Turning Conflict into Opportunity | Karin Hurt | Episode 334

Scott McCarthy [0:04:21]:
Karen, welcome to the show. It’s so good to have you here today.

Karin Hurt [0:04:25]:
Oh, thank you so much, Scott. Really appreciate you having me.

Scott McCarthy [0:04:28]:
I’m so excited to, get you on the show here to talk about, sad to say, a topic that, you know, that is so prevalent all the time, and that is workplace conflict. You know, I guess out of the gate, the first thing I wanna say is, like, you know, why why do we have to deal with so much conflict? Why is this such an important topic that, heck, you literally wrote a book about it? And, you know, and and we’ll be talking about this for years to come regardless.

Karin Hurt [0:05:00]:
Yeah. You know, it’s really interesting. We were just noticing after the pandemic, we said, is is conflict getting worse? Are people getting worse at handling it? What is going on? And so we wanted to find because that was our sense of just what the calls that we were getting, what was happening in the some of the clients that we were supporting, and just, you know, where senior leaders were calling us and asking for help, it was often around these things. So we said, okay. Let’s do some research. So we did the World Workplace Conflict and Collaboration survey. It was 50 countries and, over 5,000 participants to ask a couple of questions. One, was it getting worse, or is that just our imagination? And what we found was that not only is was conflict more prevalent, 70% said they were experiencing the same more or significantly more conflict than they had had prior to the pandemic.

Karin Hurt [0:05:51]:
But the conflicts were getting more complicated. So we call these conflict cocktails. It’s this and that. Right? People are working from home in remote and hybrid teams or they’re not having the in person interaction, but the expectations are even higher than ever in certain areas. So, like, all of that comes to be a conflict cocktail. So and then we asked people to think about a conflict that they had in the past and to give their advice to their former self if they were faced with that conflict again. And it was interesting. 55% said I bet you could guess this, Scott.

Karin Hurt [0:06:23]:
They said, I wish I would stay calm. Right? And then, 21% said, I wish I had talk had talked about it sooner. And the thing about staying calm and talking about it is you need skills to do that. And so that’s why we wrote the book. How do we make it super easy for people to have the conversation that they would rather avoid?

Scott McCarthy [0:06:43]:
Yeah. That’s yeah. Yeah. Definitely need skills. That’s for sure. And we we need a lot of it. Now one of the things I’m big on is proactivity vice reactivity. And to me, what I find is conflict is a very reactive thing.

Scott McCarthy [0:07:02]:
Suddenly, you know and I’m talking stereotypical conflict. Right? There’s an issue, keep your arrest reports for done right again. So we got Joe, we got Larry, and they’re at each other, and then it blows up. And it’s like, oh my god. And I would love for us to be able to get to the point where I was like, okay. Let’s keep practicing. So did you look into that, how we can, like, get ahead of it so that we suddenly don’t have, like, the shouting match or just people, you know, getting angry each other and just, like, okay. Let’s let’s let’s deal with this before it becomes a thing per se.

Karin Hurt [0:07:37]:
Yes. Thank you so much for asking that question because I totally agree with you. And there really are, we’ve noticed, four dimensions that if of of productive conflict. So if people can teams can master these dimensions and master the habits to that’s around those dimensions, that’s when you get ahead of it. So connection. Are we connected as human beings? And this is, are we connected before we need to have that difficult conversation or before we are actually in a conflict? So imagine you and I, Scott, are working on a project together. Right? And if we can talk about what success is gonna look like, if we can build a human connection, then we’re gonna give each other the benefit of the doubt before. But if we don’t do that and one of us does something that the other interprets as bad or, you know, passive aggressive, then we’re immediately in a conflict because we don’t have that level of trust.

Karin Hurt [0:08:31]:
So connection, clarity. Do we have a shared understanding of success? And one of, the ways we talk about that is to ask this question. What would a successful outcome do for you before you even begin your work together? And this is different than what would success look like. So imagine you and I have just been given our boss comes to us, gives us this project, and we know what success looks like for the project. We get it. We know what we’re supposed to do. But if we take five minutes and say, what would a successful outcome do for you? And maybe you say to me, hey, Karen. You know what? I have been working seventy hour weeks the last couple of weeks.

Karin Hurt [0:09:06]:
What success looks like is we get this done by 05:00 on Friday. I am walking out the door, and I can spend time with my family, and I’m not gonna get pinged with calls all weekend long. And, like, okay. That’s good. And I say, you know what? I don’t think my boss really gets how smart I am on this topic. So when we do the presentation and the hard q and a comes in, can I take some of those questions that show my expertise? Now, if we haven’t had that conversation before, we could be, you know, I could be like, I can work on Saturday, no big deal. And you might be like, I really know the answer to all these questions. I’m gonna do that.

Karin Hurt [0:09:42]:
And we will inadvertently be creating conflict. So connection, clarity, curiosity, which is are we genuinely interested in one another’s perspectives and what’s possible, and then commitment. Do we have a shared agreement? If you’ve ever been in one of those Groundhog Day conflicts that, you know, just happen again and again, I thought we solved it and then it happens again. It’s usually a commitment problem. We haven’t checked in and said, hey, let’s let’s we’re working on this. No. Let’s talk about how it’s going. Let’s schedule some time right now to think about that so that neither one of us have to raise the conversation again.

Karin Hurt [0:10:15]:
We’ve already scheduled time for it.

Scott McCarthy [0:10:17]:
That’s awesome. Now we have a lot of different types of leaders who listen to the show here as I explained to you. You know, we got you know, some people aren’t even leaders yet at all, actually. They’re leading themselves to the very senior executive and everything in between that you can imagine. So what I’d like to get out of you right now is, like, some indicators. Maybe it’s not the leader who’s having the conflict, but maybe it’s some of their team members that are are conflicting. You know, those micro conflictions that are going on. So what would be some indicators out there for the leader to go? Joe and Larry over here might be rubbing each other the wrong way, and I need to figure out how I’m going to deal with this and get ahead of it so that we can, you know, tap into what you just kinda talked about.

Karin Hurt [0:11:03]:
Yeah. So one is, are they coming to you and complaining about the other person? And that is like I mean, I so I worked at Verizon for

Scott McCarthy [0:11:10]:
twenty years. That’s like that’s like the stereotypical that’s number one red flag right there. Right.

Karin Hurt [0:11:15]:
You know, like, you know, and and and then sometimes it’s passive aggressive comments. Right? Or the rolling of eyes or the body language that when you’re in a you’re in a Zoom meeting and every time the one guy talks, the other guy’s like, oh gosh. Here he goes again. Like, that kind of thing is an indicator of conflict. Of course, if anything gets louder, either metaphorically louder or actually louder, That’s, you know, are how are people speaking to each other? Are they speaking to each other with respect? Or are they, you know, what what is what is the communication looking like? So and then I would say, is is there a problem in productivity? Like, are they when they are working together, are things slowing down? Are you seeing the conflict showing up in their lack of collaboration? And so those are a couple of the indicators I would think about.

Scott McCarthy [0:12:01]:
No. That that those are great. I really appreciate that. No doubt. Listener as well appreciates them. We talked a bit about, okay, let’s being proactive and, you know, you know, how we can get people to avoid comp not necessarily avoid it, but how we can minimize it before it gets too large, obviously. Because correct me if I’m wrong, but we can’t eliminate conflict from the workplace.

Karin Hurt [0:12:21]:
No. And you don’t want to. I mean, the the truth is that we think of conflict as bad, but really conflict is I see it this way and you see it that way. You want people on your team seeing it different ways. Right? So I think about this. So my husband is my co author and business partner. So we run a a global leadership development company. We write books together.

Karin Hurt [0:12:43]:
We are constantly working. I mean, all day long working together. You can imagine we have a lot of conflict Because my brain works differently, I’m a really big picture person, I run very, very fast. He is more of a methodical operations guy. In that, you’re gonna have inherent conflict. Why can’t we move faster? We just had this morning over breakfast. Why can’t this be move faster? Because we need to do it right. Right? So you want that on your teams.

Karin Hurt [0:13:10]:
And so, I think that’s part of it is normalizing conflict and and saying, but how but the question is, how do you talk about it and leave the relationship better than before you had the conversation and not destroying the relationship by the way you’re having the conversation.

Scott McCarthy [0:13:27]:
If I don’t know what a cliffhanger what is, then there we go. So how how do we achieve that? Because I I fully agree with you. Like, conflict can definitely be a positive thing. Right? We and we want those different perspectives just like you’ve talked about. But at the same time, we obviously don’t want people, like, yelling at each other and getting mad at each other and, you know, breaking down as in not not communicating anymore. So how do we foster that environment within the team to enable a positive conflict in order to get that best result that we want?

Karin Hurt [0:14:01]:
Yeah. So one of the ways is to talk about those four dimensions and how you’re gonna handle them before you are actually in a conflict. And we’ve made that super easy to do. We have a a free resource, and I’ll give you the link to it. But that, you know, if you wanna read our book powerful phrases for dealing with workplace conflict together, and then you could talk about what are the conflict cocktails that we’re dealing with. What, you know, how will we handle when we are working in different hours? It has different scenarios that you can handle. But with that said, what we recommend in the book is we have over 300 powerful phrases that deal with different situations. But 12 of them are the G.

Karin Hurt [0:14:38]:
O. A. T. S, the greatest of all time, powerful phrases for dealing with workplace conflict. And I would teach those GOATs to your team and say, when you’re in conflict, use these some of this to guide your communication. So let me give you an example. So a connection GOAT. Tell me more.

Karin Hurt [0:14:54]:
So somebody comes into your office and is fired up. They are mad. And they and you say the first thing you say is, oh, wow. Sounds like you’re really worried about this. You’re really upset about this. Can you tell me more? You are immediately going to deescalate the conversation because the reason people get louder is because they want you to hear them. Right? But if you already show that you are actually genuinely listening, then you’re more likely to have a productive conversation. The clarity, I I shared that what would a successful outcome do for you.

Karin Hurt [0:15:23]:
That’s a really good one. Curiosity. This is one of our favorites. I am curious how this looks from your perspective. And then really listen to what they say. And then you could say, thank you. And this is what it looks like from my perspective. And then commitment.

Karin Hurt [0:15:39]:
And this is what we call scheduling the finish. You have the conversation, you agree to something, and you say, let’s go ahead and set a time to talk about this again. And then you you follow through. You both put it on the calendar. And if you’re both looking at your calendar and knowing you’re going to have to have that conversation again, you’re more likely to do what you said you’re gonna do.

Scott McCarthy [0:15:59]:
Those are awesome, especially the first one out of the gate. Like, home run, I love the tell me more, because you’re right. It just deescalates everything. It’s just a quick, like, little, Coles notes or not Coles notes, but, like, side hack is I use that one even at home.

Karin Hurt [0:16:13]:
Yes.

Scott McCarthy [0:16:15]:
Right? Like, with my kid, like, hey. You know? And he was like, he’s fired up for something something about his day or, you know, I am having to parent, and he’ll be, you know, obviously getting, agitated and stuff like, hey. Tell me more. Tell me more what’s going on. And then it’s just like Yeah. Oh, no. I did this and right. Okay.

Scott McCarthy [0:16:39]:
You know? How does that look like from your perspective? Right?

Karin Hurt [0:16:43]:
Exactly.

Scott McCarthy [0:16:44]:
Because but the beautiful thing is that’s beautiful thing about principles. Right? Like, if you think about it, you know, the work team is a team, the family is a team, and those principles work together. They work just as well at work as they do at home.

Karin Hurt [0:17:00]:
It is so funny that you say that, Scott, because everybody who’s read the book says that to us. You know what? I’m using this with my kids. I’m using this with my my girlfriend. Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [0:17:10]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Those are awesome. I I really like the goats that you that you discussed there and, you know, those key phrases. I think, you know, just the ability to diffuse a situation out of the gate before it ramps up to the point of, you know, potentially no return is super important. Now we talked a bit about how, you know, conflict is a positive thing. I’d love to dive a bit more into then how we might be able to take more positivity out of the conflict and use that to propel the team forward. So I was wondering if you could dive into that aspect of it.

Karin Hurt [0:17:46]:
Yeah. I think that’s a really excellent question. So so part of it is celebrating when you get through a conflict and you’ve handled it well. Right? And, so, you know, that was hard, but here’s what I appreciated about our approach. Right? We weren’t yelling at each other. We didn’t escalate to our boss. We worked it out. And so you take a moment to celebrate because you get more of what you encourage and celebrate and less of what you ignore.

Karin Hurt [0:18:11]:
The you know, the and then I would say another is to really that curiosity is like, if you can always show up in every conversation curious. You know, because it is impossible to be curious, really genuinely curious and furious at the same time. Right? So I and that is what I find so often missing. The other day so one of the things that I do with our clients is I have have, this one client where they I bring they ask me to come in and do, like, office hours once a quarter. So any manager can come in and just sit down, talk with me, whatever’s going on. I can help them sort through. And it it’s it’s really very interesting and they find it helpful. Well, this one guy comes busting into my office, and he is, like, spitting teeth.

Karin Hurt [0:18:58]:
And he said, Karen, I am so angry. Like, this person is so terrible. She she’s throwing me under the bus. She’s sabotaging everything I do. And I I looked at him and I said, you do know that she wants exactly the same thing as you. He goes, I know when. I’m like, she was just in here. She wants the exact same thing as you.

Karin Hurt [0:19:20]:
So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go and I gave him some powerful phrases to use, and I said, show up really curious and just ask, you know, what does success look like for her? How can you, how does it look from her perspective? What can you just do to support her right now? He came back two hours later. The whole conversation didn’t take two hours, but that’s when he came back and he said, oh my gosh. That say, do you understand that I have spent three months, like, my wife is so sick of hearing about this. I have lost sleep. He’s like, I just should’ve had this conversation three months ago. I would’ve saved so much time. So that experience, knowing that that is true, I am hoping, right, that he will learn from that and not have the conversation only with himself for three months before he has the courage to have the conversation with somebody else.

Scott McCarthy [0:20:11]:
I love that story. That’s that’s that’s amazing. Isn’t that such the case though? I bet that is, like, not the only time you’ve had that type of scenario in front of you where, you know, there’s a conflict between two people and they just cannot understand and they can’t see the fact they both want the same thing. It’s just that their their communication styles are not connecting in them. They’re disconnecting them instead.

Karin Hurt [0:20:38]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [0:20:39]:
Which then in turn.

Karin Hurt [0:20:40]:
Yeah. One way that we teach in our leadership development programs is to call it check for understanding. And this is instead of, like, so you have a conversation with somebody instead of saying, okay. So do you get it? Do you understand? Do you know what you’re gonna go do next? Now you can ask all those things and they could say yes, but you don’t actually have any information about it if they really understood and are on the same they’d be like so instead of you say, hey. I just wanna make sure my communication is clear. What do you think the the first thing we’re gonna do when we leave this meeting is? And hear it back from them. And we say, one good conversation about expectations can prevent 14, why didn’t you conversations? And getting that clarity upfront can be so critical. I mean, another thing that seems right now are in so much conflict over remote team issues.

Karin Hurt [0:21:23]:
Like, should we have our cameras on or off? What it should the dress code look like? When we’re on Zoom with clients, like, all those conversations. All of those are expectations. Like, if you’re just clear about what the expectations are, it’s not a negotiable conversation. Right? We are clear this is how people like us do. As Seth Godin would say, people like us do things like that. That’s culture. That’s what you know, if you can clarify that. We’re working or actually, right before this call, I was, designing we were designing something we’re calling the Kooth code because we are having so many executives come to us and say, can you teach these younger workers just to do these things? And I’m like, well, no.

Karin Hurt [0:22:01]:
I can’t tell them how to dress or you must do an email within twenty four hours. Right? Respond to that. But if you guys if the team comes together and said, these are the things that we consider kouth, good manners to one another and align on on three or four things that you’re always gonna consistently do and then hold one another accountable, that is gonna prevent a lot heck of a lot of conflict.

Scott McCarthy [0:22:23]:
I I love the tie into the remote thing. I didn’t even think about the remote thing, but it’s come so prevalent in this day and age. You know? It’s it’s not a new thing anymore. Right? Remote is here. And most is here.

Karin Hurt [0:22:35]:
And most people have not taken the time to actually set their expectations. They just made it up during the pandemic, which, you know, everything went then. Right? You could have your kid crying in the background and all kinds of things. And some of those are not acceptable in companies anymore, but you had no choice when we were all in lockdown. So to say, okay. I know we did this during the pandemic, but now this is what success looks like in a in a meeting. These are the expectations when you show.

Scott McCarthy [0:23:02]:
Oh, sorry. I was muted there. We’ll keep that in because that was just so good. And that’s actually, I wanna, you know, dive a little bit deeper here. And for the leaders out there who are leading remote teams, what advice do you have to, you know, one, get ahead of potential conflict? What are maybe some some things which they have not necessarily thought about, which they need to think about, you know, expectations as you’ve mentioned? And what advice do you have for them?

Karin Hurt [0:23:31]:
Well, the first thing I would say is the the most important conflict conversation that you have is the one that you have with yourself. Because so many people talk themselves out of having the conversation. So you if you are in a conflict or you are something is really bothering you, I would ask yourself these questions. Why does what you have to say matter? What’s at stake if you stay silent? And imagine you’ve had the conversation, and maybe you got what you wanted, maybe you didn’t get it all, but you have been heard. What is the emotion that comes to mind? And I’ve been asking that how we have been heard conversation all over the world with my keynote audiences, and everybody shouts it out. The number one thing that people say is I felt I would feel relieved. And that’s what we want. That’s what I want for your listeners, to have the courage to have the conversation and to feel that level of relief.

Karin Hurt [0:24:28]:
And then the next thing that I would say is if you are having a conflict, think about those four dimensions and what are, you know, what’s going on? Is it a connection? Is that you don’t know each other that well? Is that there’s a lack of clarity and shared expectations? Is there, is what’s really needed here curiosity? Or is it that you don’t have shared agreements and you’re keeping two thing things too loose and you need to nail down some of the who’s gonna do what by when kind of stuff?

Scott McCarthy [0:24:54]:
No. I love it for sure. And I think it’s it’s something that leaders, we kinda all just assume, like, oh, we’ll just operate how we’ve operated before just at home or where have you. But I think we actually do need to take a little bit time and deliberately think about these things and start with ourselves and go, okay. You know? What’s acceptable to me? What’s acceptable? You know? How do I want this place to operate? How can I operate here in the digital department? I think that’s super important for sure. Is there any types of conflicts keeping to the remote thing. Is there any types that you find are more prevalent in remote versus in face to face environments or vice versa?

Karin Hurt [0:25:32]:
Yeah. The how will we communicate conflict? I get am getting so many so we have a whole chapter in the book about global matrix teams. And so part so I had one client and he said, Karen, here’s the thing. There is only one hour of the day that I can bring my entire global team together remotely. And even then, it requires the people in India to show to be on at 9PM, which is not a reasonable expectation, but I do it occasionally. And so if that’s your story, then that’s the you’re not having a lot of actual real time conversations with people. So two things are happening. One, they’re not getting to know each other as human beings unless they are being super deliberate about doing that.

Karin Hurt [0:26:13]:
And, you know, I’ve I’ve met teams that have really they’re just like, oh, we’re just people on a Zoom screen. Right? They’re not seeing the humanity and they’re not taking the time to get to know one another. And so I think you have to be very deliberate about that in remote teams to to have people know know each other, do some exercises. It doesn’t need to take very long. I was working with a global team the other day and the the guy who’s facilitating so there’s a project manager facilitating the conversation. And he started with and he says, what is one thing that would shock everybody else on this team if they knew that? Like, they’d be like, what? Right? And he just went around and it took ten minutes. But you could just see the whole room change. The Zoom Zoom room change.

Karin Hurt [0:26:57]:
Mine was, well, I was struck by lightning. That is like a pretty shocking story for people. Right? Like, wait. What? Right? But you don’t have to and it’s that level of humanity, I think, that’s so important. So that’s one. And then the other is really just creating clarity about communication. One let me give you some examples, like, from our tooth code. Like, emails will, be answered within twenty four hours, a text within two.

Karin Hurt [0:27:22]:
Now if you could just, like, say that and I’m not saying you have to do it that way, but have something about what your expectations is. Because if I say I need this soon, and you think soon is by the end of the week, and I think soon is in twenty four hours, we are in conflict. But so if you can get some of those expectations upfront. Another example, an email should have a subject line that actually talks about what the email is about and what is needed as opposed to, hey. Right? And then I gotta open it to see whether it’s something I really care about. So some of those, I think, are really important in remote teams.

Scott McCarthy [0:27:58]:
I think, just to double down on that, I I think my favorite is ASAP. I need this ASAP. Yeah. Hey, cool. As soon as possible. Alright. Sounds good. It’s like, you know, that could be the end of the day for me or end of the week.

Karin Hurt [0:28:15]:
Right.

Scott McCarthy [0:28:16]:
How do we define as soon as possible? Because as soon as possible based on my priorities at the moment and how this fits into them, or as soon as possible as in I need to drop everything right now and do this one thing. Right?

Karin Hurt [0:28:30]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [0:28:31]:
And so I actually knew of one person actually was coaching someone, and they had different levels of ASAP. Okay. ASAP in lower text. I’m not joking. ASAP in caps and then ASAP bold it and underline in caps. And it was like, no. I was just like,

Karin Hurt [0:28:50]:
tell me just say I need this by twelve hours.

Scott McCarthy [0:28:53]:
Hours. Or I need this by the end of the day. I how about this? I need you to drop everything and make this your number one priority

Karin Hurt [0:29:02]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [0:29:02]:
Please.

Karin Hurt [0:29:03]:
I think the more you clear you can be about that. So, well, we just met with a member of our team, and we prioritize as we do every Monday. Just, you know, prioritize what we call our most important things with her and just make sure that she’s exactly focused on she’s remote, exactly focused on the most important things. And then at the end of the meeting, she said, oh, and by the way, my dad is super sick and I don’t know what’s gonna happen. He’s in the hospital. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. So, of course, then we had the empathetic conversation about all that. But then we said, okay.

Karin Hurt [0:29:35]:
Let’s really talk about the most important thing. Like, what should we talk what is so high on the of the of the things we talked about over the priorities, what should she work on today? Because if she has to go dark and go deal with her dad, at least we know that thing is done. Right? And I think sometimes teams don’t take that kinda don’t create that level of clarity. But we you know, she could have easily gone off and worked on some of the other stuff and then and then had to go, which we would have been supportive of. And I just need you know, I know I have one keynote thing that I absolutely need her to create something for. I need that done, and so I’d rather do that have her do that first.

Scott McCarthy [0:30:12]:
Rack and stack prioritize those things and then, you know, knock knock them out one at a time.

Karin Hurt [0:30:17]:
And Yep.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:59]:
If you need to hit pause, you then at least you know, Yeah. Where you’re at. Right? And I I say very similar things. So so my background is actually Canadian army. I’m

Karin Hurt [0:30:29]:
a senior Canadian

Scott McCarthy [0:30:30]:
army officer by day. I do this at night, hence why it’s evening here, as we record because I just finished a full day of work. Wow. And, you know, it’s all about prioritization, racking and stacking. Why? Because there’s only so much resources around, only so much time. There’s never enough of anything, and and that’s just how we have to do business. And that’s just, you know, back to a kinda think theme of what you’ve been talking about in the past, oh, twenty eight minutes now since we hit record is, you know, just clarity and and and, you know, just seeking clarity out there. Now what I’d love to tap into before we, wrap this up is different types of, you know, flick personalities.

Scott McCarthy [0:31:15]:
And one of them being the conflict of voyeur. Right. And some people, you know, some people out there and you list her. If you’re a conflict of order, you know, you’re a conflict of order. Right. Right. So, you know, what advice do you have to them to say, okay, they’re sitting there like, I know I got to do better. I know I need to deal with things, and I use the analogy of being the ostrich with their head in the sand.

Scott McCarthy [0:31:44]:
Yeah. So what what’s your advice to them on how they can actually deal with these situations?

Karin Hurt [0:31:50]:
Yeah. So the first the first thing that I would say is if nothing changes, nothing changes. Right? So if you keep avoiding the conflict and having the conversation with yourself, Conflict, whatever’s ticking you off is not gonna get better. It is gonna get worse. Conflicts do not get better with age. Right? And so, you know, and you are wasting a lot of time and energy being frustrated. And I don’t want that for you. So that then I would say ask yourself those questions.

Karin Hurt [0:32:21]:
You know, why is what I have to say important? You know, what’s at stake if I say stay silent? And break that one down. What is at stake for your career? What is at stake for your relationships? What is at stake for your mental health? And, you know, and then part of it, I think, also is, you know, if you are in a con there’s a chapter in the book which we call when to quit a conflict. And I just had somebody reach out to me, through LinkedIn, and he he just gave me all of these things that were happening in his workplace culture and how he was being treated. It was such a long list. I’m like, you don’t need to have a conversation. You need a new job. You know? I mean, like, he had he’s tried. He tried to have the conversation.

Karin Hurt [0:33:02]:
So he he he tried. He really looked at his own behavior. Like, he did all the things that you should do. And and he’s still dealing with toxic bosses. And, you know, at that point, I think, you know, you begin to ask yourself, what what is this doing to the rest of my life feeling this frustrated?

Scott McCarthy [0:33:19]:
That’s that’s super interesting, you know. And I think, yeah, at a certain point, we do need just to cut our losses and and move on. So did you go into, like, any more detail there and, like, okay, help people, like, make that decision on whether or not a conflict is worth trying to pursue

Karin Hurt [0:33:39]:
through? Quest. Yeah. The first question I would say is, have you tried? Because a lot of times people will say, well, this conflict is impossible. But have you tried? Have you used the powerful phrases? Have you connected with the dimensions? What have you done? Or have you just had the conversation with yourself and your significant other? Because that is not dealing with the conflict. Right? So that’s the first thing. And then what happened when you tried it? And was somebody willing to engage with you? Or were they absolutely impossible? Because, you know, I mean, a very, very tiny percentage of the population is a psychopath, but it’s highly unlikely that you are dealing with one of those. Right? Okay. So what happened? You did you have what did you how did you show up? Or did you feel good about how this showed up? And then I would say, what is the conflict you’re doing to other areas of your life? Are you coming home and kicking the cat? Then maybe that’s bad.

Karin Hurt [0:34:33]:
Right? Like, you are if you cannot control your emotions, if you are showing up and you don’t like who you are in these relationships, like, you’re saying things that you regret, you’re screen you’re using tones of voices that you would not you all of a sudden, you’re using f bombs as you never did before, Like, how are, do you like who you are? And if the answer is, I have tried, I, I really, I think I really showed up really well in this conversation, you know. Yeah, I don’t like who I’m who I’m becoming in this, and, that’s not good. Then maybe it is time to quit the conflict. No. I

Scott McCarthy [0:35:10]:
I I like it. I like all of that a lot. You know, especially, like, you know, just try. First, like, just try and see kinda similar to what we’ve talked about this whole time. And eventually, you know, I guess, at the end of the day, if you can put hand on hearts that you want I tried. I literally gave on a shot, and this is just not worth the stress, the strain, lack of sleep, mental health, what have you. Maybe that conflict at work, you’re taking that baggage home with you because guess what? You’re probably not that percentage of people who are a psychopath. So therefore, you’re probably oh, you’re dragging this baggage from work with you at home, which is then in turn causing conflict at home because you have, like, super low tolerance, like a kid spills a cheerio and you start losing your mind and your and then your spouse is is upset with you because the kid obviously didn’t deserve to get yelled at.

Scott McCarthy [0:36:03]:
It’s like, maybe it’s time to look elsewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Absolutely awesome. Karen, this has been fantastic. Before we wrap up, just a couple of last couple of things here. First off, is there anything that we didn’t touch today? We’ve covered a lot of ground.

Karin Hurt [0:36:19]:
Yeah. I know. I you are a great interviewer. I loved all of your questions. You had it from every angle, which is great.

Scott McCarthy [0:36:27]:
Awesome. I I I love it. I have a goal all the time. With my guest is like, god. I haven’t been actually asked that that way before this. Right? So I think I checked that one off today. Okay. File before wrap up, final thing is over to you.

Scott McCarthy [0:36:42]:
How can people find you, follow you, be part of your journey? Shameless plug. Have at it. It’s all about caring.

Karin Hurt [0:36:48]:
I love it. Thank you so much. So the book is called Powerful Phrases for Dealing with Workplace Conflict. What to say next to de stress the workday, build collaboration, and calm difficult customers. It is available anywhere you’d like to get books. If you’re an audible listener, which I imagine many of your podcast listeners like to listen to stuff, you can listen to it and, it’s re read by us. So people often say, oh, I feel like you’re riding along in my car with me. So, yes, you can do that.

Karin Hurt [0:37:17]:
And, our website is let’sgrowleaders.com. And there, if you go to the books tab, you could download a 36 page resource free that goes with with the book. Then if you’re looking for me, I’m Karen Hurt on LinkedIn with an I, k a r I n.

Scott McCarthy [0:37:33]:
Awesome. And for you to listen as always, it’s easy. Just go to the show notes of this episode, which is leaddopeboss.com forward slash the episode number in digits, and that will bring you right to the show notes. And, all the links are right there for you. Again, Karen, thank you for taking time. And your busy schedule for Lister, you don’t realize it, but she’s literally in basically standing there or sitting there with nothing around her because she’s just moving into a new house with the moving truck up showing up tomorrow morning. So good luck. I hope nothing got broken on the route.

Scott McCarthy [0:38:05]:
It’s always a it’s always a crapshoot for army guys who need to

Karin Hurt [0:38:07]:
They already they already broke my sofa.

Scott McCarthy [0:38:10]:
Oh my.

Karin Hurt [0:38:10]:
Scott, thank you so much. I it’s absolutely my pleasure. I’m so grateful for you having me on the show.

Scott McCarthy [0:38:16]:
Thanks. Thanks again.