In this episode, Patrick Medvee talks about the 5 levels of conflict resolution in the human psyche and how to deal with them. 1. Stubborn 2. Passive 3. Avoidance 4. Negotiating 5. Collaboration
00:00:00.00030 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start. Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, turn the stars up above. Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
00:00:17.300I'm Patrick Medevi, your host of ITM, and today I'm going to share with you 8 conflict resolution tips for entrepreneurs.
00:00:22.880Number one, the first way people handle conflicts is the lowest level. This is people who are stubborn, close-minded. I don't want to hear about it. I don't even want to deal with it. I'm purely stubborn. This person I recognize very well because that's who I was for the first 22 years of my life. I knew it all. I was stubborn. Don't tell me anything. I'm good to go. Okay, stubborn.
00:00:42.840The second level is somebody that accommodates. These are people that are passive. They conform. Okay, no problem. You guys want to go there? I really don't want to, but no problem. Oh, I really don't want to do that, but I get it. I don't want to make you mad. No problem. Conform. Conform, conform. Conform, conform. Second level. It's not as bad as stubborn, but it's pretty bad to be conformant all the time. You're always accommodating.
00:01:05.120The third level is avoiding. No, I'd rather not talk to her. You know what? I can't even stand what she said the other day. Why don't you call her? No way. I would never call her. I can't believe what he just said in the other business meeting. How dare he call me out like that in that business meeting? Why don't you give him a call? No way. I'm not going to call him up. Avoidance. Avoidance. Avoidance. Avoidance. And all of these conflicts in your life add up. You're carrying a 500-pound backpack if you're constantly avoiding conflict. You are because you're afraid of avoiding it if you are that level.
00:01:33.980Number four is somebody that compromises. You hear a lot of times people say, well, I compromise. I'm willing to compromise. Babe, why don't we compromise? Some people think compromise is the highest level. In marriage, you've got to compromise. I don't know about that. I think you do. No, you don't. Yeah, you have to compromise. Why do I have to compromise? I don't want to compromise. Maybe she has the better choice, but you have to compromise because it's healthy for marriage. It's healthy for business. I don't think so. The highest level is collaborate. What does collaborating mean?
00:02:03.980Maybe your idea is better than mine. Maybe spending the million dollars in the area that you are suggesting is going to give us 80% return on the million. Maybe my million is going to make us 40%. Maybe you are right. If I compromise, we meet half ways. I give you half a million. I keep a half a million. No, no. Collaboration means tell me what you're thinking. Here's what I'm thinking. That's what you're thinking. Oh, okay. Well, I hate to say it. She's right. I want to go with your side.
00:02:33.980I'm automatically putting myself at the highest category. I've had to work to get up to this point. The bigger I wanted to get with my business every single year, I had to remind myself to get closer to collaboration and lower compromise, lower than being just a person that accommodates.
00:02:49.940I wanted to get to collaboration and help my business grow. So now, now that we know the five levels, you have to assess yourself and say, I think I'm level two. I think I'm level three. By the way, this is not a scoring system on whoever gets the highest score wins.
00:03:01.880You just have to be very honest with yourself. Again, address the conflict with yourself. Maybe you are level one. Maybe you are level two. And how has that worked for you? If it hasn't worked for you, then you got to change.
00:03:11.860I ask a very simple question every time I'm trying to challenge somebody to improve. Your way of thinking got you to where you're at right now. Are you happy with where you are right now? If you say yes, don't change your way of thinking.
00:03:25.100If you said no, guess what? We have to change your way of thinking. And every single time I wanted to grow to the next level, I had to change this stubborn human being's way of thinking.
00:03:36.760This guy, I'm not talking at you, this guy. And every time I change here, everything in my world changed. So now let's talk about how to handle conflicts.
00:03:43.640Okay. So number one, when you're looking at a conflict, you have to be very hard on the conflict, soft on the person. If you're dealing with a human conflict.
00:03:52.300So I can't believe you did this. How could you do something like this? Da, da, da, da, da, da. Hard on a problem, soft on a person. Hard on a problem, soft on a person.
00:04:01.320If you're hard on a problem, soft on a person, the person's willing to take your feedback. That's number one.
00:04:06.020Number two, every time you have a conflict, you are trying to, you know, shorten the lifespan of the conflict. Let me explain to you.
00:04:14.140Think about what's going on around the world right now. I mean, we saw earlier last year, I think, North Korea and South Korea met.
00:04:19.960Imagine how many years that conflict has been going. What if they were to meet each other sooner? What if they would have had a meeting?
00:04:25.820Think about an in-law. Don't want to meet each other. Lifespan. It's been seven years. I don't want to meet my in-laws.
00:04:30.540I don't want to meet my, you know, daughter's, you know, mother. I don't want to meet her at all.
00:04:36.360Seven years, six years. Simply a conversation because you're not willing to sit down together.
00:04:41.140You want to figure out a lifespan of a conflict and shorten it as much as possible. So how do you do that?
00:04:45.880First, you got to gather data. So somebody comes up to you and says, oh, you know what?
00:04:49.460We're facing this issue in the company right now and let me tell you what's going on, okay?
00:04:53.120Or your kid comes up to you like, just yesterday, I got a call. My kid punched the kid in the face.
00:04:59.800My wife calls me and my wife says, they kicked Patrick out of practice. What do you mean?
00:05:05.980The coaches came and said, your son can come back here. We're going to watch the videos, but he cannot come back to practice.
00:05:11.660I call my son. Here's one thing about my son. My son is not afraid of the truth. I know which one.
00:05:17.060Okay, this is not the marketer. This is the one that's very, very serious. Very serious, right?
00:05:23.100He says, daddy, I'm telling you, he punched me first. I said, buddy, here's the one thing with you.
00:05:26.940You tell me the truth, I'm going to back you up. If you lie to me, I can't defend you.
00:05:30.100That I'm telling you, he punched me in the stomach first. So I called the owner to a soccer place.
00:05:33.980I said, let me ask you a question. Did this take place? And he says, what do you mean?
00:05:38.460I said, my son is telling me this, and I know my son. This is not the marketer's son.
00:05:42.020He tells me the truth. He tells me such and such. And he says, sir, I apologize.
00:05:46.380I said, you sent him off today in front of his peers. This is an embarrassing moment for him.
00:05:50.780I'm not okay with this. But if he made the mistake, I need to know.
00:05:53.360Because he's going to have a conversation with me later on tonight.
00:05:56.160But if you made the mistake, you need to apologize, not me. He says, no problem.
00:05:59.480Let us go look at the tapes. They look at the tapes. They call me three hours later.
00:06:02.700You know what they say? Sir, we looked at the tapes. We apologize.
00:06:06.920Your son was punched in the stomach, and your son reacted.
00:06:10.780If it was me, I would have reacted the same way your son reacted, because I see it on the tape.
00:06:15.040I said, no problem. We just wanted to apologize to you, sir.
00:06:17.760I said, sir, you don't need to apologize to me. I'm not hurt by this.
00:06:20.940My son needs an apology from you and his head coach.
00:06:23.680So I said, matter of fact, your coach needs to call as well.
00:06:25.780Then the coach called. I talked to the coach.
00:06:27.560I said, I'm going to bring my son to practice next week.
00:06:29.740When he comes, you need to sit in front of him, look at him in the eyeball, and tell him,
00:06:33.540you apologize to him. He didn't make the mistake.
00:06:35.660He said, no problem. I said, fine. I'll bring him to practice.
00:06:38.340Then I brought it. What's the point there? I had to gather data.
00:06:42.240I had to sit there and say, what is his side of the story?