respectfully and to use it as a driver for positive change. And they propose an exercise you can use in the workplace to help you deal with conflict before it becomes a real issue.
00:00 Introduction to Conflict Resolution
02:01 The Impact of Technology on Conflict
02:58 Social Media and Tribalism
03:55 AI and Conflict Avoidance
04:23 The Decline of Conflict Resolution Skills
08:19 Conflict in Personal Relationships
09:16 Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies
13:57 Addressing Underlying Tensions
17:50 Podcast Wrap-Up and Upcoming Episodes
Humanity Working is a podcast focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be ready for the future of work by maximizing their human potential.
For more information, and access to our weekly newsletter, visit us at humanityworking.net.
Introduction
SPEAKER_02Okay, Paul. Today's quick fix is conflict resolution. This one feels heavy.
SPEAKER_01Hey Matt. Hey everybody. Uh yeah, actually, I think it does. And um it's interesting when I when I talk to people about the whole bunch of durable skills they need to be successful in uh in today's workplace. When this one comes up, um, it often gets a sigh or a or a we really need to do we really need to go into that. Um I mean people generally don't like conflict. Um there's a few people, there's like a tiny subsection of the world that does. Um that you know, maybe they'll if you if you've met somebody uh well we've joked about this before, I think. If you meet somebody from New York and they say, I'm a New Yorker, so and uh and what they're really meaning is that they get they they really appreciate sort of being direct and and sometimes contrarian and uh and things like that. By the way, plenty of people from New York, I know a lot of people in New York, they don't lead conversations with I'm a New Yorker, so I don't wanna I don't wanna uh to sort of put a whole bunch of people into into this one pot. But um it is true that for most of us we do find we do find it difficult. Certain cultures find it um easier or harder than uh than other cultures do. Um but the reality is that all of us, all of us, um are have progressively been getting worse at situations where we feel differently to each other and we're having to uh we're having to address that. Um and it's not because we're bad people, it's just because the world has shifted and it's changing how we interact with each other.
SPEAKER_02Uh what do you mean by that? Like how how so?
SPEAKER_01Well,
The Impact of Technology on Conflict
SPEAKER_01if you think about it, when I say the world has changed, I'm really thinking around technology shifts, right? So there have been, I would say, three major technology shifts that you can think of as just being technology shifts, or you can really start to think of them as major things that are changing the way that we are behaving. And I would say the first one of those um was not the internet per se, but I would say the personalized internet. So once we got into um into Web 2.0, Web 3.0, we were we got ourselves to a situation where not everybody was seeing the same stuff, and we were seeing stuff that was uh that was personalized for us. So of course, when you think about it, when stuff is personalized for you, that means that the F the the idea of something that's that's counter to your point of view, that starts to disappear a bit. And so you're not having to deal with the friction, the friction is gone.
Social Media and Tribalism
SPEAKER_01The second uh aspect of it is social media, and again, the original version of social media um didn't change our behavior dramatically in this in this way. It just allowed us to just connect with each other through a different channel. But of course, as social media has evolved and we've had personalized feeds associated with social media, uh, we have the ability to sort of invite people into our tribe and push people out of our tribe incredibly easily. People are now, again, self-selecting the people that they talk with and not seeing the voices that they necessarily disagree with. And so, and if they do disagree with them, it's done in a very tribal way. It's like, I'm in my tribe, we're all good, we're righteous, everybody else is over there, they're all bad, they're terrible. And the way in which they engage with each other is by lobbying insults at each other over the social media fence, right? So that again is very different. And
AI and Conflict Avoidance
SPEAKER_01then I would say the third one of these um is AI, and as we've already discussed, um AI is uh largely if we're interacting with it directly, it's a very sycophantic way, it's an echo chamber type way, it's not challenging us in any way. And then, of course, there's all this AI slop that is being created um that is also contributing to this uh to this tribalism as well. So these three waves
The Decline of Conflict Resolution Skills
SPEAKER_01combined are creating a world whereby we hear we have less meaningful engagement about the things that we disagree with. And so therefore, we're getting bad at it. It's either not at all or just a casual insult that is hold uh hurled over the fence. As we've discussed many times on this podcast, you get bad, you don't do something very often, you get bad at it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're out of practice in like handling disagreement the right way or or even needing to deal with it because, like you said, you're just kind of lobbing it over. You don't even have to care what is the response at this point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, ask yourself, have you have you been in a situation where you've seen regularly a point of view that you disagree with on a platform that you're on regularly? Have you have you at at any point in your life silenced those people just because you can't you can't stand to hear from them? And the majority of people, if you ask that question, the majority of people have. The majority of people are like, oh yeah, but you know, this guy's just poisonous. And in some cases that's true. In other cases, it's well, this like I have this worldview, and this guy has a different worldview, and I just don't want to keep seeing that different worldview. Uh and so I silence, I silence it for that reason. So it's a um it's a it's a challenge. Now, if you go back not just a few years, but if you go back to a hundred years or or more, right? Let's say you lived in a village and you all went to the the same pub and the same church and all of that kind of stuff, um you'd see the person in the pub, you'd see the person in the in the church. And if you didn't get on, you kind of had to figure out how to navigate that because next week they were going to be in the same pub and they were gonna be in the same uh in the same church, right? So that you can say that it's good that we've we allow people to sort of like pull themselves away away from that, but we are losing a skill by virtue of not having to not having to do that anymore. And for the vast majority of us, for the vast majority of time, conflict is something that we can relatively successfully avoid, but if we continuously avoid conflict, then we can get ourselves to a point where we're not actually getting anything meaningful done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about the concept of uh you know the unintended bad consequence of adding the ability to block somebody you disagree with virtually means you you just don't want to hear it to the point where it's as if it doesn't even exist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so how could you practice? You have no reason to practice when you're only in an echo chamber.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and well, actually, there is there's not a lot of research about this, but there is some that um has looked at our ability to be able to handle conflict in situations where it is kind of unavoidable. So, you know, things like family gatherings around Thanksgiving, or, you know, we are literally just coming up on Christmas right now. So a lot of people are getting together and and uh um are gonna be talking to people that maybe they only talk to once you know, once or twice a year. And it does appear as though we're getting worse at handling those situations as well. We used to be in this sort of virtuous cycle whereby you had to deal with conflict uh uh at work, and so you did, and that made you a little bit better at dealing with conflict uh in the home. And when you were dealing with conflict with your with your relatives, um it would help you handle it better at work, and and sort of both sides of that uh of this cycle are are kind of being taken away from
Conflict in Personal Relationships
SPEAKER_01us. There's one other thing I wanted to add as well, which is that even in personal, like like highly personal relationships, relationships with your kids, relationships with your spouse, and things like that. Um like sometimes you you know you're gonna have that those ongoing conversations with your kids that you can't necessarily opt out of because they're your kids, right? And so you maybe you're getting worse at that because you're not getting uh you're not getting enough practice elsewhere. And there are some suggestions, at least, that um one of the reasons why in certain parts of the world um people have really taken into the idea of having relationships with their uh with AI avatars and uh and things like that. And I think as we've discussed in the podcast before, there are situations where people have literally gone as far as marrying an AI avatar. Um maybe they're doing that because if you have a relationship with an AI avatar, you don't have to deal with conflict. Um they will just they'll be the person that you want them to be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
Effective Conflict Resolution Strategies
SPEAKER_02So what is what is good conflict resolution actually require?
SPEAKER_01Well, um there's I I guess the core of it uh you could think of as being the ability to disagree agreeably, um, willingness to stay in the relationship um afterwards, but also to have like meaningful outcomes associated with a conflict. That's particularly important in a work setting. So for example, um if you and I feel something like very differently about the uh about our work, and you think that you know approach A should be followed, and I feel like approach B should be followed, right? We could have the discussion, hash it out, argue, um, and then at the end of it, you know, shake hands and go have a drink afterwards, or something along those lines. But is that is that anything? Does that accomplish anything if there isn't a meaningful outcome that follows it? Um so where it often breaks down today is not what happens in the moment, although that can be a challenge, but it's also what happens afterwards. Because let's say we had that argument, disagreement, and then at the end of the disagreement, let's say in this scenario, I was your boss, and then it said at the end of it, I was like, Matt, totally taken on board, but we've got to pick a direction. I'm picking it, we're going in this, we're going in this direction. If you come out of that and you go, Okay, all right, and you go off, but then you passively resist what happened in that conversation because you never agreed with it in the first place, and you just basically become be an emblem of passive resistance, you're slow to responding on it, you're like you do the bare minimum associated with it, etc. etc., because you lost the argument. That's an ongoing reflection of the fact that we're not handling the conflict appropriately.
SPEAKER_02We didn't do it right.
SPEAKER_01We didn't do it right, right? And so the and so strong conflict resolution doesn't just get you to the point where you're not arguing anymore, right? It gets you to the point where you can actually progress forward and you can do what um the um what they like to say at Amazon is disagree and commit, right? So it's like, okay, we've heard each other's voices, we understand where we're going, but now this is where we are going forward. And and at the end of that scenario that I just painted, Matt, you lost, you in quotes lost the argument, but you're gonna commit to the outcome as though you won it, right? That's the that's the secret of of this versus like the harboring of of resentment and stuff. So there is an element of like how you conduct yourself in it, but there's also an element of what you do often.
SPEAKER_02Is there a there's a there's a there's a gift at the end if you lose and are proven right? Yeah. Also, which is like I told you. Remember?
SPEAKER_01I told you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, and of course, if there's a glimmer of hope, right? Like as as you well know, right? But actually, I mean, it's it's interesting. You could that that is a way. That is there are when we work with people on conflict resolution, that's something that we actually do talk about, right? So let's imagine that you come out of the conversation and we have the argument, right? And you kind of lose the argument, right? A good way of coming through this would be to say, look, Matt, I know that you disagree, I know that you disagree with this approach. Um, we have to we have to move forward with something. We're gonna go in this in this direction. I know that you don't agree with this direction. Um, but of course, there's always a chance that you're right and I'm wrong about this. So why don't we do an experiment to validate the direction that I that I am proposing that we go? And maybe I have you, Matt, run that experiment. That's good, right? Because I mean, how are many, many scientific experiments are conducted like that? All right, I need to prove Paul wrong. But as long as you're ethical about how you do the experiment, maybe you don't prove Paul wrong. Maybe you prove Paul right. And now it's bringing you on board because you've conducted the experiment that was designed to show X or Y or Z. And so then I need to be big enough to allow my to allow the experiment to actually happen. You need to be big enough if the experiment proves me right and you wrong, that you're also okay with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that's good. That's interesting. Um Okay, so what's something, one thing someone could do today in this space?
Addressing Underlying Tensions
SPEAKER_01So I think that the the really important part of this that we've not even even really discussed in the in the conversation so far is that we tend to think of conflict as this sort of like having a having a row, like having a like people you know, throwing their toys out of the pram, as we like to say in Britain. But it's the it, you know, people getting very, very worked up, people yelling at each other, and all of that kind of stuff. And the key thing about conflict is to understand that that is actually only a very, very small part of what is happening in the spectrum of conflict, right? Right. And so there are gonna be times when when people disagree with each other and they're not addressing it, and they're not addressing it, and they're not addressing it, and then having like not addressed it for a long for a lengthy period of time, suddenly it blows up, and then it's followed by another period of passive aggression. So what I would urge people to do is think about the situations that they have in their life where there are tensions that have not been addressed, tensions that you know are there, that the other party knows uh that are there, and you're choosing not to address them because it feels easier to not address them. Right almost all of us have something like that, right? So then on your terms, right, because you're the person who's choosing to address it, and and understand that it's on your terms, not on the other party's terms, right? What feels like the right time for you is not gonna feel like the right time for them. But then think about what would be the discussion that you would have about this underlying tension. How would you go about having that discussion with someone that acknowledges their point of view, that acknowledges the fact that you're you're basically dropping it like a bombshell on them, potentially, right? You're but you're you're addressing this, so you're the person who's in control. So how do you go about respecting respecting the fact that there's a different measure of control between you and the other party? And then how do you go about initiating a small direct conversation about this before things inevitably reach the point that is out of control for both parties? So think about that. Find a find a thing, it will be there, whether it's in your personal life uh or your work life. There will be something where there's this sort of little undercurrent. And think about how you could address that in a way where it's likely that both parties will come out of it thinking, I'm glad we addressed that. Right? Um, so that's that's where I've got, and I would do it as I say, I would do it ideally do it before. If you can't think of anything like that now, then go back and use the what Dan Pink calls the power of regret, right? Go back and look at a situation where you did let something blow up and think about how you would have handled that differently if you'd have addressed things earlier in a different way that did show respect for the other party.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, because things can fester and then become way worse. Oh yeah. Um I think you said something before about like the the frustration. The frustration hardens if you don't address it.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep, 100% right. I mean, there is no such thing as there is no such thing as a loud conflict that wasn't previously a quiet conflict. You just have to know you have to you have to know what those those signs are. And if you can address it while it's a quiet conflict, the likelihood is that you'll get much better outcomes.
SPEAKER_02Fascinating.
Podcast Wrap-Up and Upcoming Episodes
SPEAKER_02Um all right, Paul. So before we wrap, uh, what's coming up next for the podcast?
SPEAKER_01Well, we've got uh Christmas and the new year coming around the corner. So uh compliments at the festive season, as we say in Britain, to uh uh to everybody around that. Uh but um and over that period we'll kind of like halt our or pause our usual service for a bit. Um but we are gonna have a uh a little special episode coming up just before the new year that I know that you the both of us are really excited about. So I'm not gonna say too much about it, except say look out for an announcement in your in your feed, whether whether you're on YouTube um or whether you're on your regular podcast channels, um, or whether you're following us on humanityworking.net. Um so look out for that. Uh and then in the new year, we'll obviously be back with with uh with more of these. Um what's the next uh one of the fixed episodes we've got?
SPEAKER_02Fixed listening.
SPEAKER_01Listening, yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So all right, looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_01Sounds good. All right, we are so look out for that. Happy holidays. Yeah, look out for the announcement and happy new year, happy holidays, Yule Tide, felicitations, and various other things.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. All right, thanks, Paul.
SPEAKER_00Humanity Working is produced by Matt Neal. If you liked this episode, please take a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. It makes a huge difference in helping others find us. And don't forget, you can find all episodes and get our weekly newsletter at humanityworking. See you next time.
