Conflict is inevitable, but the negative effects of it are not. Director of Conflict Programs Katrina Nobles and Mediation and Training Extension Associate Liz Davis-Frost from the Cornell ILR School’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution join host Nicholas Phillips to discuss conflict and deep listening techniques that can help you manage it.
Effectively managing conflict is essential for maintaining team cohesion and promoting a positive work environment. In this episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast from eCornell, host Nicholas Phillips sits down with Katrina Nobles, director of conflict programs, and Liz Davis-Frost, mediation and training extension associate, to examine conflict and the techniques for focused listening they practice with students at the Cornell ILR School’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution.
Tune in to explore:
Did you enjoy this episode? Watch the full Keynote.
Gain additional insights and skills in the Conflict Resolution certificate program co-authored by Katrina Nobles and more than 30 other leadership and strategic management certificates—all available online from eCornell.
Nicholas Phillips: Welcome to Keynotes from Cornell University. I'm Nicholas Phillips. On today's episode, we're joined by Katrina Nobles and Liz Davis Frost, who are both with the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at Cornell's ILR School. Today, Katrina and Liz will help us, quote unquote, take a deep breath and understand how deep listening can help us as part of conflict resolution.
Nicholas Phillips: Katrina, Liz, thank you so much for joining us today.
Nicholas Phillips: It's been too too long. So for the both of you, you know, you're both obviously associated the Scheinman Institute. Like I mentioned obviously "conflict" seems to be a buzzword so with that in mind, you know, my question is, first for you, Katrina, what comes to mind when you think of conflict?
Nicholas Phillips: And then Liz, we'll hear from you after.
Katrina Nobles: It's a great question. And yes, it is definitely a buzzword right now. We're hearing it all over the place all the time, right? So obviously there's always scholarly definitions of these words, and then there's kind of how we perceive it as just general humans in the world, right?
Katrina Nobles: So it, you know, when we're thinking about it in terms of labor and employment conflict, and that's a lot of the world that we work in being in the ILR school there's a few different ways. to define it in terms of narrow definitions and then broader definitions. And so some scholars define it as sort of a break down in the decision making process.
Katrina Nobles: That's probably the most narrow version, right? Some define it as sort of this dynamic process that underlies all organizational interactions and processes. And that's the broadest sense of the definition. And I think Liz and I probably ascribe more to the, in the middle sort of definition.
Katrina Nobles: And that's where there's incompatibility between two or more people around their goals or behavior. One of the things that Liz and I talk about a lot is the missing piece to that, right? Because, I mean, in the workplace we think about it in terms of, like, negotiations and things like that, but conflict can be really visceral and emotional and it includes things like values and identities. And so that's often that source piece is the piece that's often missing for us in the formal definitions.
Nicholas Phillips: And Liz, similar?
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah, very similar. I think specifically thinking about the source piece with value and identity that Katrina was mentioning. I think we kind of think about that as the humanizing or human centric aspect of conflict being that it's inevitable.
Liz Davis-Frost: It's everywhere. And yes, it's a buzzword now, but I feel like it's been a buzzword for all of time because we're humans and we live with other humans in community in a society. And so there is not a world in which conflict is inevitable, does not exist. In the work that we do and in my personal experience leading into the work, leading into getting into this type of work, really realizing and sitting with the fact that it is everything, everywhere, all at once.
Liz Davis-Frost: And there's no running away from, I mean, well, can run away from it, but what does that really do for you if it's not going to go anywhere? So, so yeah, I definitely think about it as just one of those, integral parts of existing.
Nicholas Phillips: How has maybe our definition of conflict changed over time. First let me hear from you, Liz, and then you Katrina.
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think my personal life and personal experience has defined my professional experience with conflict. So really being diving deep into this work, thinking about conflict more broadly and also thinking about it removed from, not removed from myself as if I don't think about it, but thinking about it as this like big, the big overarching thing that it is has really given me more perspective and learning that some of the tools and skills that we'll talk about today has really helped me not be afraid of it and kind of lean into it intentionally. And so I think that's been the biggest shift is with conflict because it is always going to come up, one of the key pieces in my opinion is the intentionality aspect. And I think definitely again, seeing how my professional work has impacted my personal life. That's definitely been one of the starkest changes in my relationships.
Nicholas Phillips: And similar Katrina.
Katrina Nobles: Yeah, I would say totally similar. It's the consciousness piece, right? That's the piece that's really changed a lot for me as well. And having a career in this area, obviously conflict is my specialty.
Katrina Nobles: So, you know, it's floating around in my brain most of the time. And remembering like exactly what I'm teaching what I'm working with people around. It's those same things that I have to be able to do and think about and be conscious of as well. And sometimes that's the harder piece. Even when you teach it, honestly.
Liz Davis-Frost: It's the checking of yourself in real time.
Nicholas Phillips: Yeah. Okay. That's good to know. And with your students, do you find that they come in with an idea of like, what conflict is or come in with some preconceived notions?
Katrina Nobles: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I would say, a couple of the big ones, honestly, is that all conflict is negative which I would say that's not true.
Katrina Nobles: Conflict in itself can actually be a really positive thing. It can create creative collaborations and innovations. That's how we get a lot of inventions in our world, right? Because there's a problem somebody's solving. So that's a positive thing. It might not feel super positive at the time that it's happening, but that's a really big, I would say, misconception. And then the other big misconception we see a lot of students come in with, and a lot of professionals too, is that conflict is this huge thing or huge event that it's a like static thing that you see happen, that it is war, for instance, that it doesn't include what we think of when we're studying conflict, we're studying even what we might consider like the smallest conflicts that happen internal to ourselves. And a lot of people don't define conflict as that. They only define the big stuff as conflict.
Nicholas Phillips: And I definitely want to touch on that in a little bit, but why do you think we, and obviously your students as well, come in with that idea of conflict as being, you know, a negative thing and not just, you know, a back and forth.
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah, I definitely think a lot of it has to do with just how we're socialized in society, right? So like, we are who we are based off of all of the things that have impacted and influenced how we are. So like thinking about myself as an example, I grew up watching a lot of reality TV. So clearly, you know, watching all of the housewives and XYZ has influenced or had influence on how I viewed conflict, right?
Liz Davis-Frost: My familial structure or how I grew up in friend groups might also influence and also reinforce my perceptions of conflict. And also I guess to the point of, you know, being curious about what our students come into the space with. I think it's also kind of something that we expect because we know that we are all socialized in various different ways.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right. And so, even though there are preconceived notions, it's almost kind of fun to work with it because it encourages you to kind of go on this journey of self discovery to kind of figure out what those preconceived notions are, where they come from, and then how can you move forward and the most efficient and not, not like efficient for efficiency sake, but like a lot's going on and we all have a lot of energy that we have to exert to a lot of things.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right. And so in the way that makes the most sense for the context that you're in and also for the way that is the most intentional, and you have to like understand and see and unpack all of those things to be able to make that sort of sound decision.
Nicholas Phillips: Next time I'll ask you what your favorite reality show is.
Nicholas Phillips: We don't have enough time today, but next time I will ask you. Um, and you know, one interesting thing you mentioned before Katrina was, how, when we think of conflict, it's almost like kind of a visceral reaction somewhat so before we get into, kind of listening to other people's opinions and seeing where they're coming from what would you say the difference is between, conflict and maybe just a debate or simple discourse or, even just, you know, a nice dialogue back and forth.
Katrina Nobles: There's so much to that. So you know I'm going to mention a visual that we use because I think it's often helpful to think about the different types of conversation approaches that we have in different spaces and so when we think about sort of different axes that we might think about in conversation.
Katrina Nobles: You have the competitive to cooperative sort of access, right? It's sort of a spectrum, how competitive or cooperative you want to be, and then how one way or two way you want to be in the conversation. So do I just want to be able to say, like, yell at you, or vent at you, or, you know, just have you confirm that you agree with what I'm saying, or is this actually a two way conversation?
Katrina Nobles: And so the different ways that we kind of look at that is discourse, dialogue, diatribe, and debate. So like if we're having, if somebody's having a diatribe, it's literally like a monologue, and they just want people to take it in, listen, and agree. Right? So that is a very one way, competitive sort of approach.
Katrina Nobles: If people are having a debate, the idea is that it's two way, right, because I might debate my point, you might debate your point so we're both talking, but it's still a very competitive sort of approach, right? I want to win a debate. You want to win a debate. So we're going to be angling to win. So one of us is going to win and one of us is going to lose.
Katrina Nobles: And then when we get to discourse, you know, it's more on the cooperative side. We think about this in the higher education setting, you know, like faculty members having very academic discourse, like this is what comes up a lot, right? Discourse tends to be a little more one way than two way, because it's in a cooperative, civil manner, right?
Katrina Nobles: And you do want some feedback, but you really just want your information heard, right? And how that differs from dialogue, all three of those differ from dialogue, is that dialogue is the one place where it is fully two way. I want engagement. I want you to engage with me, and I want to engage with you.
Katrina Nobles: And it's cooperative, like we're looking to listen, we're looking to understand, and we're open to the possibility that both of us could lose, both of us could win, we could both, you know, win a little, lose a little, one of us might be wrong, both of us might be wrong, maybe there is no right or wrong, you know, we're open to all of these possibilities.
Katrina Nobles: That's the difference with dialogue.
Liz Davis-Frost: Katrina got it all there. All I would add is I think it really boils down to what your goals are and what like your intentions are with the conversation and what is your ability to name that or recognize that and name that when you're considering how you want to move forward in engaging with someone.
Nicholas Phillips: And when it comes to these different types of just conversations as a whole, can resolution be met in each of these different types of conversations?
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah, I mean I would answer that with me and Katrina's favorite answer, it depends. When I was Katrina's student, because I did take the course that we now co-instruct together, I love that answer because I feel like that's my go to answer because it really does depend on the context.
Liz Davis-Frost: And I think, you know, kind of going back a little bit to the last question, one of the challenging things that I think our students struggle with is letting go of the idea that you are always going to have an answer.
Nicholas Phillips: Thank you for that. I appreciate that. So I want to kind of shift gears a little bit. So we you know, we're talking about conflict debate and everything like that so before we get into you know, the what and the how to apply deep listening I'm curious, what got you thinking about this idea of deep listening? Katrina, we'll start with you.
Katrina Nobles: I think a couple of things right so I think first and foremost was a constant sort of recognition that either when I was watching conflict, people were talking directly past each other. And like I could hear overlap or I could hear sort of where the differences were, where the disagreements were, but it was almost like they were deaf to it, which was interesting.
Katrina Nobles: And then I think also in my own conflicts and that goes to what Liz just said, that, that ground zero part where I was like, why can't I understand why this is such a problem for this person? Like I, I don't get it. And part of that was, you know, being trapped in my own head, my own experiences, my own perception of the world and how I make meaning, which was not the same for the person sitting across from me.
Katrina Nobles: Right. And so to get to understanding, I think that's where the deep listening came in. Right.
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah. I mean, on, on the surface, my answer to this question is taking Katrina's campus mediation practicum course as a student, and like learning these skills and tools and practicing them in class. And I think one of the most, I guess profound learnings from my experience as a student and also as I continue to learn, engage in this work is how much patience it takes and also how much grace, not just for yourself, but for the other people involved.
Liz Davis-Frost: It takes like really remembering that when you're in conflict, when you're interacting with people, you're interacting with people who have experiences and lives and families and have endured harm and maybe have trust issues for X, Y, Z reason. You know what I'm saying? Like, people are the way that they are for a reason.
Liz Davis-Frost: So when I'm confronted with conflict, I can either hold, keep the conflict close to me and that's all I can think about, or I can hold the conflict out in front of me and see the larger picture, see the people involved and be curious again about the process and also the people and just give both myself again, and the other people in the situation, like the grace and space to explore what's really coming up for us because it's always deeper than we think it is.
Nicholas Phillips: What is deep listening? Is it just listening to someone or is it you know, listening and comprehending, you know? So what is this idea of deep listening?
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah. Yeah.
Liz Davis-Frost: I mean I would say it's intentionally listening, focused listening with the intent to understand and not to respond. Right? So like, there's a difference between listening to someone speak about something that they're passionate about and focusing in on the key things that they say so that you can refute them versus focusing in on the key emotions or terms or whatever they say so that you can fully grasp the weight of what they're saying and try to understand their perspective and where they're coming from.
Nicholas Phillips: Katrina, you wanted to check in?
Katrina Nobles: Yeah. I mean, I would just echo exactly what Liz just said. I think that the the biggest part of it is that ability, and you talked a little bit about it of that ability to hold a space and hold a conflict out in front of yourself instead of holding it tight. If you can hold or suspend your judgment and kind of put it over here for a minute and just focus intently on what somebody is saying to understand as opposed to, to respond, that's really where deep listening comes in.
Katrina Nobles: And I would also say, a large part of this comes from the transformative model of mediation. And so there's four primary skills in this style of mediation that are called the skills of amplification which helps both the speaker and the listener in terms of understanding and clarity, which is a huge part of moving towards resolution and also a huge part of just having both people empowered and humanized as opposed to disempowered and dehumanized.
Nicholas Phillips: Is there a reason why people like don't feel heard at all for some reason?
Katrina Nobles: Oh, there's lots of reasons, lots of reasons. I will say a strategy or a key learning that we often try to help our students with is noticing when somebody doesn't feel heard.
Katrina Nobles: And I think this is really important for deep listening as well. So if you are using focus listening and you are reflecting back to the person the key sort of highlights of what they're saying the key emotions, what they emphasize, sort of the tone of the conversation, et cetera. If you're able to do that, and they're still repeating something, it means you didn't get it.
Katrina Nobles: It means you didn't catch it. You didn't reflect it. You didn't emphasize it enough to show that it was heard, so that person is not feeling heard. And so, I think that's, obviously the answer to your original question is, it depends. Yes. But, the way is to notice it is, look for the signs that somebody isn't being heard.
Katrina Nobles: Are they getting louder? Are they repeating themselves, are they bringing something back up and back up? Obviously you didn't get it well enough or you didn't express it well enough to say you heard it.
Liz Davis-Frost: Yeah. And I would also say on the flip side of that, because you know, it does depend. I think there are some people out there who don't know what it's like to feel heard. Right. I think there are some people who have had some experiences in their life where they don't know how to receive, or maybe it's uncomfortable for them to receive someone actually seeing them and hearing them for what they're saying.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right. And so when we do focus listening and reflective feedback, one of the other really great things about these skills is that when you reflect back keywords or key emotions that you've heard someone say, and maybe that's not exactly what they meant, but that's what they said. They have the opportunity to clarify and further explore what emotions are coming up for them.
Liz Davis-Frost: And I think that's also something that's really key that Katrina and I talk about a lot is, with the intrapersonal conflict, there's a lot of stuff that we are all holding and we are all carrying, right? And so if you have these past traumatic experiences or and maybe not even like big T trauma, but just like past experience, you know, like a lot of our students are coming from straight from high school, right?
Liz Davis-Frost: Where for the last 12 years of their schooling, everything's been regimented, right? Everything's been scheduled. So they have this new found autonomy and agency, but do they know how to use it? Right? Do we teach people how to take a step back, take a deep breath and really understand what they're feeling and why they're feeling that way?
Liz Davis-Frost: I don't know. And so when you get into conflict when, when there's a conflict in. Sometimes, you know, you're, you're talking past each other. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the times people don't know what they're mad about. They're just mad. Right? Like your feel, like when Katrina was talking about conflict being visceral.
Liz Davis-Frost: And I think, you know, I'm reflecting again on my personal experience when I'm hot and when I'm pressed, that's all that my brain thinks about. Right. And so being in this work, I now know, when I'm having a difficult conversation with a family member or a friend or whatever, I have to consciously say, Liz, chill out, take a deep breath.
Liz Davis-Frost: This person is not coming for you. People are not always coming for you. Sometimes, I know why I feel like, or why I may feel like people are coming from me based off prior experiences that I've had. Right. But putting that in front of me and being like, okay, this is a person that I care about and a person that I love, and a person that I want to continue to work with this conflict is not going to be the end of this relationship.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right? So whatever I'm feeling right now that I'm noticing that I'm feeling right now, I can take my deep breaths, put that aside and really try to get to the bottom of what's happening and really listen. And engage in what they're saying. Because at the end of the day, I now know and can recognize they are not coming for me.
Liz Davis-Frost: You know?
Nicholas Phillips: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole not being heard thing is definitely one thing that registered a middle child. So naturally I'm just never heard because my older brother is the golden child and so was my younger sister. Um, as we're, you know, kind of thinking about these things, what are some skills that we need to be better deep listeners?
Katrina Nobles: There's a lot, right? So it goes back to exactly what Liz has consistently brought up that intrapersonal work that we all need to do. And so, first and foremost, noticing and naming what's going on for yourself is important. Right? So just the ability to go through a week. We often do notice and name exercises with our students where we'll give them a small journal and we'll be like, so what we're going to ask you to do is notice and name where emotions come up for you over the next week and try to figure out what the emotion is and why it's happening.
Katrina Nobles: And so just being in tune with yourself, cause even naming emotions can be really difficult for folks. Like the top emotions are like happy, sad. You know, you have sort of the run of the mill one sort of, right? But then like, is there frustration? Is there concern? Is there shame? Is there guilt?
Katrina Nobles: Is there joy somewhere in there? Is there enthusiasm or feeling motivated or like there's so many layers to peel back there that we don't usually. So taking the time to just notice and name those through our week can help with our ability to sort of hold our own feelings and reactions and things in front of us instead of just reacting because of them.
Katrina Nobles: And then I think also I would say just the ability to, just fully listen to somebody that the idea of focused listening that we've been talking about not to respond but to understand, watch some pop culture conflicts right, watch your favorite TV show, when a conflict comes up see if you can actually pull out, what are the key words and phrases this person used while they were yelling or venting or whatever they were doing?
Katrina Nobles: And what emotion did they have, like, can you actually identify what they're saying? Can you hear, can you understand, and then notice the reaction of the person they're having a conflict with, right? If we're watching SpongeBob, notice what Squidward reacts to, right? And try to name what that reaction is for Squidward.
Katrina Nobles: Like, it can be the most simple things of just noticing and naming and being attuned and being more intentional and conscious to things.
Nicholas Phillips: And along this line, you know, what are some things that we should avoid when we're thinking about this idea of deep listening, Katrina?
Katrina Nobles: I think big things to avoid and we've said it multiple times already today, but, the urge to respond.
Katrina Nobles: So try to suspend judgment and responses. It's sounds super easy, right? We should just be able to suspend our judgment. It is so hard so that definitely takes some practice I think also, so sometimes we're talking with somebody about a conflict that they're having it's not necessarily our conflict or something like that, but we might want to be using the deep listening approach as well and I think I something that we often do and we work with new mediators on this often because the urge, I guess I would say, when you're in that position is to solve the problem.
Katrina Nobles: And that's usually why most of us come to the field that we're in when we're conflict resolvers or we're like in human resources or employee relations or things like that. It's because we're good problem solvers, right? The ability to listen deeply is greatly diminished if you go straight to the solution.
Nicholas Phillips: When it comes to your students and maybe just the general workforce, is there one area where people struggle with the most? Is it that, you know, taking a step back and digesting things? Or is it kind of trying to understand the other person's perspective? What's that area where people struggle with the most?
Katrina Nobles: I think there's multiple parts, but I'll look to Liz first.
Liz Davis-Frost: I would say for me, the most challenging thing is the intrapersonal. Right. I think we are living in a time where there are so many distractions and so many things that tell us who we are and who we should be, that we don't necessarily, we may not be taking time to truly figure that out for ourselves without all of these outside influences.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right. I mean, so I truly believe that one of the biggest barriers to like thinking critically and intentionally about the conflict that's in front of you is having the ability to take the step back. Take the pause. Reflect on what's coming up for you. Be curious about what's coming up for you. And then, set a plan or a goal or whatever, a path forward into how you want to address it.
Liz Davis-Frost: Because also it's going to be different for every single context, right? So we can't say these are the, this is the four step process of how you handle conflict because it's going to be different. And so again, with this being comfortable with being uncomfortable, it's like being comfortable with the fact that every single situation is going to require you to think a little bit.
Katrina Nobles: I would say, too, just watching professionals in the workplace and being a professional in the workplace myself, there are two things that I would say that it's very hard when you're first starting to apply this skill.
Katrina Nobles: The first one is there, there's a level of, passion and determination behind a lot of conflicts because often it's going to be about something like a task or a process or a decision that needs to be made that's important to you. It's important to your work. It's important to a project. It's important to your team.
Katrina Nobles: Whatever the case might be, right? Cause if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a conflict. Right. So there's a level of importance. And so being able to pause the noise of the level of importance is really difficult. So, like, to clear that space in your mind to be open to listening to understand and maybe go in a different direction than you originally thought, doesn't mean that you're going to, but you might.
Katrina Nobles: Being able to clear that space in your mind is really hard. I think the second piece that I would say, that's really hard at the beginning, is just, when we're trying to clear that space and we're trying to make that space for somebody else, we want the same in return.
Katrina Nobles: Right? We want to be heard. We want to be understood. We don't want to be walked all over. Deep listening does not mean that you can't advocate for yourself. It doesn't mean that you can't advocate for your position or your interests, the things that you need, the things that you're concerned about, all of those things.
Katrina Nobles: It doesn't mean that you can't advocate for yourself. So it doesn't take that away. It just means that you're being really intentional and conscious of creating that space for the other person so they can feel heard, and offer you the same thing.
Nicholas Phillips: And, what can we do to show that we're deep listening to, you know, the person we're communicating with? Or is there something that we can =show or do or something like that along those lines?
Katrina Nobles: Absolutely. Yep. That is, so in our, in our four set of four skills of amplification, it's the second skill, right? So you use focused listening or deep listening, and then you use reflective feedback or reflection. So you actually reflect back to the person.
Katrina Nobles: So you know, it sounds like you're really upset about X, Y, Z, using the exact emphasized words that they used and not in a way where it's parroting the person or like being a transcript of what they said. That's usually a hard thing, right? But literally just pulling out like one or two words here and there that they really emphasize that were obviously really important to them. That emotional part, my advice step towards the emotion, because the more you step away from it the more it's gonna come up.
Nicholas Phillips: With this idea of deep listening, especially in the workplace. It's the people who are around constantly. Um, How can deep listening help us when we're working as part of a team? Obviously, you know, like you mentioned Katrina, solving a problem, developing a product, something along those lines. How can deep listening help us when it comes to working in a group setting or as part of a team?
Katrina Nobles: So many ways yeah, I mean off the top of my head and then I'll turn to Liz to like jump in here I think one building trust, right if you're working in a team setting you absolutely have to have some level of trust and deep listening with the tool of reflection where like you're building understanding, you're also building trust.
Katrina Nobles: So that's a huge asset to a team. Second is creativity and the ability to brainstorm, right? The more you understand, the more creative you can get. So it is a huge asset to being creative, innovative and working towards kind of out of the box solutions or out of the box ideas that maybe wouldn't have come up if you didn't actually fully understand.
Liz Davis-Frost: Right, and to this understanding piece, right, like we know the challenges are going to come up. That's inevitable. I think one of the useful tools that we talk about with our students is, is thinking about the different levels and types of conflict. So Katrina and I've talked a lot about intrapersonal conflict, that internal, then there's this interpersonal conflict.
Liz Davis-Frost: So like me versus you, and then there's intra group. So conflict like within a group or an organization and then there's inter group. So that could be like, two departments having some sort of tension or whatever. And I find that once you can figure out what type of conflict is like, maybe the primary conflict, because they all are happening at once, right?
Liz Davis-Frost: If two departments are in tension, then maybe the two department heads are in tension. So that's like intergroup and interpersonal. There's also, you know, inter and intra institutional or organizational, right? When you have companies competing with each other. And so oftentimes people think the conflict is interpersonal, right?
Liz Davis-Frost: I don't like you. You don't like me. We don't get along. We can't work together. And that may not be the root conflict that we're facing. It might be, maybe I don't have a clear understanding of what my job roles and responsibilities are, and that might be leading to me stepping on toes or not fulfilling my full duties cause that's not clear to me. That could be a more organizational problem or a more intra group problem. Maybe this person isn't the only person that's feeling that way, right? Maybe there's a culture within the organization of people not necessarily knowing exactly what they need to be doing and what the expectations are for them to do things up to standard.
Liz Davis-Frost: And so that would be a larger conversation with the entire group or maybe you're even like smaller group conversations within the group to kind of really get to the root of what the challenge is. Because again, like sometimes there's that misunderstanding and when it's actually not interpersonal conflict and you keep leaning into, I don't like you, you don't like me, we can't work together.
Liz Davis-Frost: And that may become the reality, you know, and the opportunity and the curiosity to further explore that relationship goes by the wayside because you've already written it off. But that may not be the root of that coworker challenge.
Nicholas Phillips: And when it comes to not just department heads, but organizations as a whole, are there certain things that they can implement or certain policies that they can adopt to help further along this idea of deep listening, taking a step back trying to make sure everybody's voices are heard?
Katrina Nobles: Absolutely. So we use in all of our professional programming and some of the programming that we do on campus a conflict resolution spectrum. And we use this in a way where it sort of shows the the span of different conflict engagement approaches that you can take to a workplace conflict.
Katrina Nobles: Right. So that goes, everything from dialogue, which is the most on the ground, at the start of this sort of conflict arena sort of approach, all the way up to litigation. Right? And so there's tons of stuff in between, right? There's, you've got dialogue, you've got consultation and training and negotiation.
Katrina Nobles: They're all kind of down on this, what we say, like the lowest escalation spot possible, right? And then you start to go towards the middle of the spectrum and then you're moving towards things like facilitation and mediation and arbitration and then all the way to litigation. You have the least control.
Katrina Nobles: When you get to that end of the spectrum, right? So one of the things that organizations can do is to consider what processes do we have in place when a conflict comes up. So for a lot of organizations, you know, we see this in the labor management world. We see this in non-unionized workplaces all the time that there's some sort of a grievance process.
Katrina Nobles: But it's usually quite formal. And it starts in like the middle of the spectrum instead of the lower end of the spectrum. And so you're already at like facilitation, mediation, arbitration when you file a grievance. So if you start to look at how might we integrate, and we call this an integrated conflict management system, we like to design these things they're quite fun.
Katrina Nobles: So, when you have an integrated conflict management system, you have avenues or access points in place for the whole spectrum, not just the middle to the end, but like ways to have dialogue. You might have peer programs, you might have programs through labor management committees and partnerships.
Katrina Nobles: You might have training so that everybody has a shared language. We just worked with a couple of unions and a couple of companies recently, in training which was also partially facilitated dialogue, to help them to have shared language and to learn these exact skills, right, because once you have that shared approach, then everybody's on the same page. It's not like some mystery or something. You have to go out to outside training to understand that's the expectation.
Nicholas Phillips: Well Katrina, Liz, I could spend all day with you guys. I really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes as they are released, wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about Katrina Noble's Conflict Resolution Online Certificate Program and other eCornell certificate programs and on campus programs, check out the episode notes for more information.
Nicholas Phillips: Whether you're a busy professional or an impassioned lifelong learner, there's sure to be something that suits your goals and interests. Thank you for listening.