Conflict Management the Sandler Way

~~An Introduction to Introductions, or Tim Goering, and Resolving Conflict, Just So You Know—It’s Your Fault!~~

Too often people avoid conflict. If you avoid it the problem won’t go away, but it’ll go temporarily away. Tim believes that you can resolve all conflict in your life, and never have to have another dramatic conversation for the rest of your life, but the bad news is if you do then it’s entirely your fault.

You have to abandon convincing and the need to be right. You have to abandon your desire for justice and fault finding and just be aware of it. Somehow we’ve got to go on a journey together that leads us to believe that all of this is possible, without convincing, otherwise it falls into the trap of drama.

Kartman’s drama triangle says there are three doors in: the persecutor, the rescuer, or the villain. Think about fairy tales…Victim, villain, and hero. In any fairytale we can see these roles and how they play out. Sometimes they change roles, the victim can become the hero, or the hero can turn into the villain. Think about some movies that you watch which are essentially dramatic and action films.

Think about school. Why did you go to school? You need to learn some stuff ad we’re going to teach it to you. Teachers set themselves up as rescuers and heroes. The reality is that teachers promise to rescue us. We can see it in politics—the victims are the voters who can rescue you from the person they’re running against.

In the professional world we come out with features and benefits to rescue the prospect whose being victimized by the competition. Drama is introduced in society as a necessary evil. Because its ingrained we don’t often realize that it is in our lap. Instead, drama becomes a way of life related to thinking and being.

The inherent challenge is we’re trying to wake people up to a common place condition that is so common that it is expected.

~~The Conceptual: Avoiding Conflict by Not Getting Into It, or You Choose Your Role and Entry~~

You invite people in. If you don’t want drama you need to change what role you take. If you avoid acting like a victim, a persecutor, or a rescuer then you don’t enter it. The natural impulse we have to fight against is when we invite ourselves or are invited into drama then we have to engage the substance of the drama in order to solve the issues associated with drama.

Everyone that you run across during the day that’s inviting you to drama has their own issues in life happening. If someone is repeatedly calling you out and then later you hear that they’re going through a divorce that started over the weekend, you know their frustrations are not targeted at you. We’re all facing persecution from within and without, we keep the door closed by not inviting others in, not letting others inviting you in, manage your self-talk, and being aware of the other person’s reality which influences their outcome is key.

We’re not going to make problems and challenges go away, but when we get a challenge we need to face the anxiety and the physiological response and then we can either react to the challenge or the physiological response to the experience. If we react to the emotions associated with a challenge then the problems or emotions don’t go away.

Before you’re in a situation where there’s going to be a drama, make a decision on what course of action you will take. Decide how you will react before you face a problem—premeditate and be forewarned on how you will react and not be controlled by your physiological responses.

We serve ourselves well when we understand what our preprogrammed response is to drama. When we understand what our natural role is in drama, and what the roles of our parents are, we understand where our natural impulse is to participate in drama. Think about animal instincts. What does a lion when its faced with a challenge? It attacks. What does a gazelle do when it faces a problem? It runs. What does a turtle do? It freezes and withdraws into its shell. We have instincts of fight, flight, or freeze. Fight is persecutor. Flight is a version of rescuer. Freeze is a victim.

Most people don’t realize that neuroscience teaches us we have a physiological response anytime drama comes up. Emotion is associated and leads to an action or reaction based on the emotion, not based on the problem. It’s not how you feel that determines how you act, it’s how you act that’ll determine how you feel. Don’t wait until you feel good to start running. Take the action and allow the feeling to follow.

The reason some people don’t want to stop participating in drama is the reward and justification of it. There is a reward to participating in any of these roles of drama.

A rescuer is a peacemaker and they enter a situation and they swoop in and solve the issue then it becomes a role and a defining of self. Two people weren’t okay, and they came in and made it okay, and that defines them and their specialness. Rescuers work from a position where they can feel and solve issues for others. The problem with rescuing is that it comes from a place of condescension.

All of these roles are interchangeable. The more you switch roles, the worse you feel about yourself and your circumstances.

The persecutor is rewarded by self-righteousness. The persecutor can yell at you because you need it, you need rules, and the payoff is that the persecutor is the person whose better than you. The persecutor doesn’t want to admit that they aren’t right.

What’s the payoff for being the victim? If you’re the victim then you’re not responsible. You can get all your needs met, and you don’t have to ask for it. The If I…syndrome facilitates excuse making over trying. Empowerment leads to responsibility and victimhood prevents expectations.

The antidote for some of these issues can be asking questions rather than making statements. There is freedom in shedding roles only if you are willing to get rid of your addictions. The key is to watch what you pay attention to. Instead of saying, “I want this, I need this, I X that.” The real question is “What are you willing to do to get it?”

That question of intentionality allows us to look for a sustainable result rather than a temporary result. A sustainable resolution to conflict requires addressing a problem and not approaching the emotions and anxieties associated with the problem. If we can separate ourself from the problem and instead engage logic, it is the enemy of emotion and can help us solve the issues we face with the drama triangle.

~~The Technical: The Drama Triangle, or The Alternative to the Drama Triangle, or Tim, Rescue Me! Why Isn’t This Working?~~

You don’t have to criticize people, you don’t have to yell at them, but that doesn’t mean that rules aren’t appropriate. What’s our choice if we aren’t going to be aggressive? If we ignore it, it makes it worse. If, instead, we go to our nurturing parent and hold them accountable in an assertive manner. Empathy evoking questions can help us hold our constituents accountable.

Sometimes rescuers can become enablers, but enabling doesn’t empower people. The coach can’t play in the game. A real coach empowers their team so that when they get into the game they know how to react the physiology and emotions of it, so when we’re behind, we know how to react to it. We need to start off by setting boundaries.

The victim has a choice also. Sometimes the victim can fall and define themselves by their past and present circumstances or they can choose to define their own future. If you lost legs in a war you have a choice on how to live your life and no one will see you as a victim. But, in order to make substantive change to your condition you’ll need to find people who can hold you accountable and be assertive when you want to quit.

The no drama way of accountability from a manager might start with, “How’s that forecast look for the year?” This adult to adult question could be heard in a negative way and it could trigger some sort of victim and a response, “Because of my own anxiety I’m not feeling like I’m gonna hit my numbers for the month. Could we talk about this?” And the manager could then step into a nurturing role and say, “Sure man, what can I do to help you, because I don’t want that to happen?”

More often than not it starts off the same way, and the salesperson says, “Well, it’s slow, but.” And the but is a predicate that stands for all the excuse making and excuses trigger criticism in a way where the manager might come out and start blaming the target rather than allowing them to build excuses.

Telling never pans out well because action is never taken and it leads to inefficient methods of management. Instead, it’s important to ask specific questions and probe into the conversations. By going down the Pain Funnel you allow the constituent to discover they have a level of empowerment if they want to step up to it. By setting an up-front contract to establish the conditions of debriefing then you establish a completely appropriate method of pushing out management.

Taking the scenario of an up-front contract which establishes debriefing with the Sandler system then we can go through the steps to establish whether or not both the salesperson was on target and their pursuit of the systems rules were strong. When we agree up front on accountability and consequences as well then we can have a straight forward assertive position. Instead of being mean we can be assertive, instead of just saying here’s what’s going to happen, we can ask what would you do if you were in my shoes, and what should I do?

If we enter the conversation from an adult way and we facilitate their discovery at every step where they falter during the process of accountability. If we know what the end might look like then we must enter with a willingness to be assertive, not aggressive. We need to be willing to change and we need to be focused on empowering our constituents, not enabling them.