Pete Mockaitis
Bob, welcome.

Bob Bordone
Pete, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m so excited to talk about conflict resilience, how to negotiate without giving up or giving in. Could you kick us off with a riveting tale, no pressure, but extremely exciting, high-stakes negotiation that you were in the midst of? And tell us what went down.

Bob Bordone
Oh, man. You know, there are many, and I think one thing I want to say also is that anyone who’s in a negotiation, for them, it is high stakes and riveting. But the one that immediately comes to my mind is actually one that I mediated, and it was a family of means that had lots and lots of property to be divided between them, and went on for many months.

I mean, there are so many fascinating aspects to this, but, for me, what was most interesting was folks were, and I think this actually comes up a lot in conflict, folks who are fighting over things, but the truth of the matter is that most of the actual fight was about feelings and emotions and stories that people told about each other.

And so, a lot of the work, this may or may not surprise your listeners, was getting folks to actually put aside the fight around the things, to talk about what was actually going on. And once we were able to do that, it didn’t make the fight about every single property easy, but it made it much easier and helped us to bring it to an end that not only resolved it, but also actually helped this family stay together.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, Bob, you’re giving me a flashback. Wow, this was a weird day. But, one time, I remember I did a Myers-Briggs workshop for a group, and then someone said, “That was awesome. You should come do that for me and my co-authors because we’re kind of working on a book together, and this would be really great for our team dynamic.” But as I got into it, what became clear was, “Oh, your conflicts are way deeper than just these personality difference stuff.”

Bob Bordone
Oh, wow.

Pete Mockaitis
“And, like, I don’t even know if I’m the man for this.” But, yeah, there was some family and some history and some emotions and about being appreciated or taken advantage of, or, like, historically, and it’s, like, wow. And just talking about who’s going to write what chapters and how their personality will help or hinder certain sections of who’s writing what isn’t going to cut it.

So, tell me, how do you make that that pivot, that transition, because in their mind, it’s like, “Okay, this the personality guy that’s going to help us write our book.” In their mind, “Okay, you’re the mediator guy helping us divide the property.” And then I say, “Well, no, actually, let’s talk about how you feel your sibling treated you as a teenager.” It’s like, “What?”

Bob Bordone
Yeah, Pete, this is a great question. It sounds like you’re not a therapist. I’m also not a therapist, and also this isn’t therapy. At the same time, I will say that one of the things that I have come to really appreciate, you know, my background is in law. People do not come to lawyers for therapy, but it is often the case that what’s most convenient to talk about is who’s right and who’s wrong, and who gets the thing and what the legal rules are.

But so much of, I think, the work of really being good at conflict to ourself and also being good as a mediator, a facilitator of conflict is getting people to do some of their own work first. And we imagine, my co-author and I in writing our book, that people will come to it, and in their mind, they’ll be thinking about, like, “How do I deal with this unhinged person at work?” or, “Like, my mother-in-law or someone on I’m in conflict with a, whatever, at the local church?”

But the first step, I think, is always doing like an internal audit, because I think, often, part of what makes conflict hard, like, across a proverbial table is that we also often have lots of internal conflicts and ambivalence in ourself. And when we’re triggered in a particular conflict, it’s kind of bringing up what’s happening in that moment. And then a big narrative and our history and our family background, and “Do we need to unpack all of that, like, to figure out who gets what?” No, I don’t think so.

It’s also the case that, I think, the more self-aware we are of those dynamics, the quicker we can move from that, what we call kind of period of limbic irritability, where we’re kind of being emotional or maybe irrational or running.

Pete Mockaitis
Limbic irritability, I can go into that.

Bob Bordone
Yeah, I love that. I would like to take credit for limbic irritability, but that is very much my co-author, who brings a brain science piece to this book. And it’s really just this moment, or actually more than a moment, when someone says or does something in a conflict and the frontal lobe, like the rational part of our brain that makes good decisions, is overridden, it’s irritable, if you will, by chemicals that are coming from the amygdala.

And we know that it’s like the adrenaline and the cortisol, and that’s kind of making it harder to make really good decisions at the negotiation table. And so, the quicker we can name what’s going on to ourselves, and there’s actually research about this, we’re looking at fMRIs, the quicker people are able to kind of name it to tame it, naming those emotions and feelings and those stories, the quicker the limbic irritability actually goes down, and allows us to be more constructive.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now this is sparking some remembrance of a nonviolent communication. Is that Marshall Rosenberg?

Bob Bordone
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
In which he nails it, like, to be able to say, “I’m feeling angry because my need for respect doesn’t seem to be being met in this situation.” It does worlds for like, “Oh, okay. It’s no mystery, that’s what’s going on here.”

Bob Bordone
“That’s what’s going on.”

Pete Mockaitis
“I felt like when he said that, that was disrespectful to me, and so I got angry about it. But, I guess, I don’t need to let that impact my thousands of dollars of whatever negotiation here. I can just kind of let go of that,” or maybe say, “No, actually, that’s pretty important, given brand, or reputation, or whatever. That’s got to get addressed here. Let’s do it.”

Bob Bordone
What you just did there, Pete, is, I mean, so critical because it’s, first of all, it’s being able to name yourself, the feeling and the need of what’s not being met, and that is important. I mean, I don’t know any relationship, whether it’s a boss, supervisor, colleagues, parent, friend, you name it, that works well in the long term where one person isn’t feeling respected.

So, the real difficult conversation is “What does respect look like? And how can we change the dynamic?” So, to be able to name that and say, “That is important. What might be less important is whether I’m getting paid $3,000,” or you’ve moved your fence six feet to the right, or whatever it may be. That might be one way of conveying respect, and there might be 22 other ways. But until we actually get at what’s really the real rub, which is, “I feel disrespected here,” it’s going to be actually hard to even have a conversation about the right thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s dead on. And I’ve heard that there is some research, and, Bob, maybe you have it top of mind. When it comes to medical malpractice type situations, one of the biggest drivers is the extent to which the physician is being caring and honest and helpful as they go and say, “Hey, so this is what happened, and we’re so sorry. Humans make mistakes, and we made a mistake, and here’s what we’re going to do to fix it,” as opposed to silence, lawyer up, be difficult. It’s, like, that actually is a worse approach for mitigating liabilities and losses.

Bob Bordone
Amen, yeah. And this research you’re talking about is really kind of fascinating because what it shows is that people are more likely to want to sue in a situation where they don’t feel that the doctor has been willing to kind of has actually met those interests in listening and sharing their contribution, where they’re just in a defensive stance, than if actually there is that listening and that kind of meeting the interests of feeling hurt, and even apology.

And I think where it’s really interesting from a conflict perspective, and someone who is also trained in law, is there’s this interesting sweet spot of, if people can just actually be honest, like doctors make mistakes, that causes damages for sure that need to be compensated. But the moment of acknowledging that goes a long way to me not wanting to destroy you.

I might need another surgery, and, yeah, I kind of expect the hospital to pay for that. But, like, I don’t need to destroy you. But that defensiveness, and what’s weird is law would come in and say, “Don’t say anything because if you say anything, that will be used against you and then we’re doomed.” And so, what ends up happening is we miss an opportunity there. We miss an opportunity that I think is unfortunate from a conflict perspective.

And, I mean, here we’re obviously talking about medical error, but on a day-to-day basis in, like, relationships, I think similar dynamics come up where the act of apology or the act of sharing some vulnerability doesn’t happen because we’re afraid that the other person is going to take advantage of us. Both sides fearing that do the kind of least good thing, the thing that’s like least in their actual character, and then they tell a story about how terrible the other person is.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, so coming back to your situation with the wealthy family, you noticed, “Hey, there’s some emotional history stuff going on here,” what happened next?

Bob Bordone
And so, just a piece of that, it is not to relitigate that, for sure, and one of the, I think, core things we talk about in our book, it’s not even to get people on the same page. But the process, I think, of just effectively listening to each other’s stories and experiences, having it validated as, “This is how you experienced,” just can go a long way in, I think, changing the narrative and, particularly, like changing the idea of what might be possible.

Like, another domain of work where I’ve done this is working across lines of difference with, like, Israeli and Palestinian young people. It’s not typically the case that ongoing dialogue across a line of difference changes people’s view on the substantive issue, but it powerfully changes their view on the way they tell the story about the other person, and that’s really valuable for what they might be able to do going forward.

And even if they can’t do all that much, being able to say that, “This is a three-dimensional complicated, interesting person that I can identify with,” is better than “They’re the enemy/subhuman/fill-in-the-blank,” right?

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay, so with your book, it’s called Conflict Resilience, what does that mean?

Bob Bordone
Yeah, so what we want to make really clear that it’s not a fancy word or a catchy word for conflict resolution, but it’s actually quite different. Conflict resilience is really the kind of capacity to sit with the discomfort of disagreement, meaning that it’s both this ability to listen very well and effectively and generously, and also assert your own viewpoint authentically, non-avoidantly, but in a way that increases the chances that the other side could hear you. And it’s independent of whether or not we might be able to actually problem-solve, agree, or find common ground.

So, in a sense, it’s a little bit like emotional intelligence. It’s a set of skills, but it’s like a capacity or a quality that, I think, in this case, is prerequisite to being able to do conflict resolution or negotiate or mediate. Because if you can’t stand the heat of the fire of the conflict, then you really can’t resolve it. You can run away from it but you can’t resolve it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, you’re sparking some memories for me. I remember I was dealing with an issue and I was chatting with a lawyer, and he said, very matter of fact, “Well, either they give that money back or you sue them.” I was like, “Oh, just like that, huh?”

And then someone else was talking about the same issues, like, “You know, unfortunately, it sounds like, I know it’s a huge pain, but if they don’t play ball, I think you’re going to have to actually, you know, contact a lawyer and do that whole thing, file a complaint with the county, all that stuff.” And it was so noticing how that juxtaposition there, two people talking about the same thing, one just like, “Hey, whatever, sue. No big deal.” And the other one is like, “Oh, yeah, it’s got to be a real big thing.”

And I think that that is reflective of personality or emotional capacity or something, because to one person, it’s no big deal, and to the other, it’s, “Oh, man,” a huge ordeal is about to unfold.

Bob Bordone
Absolutely. One of the things we talk about in our book is kind of these five Fs: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or fester. I know I said that very fast. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or fester. But they’re kind of like our, as you were saying, Pete, like default tendencies that we have in that moment when we’re feeling conflict. And the brain, the way it’s kind of set up is, in the moment it feels this discomfort, it will go to the thing that relieves it most quickly.

And for some of us, it might be fighting. It feels like we’re doing something. And others, it might be fawning, which is like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. Oh, please forgive me,” or fester, I kind of just kind of sit there and stew quietly, or flee. And the truth of the matter is, though, I think that if we can become more aware of that default, and it does differ, as you say, for different people, it gives us this moment of opportunity to choose something that might be more purposeful, that might actually advance our goal. And it might be very different from you either sue them or avoid it.

I think the other thing, Pete, that you’re bringing up, and tell me if this seems right to you, is that just our individual experience of what might register as conflict just varies. So, just an example with my co-author, since you were asking about co-authors earlier, right? I’m somebody, I’m trained in law, I love to get into a policy discussion, right? We can, you know, whatever. You pick something, Pete, I’ll, like, get into it with you, and it’ll be super fun.

I’ll be like, “I had so much fun, it was great.” My co-author might be like, “Oh, my gosh, Bob’s really upset.” Like, sleepless nights. Like, “Is our friendship in danger?” And I’m thinking that was fun. And so, there’s just a way in which what each of us registers as conflict, so we call this conflict tolerance, in our book, varies.

But the problem is if we if we’re not able to even have the conversation about “How do we handle that difference?” I will come away thinking “This person just caves in all the time. They’re obviously not that smart. They clearly agree with me.” And the other person comes away thinking I’m aggressive, a bully, you know, fill in the blank.

And so, part of it is how do we identify these differences? How do we find ways to talk about how to handle even the difference in which we experience conflict?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, lay it on us. How do we do that?

Bob Bordone
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think, so part of it is doing some work around your own, understanding your own defaults. So, with around the idea of conflict tolerance, we actually break it into two pieces, what we call conflict recognition and conflict holding. So, recognition is, “What is the moment at which I would describe our interaction as conflict?” Holding is, “Once I feel like I’m in a conflict, what is my ability to stay with it versus going into one of the defaults?”

So, doing some self-assessment, I think, is really important. I think the second piece is if I’m in kind of an ongoing interaction with, whatever, a sibling, where I continue to see, like, a shutdown around an issue. Instead of bringing the issue back up, there’s an interesting conversation to say, “Can we talk about what is happening for each of us when this issue pops up? Like, how do you experience a conversation? How do I experience a conversation?”

In other words, we’re going meta on the dynamic. And that may sound, I mean, to some listeners like, “Oh, my gosh, who’s going to do this? And are you going to do this every day, all the time?” No. But if it’s the kind of conflict issue that keeps you up at night, that’s tearing at a relationship that matters to you, that kind of you’re spending a lot of time around a proverbial water cooler or on a Slack channel, going on and on about how horrible they are, yeah, well that’s the time to actually engage this.

And that’s what people tend to avoid, and that’s what we hope our book can really be helpful with because that’s the productive thing we need to do better.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And I’m thinking that, for any naysayers out there, I think that this is a tremendously valuable activity. Yes, not every day, and with not every issue. But because it really can be quite illuminating in terms of it registers for one person, it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re enraged. You think I’m a terrible husband.” Like, whatever.

It’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, not at all. I just kind of preferred that we do it this way. I just kind of like it a little better. That’s all I was asking.” It was like, “Oh, really? Because it felt like judgy or whatever,” fill the blank. And so, I think those conversations are valuable. I think maybe some level of avoidance, resistance that we feel towards that is just straight up fear. Like, we’re worried the other person’s going to be like, “Oh, you softy. Come on. You always make me the bad guy.” Like, whatever.

It’s like there are, it feels as though that conversation could go very wrong. So, Bob, tell us what’s our risk prognosis and how do we do it well?

Bob Bordone
Yeah, I love that you’re bringing this up, right? So, I feel like there’s some good news and bad news in what I’m going to say here. The good news is that my own experience is, often the fear of what might go wrong in one of these conversations is like way more destabilizing, exhausting, and tiring than the actual conversation itself. I mean, it just is.

So frequently, I’ll work with somebody or coach somebody and they’ve practiced and they’re worried, and then after they do it, they’re like, “You know, I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but, like, I’m so glad I did it. Or it helped advance the ball. We didn’t get to Z. We got to F. But since we were at A, getting to F was like progress.”

But the other thing, here’s the bad news, because, I mean, I think there is bad news, and I think this does have people hold back. There is a chance, it’s like whenever you change the script and do something different, there is a chance you’ll get the worst possible answer. There is a chance that if you put yourself out there in a somewhat more vulnerable way to engage something that matters to you, in a way that’s really inviting to the other side, that they might be like, “Meh, I don’t really care.” “Meh, sounds like it’s your problem.” And, therefore, we avoid it.

We avoid it in service of the relationship, but the reality is that, if they really were to do that, in most cases, I’d rather know that now than engage in some kind of farce with you or wait for the slow kill on the relationship. And so, does that makes sense? Or what do you think about that?

Pete Mockaitis
No, that’s resonating. And, I mean, you might give him a second chance.

Bob Bordone
You might give him a second chance, oh, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, if they give you blowoff, it’s like, “Hey, you know, last week, I brought up this and you said that, but this is actually pretty important to me so I’d love to schedule time to dig into it.” And you might get a second blowoff, like, “No, I don’t think this is worth a second of our company time to dig into.” Well, you’re right, I think you know, it’s like, “Okay, this relationship will never be great. We may be able to endure to put our heads down and get something done, but we’re never going to have a trusting, excellent, world-class collaboration, so long as they are this way.”

And, it is, it’s good to know that earlier, rather than to be blindsided six years down the road, it’s like, “Oh, I thought we were really simpatico, but, no, we’re not at all.”

Bob Bordone
Yeah. Amen to that, right? And one of the things that I really do think, I mean, you touched on something when you said, “Give it a second chance,” right? For sure. And also, later in our book, we kind of offer some of our, hopefully, useful advice on kind of “How do you make this decision to have the conversation and when to not have the conversation, when it’s time to, like, exit in some way?”

And our overriding argument is that we tend to exit too quickly. We tend to go to that convenient, “Let’s just tell a negative story about them, we’re just the best it could be.” But there are some times when either it’s time to exit, or like, I mean, if it’s your boss and you like, you otherwise like the job, you’re going to have to figure out how to manage that relationship.

But, one, I think, important diagnostic part of that, it can’t be whether the other person in the conversation is going to be skillful, because people, as they don’t have some training in it, maybe they’re just not that skillful for whatever set of reasons. But I think you can say, “Can the person at least come to this with a degree of goodwill? Like, do I have to 100% trust them?” I don’t think so. But do you have to feel like they can enter into this with at least some good faith? That’s probably enough, at least to try. At least to try a few times.

And one of the things I always say is, I can’t ultimately change them, but before I make that decision of “This is not going to be the world-class collaboration that I hope for,” I want to have done all that’s in my power. I want to be as effectively assertive and as curious as I could have been. I want to make the conversation as inviting and as kind, but also as authentic as I could have been.

Then, you make your decision based on, after that. I mean, if it’s your sister, you’re probably going to have to have some relationship with your sister. If it’s your boss, well, for the time being, you might, but you might decide it’s time to look for a new work, right? If it’s like your golfing buddy and it’s so bad, you might be like, “Yeah, I’m going to find a new golfing buddy.” You make that decision depending on also what’s in your power to influence.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Now you’ve got a three-step framework: name, explore, commit. Can you walk us through this?

Bob Bordone
Sure. So, the name piece is, broadly speaking, what we would say is the internal work, meaning understanding what are the different internal kind of conflicts or stories that are perhaps making it hard for you to engage the conflict or making you tend to be very argumentative or fighting. So, name is, at both a kind of emotional level, a substantive level, and relational level, what are your interests? What are the kinds of default patterns you have? It’s a lot of self-work.

And we kind of break that into, we call mirror work, which is doing some of the self-examination of your own kind of history and story in this particular conflict. And then the next piece is the chair work, what we really call bringing into some integration, even internal stories or conflicts, and kind of naming them, giving them some voice.

So, just to give you an example, I think, that’d probably be most helpful. If there’s something you want to raise with, let’s just say, your boss, it’s kind of like, “Well, what are the reasons why it’s important to raise this? And what are the reasons why I’d rather not?” And, actually, like giving, naming all of those reasons.

And the reason why that’s worth doing is it’s often, and then practicing giving them voice, is because, often, once we get into the room, we tend to only have one or two of the sides actually get voiced. And the next piece, which is what we call the table work, is actually representing all of the sides in the conversation. So, that’s name.

Explore, I would say, is probably the most at-the-table pieces. So, what does it look like to actually open up and understand, like, “What are the interests of the other side? What is the story they’re telling?” So, a lot of listening, “How am I assertive about my views or needs?” And then the third piece, is commit. And with commit, there’s kind of two pieces in there.

One, we’ve kind of referenced this already, Pete, which is “How do I decide whether, if it’s a negotiation, like, is what’s being offered just something I want to say yes to?” If it’s an ongoing, let’s just say, conversation about, I don’t know, a political difference or a strategic difference, like, I don’t know, “How are we going to agree on an advertising budget for the next quarter?” do I want to kind of continue to engage on this, or do I just think it’s not worth it anymore?

And then, lastly, just from a relational interest, kind of as we were saying, is this a relationship that I might say, “I want to continue in this relationship, but it can only go so deep”? Or, “Gosh, we did something here, we did some work here that was pretty transformational, and we’re actually closer.” Or, like, “Now that I’ve learned what I’ve learned, it’s time to kind of move on.” So, there’s that piece.

But the other piece we really talk about in the commit is, “How can we try to build organizational structures in place?” Like, if we’re a leader, “How do I commit to building an environment that actually encourages people to be conflict resilient, meaning that encourages people to kind of come forward with their different viewpoints, that isn’t a cancel culture, that isn’t a, ‘If you disagree with us or me, you’re a troublemaker’?” So, we kind of offer some advice on how to build a greenhouse that helps people be more conflict resilient.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, I’d love to hear, let’s talk about the internal stuff, mirror work, in terms of, if we’re generally averse to conflict, it makes our necks feel uncomfortable, and there’s a lot of fear, trepidation, whatever, like, across the board, numerous relationships, numerous issues, any pro tips for how we can, generally, get better at this stuff?

Bob Bordone
Yes. So, part of in a situation where someone finds themselves more avoidant than engaging, my coaching on this would be like, “Okay, so let’s make a list of maybe what are the fears you have about engaging this?” and they’ll come up with whatever the reasons are, “It’ll go poorly, the person will get hurt, I’ll get hurt, it’s not worth it. Nothing will change. It’s not that important to me anyway,” blah blah blah. I always love that last one, “It’s not that important to me anyway.”

It’s like, “Okay, you’re paying me to spend time on this, but it’s not that important. I don’t even believe it, but, okay, let’s make that list.” But then, and this is the real coaching piece, “Why is it important? Why might you want to actually raise this?” And they’ll say, “Well, maybe something will change.” “Well, if we don’t, the relationship’s going to end up in the trash, anyway.” “Well, it’ll be hard to work with them,” “Well, it brings morale down,” “Well, how can they get better if I haven’t told them?” They make a list of all those things.

That work, just having them look at those two things, and then be persuaded, not that the first piece is not possible, but that the second piece is as legitimate and important as the first. And so, the kind of work there is embracing, this is the kind of mirror work, both of these are true. And if your tendency is that you tend to let all the fear side win the day, the side of you you’re letting down is all of the reasons why it’s really important to have a conversation, and you can’t do that consistently over time and actually be authentic and connected in relationship with anybody because they’re only seeing one piece of you.

They’re not seeing you. You’re letting something down here. So, if you’re worried about disappointing them, you’re actually disappointing a part of yourself. So, it’s interesting, some of this, I don’t know if any of your listeners, or you, Pete, have any interest in internal family systems, but some of this actually draws on internal family systems work, identifying, “What are the parts of us? Then how do we find ways to not evaluate or silence or overvalue certain parts and undervalue others? But each of these is useful and has served us.”

But when we consistently silence one because of fear, we are losing something, and I think the most important thing is we’re losing the possibility for connection. The possibility for actually a better working relationship. So, we think we’re doing something in service of preserving something, but we’re just setting up the slow kill.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you know, maybe I’m a dork who majored in finance, and I am. But that makes me think about risk and money. It’s like you could take zero risk and have your money hang out in a checking account. But then there’s the slow kill of its value from inflation. Or you can take some risk, put it in the stock market. Like, it could go down. It absolutely could. But over the long term, historically, things work out a lot better for you if you park it there as opposed to a checking account.

And I think about that, similarly with these conversations, it’s like, you could play it safe and never raise it, and it’s true, you won’t be rocking the boat. You will not cause the potential damage that conversation could cause, but you will also not unlock the greatness that could be possible within this relationship.

And I have been delighted by how, like, sometimes relationships can go into amazing places when you say exactly what’s up. I remember my friend, Anne, in college, and I was maybe a little bit less guarded and flippant, say whatever was on my mind at the time before being chastened by things that went wrong, conversationally.

But I remember she said she was dating this guy, and I said, “Oh, yeah, I know him. You know, he’s funny. He’s funny, but sometimes I wonder, does he ever kind of occasionally strike you as maybe a little bit of an asshole?” And she laughed, and said, “Yes, he does! We’ve been trying to work on that, and we’re probably breaking up soon.”

Bob Bordone
Oh, my gosh!

Pete Mockaitis
And so, like, I had just met her, like, “Oh, I haven’t seen you around,” but then that immediately catapulted to, like, “This guy, Pete, like, he’ll share what he thinks, and so I trust him.” And then I went to great places and, likewise, I’ve heard of therapists who challenge powerful executives in their sessions, it’s like, “Nobody else talks to me this way,” and because of that, there’s just tremendous trust.

Bob Bordone
Tremendous trust, yeah. You know, one of the things I like to do, Pete, I used to not do this. I’m somebody who kind of came to this work largely because I think I was really bad and conflict-averse and wanted to learn more. But one of the things I do now, I think people will find this surprising, it’s I’m supposed to be a mediator, right, but people will be in a room and someone’s saying X and someone’s saying Y and someone’s saying Z and then someone’s like, “Oh, I’m really glad we’re aligned,” or like, “I hear you saying this.”

And I’m listening, I’m thinking, like, “There’s literally no alignment here. What are these people talking about?” And the convenient thing to do would be like to nod my head and say, “Oh, I’m so delighted we’re all in agreement,” and, like, walk out. But I tend to do now, and I used to not do this, I used to be a head-nodder.

But I actually think it’s so much more valuable to be like, “You know, I don’t want to be troublesome, but I actually don’t think you’re all saying the same thing. I think you’re saying really different things. And I think should dig in on that because, otherwise, we’re missing something important here.” And they’d be like, “Oh, I guess you’re right.”

But it goes back to that, like, yeah, as soon as you do something like that with somebody, I just think there’s a level of realness, and it can be done in a way that’s not mean-spirited, that’s not cruel, and it should be done assertively, like, “From what I’m observing, you know, whatever, from what I’m observing, like, this guy sometimes seems like a little bit of an asshole to me. I’m surprised and interested what you like about him,” or whatever, you know. “I’m glad you like him. I don’t want to take that away. I just don’t see it.”

I mean, you know, am I going to do that? Does it make sense to do that with someone’s spouse of 50 years? No. But I think here’s the other thing, Pete, because, one of the things, like, sometimes I worry that our message is that “You should be doing this always and everywhere all the time,” and that’s just not what we’re saying. What we are saying is this skill, this conflict resilience skill, if you want to be a successful leader, if you want to grow professionally and earn people’s respect, it has to be in your toolkit to be deployed at the right times and in the right space.

But to somehow think, “I am going to make it by avoiding everything, or taking out my sword and lopping everyone’s heads off in my path,” I mean, you could get so far, but at some point, that only works for people who don’t care at all about relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and soon you run out of heads. It’s like, “I’ve lopped off all the heads.” Because like fill in the blank in terms of like if you’re looking within any community, right, you know, people talk. And so, it’s like if we’re talking about real estate agents in the Nashville area, it’s like, “Okay, lop off all the heads. None of them want to work for you anymore.” Or, top engineering talent in Silicon Valley. It’s like, “All right, I’ve lopped them all off.”

Bob Bordone
Yeah, that’s right, and, like, no one wants to work with you, you have no trust. And then, what ends up happening, now we’re kind of in just plain negotiation land. It’s like somebody who, let’s just say, there’s 10 points of value to be divided, they’re consistently getting seven, and they’re going around, saying “I won, I won. Look how good.” And, like, they are except for the fact that, with some more skill and an ability to actually handle conflict better, that 10-point pie could be 20 points or 100 points or 200 points.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally.

Bob Bordone
And if it’s 20 and you’re getting 10 out of 20, you ain’t beating them. It’s just a 10 is greater than seven.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I’m right with you there, in terms of the creative, collaborative, win-wins. That’s just like my default. And it’s funny, like, you cannot even begin to play that game until the emotions, the limbic irritability, is soothed in terms of like, “All right, let’s see what we can figure out together.” It’s just impossible, in my opinion, to get there when they’re like, “Bob is a jerk. I hate him, and I’m going to make him pay. And also, we’re going to find a creative, collaborative solution together.”

Bob Bordone
Right. Right.

Pete Mockaitis
No. No.

Bob Bordone
It just won’t work, right? And the other interesting thing about just the brain science aspect of that is when you are in that emotional refractory period, that limbic irritability time, your ability to actually, at a cognitive level, identify the interests of the other party goes down. When people are made to feel anxious, they think, “Oh, let’s make them feel anxious and then we’ll get more concessions,” it leads to quicker exit, lower trust, lower joint gains, lower interest in working together again.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, and your reputation takes a hit too.

Bob Bordone
Yeah, and your reputation.

Pete Mockaitis
Your counterparties talking smack about you.

Bob Bordone
Yeah. So, it’s incredibly short-term thinking. But again, like thinking about that kind of existential brain of ours, that’s like going back to whatever thousands of years when you bang into me on a dark path and you’ve got to make a quick decision of whether I meant it or not. And if you decide I meant it and you’re wrong, you still take your club out and beat me and you’re alive and I’m dead. If you decide I didn’t mean it and you’re wrong, I take my club out and beat you and you’re dead, I’m alive right.

I mean, there’s a way in which the brain is, like, it’s not all washed up. It’s just that most of the things, like, this is we’re talking about conflict resilience. We’re not talking about existential. This is like your boss again, this your direct report, or your sister, or your brother, or like someone, or the real estate agent also goes to the Chamber of Commerce, and has to have a series of ongoing relationships.

So, you have to have a better command of yourself and a set of skills that are not going to put you into this, again, the 5Fs that are going to just make things worse for you, maybe in the short term, but certainly in the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Bob, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Bob Bordone
No, except this has been fun. I love it, I love it. So, thank you, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Me, too. Let’s hear about a favorite quote.

Bob Bordone
So, my favorite quote is a scriptural quote, actually, from Micah, and it is, “This and only this does the LORD require of you, to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s pretty good and that’ll do it.

Bob Bordone
I hope that some of the principles in the book honor that.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Bob Bordone
For me, I mean, I’m a big fan of all of, like, Daniel Kahneman’s stuff. I particularly love some of the research on self-serving biases, and also on fundamental attribution error. It’s like a fancy word, but fundamental attribution error, basically, the idea that, “If something goes well, it’s because I’m obviously brilliant. And if something goes poorly, it’s because they’re jerks in any way Mercury was in retrograde.”

And so, that tendency to not have a learning loop, I think, if more of us were aware of that, I think it would probably lead to a better conflict handling.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Bob Bordone
My favorite book is actually a fiction book. I mean, there’s lots of negotiations in it. It’s just really fun. I love “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, Bob, this might blow your mind, it did me. Did you know that the story of “The Count of Monte Cristo” is based on a real human’s life?

Bob Bordone
I did not know that.

Pete Mockaitis
I was like, “That’s too crazy. That’s too crazy. No way, it’s a real human.” And, of course, there’s embellishments and literary, you know, whatever. But like, there was a dude who was in prison who escaped and exacted vengeance.

Bob Bordone
I did not know that. I like books that really make you feel like you’re transported to a different time. But another one that I really like is The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton because it’s another book that makes you feel like, in that case, that you’re like in high society, at this particular period in New York City. Anyway, so those are the books that really kind of draw me in.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Bob Bordone
Ah, favorite tool, which is actually in our book, it’s called The Ladder of Inference, developed by Chris Argyris and Don Schoen, who are of Harvard Business School. It’s a wonderful tool for all sorts of things, but particularly if you’re in a conflict situation, when somebody says something like, for example, “You really messed up here.”

That, we would say that the top of the ladder, it is a conclusion. It is drawn by, at the bottom of the ladder, an ocean of information or data that we don’t all have access to, we only have some access to some. And then each of us picks some piece of information from that ocean, that’s a piece of data in an ocean, and then we put a story on it, our reasoning and inferences, and that’s how we reach the conclusion.

What the ladder enables you to do is have a much more productive conversation where instead of me saying “You messed up,” and you saying “No, I didn’t,” we can walk down each other’s ladders, talk about data, talk about reasoning. Sometimes it shifts opinions. Even if it doesn’t, it’s just a much more edifying conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Bob Bordone
You know what? What I’m going to do when I get off this call, a daily 45-minute walk with my golden retriever, Rosie.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote back to you often?

Bob Bordone
So, not to be redundant, but I will be, which is that just the power of the first no makes all of the other yeses actually meaningful. So, to the degree you are in a conflict and you’re avoiding and you’re trying to be nice-y-nice, etc., and you think you’re serving the relationship, finding a way to kind of say, “You know, I pretty much don’t agree with this part, or I have concerns about this,” that is deeply connecting because it, first of all, makes all the yeses seem sincere and it’s an opportunity for connection.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Bob Bordone
Yeah, so you could learn more about our book and, hopefully, buy it at our website, which is ConflictResilienceBook.com. That’s ConflictResilienceBook.com. You could also learn more about me and my website, which is BobBordone.com.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Bob Bordone
Yeah, I would just say, if you have any kind of difficult conversation or conflict that keeps you up at night, that’s worth engaging and not avoiding. And if do it well, no matter how it ultimately turns out, I think you’ll feel better about yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Bob, thank you.

Bob Bordone
Pete, thanks for having me. This was really fun.