Managing Conflicts with The Three R's: Respect, Respond, and Redirect, part 1

In this podcast, Nathan discusses the importance of The Three R's™: Respect, Respond, and Redirect™. Nathan helps us understand and address the underlying emotions driving disruptive behavior to effectively defuse conflicts.

Illustrated by an incident during a training session in New York City, Nathan explains how to effectively handle interruptions and conflicts in multiple settings, including work, family, and public interactions. By sharing a story where a participant's disruptive behavior was met with understanding and engagement rather than dismissal, the speaker highlights the importance of recognizing the underlying issues behind someone's behavior. 

I invite you to find me on Instagram @natesschoolofthought, or go to natewalkercoaching.com/contact-1 and share your thoughts, notes, comments, or aspirations in the comments section. Tell me how I can help you best, and we'll schedule some time together, free of charge, to discuss it. 
 
 Let me know if there are topics you would like me to discuss, and as always, please share this podcast if you find it helpful.

Transcript

Podcast 82- Managing Conflicts with The Three R's: Respect, Respond, and Redirect, part 1 
 

Hello, my friends. Can we talk today about something I call The Three R's™? Often when I'm working with teams around the world, especially when I'm talking with sales teams or customer success teams or something like that, I'm asked the question, "yes, but what do I do when somebody interrupts? What do I do when there's conflict? What do I do when somebody says, 'you're an idiot,' and things threaten to get out of hand. How do I deal with that?" We could ask that same question in marriages, in families, in raising children, in anything else. What do you do when there's conflict? What do you do when somebody interrupts you in a way that's absolutely rude and wants you to address their needs, not your own? 

So we're going to talk about that. I call it Respect, Respond, and Redirect™, and it might be easiest if I start with an example.  

A few years ago I was delivering a training session in New York City and we were talking about some really boring stuff. It was some web analytics stuff, and we were talking about how certain variables populate certain fields, and how you can set the expiration of a variable to correspond with an action that's taken later. You want that in English? I was showing them how to maybe see that somebody looked at a particular product and added it to their cart, and then connect that to them purchasing the product later. When they added, did they purchase; what percentage of people did, what percentage didn't, and how do we understand why? 

As I was explaining this, a guy in the back of the room, and there were, eh, probably 30 or 35 people in the room--- a guy in the back of the room said (mumbling), and I thought, whoa, that's rude. He shouldn't be talking while I'm talking. But it wasn't very loud and it wasn't very disruptive and I thought maybe he had some legitimate reason for saying something to his neighbor. So I kept going.  

I said, "and then we set the expiration of the variable. Here's how we'll do that." (Mumbling). I couldn't hear what he said, but he said something, and he was cranky. I don't like cranky people in the room. The third time I began to teach some concept that was relevant to what we were talking about, and this time I heard him say something like, "well, yeah, except that it doesn't work." At that point somebody behind him yelled, "shut up!" And he turned around and yelled, "you shut up!" And then the person next to him was like, "no, you shut up. You've been talking too much, and we're all mad... I really thought that the---this was New York City, okay? I thought they were going to be up on top of the desks having a fistfight any second. And it started to escalate. I said, "hang on a second. Bill, tell me what's going on. Something's not working for you, and I need to know what it is, because I want to make sure that this is a helpful thing." 

He said, "well, it just doesn't work." I said, "tell me your story. What's going on?" "Well..." and then he got really serious. He said, "well, we tried to do this, and it didn't work, and we ended up with no data coming in for a full week, which cost us a fortune. And it's my job to fix it. I've been on the phone with my support guy. I've been on the phone with tech. I've been on the phone with my account executive. Nobody can figure out the answer to the question, and I'm about to lose my job over it." All right. Right there, I had a couple of options: One, I could have invited him to leave the room for being so disruptive. Two, I could have told him that it was totally inappropriate to be as rude as he had been, and that he needed to just not say anything anymore. 

I probably would have thrown in some snide remark about, " probably the reason you got it wrong, is because you were so ignorant. You were yelling at people instead of learning how to do it." But I didn't say that. Instead, I had the option to respect him. Now, I'm not talking about respect him like, respect that he's a good guy, and he has good manners, and all that stuff. 

Because that wasn't true. When we're talking about the respect step of The Three Rs we are saying, " I must respond." If I don't respond, it's generally going to just throw the whole thing off the rails. But to do so, I have to respect that whatever he's dealing with right now is so powerful and so difficult for him that it causes him to jettison everything else. 

Propriety, good manners, all that stuff just goes out the window. It's not even on his mind. He's not even thinking about it. I must respect that what he's dealing with is real to him. It's that big a deal to him. It may not be to the rest of the class, but it was to him. How does that apply in a family setting? In our relationships, our roles as parents or spouses or partners or friends? 

The one that people are most likely to get wrong is the Response part of Respect, Respond, Redirect. But it's not the failure to respond that's most damaging. It's responding by respecting oneself instead of respecting what it is the other person was feeling that caused them to start this whole thing. 

When we respond, we must feed the person what they're hungry for. But feeding people what they're hungry for doesn't happen very often. Why? Because the first step, Respect, is often ignored. We get angry. We're offended. We're upset. We feel attacked, and we ignore that option to respect what the other person is experiencing, whether or not it was of their own making, and whether or not they should be acting that way. Most often, we feed the other person what we are hungry for. And therein lies the problem. It means we haven't respected that what they were feeling was worth the misbehavior or the outburst or the stunted conversation to them. Whether or not it was worth it to us.  

We have to respect that it was worth it to them. It may be the result of trauma. It may be the result of poor self discipline. It doesn't matter. By responding with what we are hungry for---respect in the traditional way; you should respect my authority, you should respect that I'm in this classroom, you should respect others by being quiet instead of voicing your opinion so loudly... By responding with what we are hungry for, we don't respect what they were feeling, and we fail to feed them what they are hungry for. By feeding them what we are hungry for, we perpetuate the conflict, and can't redirect to where we were going because there's no place to go that feeds both of us. Instead of redirecting to the true story, the thing that should be of value to them, the thing that we're trying to express, or explain, or tell, or experience with them... 

Instead of redirecting to the true story, or to the most important solution, that thing that is of mutual benefit, we try to point our, now opponent in air quotes, to our way of thinking, and we leave the true story altogether. This goes round and round in a vicious circle until neither party is willing to really be vulnerable, And neither party is willing to say what they're thinking or feeling, nor are they willing or prepared to respect the other person in the traditional way. What would have been the redirect to the true story, turns into a misdirect, as each party battles to be validated, while deflecting what they fear will take their power or their autonomy away.  

At the core of all this, is one desire that draws from, and spills into, everything else. That desire is this: people want to matter. Not just to be heard; to matter. Almost nothing is more compelling. Whether their interruption of you is based on their desire to appear intellectually superior, or their need to have a pacifier at naptime if it's a toddler, or their desire to impress someone they're attracted to, or their frustration with their software, their mechanic, their spouse, or their god, the compelling force behind the behavior is a desire to matter. That desire can be so overwhelming that it short circuits propriety, cooperation, and even love. It can be difficult to sacrifice your own needs long enough to Respect, Respond, and Redirect. To do so requires selflessness. Selflessness is not a small thing. But clinging to your own needs at the expense of resolving the conflict, leaves both parties with more pain than a moment of selflessness would have demanded. 

Selflessness is hard. It's very often difficult. It can hurt. Perpetuating the pain hurts more. It takes wisdom and experience to distinguish between an opportunity to Respect, Respond, and Redirect, and a real need for some other powerful action. Now, some situations are obvious. If somebody tries to kidnap one of my children, I will not respect their need to matter by allowing them to do it, nor will I hesitate to respond with immediate, even violent, action. 

But situations like that are extremely rare. Less rare are those moments when validating someone else will bless you both. 

If a toddler or a boss (some people think those are the same thing)...if a toddler or a boss acts out in a way that to respect their immediate outburst would reinforce a bad behavior or endanger someone, then you can remove yourself or the toddler from the situation, then re engage after the dust has settled a bit. 

Instead of whirling around and letting them know what a jerk they are, you can just breathe. To respect in a moment of conflict isn't to excuse their bad behavior, It's just a more effective way to deal with it. Quoting Viktor Frankl: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom unquote.  

Respect is really true and immediate empathy. Showing people that they matter connects you to them instead of placing you in opposition to them. When you practice making this empathetic respect your first response, you may be astonished at the good you can do.  

Now we'll talk another time about the other two of the three R's; Respond, and Redirect. It takes all three: Respect, Respond, and Redirect, to really produce the desired result. But in the meantime, give this a try.  

The next time you are subject to an angry outburst, a rude interruption, or a manipulative tantrum, breathe. Respect that in this time and circumstance, that person is trying to process something so compelling that it short circuits propriety, cooperation, and love. They may be in the wrong. They may just be mistaken. But an angry retort from you won't change what they see. In that moment, they're not mentally enrolled in an emotional maturity self improvement seminar, hoping to hear some nugget that will make everything all okay. 

So, breathe. Empathize. See them for who they are, not just what they're doing at this moment. Then, respond. You may be surprised.  

We'll talk again soon.