The Power of Perfect Conflict: How to Guarantee Trust and Influence with Anyone | Dan Tocchini III

Our lives are complex and fast moving. Thus, conflict happens, even when everyone has the best of intentions, want to know how to deal with conflict effectively and proactively. Dan Tocchini III is here to tell us how Dan is a business and social entrepreneur, a published author, a master trainer, executive coach, leadership whisperer and culture development specialist. And he'll have you thinking about and approaching conflict much differently. I'm glad you're here to listen in.

Welcome to the Courage of a Leader podcast. This is where you hear real life stories of top leaders achieving extraordinary results. And you get practical advice and techniques, you can immediately apply for your own success. This is where you will get inspired. And take bold, courageous action. I am so glad you can join us. I'm your host, Amy Riley. Now, are you ready to step into the full power of your leadership and achieve the results you care about most? Let's ignite the Courage of a Leader.

Dan Tocchini, thank you for being with me today on the podcast.

Dan Tocchini III: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited about the conversation that we're going to have. We're going to talk about how to deal with conflict proactively and constructively. We know conflict happens in our world, if we're doing anything remotely interesting or complex, or that involves people, right, we're going to have conflict. And I know, Dan, that you'd like to start with mindset. So let me ask you, how do you think about conflict? Or what mindset do we want to be in to effectively approach conflict?

Dan Tocchini III: Well, immediately what comes up for me is this is perfect. In other words, this is perfect. What I have is exactly what I need to bring forth what I'm committed to. And so that's really the mindset that I come to it with. Because, look, we're all living out of some question. But our default question is, am I going to survive this? And when it comes to conflict, most people go, Oh, heck, there's something wrong, better broken here, which immediately kicks in flight to fight or flight, the amygdala gets gone, versus Oh, perfect. This is what is wanted and needed for me to get to what's next, right? This is for whatever I'm committed to. So it's that mindset that's going to be able to see potential new possibilities without feeling like it's a threat necessarily, right. If I think it's perfect, that I want to, I'll draw closer to it to find out how it's perfect. But if I think there's something wrong, bad or broken with it, then nobody wants to be around something that's wrong, better broken. I mean, they're going to try to fix it, or I'm going to try to get away from it. You'll fight flight, follow fool or freeze that's gonna come up, and I'll be in a survival mind. So that's, that's the first thing that you know, I want to get my mind in that place. This

is so important that you brought up how our brain works, Dan, when it comes to conflict because our brains job, or at least the job that thinks it has primarily is to protect us to

Dan Tocchini III: have to keep you alive. That's right.

So it's constantly looking for threats. And to counteract that. We tell our brain and we tell ourselves, this is perfect. Yeah, because we want people to have opinions. We want them to be engaged. We want to figure this out. Right? This is perfect. How do I lean in? Yeah,

Dan Tocchini III: and the second Well, the second thing the brain is conditioned to do is to save energy case it needs it to save the body. So we have natural biological responses if we think we already think we know what's going to be said we have a tendency to get edgy and want to move on like it's not important. And then that sets up an edge in the in the process rather than Oh, no, I need to hear everything even if I think I know what's going to be said. What might I not know what might I not be aware of? And that kind of attentive listening. It helps unplugged somebody else if they're if they're really upset or angry or fearful. If I can hear everything they have to say, not react. Listen, ask thoughtful questions to connect it the escalates if there is calm if there Risk, add your anger or resentment or things or fear, it'll tend to de escalate that or unplug that. So there's more of a room more room for us to get shoulder to shoulder instead of head to head.

Oh, you said a number of great things. Dan, there's a couple of things that we need to overcome with our brains here. Right? Yeah, the brain is trying to save energy is trying to make shortcuts. Oh, information coming in. This is like this thing I saw before I know how this is gonna go on. And to counteract that. I don't know, right? I haven't had this conflict with these people in this situation before. I gotta get curious. I got two questions.

Dan Tocchini III: Did you hit the net filter? There's, there's some basic biological filters. And you named one of them, which is, how is this like, what I knew before? And the minute I do that, anything that's not like what was before looks like a threat. It's unknown. unfamiliar. Yeah. But if I'm like, okay, good. What is it? I haven't heard yet. What is it I need to hear in order? Like to find what's possible here? What am I missing? What can you know, what am I saying? Do I really hear what they're saying? Or do I only hear what I'm making up about what they're saying? Those are all real, live conversations that biologically kick in? Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I want to repeat those questions for the listeners, Dan, what haven't I heard? What do I need to hear? What's missing? We

Dan Tocchini III: tend to listen for how things are the way we want them to be. And if there's something missing, then we think there's something bad, wrong or broken? Versus Oh, no, shoot, what can I learn here? And what will that open up with regard to what I'm committed to in the conversation, which is a another thing people tend to be a little foggy on, which is really problematic is what do I want from this conversation? What is it? I want to have happen? Out of this conversation? Both relationally? And result wise, action wise?

Yes. What do I want for the relationship and in results, otherwise, our brains desire to get out, is going to take over, unless we're clear on our commitment to what we want.

Dan Tocchini III: That's exactly it's exactly what occurs, we will start to get diverted. And, you know, we start jousting with ghosts, we start jousting with past situations that might look like this that we don't want to have happen again. And that's one of the biggest enemies of ever reaching common ground where we can, we can work something out in a conflict, you

have great phrases, Dan jousting with ghosts, you also said something else that was really powerful about our positioning our thinking about it. And I think you said rather than head to head, shoulder, shoulder

Dan Tocchini III: to shoulder there. Yeah, so we're both we have to look, usually when we're arguing this is what people don't realize, or at least the executives I've worked with, tend to be a little bit disconnected from is that if you're arguing with somebody, you probably care about the same thing. What you're arguing about is how to take care of it. Right? Like, like, what you want to do might be different than what I think we should do. But we both have the same concern of seeing a turnout. And, and so then if we can understand that we can get shoulder to shoulder because if we really about it turning out and you have a really a more effective way of doing that or another, you know, a more abundant way, a resourceful way of engaging, whatever we're up against. I want to hear it. Because if I'm really dedicated and aiming at what I'm committed to and what we're committed to, then I'm going to be all for having a turnout. How it turns out, I'm Oh, no, I want to be wide open for Yeah,

we care about the same thing. Dan, let me pause us here and tell listeners more about you. Okay, good. Yeah. Dan Tocchini III is a business and social entrepreneur, a published author, a master trainer, executive coach, leadership whisperer, culture development specialist. He's also the host of the podcast called The Naked Leadership. He's founder and senior partner at Take New Ground, a subsidiary of Human Performance Unlimited, Inc, where he champions founders and executives to scale their organizations after 30 years of transitioning individuals, teams and organizations such as Disney, ESPN and Microsoft from their current state. to a desired future state of fulfilling their vision, Dan's passion for leaders makes no question too dangerous, and no conversation too difficult in delivering meaningful long term results. That's why we knew we wanted Dan here to talk about dealing with conflict effectively. Thanks for being here, Dan.

Dan Tocchini III: My pleasure. I said, I love it. It's been. So it's great talking with you. I enjoy it. Yeah,

me too. Okay. So once we're in an effective headspace, Dan, thinking about conflict, the mechanics of a conversation can come more easily. But tell us about your framework for having difficult conversations.

Dan Tocchini III: Like I said, you want to be clear about what you'd like what you want to have, turn out the relationship you're committed to with the person. But then you also if there's a conflict, there's something that you want to communicate. So you want to be able to articulate the conflict clearly, before you do move on, like this is what's upsetting me, this is what I'm concerned about. This is what I'd like to talk about whatever that is, however, that looks, and I want to state it as clearly as possible. And then I want to make sure I can give them an example. Like, this is what I what I'm concerned about. And I give them something that we've been discussing or gone through together. And it exemplifies what I'm concerned about. Right? So they can they have both the conceptualization I've given them the framework, and then an example of what I'm deriving that idea from now, when I do that, this whole time, I am open to the fact that it may not be the way I see it, but I want them to know how I see it. So and so I'm gonna like what so when you get in an argument, you want to argue, as if you're right, but you want to listen, like you could be wrong. That's beautiful. You're so right. But you could be wrong, you might want to listen that way. Right? Yeah.

So ahead of time. I'm assuming this is in the prep, right? What do I want? Really? Yes, this is

Dan Tocchini III: all prep. You know, most people don't tend to prep Well, for a tough conversation, because they haven't really thought about how to do it. Never really thought about, what are some of the things I could be prepared for. So that when when I bring the conflict and you react, I can contain your reaction, rather than be in reaction to your reaction, right? That just becomes a vicious cycle of downward cycle that's going to drive us deeper into resentment or polarization. And it's not gonna probably resolve the conflict. It's just gonna deepen it.

Yeah, yeah. Dan, I want to make sure I have this clear for myself and the listeners. So we're preparing What do I want? We're preparing to state our concern, as clearly as possible. I'm assuming that's also as objectively as possible, subjectively,

I don't, I don't want to pepper that with superlatives. And,

Dan Tocchini III: exactly. You just want to say this is in this situation. Here's what it exemplifies. And I'll even say, Look, I don't know what I'm making, if what I'm making up is true. But I want you to have access to it. So you can help me understand what I could be missing. Oh,

you're so great at this positioning, Dan. And then we've got our example. Yeah. And then am I also hearing, we're preparing for possible reactions, we

Dan Tocchini III: absolutely are sent, but it may go into, they might go to defense about what they did. In which case, I want to hear it. Okay, good. I, you know, I'm like, I would reaffirm them, like, Look, I'm just checking in, when I'm think it is. And if it is that that's not a problem. There's a mindset issue here. And that is most of us don't really understand trust, we understand trust and on a cultural perspective, which is really kind of upside down to me. And it goes like this, if you do what you say, then you're trustworthy. Okay? If you don't do what you say, then you're not trustworthy. Okay? Now, that's a problem, particularly in conflict management. Because it takes trust, to be encouraged, because courage is the activator of all virtues. It takes courage to be able to say what you think. And I've found that whenever I don't say what I think it's because I'm afraid of the reaction. Right? Or I'm afraid that I could be wrong, or I'm afraid that I'm going to be exposed or it's going to be used against me, or whatever. So it takes courage to say this is what I think now. I'm not saying what I do that I say look, I just telling you that it's so you know, where I'm at, otherwise I would be an imposter with you. And this is going on for me and we it's not working for me. And I'm open to the fact that I could have off, I could miss something. So that's why we're having this conversation. All of that is going on in my back in the background of my mind. But I'm, I'm extending trust. Now what I mean is example, given the culture where you do this night, I know you've earned my trust. Well, that's not trust. That's really not trust. That's the guarantee up, I think that because you did it before you're going to do it again. And if you don't do it again, then I'm devastated. Right, but but if I'm an immature trust, I would say, you know, this is what you say you broke your promise, maybe? I don't know, it looks like you did. You didn't do what you said at cetera. There's a conflict. Now, if I might, if I'm in the old mindset, not only did you break your promise, but now you're not trustworthy. I'm not trusted, and I can't trust you, right. But if, in my mindset, if you break the promise, you made a mistake, you missed something, something was more important than this, I need to find out, the broken promise is a cry for a conversation, a call for a conversation to deepen our relationship, and I trusting you to have this inquiry to understand what's missing. And I maintain that as long as I can. Even if you decide that, you know, this isn't gonna work out, that's great. I find out early, I don't have to play this out any longer. I'm prepared for the worst. Right? So in my mind, I thought before I've even gotten this conversation, I've thought, what's the worst thing that could happen? And what would I do if that happened? Okay, right, if that's part of the preparation, because that takes a lot of my charge off, or whatever, I think I'm going to lose. Now I have a, I have an alternative to whatever I want in this, and I'm prepared to support you if that if this isn't going to work for you to go further. Go do what you got to do, I can still extend a caring hand, I can still care enough about you. You can see, even though I'm upset or disappointed that it's not going to basically I'm still standing with you. And in fact, I'm looking to see how we can make this work together. Yes, this is this is something I need to generate on my site, I have to manage my own mindset. And so if I can do that I can, I can pretty much navigate any kind of emotional storm you might bring to the situation.

Yes, yes. Dan, I believe that we can talk about anything with anyone. Right? If we if we come with our intentions, right? And we we come with what what do I want for the relationship and for for the results, right? Assuming all of those are great, good intentions, then we can talk about anything. And I do love this preparing for what's the worst thing that could happen? Because we hesitate and we avoid because oh, this might happen? Or that might happen? Well, let's go there. Do you happen? What would happen? All right, well, I would experience disappointment. I might be hurt, you know, there might be wasted time and work. And what I survived, what would I do? Hey, but yeah, what

Dan Tocchini III: else would I do? What other alternatives do I have? And just de escalates my fear? Yes, it's a it's an interesting dynamic, because psych there's all kinds of clinical studies on on this type of thing. So when people get anxious about what's happening, one of the best things you can do is if they have them willfully look into the anxiety, what is it that's giving, because anxiety is a fear of the future, right? Let's just say that future is coming. What would you do? Now, the studies show that you can't force somebody to do that, in fact, they'll get more distrustful. But if they're willing to look into the future, if they're willing to take a risk, and look into what they're most anxious about, the anxiety will decrease. If they're looking at it, like what would I do, as they become familiar with it's less of a threat, it's more they start to see the possibilities that if it did occur,

that's That's great to know. Because it feels counterintuitive. It's counterintuitive. I'm gonna get more worked up about it. Yeah, right.

Dan Tocchini III: dealing with conflict is paradoxical to say the least you would think looking into the problem would produce more anxiety. And at first it might, but the more you look at it, the less you are anxious about it because you become familiar with it.

It becomes more familiar our brains like that. Yeah. Back to what you said about trust, Dan, because I think that this is really critical. If we're going into a conversation and let's just say that the person didn't do something We thought that they had committed to right. And now we're in that mindset of, I can't trust them, they didn't do this thing. But if we think about trust differently, I think it's Lencioni Patrick Lencioni that calls that first kind of trust, predictive trust. Yeah, it's just the surface. It's a transactional kinds of trust. But I trust you, Dan, to stay in this conversation with me. And to talk about this, you're trustworthy as a person, I'm going to be able to explore this conversation of what's important to you, what do you value? What came up for you in that situation? Was this

Dan Tocchini III: right? Exactly, I'm gonna get to learn a lot. And it's there's kind of three levels of trust that I've identified. One of them is naive trust, just the trust that the kid has, right? And your kid has with his parents. And then you know, that gets devastated when the parent betrays them, and they usually swing way over to the other side, I'm not going to trust you to give me a reason to natural swing. The other one is, it's like an ignorant trust.

I'm ignoring the possibility that's always there that you could betray that what you said, I'm mature trust knows that we can betray our word at any moment, me included. And if I know that, I'm going to be because if I think you're always going to do what you said, because you did it before, I start to take you for granted, I stopped checking in to see how you're doing what's wanted and needed, is what we've agreed to still relevant given the background of your interest, because something could change in your background, you could have a death in the family, a sickness. And so some crisis that arose with your children were no longer is what is the interest at the level it was before that. And now you need probably to be released from the current agreement, and renegotiate how it is like that. So if I'm paying attention, and I see shifts like that, I can always check in with you. If you're too preoccupied or missed it or you're in some trauma, I can always check in and see if this is still working. If you've always produced and I have not thought about that, and I'm just taking it for granted, then I'm probably not going to catch that out. And I'm going to be did, you know, devastated even when you missed the agreement, and you had, but you did what you what your interest told you how to do. And I could have seen it and I didn't. I

am hearing that it's active kind of trust is active. And it's easy to think, oh, yeah, I've got my high performer on my team, I just delegate to them, and they just go and do awesome work. And of course, we don't want to micromanage that person. We don't need to provide them support that they don't need. yet. I'm hearing there's an activeness here of we're checking in

Dan Tocchini III: well, in your you know, a lot of leaders don't create a narrative that they can work in, right. Like, that's either I'm micromanaging you or I'm not. It's like, you know, passive aggressive. Versus, hey, I'm just checking in, do you need anything from me? Like, I'm a resource for you to check in? I noticed this over here, but I just want to check in, is there anything I can do to support you with that, then I'm not telling them what they should do. I'm seeing if they need something from me, because I see some indicator that may look like they're not on it. Now, what most people don't realize is people say, Well, what, you know, what, how much permission do I have? Well, you if you want to know what your permission gradients are, you got to look at your promises. See, when a promise is made, it's a transfer at FileMaker requests of you. And you say yes, now we've established a promise. And that that Bond's us binds us in either honor, conscience or law to do or not do something. And it gives you the right to expect from me and me to expect from you the performance or forbearance of the Act promised. Right? So the minute you make a promise, you transform a right you have to yourself into a duty you have to somebody else into a responsibility, you know, a commitment, and they have the right to expect and claim it during the period of time designated by the promise. Unfortunately, most people wait till the promises broken before they say something, even though they saw something long before that.

There is a risk here that I might not be able to do what I said that I was gonna do let me get in front of it.

Dan Tocchini III: Yeah. And are they see a partner that may not be in front of it and they don't want to say anything. And then they use the promise on the back end to bludgeon the partner when they're they're actually complicit because they saw it and they have a responsibility So if I don't think it's going to be fulfilled, it behooves me and respect to you to just check in. Because if there's something needed, I could probably help. If not, we can renegotiate it, we can do what we've got to do to support the integrity, the fullness of the of the, of the vision that's represented in the promise, because that's how a vision comes into reality. And the process of that should deepen the relationship. Well, like if you break a promise, it could deepen our relationship, if we just sat down and had a conversation that could learn what I was missing. Neuroscience I didn't pay attention to I saw them and didn't act on him. And then talk about that. And you said, Gosh, plenty of room. Oh, my God, so deepens our understanding of each other. Yeah,

I imagine that many people do not think about agreements or promises in that way, Dan, that this is a shared responsibility. What a powerful mindset. This is a vision that we have between the two of us. And we're both responsible for ensuring that we fulfill on it. Because

Dan Tocchini III: in the preparation for the conflict, one of the things we do after you're clear about an example, I tell them, Look, and this is what I experienced. When I see this breakdown, like this conflict, I experienced this, it comes up from me, and then I act like this. And it doesn't help but I can I can talk about my experience, because I can prepare to talk about how I've contributed to the breakdown. Like these are some of the things I did or didn't do, ways I behaved that actually contributed to our breakdown, which will help them feel they'll feel good about that. It'll actually give this like an invitation for them to look at how they contributed.

Yeah, you're taking personal responsibility, you're using that I language. Yeah,

Dan Tocchini III: and I and I'm taking responsibility for the vision because what I'm learning from what I missed here is I could be more this way I could do these things. And that would bring more that would create the possibility of this thing being fulfilled in a bit in a greater way. And I see that now. Right. So that gives them an opportunity to hear that I'm looking at this from all angles.

I am also hearing peppered throughout our discussion today. Is you being overt about process. Yeah, not just jumping in and saying what you're saying. But saying things like, Hey, I wanted to check in, or this thing, and that's why I'm doing

Dan Tocchini III: this. And I don't know what it means. I don't know what it means. And I have some ideas, but I don't know. But tell me what you think

here's my view. And it might not be correct yet. I want you to I want to let you know what it is. So all of that is process. Explaining why you're saying what you're saying. And I can help others bring their listening. Yeah,

Dan Tocchini III: the meta conversation is, look, I'm committed to being hard on this problem. Soft on you. I'm not looking to mess with you. I don't think this is personal. I believe you. I believe in you're in good faith, you're doing your best. I'm doing my best, but it isn't working out. So we need to really look at this or at least it looks like it's not working out. Maybe we confirm that it is and this is just part of the process. But I would be remiss and an impostor if I didn't say something now. Yes,

Dan, I think you and I could go on and talk about this for the rest of the day. I want to summarize what I believe are some invitations that you have given to the Courage of a Leader podcast listeners, right, and one is to counteract what happens in our brains when conflict comes up by telling yourself this is perfect. Yeah, you've invited folks to prepare for conflict situations, discussions, what do you want? What is concerning to you? How do you state that as clearly as possible? How do you have an example? How do you prepare for the worst case, reactions, so your brain gets a little more familiar and less anxious about those? You've also invited us to think about trust differently. Trust is not transactionally Oh, no, they didn't do this one thing now they're not trustworthy. Take your definition of trust up a level where

Dan Tocchini III: you can't learn without that kind of trust I'm talking about all you can do is be right. And who wants to be right? Because you can be right and not have the result then you're just dead. Right? You know, but but if I can learn something here, it can deepen the relationship. I can make a new offer, or I can resolve it, or I can complete the relationship say okay, we're not gonna go any further and do it cleanly because I'm clear about What won't work for me? And what won't work for them? So that the trust conversations a meta conversation, it's a way because there's no need to go if you're not willing to learn, don't go into a conflicted conversation, because you're just going to polarize it even more, you're just gonna be there to be right about your perspective. And that isn't gonna help it.

Yeah, that was another invitation for us. Right? Listen, like we could be wrong. Yes, right. Right. And add added more of that context and those sentences about process, and why we're saying what we're saying why we want to discuss what we're inviting the other person to discuss. And you gave us a lot of invitations in this conversation today, Dan, the other one is to recognize that, that we have responsibility in any agreement, even when it's the other person agreeing to do something for us for the team, by the end of the week, whatever it is,

Dan Tocchini III: yeah, yeah, I like because I have a responsibility to make sure they're prepared, set up to win for what I've asked them to do what they've said they to do. And then, you know, in the preparation, like I said, you want to be able to be clear about your responsibility in it, like we just talked about, and then you one of the things that I found very effective, is to give the person an idea of what I see what this relationship is going to become if it continues the way that it is. We're going to end up more conflicted or this is gonna happen, or we're gonna lose back. Yeah, yeah. So what's at stake here, it's at least what I think's at stake if we don't get this corrected, and then they can pipe in on that too. But I want them to know what's going on for me, all the way down the line. And then I at the very last thing I do is, whether we resolve it or not, here's where I stand. Here's what I'm committed to. And that could be look, I've had situations where I said, Look, whether we resolve this or not, I'm committed to you. Or I could say, whether we resolve this or not, I'm gonna let you go. But you know, we're going through this, there's a good learning that goes on both for me, so I can learn from them. But I want them to learn from me as well about what worked and didn't work for me. And if I'm letting them go, because that they're going to go into another situation again, find themselves again. And I had a guy come back to me, after five years, we had a conversation like this, and I let him go. Five years later, he came back, he said, You know, I want to thank you. Because what we talked about, and I was pissed at you because you fired me. And I didn't like the conversation. But he said, You know, I learned a lot about a pattern I wasn't aware of in my life. And I didn't realize it was a pattern till after we had the conversation. And I got fired from my next job for the same thing. And I realized, you know what, that's what Dan was asking me about. That's what we were talking about. And this guy didn't even say it. But I could pick it up because I'm the constant the situation. And I ended up hiring the guy who worked with me for years after that, Oh,

I love that ending, right? But I but I'm hearing that you're when we lean in. When you drill down on the conflict, right? I'm going to be hard on the situation soft on the person. And then if you and you're bringing that I'm listening, like I could be wrong. If we authentically do that, then we could be really clear if it doesn't work for us. And it is time to part ways. Yeah,

Dan Tocchini III: exactly. And I've had that. Yeah, you can own your decision. They made me like it or not, but you're clear by why you did it. Because you've prepared and you go, you know what, this isn't gonna work for me to go any further. I'm just not willing to do it. Really great.

Dan, thank you so much for sharing your insights and obvious experience in this arena. conflict happens. And you gave us a lot of mindset, and conversational tools that we can bring to bear.

Dan Tocchini III: Thank you so much for me.

Thank you for listening to the Courage of aLeader podcast. If you'd like to further explore this episode's topic, please reach out to me through the Courage of a Leader website at www.courageofaleader.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please take the time to leave a review on iTunes. That helps us expand our reach and get more people fully stepping into their leadership potential. Until next time, be bold and be brave because you've got the Courage of a Leader.