In this week's episode, host Phil Tower chats with Dr. John Eliot, co-author of How to Get Along with Anyone The Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and At Home
In his new book, Dr. John Eliot and co-author Jim Quinn help you defuse any heated conflict by learning which of the five conflict styles YOU are and how to resolve even the most sensitive dispute.
Dr. Elliott told us that the average American worker spends 156 hours a year engaged in the kind of moderate to intense workplace conflict that adversely impacts both performance and health.
Through three decades of building and facilitating team chemistry for Fortune 500 companies, professional sports franchises, schools, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and families—Drs. Jim Guinn and John Eliot have reduced the time and cost of conflict resolution.
Online: The Conflict Docs Website
Get the Book: How to Get Along with Anyone
The Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and At Home
In his new book, Dr. John Eliot and co-author Jim Quinn help you defuse any heated conflict by learning which of the five conflict styles YOU are and how to resolve even the most sensitive dispute.
Dr. Elliott told us that the average American worker spends 156 hours a year engaged in the kind of moderate to intense workplace conflict that adversely impacts both performance and health.
Through three decades of building and facilitating team chemistry for Fortune 500 companies, professional sports franchises, schools, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and families—Drs. Jim Guinn and John Eliot have reduced the time and cost of conflict resolution.
Online: The Conflict Docs Website
Get the Book: How to Get Along with Anyone
The Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and At Home
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly program designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio, and thank you so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm your host Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In this segment, it's a pleasure to welcome doctor John Elliott,
co author of How to Get Along with Anyone, the
playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and at Home,
just out recently by Simon and Schuster. The book is
co written with doctor Elliott's partner, doctor Jim Gwynn, and
(00:44):
he's on our live line to talk about this new book,
which I am very interested in learning about. I mean,
is anything more relatable than conflict? We have it with
our kids, we have it with our spouses, and we
certainly have it at work.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Doctor John Elliott into the program.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, I'm going to ask you the toughest question. First.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
There are a gazillion books on resolving conflicts, understanding conflict.
You and your partner are known collectively as the Conflict Docs,
and you have a website, the conflictdocs dot com. What
made you guys get together and say, hey, you know what,
let's do another book on resolving conflict.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, a couple of things really. One. We do a
lot of trainings and seminars and programs for schools, hospitals,
profective sports teams, and the intent usually is to handle,
you know, some sort of conflict or some sort of
problem at work that's leading to for retention of employees
or what have you. And inevitably everybody wants to ask
(01:45):
about their kids, or their spouse or their in laws.
And so we found that, you know, what we do
for good teamwork in the locker room, for example, works
really well in dealing with in laws, and so we
wanted to write something that bridge that gap. But more importantly,
all the really good resources on conflict that are out there,
(02:05):
the books and so forth, tend to focus on conflict
as sort of one entity with one set of prescriptions.
And what we've learned over time is, you know, everybody's different.
We've got different hot buttons, and we've got sort of
different ways that we handle pressure. And unfortunately, a lot
of the conflict material out there assumes that everything's hunky
(02:28):
doran rational other than the conflict, when in fact it's
conflict is becaused by you know, when we lose sight
of our best self or where we get out of
our comfort zone. And so what we've realized is that
there there are five different personality styles that people tend
to fall into when they're pushed, when they're really stretched,
when their feelings are hurt, when they're having a really
(02:50):
bad day, and that's the heat. There are a lot
of great personality inventories.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Out there, but they're about you know, when things are
going well, when you're when you're really pushed, you there's
some common habit and so we wanted to give people
access to those because once you know those, you're really
well eclipped quiped to handle some tough situations.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So the book is really about focusing on these conflict
styles or responses. If you will avoidance, competing, analyzing, collaborating,
or accommodating. I'm just curious, whether you're thirty five or
sixty five, how do you know your conflicts style? John Elliott?
(03:29):
How do you determine your conflict style and can that
change over time.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It sure can, and you can have one style at
work and a different style at home, where you can
have one style for a for the really big emergencies
and a different one for the you know, small little hiccups.
And it's it's really one of the things that excites
us about putting this book together is it arms people
with some basic tools for figuring out their style. Because
(03:54):
interestingly enough, when your buttons are pushed, you know, emotion spikes,
you lose your rational logical mind, and it's your rational
logical mind that would understand your styles. And so because
these pop up at times when you're maybe not thinking straight,
a lot of people haven't taking time or don't realize
what their style is, which is really helpful to know,
(04:16):
so you know what your strengths and weaknesses are in
different situations. And so we provide some tools in the book,
but we also have an assessment. You know, our website
you can you can take the inventory. And not only
is it tell you your style, what gives you a
scouting report who you work with, we're weren't work well with?
You know what sort of situations? Is it better for
you to feet clear of what situations are you going
to be really good at based on your style, just
(04:37):
like a scouting reportant sport. It gives you scouting report
based on your style.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The website is that on the conflict doc dot com.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, theconflictdocs dot com. And there are links to take
the assessment and we have some packages where you can
take the assessment. We get a free book, you know,
buy the book, get a fre assessment, those sort of things.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I think a lot of people listening to us are
going to want to take advantage of that. We will
put that link up in the podcast of this program
that you're hearing live on the radio right now, and
it's the conflictdocs dot com, theconflictdocs dot com where you
can take that assessment. It's interesting, I really zeroed in
(05:13):
on something you said about you could be a different
type of conflict responder at home versus at work. How
do those interact with each other?
Speaker 4 (05:24):
John Elliott, Well, really it is, you know, situation specific,
and so you know the five styles. For example, in
a work situation where you know, if a maybe you're
in sales, maybe you deal with a lot of deadlines
and over time you've gotten into the habit of when
you're really pushed, when someone fishes you off, you default
to being a competitor, and you're all about, you know,
(05:46):
checking things off the checklist, getting things done, being more efficient.
Your weakness tends to be impatience. Your weakness. There are
people who you know avoid you those sort of things,
and because of the demands of your job, that's become
your default under pressure at work. But at home, you
don't act that way with your spouse or your kids.
At home, you might be more of an accommodator, where
(06:07):
you're really focused on the success of the family as
a whole, your team minded, you're selfless, and so when
you know a family member says something to push your buttons,
then you know, you default to trying to find a
way to accommodate their needs before yours. And it's just
based on those relationships that are different at home and work,
(06:28):
and the end goal really, the end goal of the
family being you know, having you know, you know, wonderful
family experiences, versus the end goal at work being to
increase the bottom line numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
We're speaking with doctor John Elliott, co author of How
to Get Along with Anyone, The Playbook for Predicting and
preventing conflict at work and as you just heard him
talking about at home, it's a brand new book out
on Simon and Schuster from doctor John Elliott and his
partner Jim Quinn to help you diffuse a conflict. You've
got a first of all, as we've been talking about,
(07:00):
understand your conflict style, which is really really important. I'm
wondering about people. You just mentioned the word rational, and
we can respond irrationally depending on you know, the stressors
we're dealing with at work. But what if you've got
a supervisor or a boss, or maybe a team member
that you supervise or work with, have to collaborate with,
(07:24):
perhaps even in another department that is unpredictable that can
be called ninety percent of the time, and then do
something very irrational that causes conflict. It's more important, I
guess from what the book is saying, to understand how
you respond based on those different stressors.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Am I getting that right? John Elliott?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Yeah? And their two halves to the equations. So when
you understand your style, you know what sort of thing's
going to happen where that other person would normally push
your buttons and then you'd lose your sort of logical perspective.
You can start predicting when as they are happening because
you know their style. Say, their style is an analyzer
and they like to collect all the data and then
(08:06):
slow everything down. They're very methodical, and you know when
there's a deadline looming that's really hard to deal with.
Maybe that pushes your buttons. But since you know that
that's what they tend to do when a deadline's coming,
then you're prepared to say, Okay, the situation is coming
that would normally push my button. And that's half the picture.
But the other half of the picture is knowing of
(08:26):
the styles the people around you, whether it's an employee,
a teammatee, a boss. When you know their style, you
know their strengths and weaknesses, and then you know the
things that you do that you may not realize it's
just completely by accident. You haven't noticed the pattern things
you do that push their button, and so you know, Really,
we're asked to come in to resolve a lot of conflicts,
but the real gold here is using these styles to
(08:49):
predict and prevent conflict and have less conflict. In the
first place.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I'm fascinated by the fact, you've spent a lot of
time working in professional sports. You've worked for many fortunate
five hundred companies. Are there similarities between the world of
pro sports and certain types of business. I mean, I
would think there are, because it seems like business today
doctor John Elliott is more competitive than ever, people trying
(09:16):
to get an advantage over a co worker or trying
to climb the ladder of success. Are there more similarities
than differences?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
You know what's interesting is athletes are there just regular
people and they've got their strengths and weaknesses, and they
get their busts and buttons pushed, and they have bad days,
and that the temperature and so the atmosphere in the
locker room makes a huge difference. You know. In the
in the book, we reference the quote by Jay Moore
from from Jerry Maguire. You know, it's not show friends,
(09:47):
it's show business. And people say, hey, hey, it's not personal,
it's business, you know, And then whether you're in computer
tech or professional sports or you're running hospital, we have
this phrase. You know, don't take it personally. This is
just business. And that's why I'm acting the way I'm acting.
But sports like high pressure business It's all about the relationships.
It's all personal because you know, the companies and the
(10:10):
sports teams that are doing well are groups of people
that are getting along really well, and they understand each other.
They know how to help each other when they're having
a bad day. They know when to pass someone on
the back or when to leave them alone. They know
what sort of phrases get the best out of other people.
And that level of understanding of each other, you know,
that's what when we talk about keem chemistry, like you
(10:31):
know in the San Antonio Spurs, you know we're in
the finals year after year after year after year. Right,
it really came down that chemistry in the locker room. Well,
it's no different on your work teams. And to have
that type of chemistry, you got to understand each other.
And so it's got to be personal, personalized, and you
care enough about other people to know their styles, know
their strengths, know their weaknesses, be able to help them
(10:54):
when they're down, and so forth.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We're speaking with doctor John Elliott Couthor of a great
new book, How to Get Along with Anyone, The Playbook
for predicting and preventing conflict both at work and at Home,
written along with his partner Jim Quinn. They are together
the Conflict docs theconflictdocs dot com and you can take
an assessment there. Highly recommend you check that out and
(11:15):
we'll put the link in our podcast section. Been a
couple of minutes left. I want to talk about avoidance
when it comes to conflict styles, because I think, if
I'm going to classify myself, most of the time I'm
an avoid or I want to find the easy way
around it. And I would think, John Elliott, most people
would rather avoid than compete, analyze, collaborate, or accommodate. Can
(11:40):
you change yourself from being an avoid to one of
those other responders of conflict?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
You sure can't. All five styles, you know, have a
pattern and have a set of keys that make them work.
And that's at the end of the day. The really
great leaders, the great boss is the great the team
managers and so forth. You know, the great family members,
they have a default style that's their habit, but they
get really good at the others. They practice being able
(12:08):
to use the other so you can adopt their styles.
You can learn how to act like those folks. You know,
we say we call these go tos that under pressure,
your go to may be a void, but like a
Major League Baseball pitcher in the ninth inning, bases loaded
game on the line, they have a go to pitch,
but the situation may call for a different pitch, so
they've got to learn how to throw that other pitch.
The thing about the avoid is interesting is is a
(12:30):
lot of people think it's negative. Oh well, avoiding things
it's bad, and they don't want to be labeled that way.
So we've come up with sports nicknames for every one
of these. And the avoid is really like the golfer,
and we call it the golfer because if you have
a putt to win the Masters, and you're on eighteen
and it's a hard putt, and what do you do right?
You put your blinders, are you get focused? You take
(12:50):
your time to read the green from all angles, you
study it, you line it up, you block out distractions.
And so the avoid, like a golfer or is really
good at focused, at narrowing in, and it is bad
at the under pressure. This is is bad at delegating
and having a lot of people involved and so forth.
(13:12):
And then they certainly don't like to rush. They like
to take the time and make sure to get it right.
And so each one of these has some perceived weaknesses,
but they also have some real strengths. So if an
emergency calls for someone to slow things down, get focused,
read all the information, and really, you know, acting singularly
(13:34):
is what the situation calls for. An avoid like a
golfer would be great in that situation.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I was just thinking, it's a great analogy about
you know, having to sync that final putt on the
eighteenth toll to win the Masters or you know, PGA Championship,
whatever it is. Wouldn't it be crazy or interesting if
you know, they would say, Okay, we're going to take
a two hour break and analyze John's putt and come
back and make him putt. It wouldn't that be interest
(14:00):
to take that pause? But I digress. The book is
just out from doctor John Elliott along with Jim Gwinn.
The book is How to Get Along with Anyone, The
Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at work and at home.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Terrific book.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Highly recommend it and it's available wherever books are sold.
And don't forget you can take your own conflict assessment
and that assessment rather is at the conflictdocs dot com
and they can find it there. And in terms of
other help, they may even want to contract with you
and connect with you and your partner Jim Gwinn about
(14:37):
solving a workplace conflict or something like that as well.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, this is what we love doing, help people, you know,
create better teams and better families and so forth. And
the book is a product of It's full of stories
and you know, wild and crazy things that we've run into.
And so if you've got a great situation, you've got
a tough one, you gotta something needs to a little
Sherlock Holmes, We not only would love to help you,
but maybe invite you to be in our next book.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Sounds very exciting and we appreciate your time very much.
Doctor John Elliott, co author of How to Get Along
with Anyone, Thank you for joining us in this segment
of West Michigan Weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly program designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It's West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio, and thank you so
much for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm your host Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In this segment, it's a pleasure to welcome doctor John Elliott,
co author of How to Get Along with Anyone, the
playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at Work and at Home,
just out recently by Simon and Schuster. The book is
co written with doctor Elliott's partner, doctor Jim Gwynn, and
(00:44):
he's on our live line to talk about this new book,
which I am very interested in learning about. I mean,
is anything more relatable than conflict? We have it with
our kids, we have it with our spouses, and we
certainly have it at work.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Doctor John Elliott into the program.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, I'm going to ask you the toughest question. First.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
There are a gazillion books on resolving conflicts, understanding conflict.
You and your partner are known collectively as the Conflict Docs,
and you have a website, the conflictdocs dot com. What
made you guys get together and say, hey, you know what,
let's do another book on resolving conflict.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, a couple of things really. One. We do a
lot of trainings and seminars and programs for schools, hospitals,
profective sports teams, and the intent usually is to handle,
you know, some sort of conflict or some sort of
problem at work that's leading to for retention of employees
or what have you. And inevitably everybody wants to ask
(01:45):
about their kids, or their spouse or their in laws.
And so we found that, you know, what we do
for good teamwork in the locker room, for example, works
really well in dealing with in laws, and so we
wanted to write something that bridge that gap. But more importantly,
all the really good resources on conflict that are out there,
(02:05):
the books and so forth, tend to focus on conflict
as sort of one entity with one set of prescriptions.
And what we've learned over time is, you know, everybody's different.
We've got different hot buttons, and we've got sort of
different ways that we handle pressure. And unfortunately, a lot
of the conflict material out there assumes that everything's hunky
(02:28):
doran rational other than the conflict, when in fact it's
conflict is becaused by you know, when we lose sight
of our best self or where we get out of
our comfort zone. And so what we've realized is that
there there are five different personality styles that people tend
to fall into when they're pushed, when they're really stretched,
when their feelings are hurt, when they're having a really
(02:50):
bad day, and that's the heat. There are a lot
of great personality inventories.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Out there, but they're about you know, when things are
going well, when you're when you're really pushed, you there's
some common habit and so we wanted to give people
access to those because once you know those, you're really
well eclipped quiped to handle some tough situations.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So the book is really about focusing on these conflict
styles or responses. If you will avoidance, competing, analyzing, collaborating,
or accommodating. I'm just curious, whether you're thirty five or
sixty five, how do you know your conflicts style? John Elliott?
(03:29):
How do you determine your conflict style and can that
change over time.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It sure can, and you can have one style at
work and a different style at home, where you can
have one style for a for the really big emergencies
and a different one for the you know, small little hiccups.
And it's it's really one of the things that excites
us about putting this book together is it arms people
with some basic tools for figuring out their style. Because
(03:54):
interestingly enough, when your buttons are pushed, you know, emotion spikes,
you lose your rational logical mind, and it's your rational
logical mind that would understand your styles. And so because
these pop up at times when you're maybe not thinking straight,
a lot of people haven't taking time or don't realize
what their style is, which is really helpful to know,
(04:16):
so you know what your strengths and weaknesses are in
different situations. And so we provide some tools in the book,
but we also have an assessment. You know, our website
you can you can take the inventory. And not only
is it tell you your style, what gives you a
scouting report who you work with, we're weren't work well with?
You know what sort of situations? Is it better for
you to feet clear of what situations are you going
to be really good at based on your style, just
(04:37):
like a scouting reportant sport. It gives you scouting report
based on your style.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The website is that on the conflict doc dot com.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, theconflictdocs dot com. And there are links to take
the assessment and we have some packages where you can
take the assessment. We get a free book, you know,
buy the book, get a fre assessment, those sort of things.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I think a lot of people listening to us are
going to want to take advantage of that. We will
put that link up in the podcast of this program
that you're hearing live on the radio right now, and
it's the conflictdocs dot com, theconflictdocs dot com where you
can take that assessment. It's interesting, I really zeroed in
(05:13):
on something you said about you could be a different
type of conflict responder at home versus at work. How
do those interact with each other?
Speaker 4 (05:24):
John Elliott, Well, really it is, you know, situation specific,
and so you know the five styles. For example, in
a work situation where you know, if a maybe you're
in sales, maybe you deal with a lot of deadlines
and over time you've gotten into the habit of when
you're really pushed, when someone fishes you off, you default
to being a competitor, and you're all about, you know,
(05:46):
checking things off the checklist, getting things done, being more efficient.
Your weakness tends to be impatience. Your weakness. There are
people who you know avoid you those sort of things,
and because of the demands of your job, that's become
your default under pressure at work. But at home, you
don't act that way with your spouse or your kids.
At home, you might be more of an accommodator, where
(06:07):
you're really focused on the success of the family as
a whole, your team minded, you're selfless, and so when
you know a family member says something to push your buttons,
then you know, you default to trying to find a
way to accommodate their needs before yours. And it's just
based on those relationships that are different at home and work,
(06:28):
and the end goal really, the end goal of the
family being you know, having you know, you know, wonderful
family experiences, versus the end goal at work being to
increase the bottom line numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
We're speaking with doctor John Elliott, co author of How
to Get Along with Anyone, The Playbook for Predicting and
preventing conflict at work and as you just heard him
talking about at home, it's a brand new book out
on Simon and Schuster from doctor John Elliott and his
partner Jim Quinn to help you diffuse a conflict. You've
got a first of all, as we've been talking about,
(07:00):
understand your conflict style, which is really really important. I'm
wondering about people. You just mentioned the word rational, and
we can respond irrationally depending on you know, the stressors
we're dealing with at work. But what if you've got
a supervisor or a boss, or maybe a team member
that you supervise or work with, have to collaborate with,
(07:24):
perhaps even in another department that is unpredictable that can
be called ninety percent of the time, and then do
something very irrational that causes conflict. It's more important, I
guess from what the book is saying, to understand how
you respond based on those different stressors.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Am I getting that right? John Elliott?
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Yeah? And their two halves to the equations. So when
you understand your style, you know what sort of thing's
going to happen where that other person would normally push
your buttons and then you'd lose your sort of logical perspective.
You can start predicting when as they are happening because
you know their style. Say, their style is an analyzer
and they like to collect all the data and then
(08:06):
slow everything down. They're very methodical, and you know when
there's a deadline looming that's really hard to deal with.
Maybe that pushes your buttons. But since you know that
that's what they tend to do when a deadline's coming,
then you're prepared to say, Okay, the situation is coming
that would normally push my button. And that's half the picture.
But the other half of the picture is knowing of
(08:26):
the styles the people around you, whether it's an employee,
a teammatee, a boss. When you know their style, you
know their strengths and weaknesses, and then you know the
things that you do that you may not realize it's
just completely by accident. You haven't noticed the pattern things
you do that push their button, and so you know, Really,
we're asked to come in to resolve a lot of conflicts,
but the real gold here is using these styles to
(08:49):
predict and prevent conflict and have less conflict. In the
first place.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I'm fascinated by the fact, you've spent a lot of
time working in professional sports. You've worked for many fortunate
five hundred companies. Are there similarities between the world of
pro sports and certain types of business. I mean, I
would think there are, because it seems like business today
doctor John Elliott is more competitive than ever, people trying
(09:16):
to get an advantage over a co worker or trying
to climb the ladder of success. Are there more similarities
than differences?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
You know what's interesting is athletes are there just regular
people and they've got their strengths and weaknesses, and they
get their busts and buttons pushed, and they have bad days,
and that the temperature and so the atmosphere in the
locker room makes a huge difference. You know. In the
in the book, we reference the quote by Jay Moore
from from Jerry Maguire. You know, it's not show friends,
(09:47):
it's show business. And people say, hey, hey, it's not personal,
it's business, you know, And then whether you're in computer
tech or professional sports or you're running hospital, we have
this phrase. You know, don't take it personally. This is
just business. And that's why I'm acting the way I'm acting.
But sports like high pressure business It's all about the relationships.
It's all personal because you know, the companies and the
(10:10):
sports teams that are doing well are groups of people
that are getting along really well, and they understand each other.
They know how to help each other when they're having
a bad day. They know when to pass someone on
the back or when to leave them alone. They know
what sort of phrases get the best out of other people.
And that level of understanding of each other, you know,
that's what when we talk about keem chemistry, like you
(10:31):
know in the San Antonio Spurs, you know we're in
the finals year after year after year after year. Right,
it really came down that chemistry in the locker room. Well,
it's no different on your work teams. And to have
that type of chemistry, you got to understand each other.
And so it's got to be personal, personalized, and you
care enough about other people to know their styles, know
their strengths, know their weaknesses, be able to help them
(10:54):
when they're down, and so forth.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
We're speaking with doctor John Elliott Couthor of a great
new book, How to Get Along with Anyone, The Playbook
for predicting and preventing conflict both at work and at Home,
written along with his partner Jim Quinn. They are together
the Conflict docs theconflictdocs dot com and you can take
an assessment there. Highly recommend you check that out and
(11:15):
we'll put the link in our podcast section. Been a
couple of minutes left. I want to talk about avoidance
when it comes to conflict styles, because I think, if
I'm going to classify myself, most of the time I'm
an avoid or I want to find the easy way
around it. And I would think, John Elliott, most people
would rather avoid than compete, analyze, collaborate, or accommodate. Can
(11:40):
you change yourself from being an avoid to one of
those other responders of conflict?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
You sure can't. All five styles, you know, have a
pattern and have a set of keys that make them work.
And that's at the end of the day. The really
great leaders, the great boss is the great the team
managers and so forth. You know, the great family members,
they have a default style that's their habit, but they
get really good at the others. They practice being able
(12:08):
to use the other so you can adopt their styles.
You can learn how to act like those folks. You know,
we say we call these go tos that under pressure,
your go to may be a void, but like a
Major League Baseball pitcher in the ninth inning, bases loaded
game on the line, they have a go to pitch,
but the situation may call for a different pitch, so
they've got to learn how to throw that other pitch.
The thing about the avoid is interesting is is a
(12:30):
lot of people think it's negative. Oh well, avoiding things
it's bad, and they don't want to be labeled that way.
So we've come up with sports nicknames for every one
of these. And the avoid is really like the golfer,
and we call it the golfer because if you have
a putt to win the Masters, and you're on eighteen
and it's a hard putt, and what do you do right?
You put your blinders, are you get focused? You take
(12:50):
your time to read the green from all angles, you
study it, you line it up, you block out distractions.
And so the avoid, like a golfer or is really
good at focused, at narrowing in, and it is bad
at the under pressure. This is is bad at delegating
and having a lot of people involved and so forth.
(13:12):
And then they certainly don't like to rush. They like
to take the time and make sure to get it right.
And so each one of these has some perceived weaknesses,
but they also have some real strengths. So if an
emergency calls for someone to slow things down, get focused,
read all the information, and really, you know, acting singularly
(13:34):
is what the situation calls for. An avoid like a
golfer would be great in that situation.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, I was just thinking, it's a great analogy about
you know, having to sync that final putt on the
eighteenth toll to win the Masters or you know, PGA Championship,
whatever it is. Wouldn't it be crazy or interesting if
you know, they would say, Okay, we're going to take
a two hour break and analyze John's putt and come
back and make him putt. It wouldn't that be interest
(14:00):
to take that pause? But I digress. The book is
just out from doctor John Elliott along with Jim Gwinn.
The book is How to Get Along with Anyone, The
Playbook for Predicting and Preventing Conflict at work and at home.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Terrific book.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Highly recommend it and it's available wherever books are sold.
And don't forget you can take your own conflict assessment
and that assessment rather is at the conflictdocs dot com
and they can find it there. And in terms of
other help, they may even want to contract with you
and connect with you and your partner Jim Gwinn about
(14:37):
solving a workplace conflict or something like that as well.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, this is what we love doing, help people, you know,
create better teams and better families and so forth. And
the book is a product of It's full of stories
and you know, wild and crazy things that we've run into.
And so if you've got a great situation, you've got
a tough one, you gotta something needs to a little
Sherlock Holmes, We not only would love to help you,
but maybe invite you to be in our next book.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Sounds very exciting and we appreciate your time very much.
Doctor John Elliott, co author of How to Get Along
with Anyone, Thank you for joining us in this segment
of West Michigan Weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio
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