The Hangout with David Sciarretta
Conversations with interesting people.
The Hangout with David Sciarretta
#111: Dr. Bob Berk on the Power of Conflict Mediation
Dr. Bob Berk—principal consultant at New Table Consulting, longtime mediator, and former school leader—discusses how smart organizations turn friction into forward motion without losing people or momentum.
New Table Consulting
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Welcome to the Hangout Podcast. I'm your host, David Sheretta. Come on in and hang out. In today's episode, I sat down with Bob Burke. Bob is principal consultant, coach, and facilitator at New Table Consulting. He has been involved in the conflict mediation world for a long, long time. Prior to that, he was a school administrator for about 15 years, and so he brings an interesting balance of background and experience to his current work. In this wide-ranging conversation, we touched on conflict and its role in organizations and relationships, both from a productive standpoint, and then also where it can become destructive, and then the approaches that he relies on to help two people or large groups, sometimes dozens or or more, work through their conflicts and really come to an agreement that moves them forward in life. This was a very interesting conversation. And as conflict is a part of all of our lives, I think this is relevant for all of our listeners. Welcome, Bob. Thank you so much for joining us this morning for uh chat. Thanks, David. It's uh it's really an honor to be here. I thought we could start with a little bit about your origin story, where you come from, and what brings you to the work that you're currently doing.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Um that seems like a good place to start. Um, I'll start by saying this. Um I am a born and bred Midwesterner, now living in California, but the Midwestern piece is important because Midwesterners don't really like conflict. Um I am in a career where I help people work through conflict, which seems somehow counterintuitive. Um but a little bit about the origin story. Um I um originally whole life wanted to be a pediatrician. Um, went to school, degree in biology, wound up kind of um finishing that and realizing, you know what? I spent most of my time in the library talking with friends, all of us who were on the medical school track, who just wanted to like find a school and teach. Um so I did that for a while, a couple of years, then went back to graduate school. Um and then wound up leading schools for about 15 years at in Nashville and New Orleans. And then uh at some point in that process in New Orleans, I took a mediation class uh because I thought I didn't want to be a mediator, but I thought, well, these skills for a school principal, well, you know, like these school skills for a school principal must be important. Um the class actually was not so great, um, but I moved shortly thereafter to San Diego and uh wound up wanting to volunteer as a mediator. And in order to do so, I had to take kind of that organization's class. It was great, and that kind of launched the career. Um, where um now I spend my time mostly, like 70% of my time is helping individuals or teams um or entire organizations work through conflict in some way, shape, or form. And about 30% of my time is spent, hey, like you've got a team that's doing pretty well, but you want to be great, okay. I'm your person.
SPEAKER_01:I think I think it would be important for the for the layperson. I'm certainly a layperson in this, so to talk about the difference between mediation, arbitration. Um litigation. We we kind of all know litigation is something we want to be afraid of and run away from. Um but arbitration, mediation. Can you can you describe the the distinction between those two?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can for sure. Um and then if it's okay, I'll go a little bit further. Um, you know, I'm not an attorney, um, and a lot of people come to the mediation world um from law. Um, and they're sort of the the typical mediators that you think of. Oh, two people come together, they can't agree on something financial mostly. Um, and a mediator will help them kind of do that to figure it out. Um, you know, it's often said that um, like uh in in order to open the door to mediation, you have to be at least willing to move one small, tiny centimeter away from your position. Uh, and then kind of the mediator helps along the way. Um, arbitration is something very different where, oh, um, and one thing about the mediators they don't make any decisions. They ask questions, they push you with, they're not making decisions. Um, and they don't even have to be content area experts. An arbitrator is someone who you know think of more as the judge on high, where both sides bring their cases incredibly well thought out based on legal principles, you know, and they say to an arbitrator, uh, you know what, going to court is going to be too expensive, take too much time. We've got really thought-out cases. Here they are. And um, you decide. Um, and the agreement around arbitration is that you know, it's both parties agree that's legally binding. So you can't go to an arbitrator and then be like, uh, I don't like like, all right. So the the bit further is, you know, I don't really do the mediations where somebody has a financial issue and um and they're trying to agree, you know, how much do I really owe this person? Is it$10,000,$2,000? Like that's not my cup of tea. Um I do uh where I live in the mediation space is in workplaces. And sometimes that means I do like the traditional mediation, this party, this party, we work through the issues and we walk out. But most of the time, what it means is I'm do more of facilitating dialogues. Um and certainly sometimes coming out of that dialogue is an agreement of some sorts, but it's mostly larger groups, people that take a lot more listening on the front end and then the dialogue, and then oftentimes a lot more work afterwards kind of to help the organization or the team move forward.
SPEAKER_01:How how was that moving from what I would call a traditional nine to five or traditional seven to ten, depending on how many hours you worked as a school administrator? But a W-2 income, you know, a salary employee to running your own business. And because what you just the the work is only part of the work, right? You've got the whole backside of uh just keeping an operation going. How what was that transition like for you and how did you handle it?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So you you know this extremely well as somebody who leaves schools, and that you invest all of this time and energy, um, so much thought, like you said, a gazillion hours a day a week, even in the supposed summer, which is off time and uh which is not, you know, and uh and you see the results based on like how a kid looks walking in the door that morning and how they look walking out, and how their reading skills improved and how they could support in whatever their needs are. The thing about being a school principal is you rarely ever see the financial results of a decision you make and how they impact your own family. And so you're like the ask and your question is 100% right. Like you leave the job of a school principal where you have a um a salary and you have benefits, and then you move to a job where it's basically, you know, you're gonna earn whatever you make. Um, and you, you know, there's no benefits coming your way unless you provide them. So I'm pretty fortunate. Um, you know, two-income family, my wife works, and um and so that provided me the ability to take a leap that I think a lot of other people probably wouldn't have, um, where I had the ability to kind of have a runway that gave me some ability to make it, um, which I um reflect on and ungrateful for all the time. Um, I'll tell you, so that's one difference. Like you eat what you kill. The other huge difference um between kind of this world that I live in now and the world of a school principal is um I have zero employees. Um and I say that to somebody who does not have zero employees. And if you think I'm bragging, David, you're right. It's uh, you know, I mean, I think working on a team with people who you're supervising uh is one of the most amazing privileges, and you can do such powerful things. And also I realize that um having employees creates an unbelievable amount of stress. And um, so for me right now, um not having that, um, you know, I certainly work with people and other contractors, but not having employees actually is a um uh benefit that I hadn't thought about that I'm truly appreciating.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think the it's synergistic because, or what's the word? Uh yeah, I guess it's synergy synergy where people like me who have a have a bunch of employees, we keep people like you busy. That's right. It's total job security for me. So yeah, the other day I said, I just want to work on Rohan Farm.
SPEAKER_00:It's true. I mean, it's like it's I think that's true of everything in life. The things that uh bring most pleasure, like working with people is an unbelievable experience. And also the things that bring most pleasure bring most stress. That's right.
SPEAKER_01:It's like Thanksgiving dinner. If Thanksgiving was every day, it would be an issue.
SPEAKER_00:It would be once a year is enough for sure.
SPEAKER_01:So, so how do you view like you know, we always hear this this uh terminology all the time that that things are more polarized than they've ever been. You know, this is kind of a mantra that we that we've been hearing, and um apart from politics, just in general, kind of whether social media algorithms do it to us or or whatever, but it it seems to me that there are gradations of conflict from conflict that we see that that lasts generations, uh the Hatfield and McCoys type of conflict that the modern Hatfields and McCoys probably can't even remember what the original flight was, you know, 200 years ago. And then there are conflicts that people have been able to work through with or without the help of mediators. Like, how how do you think about conflict as you go into work with with clients? And at what point do you realize like uh this may never get solved?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it happens, um, definitely. So, and the question of at what point do you realize it may never get solved? Like sometimes the answer is immediately, like right away. You know, um, but this is why um this is why I really, if I'm gonna engage with a client, sometimes it's very simple. Oh, okay, I I get it. Like you just need this mediation, no problem. Here's a scope of work, here's a proposal, like let's do it, get it done, and so you can move forward. And sometimes I'm listening to people thinking, I'm hearing your story, and I'm sure your story is 100% right. And also, there's probably like four other stories here that are also 100% right. And in order to figure out what the path forward is, I have to do a lot of listening. Um, and that's actually um, you know, I the listening in and of itself oftentimes helps resolve the conflict before I've done anything that I learned in a mediation class or a facilitation, you know, because people want to be listened to. I had an engagement with a Fortune 500 company that started in January last year, and they were really thoughtful in how they structured the engagement. The first three times that I went to their location were either one-on-one um listening sessions or um group listening sessions, three times. So think about the investment in money that this company said, which was, hey, like this is really expensive for you to come out and just listen. And also we know that it's setting you up for kind of unbelievable, it's you know, setting you up for success. And, you know, I'm originally I think they had thought, oh, well, I'll work with them for a couple months, but it's gone so well. I'm still working with them. They're incredibly excited about kind of what this group has done in rolling the lessons out kind of internationally to other locations. And I think it's because they set it up in a way where I could really build the trust with listening. So sometimes, like, oh, this will never be solved, can actually be swung by first, I have to build trust. Um, and then like we can make incremental uh progress.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting that you say that. Uh, I had Amanda Ripley uh on on this. I'm not sure, I don't know if you're familiar with her work, but she's a uh best-selling author. Not she hasn't only written about conflict, but she's written about uh I think the first book that she was known for was about disaster and how how people react to to crises and disasters. But she's become interested in conflict, and she wrote this book called High Conflict. I think the subtitle is something like how people get into it and get to and how to get out or something. And she she talked about that the difference between some conflicts where there's absolutely like people are so dug in, it's so binary, and it's kind of a almost a life and death thing experience for people, and then others, as you say, where where with enough listening uh and enough investment of time people move through it. Yeah, you know, it's just it's such an interesting concept because we hear the mantra that um oh, I don't like conflict. I'm conflict averse, you know, if we could just move past it. But can you talk about the the positive role of conflict in organizations, families, relationships?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. So I I think about when I think about how teams function and like what teams that I've been on that have excited me, that have inspired me, that have kind of driven me to a place of like where I'm better and also I think I'm making things better for everybody else. Those are teams where we all agreed on the end point. Like we got to get to here. It's just that every day we didn't necessarily always agree on the best way to get there. And to me, that is kind of the definition of healthy conflict. Like we are so focused, we're aligned. You know, Stephen Covey, I can't remember which habit it is, but um, you know, start with the end in mind. And I think this is absolutely advice that you know organizations have adopted. Um, when you know where you're going, doesn't mean you know how to get there. What happens is like I've got this idea, you've got this idea, we're not gonna necessarily agree. But because we're all aiming for the same spot, even if we're disagreeing, it's productive. Um, and sometimes in my work, I I try to fashion that as um like a difference between conflict and tension, where it's actually productive tension. Um, and conflict, I like to describe when I work with teams, as I see conflict as when we're not all starting with the same place, we're not aligned with where we want to get. Then when those things pop up during the day, like we have no way out because we're not aligned. Um, so I think actually most of my clients don't appreciate this distinction between conflict and tension like I do. So I just stick with conflict now. But um, but for sure, like in on a daily basis, we have to disagree, um, or we will never get better, or we'll get bored and go someplace else. It it's yeah, it's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01:And you probably see so much, you get a chance to delve into like seeing the way that people were raised, right? Because these are as adults, our our behaviors are so uh uh deeply embedded from you know 40 years prior, right? Like to what we saw in our in our in our families. And I don't want to start telling family anecdotes on here, but like, you know, I think about you bring when people get married, they're bringing in two separate, usually two completely different streams of like experience of handling conflict. I think if couples don't talk about that, that's like that's as big as not talking about your philosophy around money, too, or whatever in a relationship, right?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I I think that's a hundred percent sure. But I really do think we should start talking about family issues. You'll lose some of your family members, but we're gonna gain so much more of a following. Like if we but yeah, I think you're right. I know kind of your like this idea of not just it's not just like how we engage in conflict, but even the if we engage in conflict, you know, like like so many families, especially those who grew up around me in the Midwest, like it's it's the well, we're just gonna avoid conflict, it's all fine, you know. Um, and other families, it's like you walk into not it doesn't have to be Thanksgiving meal, any meal. You know, there's gonna be back and forth, back and forth. And like, of course, that would be really uncomfortable for me, but that's kind of how they've grown up. And of course, like to think that that doesn't actually impact how they show up in the workplace or else would be silly.
SPEAKER_01:There's this story from my family, and I won't say, I won't say which side or or who it is, but there's a family member several generations ago, but it's it's a story that's lasted where where they dropped an a kitchen knife on a brand new linoleum floor. So I'm probably dating, I'm probably dating it just by saying linoleum, but had cut the floor, it sliced the floor. And so every day when their spouse would get home from work, they would stand on the slit because there was a certain amount of time in the day when the sun hit at a certain angle and that was visible. And and it stayed that way for like decades until they sold the house, and that the other spouse never found out about it. And I'm thinking, what a metaphor for like nothing to see here, keep moving, let me get you dinner.
SPEAKER_00:That is really something. And you know, like after your daughter finishes editing this podcast, she's gonna be like, Dad, like, who?
SPEAKER_01:Like, tell me. Yeah, it's uh it's it's interesting to to to reflect on that. If you could, if you not that you want to do this because it might do away with some of your um some of your uh livelihood, but if you could re-rewrite or recast the way that most workplaces handle disagreement, conflict, tension, what what would be some things you you would do?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, so here's the thing. Because we all know we're bad at it in some way, some of us are actually, we have the skills. And once we start talking, we're good at it. It's just that we're so bad at opening up the conversation. Um, or we won't. I remember my first year as a principal when I had to give feedback to a um teacher, it would be Monday, and I knew their planning period. So I'd walk by their classroom and then walk past the other way. Tuesday, same thing. Like maybe by Thursday, I'd walk into the classroom. So here's the thing about how you addressing conflict in the workplace. If you think of it as an isolated instance, when this comes up, David, I'm gonna approach you, then you've failed on the front end. To me, how we address conflict is how is much larger. It's about the culture that you kind of instill and bring into your workplace. And are you giving feedback? So, for example, when people say to me, um, we struggle with conflict, we're just so conflict avoidant. The first thing I ask about is tell me, what does the one-on-one look like with your boss? And people are like, huh? What does that have to do with anything? And to me, um, what that has to do with is like, are we actually gaining the skills in a one-on-one, hopefully trusted relationship where people give feedback to one another? Like both ways, feedback to one another, because that's muscle memory. Now, like once we've spoken about what is your one-on-one look like, now let's get to okay, what is your team meeting with your most immediate team look like? Is it basically a to-do list or are you really batting around ideas? And when David, you say something I disagree with, do I just close my mouth because you're my boss, or do I actually engage back to that in that productive conflict? Because then when I do something that really makes you mad, if we've got the one-on-one meeting and we've got the team culture meeting, then now like we can address now, like you're happy to kind of happy might be pushing it, like okay, but like you're able to address it in a way where you're not, you don't have a pit in your stomach. And so to me, like when we talk about like hints for conflict resolution, I'm gonna go right back at you and say it's not hints for call conflict resolution, it's how do you build a culture? Um, and then we can talk about conflict resolution.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's interesting that you that you mentioned that, and I appreciate that. I I was reading about Greg Popovich, who who was the longtime head coach of the s of the San Antonio Spurs, right? And and very successful franchise for a long time, and they said that a lot of his work is not X's and O's, he'll it's taking players out to dinner. He's a foodie and a wine consort. And he serially just takes his players out to dinner, and they're all like, oh God, you're gonna have a late night tonight because taking you out to dinner, and they just it's it's it's work at that end, right? Because these are all top athletes that can play on the court, but it's that team chemistry piece and that trust. And I know uh one thing I've struggled with as a leader, you know, we have leadership retreats every year, and the hardest thing to do with busy leaders, and we have you know a leadership team of eight, eight or nine people, the hardest thing to do when you get them away from their regular work, all they want to do is sit there and do checkbox work. Because the the the inclination to get caught up on their endless to-do list is so powerful on one level. But I think on another level, it's it's it's it's that's the easy work. That's easy. The hard work is hey, there's some tension in our team. Can we talk about this? Or like what are the you know, you guys, the two of you or the three of you or the five of us, whatever, have such a different perspective on this issue. Can we to can we dive deeply? That conversation is so hard to have.
SPEAKER_00:It's so hard to have, and the you know, but I'll just say this it's much easier when you have a brilliant expert facilitator who's gonna charge you a lot of money to come do that, David. So if you need recommendations, just let me know.
SPEAKER_01:I'll ask, I'll send you an email.
SPEAKER_00:But here's the thing about those retreats, like they're so important. And to me, the question is like, once you get to the place where you can do that in your retreat and you're having those hard conversations, so like, what's a barrier for us getting to that next level as a as a team? Then the question is, okay, like it's so much easier to have these conversations away from the stress of our day. Just like when we have conversations about wanting to be in schools, about wanting to be more thoughtful about how we cold hold kids accountable for behavior. During in-service week, everybody's got their hat on with after a nice summer, and we're like, we want to be really thoughtful and use evidence-based strategies on responding to kind of behavior struggles. And then three weeks in, you know, like this kid misbehaves, and the teacher comes up to you after and she says, Why didn't you suspend him? You know, and it's like the same thing with team retreats. It's like, it's so much easier to think about these when we're one step away. And so kind of think the push for me on those team retreats and thinking about how we do conflict is like who's gonna be responsible? So if you have eight people at that retreat, who are the two or three people who are gonna form an action team to make sure the ideas, thoughts, like decisions that you've decided at the retreat actually get put in place. Because otherwise, you know, from a conflict resolution perspective, like you're just gonna ignore it because why wouldn't you? It's so much easier.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's so interesting to me to to reflect on the fact that and I think you and I talk spoke about this in a pre-call or in the the previous uh attempt at this before my internet went out. That fundamentally there are probably only very few causes of conflict in this world. Yeah. Right? Can you talk about the common themes since you're so deeply embedded in in this work? Like you could probably you could probably write most of them on one post-it note, no matter if you're working with corporate America, education, a Native American tribe somewhere or whatever it is. There's probably just a short list of causes, right?
SPEAKER_00:It's a pretty short list. You're 100% right. And I found that this is a short list. It doesn't matter where in the world you wind up. Like it's pretty much the same. In the workplace, the lists are are uh, I mean, in in my mind, I think it all starts with respect. So like respect is a is one piece. Um communication, collaboration, roles, and responsibilities. So like basically stop there. I I in most cases, of course, I want to listen to you to build trust, but I already know we're gonna be talking about respect, communication, collaboration, roles, and responsibility. Now, there's other things that are kind of embedded in that. Like when we think about the, you know, it's a buzzword now to talk about psychological safety. Totally. Like I think it's important. Also, like how people get acknowledged for their work. Like, like things underlie those, but it's really those four things like uh I come back to time and time again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that just that and and full disclosure, we've used, we've we've done, we're now using formal mediation in the workplace because we ran into challenges where the perception of our HR department, we have a very capable, hardworking um HR director, uh, but the perception from the past was I got reported to HR. Yeah. Like that was like that's the word on the street. I mean, it's something out of the out of the the show, the office, you know, like one change, I got reported to HR, and you got to go in there, and and Toby goes, Oh, so yeah. I noticed, you know, and you're like, oh my God, how do I just just get me out of here? And so we've started to try to get people to voluntarily go to a mediation session, and we've really seen some movement um in terms of their ability to work together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I believe it. The thing is, like I I was once mediating in a school, but um, well, we did it outside of school, but it was between two teachers. And uh, and they were like they had been good friends, which always then adds to the dynamic. One was not just friends, one was older, one was younger. There was like a mentor relationship, but this relationship was broken. Right. And this is like I I use this example as whenever I'm feeling, oh, I don't know, like, am I really good at this? I go back to this one because like midway through, you know, it was like um I was ready to just, oh my gosh, I don't know that this is gonna work. Like one is literally standing screaming and then looking at me and being like, see, I told you, you know, and then and which of course happens sometimes. And then at the end of it, it was like they had gotten to this place where somehow, and like maybe some of it was facilitation skills, but mostly I think they came in with a mindset, like, even though we really hate each other right now, like we want to make change. And at the end of it, like they're like, let's go have let's let's ditch the afternoon of school and let's go have lunch together. And I was like, Yes, you've already got the subs, let's go have lunch. Like they got to a place where, like, through this conversation with a um, you know, trained mediator, me, like that they were able to really hear each other. And that makes all the difference in the world. Like the issues matter, but more matters that like I'm hearing the impact that this has had on you.
SPEAKER_01:Do you have a case or uh yeah, a mediation case, I guess you call them, or situation that you that you're most proud of, obviously without giving uh uh identifying details, but that you that was one that's an inspiring one. Do you have another example of something that you know just you hold up in your in either when you're teet helping to teach other people to do this work or when you're feeling low and you go, ah, but I got through this situation I can do today. Yeah can you tell us a bit about that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, so it's it's interesting because of course the first one, the first thing that jumped into mind when you said that, I'll I'll get to that one in a minute. But like some might say, Oh, well, I don't know if that was a success. But in my mind, it certainly wasn't what I got hired to do. I'll get to it in a minute. But I think the like the the piece, the one that I keep coming back to is this engagement that I mentioned a little bit before with the listening sessions. And it's a huge company, and um what I got called in to do had a really large impact on their bottom line and like then and also like moving to the future, big public national news type thing. And I think the reason why I'm so proud of the work that kind of you know I've done, and also like we the collectively um have done the people on their team and then also people on my team. Uh, I think the reason I'm so proud of it is because at this point in the engagement, the things that have to happen are not being driven by me, like they're being driven by um the leadership at this company. Um and I'm supporting where they're like, look, we don't have the expertise, but I'm supporting along the way. And when I started, We're in a place was where like of fear, of anxiety, of there's no way I'm gonna be in, like, even though um, in many cases, like they were the the leaders, like I am not gonna work with that person, and you know, that's been the shift. And I think the the pride for me comes out of that. Um not in not necessarily in my work, although I think it's been good, but in just seeing kind of their shift of and time helps, like time helps, right? But also I think they've like been really reflective and and uh worked um incredibly hard. And that's true of like people on all sides or whatever, you know. Um, I'm being intentionally vague, where people have done a lot of work to say it's the relationship that matters most. Like, let's dig into the relationship. The other example I want to give you was something that happened over summer where I was asked to kind of mediate um in a team, one person on the team was um not fitting in with the rest of this kind of um fewer than 10 people with this team. And the ask was like mediate and then come in and do a training um for the day and how they can work better together. And then, you know, and I was like, oh, this is gonna be a tall order. So and then when I met the people, I was like, this is gonna be a tall order, not because there's something wrong with any of the people, but because like this was an example of conflict where um I didn't see that like maybe I could do something it'd be helpful for a month. But in the end, I felt like there's there's no resolution here that's gonna land well. And what wound up happening is um the one person who was kind of struggling with the rest of the team, and I'm not putting the blame on her, I'm just saying like there was this one versus kind of other dynamic. I kept asking, like, what tell me what you love about this job, you know, because it sounds to me like you show up with a stomachache, you leave with the stomachache, and it's and like we got to this place where you know she was able to say, um, well, I love the idea of the job. Like I love the pieces of the job, not necessarily the people I'm doing it with. Um, and to me, like part of the mediator's job is to ask questions to get people to think to make to move a little bit. And I think in in my time with her, we got to this place where there was just realization, um, this job isn't going to be the right one for me. And so what wound up happening is um I was able to actually, I mean, I still went through with the training for the whole team, but um, I was actually with the support of the HR department and with their permission, I should say, before I dive further, shift it to be like, okay, well, let's figure out a way for you to move forward separately from kind of this company. Um, and in the end, she said, she said, um, you know, we she got a little bit of money. And, you know, in the end, she she her words literally were, thank you. Like this agreement is life-changing for me. Um, and you know, I don't stay in touch with people after mediations, that's not part of it. So I don't know where things have gone. But I think it's not just that it was life-changing for her, which is enough. Also, the team that kind of she left, they also now have an opportunity to reform and figure out a path forward in a way that's better for them and and better for the business.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds like you you helped get her unstuck in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in thinking about and like admittedly, like the money had something to do with it, um, but it was the mindset first. Yeah, that's that's uh that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Um when you think about uh like engaging with groups, what role does or you know, one or more people, I guess. I guess two or more people, what role does culture play in your preparation? So to be specific, you're a you're a guy from the Midwest, um and your clients could uh always grow up all over the place and the different languages, cultures, backgrounds, uh, and even philosophies on conflict. I'm sure there are certain cultural backgrounds that are very overt and uh open about conflict and and when and you know yelling yelling inappropriately for one culture is totally appropriate for another. How do you navigate that without coming across as like the tone-deaf white guy?
SPEAKER_00:I guess is what my question is. Right. So I'm I'm pretty good at just kind of naming what you know how I show up in the world, and um sometimes you just gotta name it like we're very different. And and um people like some organizations will say, I remember I had this engagement um with an international education group, um, and all of the employees where the concern was was were uh, and I hadn't met any of them, but they were all kind of young, they were all women, they were all people of color, um, I have none of those things. Um and uh they asked, like the people who were hiring me asked about that. And and I think it's an important question. And so I think there's two ways to think about this. One is like um everybody when you walk into a room and you realize, okay, like the first thing that I have to do in this hard situation is build trust. But it's not just in a hard situation. Like, think about your world when you're when you're trying to get the kindergartners to choose you, you know, your school. What's the most important thing? Build trust. You know, so like we always as humans walk through life figuring out ways to build trust with people who are different than us. Some of us are better at it than others. And like there's a small number of us who don't care, like our egos are so big, like that we just but most of us walk into a situation always thinking about like how do we build trust um in this example. And so I think the way I structure engagements now where I'm curious, like, is this gonna be an issue? Is um I always like, look, it doesn't do me any good to proceed with an engagement that um doesn't feel like it's gonna work. And this hasn't happened to me, but I think it's worth narrating and saying, like, look, I there's a discovery part of this. Part of the discovery is me figuring out what you all need to move forward. If during that discovery I realize I'm not the right person, then I'm gonna like refer you to a colleague um to do the work and and and back out, um, you know, and I've never had to do that, but I think just naming that to people where they say, okay, this person is vulnerable and reflective enough to realize he can't be the solution to everybody. And normally that says to people, okay, like let's give it a shot. And what I realize is um almost everybody who I wind up working with in these moments, they want to make life better for themselves and for the other person. And if I'm the tool to get there, they're in. And the reason I say almost everybody is because I think we just have to acknowledge that like mental illness does come into play also in the workplace. And all of these strategies that we have around kind of listening and building trust and um helping people communicate with one another, like they're confounded by mental illness. Um, and um, I have a lot of empathy for that and realization and like and also kind of an understanding that at some point, like, there's a very small percentage of cases where like you're probably not gonna be able to kind of make progress. And in the workplace, that's really hard because I'm not gonna bring it up, and neither is the HR person, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And how do you as a mediator? That's a fascinating topic that you bring up. How do you as a mediator know when you're getting too close to the therapy line?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right, right. So it's interesting because in in my coaching, like, which is slightly separate, I'm very clear, like this is not therapy. Um, and I would actually say in like half of the engagements when people are exploring, like, hey, I'm looking for a coach, they will verbalize before they even know me. Like they'll be like, I'm not looking for a therapist. And I'm like, great, because I am not a therapist, you know. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think this is this is the this is a hard question. And I think for you as somebody who's spent your career supervising people, it's like I could ask that question right back at you because anybody who's a manager kind of um kind of works through that. And you know, I think my job is to help people to be reflective about what's going on in the moment or what immediately happened in the past that's led to this moment, or how to be more successful about the immediate future. In therapy, like I, you know, they're much more interested in kind of the why underneath it. Right. I as a human being am, of course, interested in the why because I care about you, even if I just met you. But for my role as a mediator, um I sometimes the like the way back why is less important. Um and more important is okay, well, what are we hearing today and what are the behaviors we're agreeing to moving forward? Um, so sometimes I think um it's important for me to remind myself that like a really, really, really deep exploration in a workplace mediation is probably less productive and not my role.
SPEAKER_01:Talk to us a little bit about the coaching element of what you do too. We haven't touched on that much, but you brought it up. And and is it like a life coaching uh approach or um I don't do life coaching.
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a really valuable role for life coaches kind of in the society. And um that's I it's not where I think I add value. Mostly I have two different places um around coaching. One is um coaching um just on leadership development, you know. So you as a leader want to get better in some way, shape, or form. Great. Like I love that role. Um, and that's really good. More, I love this idea of coaching after I've worked with you for a while. And one Mike, I think that um internet like the coaching federation would say, well, this isn't coaching, Bob. Uh, it's more consulting, but um like I love to coach people on like how do you work continually work through conflict in your organization? And so making myself almost like open office hours, or um what I've found incredibly valuable this year is I have a couple different kind of leadership teams where I've structured um I'm meeting once a month with their like senior leader, and that's more traditional coaching. And then once a month I'm also working with the with the management team, the senior leadership team for coaching. And and it's not um defined this way, but it certainly comes up this way that almost always people come in like, I'm having the supervisory issue. Um, can we address this? And so like I think my that's that is like a hybrid of coaching, but um also it's just um as part of that, I always tell people, look, any 15 minutes you need before you're gonna go and have a conversation, you're nervous about that conversation, grab on my jump on my calendar link, grab 15 minutes, let's talk through that conversation in advance. Um, and to me, I think like some of the most impactful work that I've done in kind of that coaching sphere is to help people with kind of that immediate work that's happening the very next day.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah, it's like really relevant and grounded in in practice, it sounds like. Yeah, right. What what would your current age and experience self tell your 21-year-old self about the way that your life and career were going to unschool? And what were, you know, what's some guidance that you would give your younger self? Because you've had a really fascinating career trajectory in two industries that are somewhat related and then also not related.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So, so one thing is like you know, don't be so conflict avoidant, you know, engage with it. That'd be the first thing. Um, and I think the second thing would be like don't go put yourself on a team working for someone who's not going to give you feedback. And if you are on a team with someone who's not giving you feedback, demand it. Ask for it regularly. That's different than somebody who's a mentor, right? Like your supervisor needs to give you feedback to help you grow. Um, and I have had amazing supervisors who did that. I don't think I realized why I thought they were so amazing at the time, but in hindsight, that's why. And I've had supervisors who were not good at that. And I should not have stayed. Like, because um, how do you grow if you're not? And I think what happened is in my first year as a principal, um, I followed a principal who was uniformly disliked, which is great to do. Like everybody loves you right away. Right. Um, but they uh and the teachers in the first couple of months kept talking about how great I was. I saw everything and knowledge, everything. At the end of the year, the most veteran teacher in the school was like, Bob, we loved you. We all loved you right away. Um, but now, like, we don't, we we actually, you've never told one of us anything on how to get better. And so we think you're a little bit fake. You know, like that's really hard to hear. Like, those were her words 25 years later. I still have them. Sure. So I think like it's not like my younger self, like, find someone who's gonna give you feedback, don't avoid um conflict. And then my younger self in kind of those leadership roles would be like, like, if you value people, you have to help them get better. That's part of the agreement you make in an organization. And I failed on that for my first couple of years of being a leader. And when I finally figured out how to do that well, I think the the nature of the teams I led changed fundamentally.
SPEAKER_01:What's some advice you could give to people? I'll just keep it really specific. Leaders in education, although I think it probably applies more broadly, where very often the the industry norm has been meets expectations. Anything that's written down, everything everybody's so either uh uh afraid of of litigation, uh, we live in a very litigious society, or and or there's a collectively bargained agreement. So there are a lot just like not you know, does not meet expectations is the third rail. And you touch it, and then it means you're gonna spend 50 hours of meetings with people, and they're gonna bring in an advocate and a la la la. How does someone give meaningful feedback, help other people grow, help the team grow in that environment?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I don't want to make light about the challenges of kind of though that type of environment. I lived in that, it's really hard. I think a lot of people live in a similar environment where um you have very clear expectations on how people are evaluated, union or not union. You know, like we have very clear um expectations on how people are evaluated and when it's supposed to happen and you know, a process to follow if it's not done well. And at the same time, and I would push and say, look, if we think about talent management as a once-a-year conversation, then we gotta like go have one of those retreats with our senior leadership team and like re-reframe in our minds what talent management is. Um, because you will never be successful, kind of given kind of that setup in like a once-year conversation. And so, how do you build the trust where you can actually have those conversations kind of monthly and they're not about accountability, they're about learning and growing. And how do I know they're not about accountability and about learning and growing? Is because when I sit down, if I'm the principal and you're the teacher, and we're gonna have these kind of more regular meetings, I've set up a structure where it's not just me giving you feedback, like you're driving the meeting, you're giving me feedback, we're both giving each other feedback. And there are a lot of people in education who don't want that. Like I get it, like they don't want that. Also, I'm gonna push and say there are a whole lot of people in education who do, if you've built the trust and are willing to kind of build that trust. Because most people who have not yet become jaded, and that happens in every industry, they want a learning curve. They want to continue to learn and grow.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you've been very uh generous with your time, and I realize you're busy today and and you probably have someone with conflict in about 13 minutes from now. So I'm going to ask you the last question. Um, this is a hypothetical.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um if you were given the opportunity to create a billboard on the side of the freeway, whatever freeway is closest to your home, what does Bob Burke's billboard say about your belief in what's important in this life, what's important in your work, uh, and why?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm gonna give you two answers. I'll get two billboards. Like um so the first yeah, the first is just a really big billboard, that one word which says listen. And I I just think like what do we know about the research coming out of politics? Like if you try to convince somebody to move your way, they will move further in there. If you spend time, yeah, yeah. If you spend time listening to them, they're gonna move a little bit toward you, you know. So like the the first billboard is gonna say listen. That's it. Um, maybe my phone number so I can get some business out of it too. The second billboard's gonna you're gonna have that My Angelo quote about like people won't remember the words you said, they're just gonna remember how you feel, how they felt when you said it, you know. And I'm I'm um not quoting her directly, but I think we all know the quote. And I think um, look, that quote resonates to me as a middle schooler, as a high schooler, as a university student, as a graduate student, as somebody first-year teacher. It resonates every place in my life. Um and when I think back, it's not how somebody else made me feel where I kind of sit with most struggle. It's how I know I made somebody else feel when I could have done something different. And in my world in the conflict resolution space, like that impact on somebody, how you're making somebody feel is your impact on them. That's like the million-dollar work right there.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much, Bob, for that. Um, for your wisdom today, for your perspective. Um, your work is exceedingly valuable in this world. And and um I actually don't subscribe to the idea that we're more polarized than we've ever been. I think as humans, it's just part of of who we are. Um so um you'll have work as long as you want work. So that's a good thank you so much for your time. This has been uh very enjoyable for me and informing me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's really been an honor. And uh, I'm gonna invite myself to come tour the new high school building when it's built. Uh I'm pretty excited about uh that newness for you.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for joining us on the Hangout Podcast. You can send us an email at podcastinfo at proton.me. Many thanks to my daughter Maya for editing this episode. I'd also like to underline that this podcast is entirely separate from my day job. And as such, all opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thanks for coming on in and hanging out.
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