Conflict Resolution and EQ

[Music] Welcome to a LearnToLearn.org podcast. We are here to support your learning, taking off the limits that we have, accrued to our learning, and adding in those ingredients that we've learned from world-class learners that have made them the best so that we can each update our own programming and become the best learners that we can be. We're really glad that you're here to share some time with us. We hope that this brings you exactly what you need today to better engage in your life and your learning. We're picking up again in today's podcast with our pursuit of understanding how do we develop emotional intelligence, EQ as it's often called. And we have delineated in the past how important this is for supporting learning, but it's also another aspect that is something that is really important to develop if we want to be successful in so many different ways in our lives. So often when we think about learning and learning how to learn, we think very academically, how do I learn math, how do I learn science, how do I learn these specific skills and such, and that is of course important, and there is so much more, the intent of school and academic learning is to prepare us for a life. Assuming that that is done well, that the teaching has been done well, the learning has been done well, it does prepare us in a certain way for life. Now obviously a lot of times it's not done well and that's something that we've addressed in so many different ways through the course of our various podcasts. And we've certainly talked about antidotes, if you will, to a lot of the downsides of how academics are done or not done. But when we're talking about emotional intelligence, we're talking about developing another aspect of our being. This would be a little bit equivalent. Our analogy would be, you know, we've developed our legs and so we're able to walk, but we haven't developed our arms, so we aren't able to do much with being able to reach out and engage. So we can develop one part of ourself in that's great, but if we don't develop the whole of ourself, we end up being limited and obviously much less capable of being successful. In other podcasts, and we do encourage you to go back and listen to those. In other podcasts, we've talked about the research showing that, you know, very academically successful people and very intelligent people as the tests might show. Often aren't that successful when they get out in life. So if the point is for us to use all that and be able to go out and function well in our lives, something is missing. And one of the big things is developing this emotional intelligence. So not only does it enhance our specific capacity to learn because it gives us more ability to deal with our focus, our response and reactions to things we're learning, our outlook on our learning, our self-concept, etc. And all the ways that that impacts our specific ability to learn, this develops also that ability to engage with other people in life, and to hold a clear focus, have a sense of purpose, motivation and connection with our life, our fellow human beings, the things that were engaged in whether it worked or in our relationships or wherever else were engaged in in our lives. With that said, so that we really understand why are we talking about this, today we want to look at developing that aspect of emotional intelligence that has to do with what's often called conflict resolution. How do we deal with conflicts in our life? Now those conflicts can be internal as well as external. And we've done a lot in prior podcasts about how to deal with those internal conflicts. So once again, you can go back through and look at things about beliefs and attitudes and motivation and procrastination and self-concept and all kinds of things that are involved in those internal conflicts. Today we're going to think much more about these external conflicts. And we want to start with just suggesting that maybe a better way to look at it, rather than, "Oh, I'm having a conflict with somebody," is we have a difference in perspective. And what we're calling a conflict comes about because we have differences in perspective. When we think about, we have two eyes, and we have two ears, and they see different things, and they hear different things. We don't go, "Oh, our eyes are having a conflict. Our ears are having a conflict," because they see a little differently or they hear a little differently. We see that there is great advantage to that. If we can see with binocular vision, it gives us a sense of depth perception. It gives us the ability to track in a much better way. The same thing can be considered when we're thinking about these differences of opinions, differences of perspectives that we have with other people. If we can respect and utilize those differences, we end up finding it gives us much more depth perception in our life, much more understanding of our life and our possibilities. Another way to say this is that when we're in the midst of a conflict, it can be easy to get caught up in our differences and lose sight of the things that we have in common. We can become focused on defending our own position or proving the other person wrong, rather than seeking to understand their perspective and to find a mutually beneficial solution. By actively looking for common ground, even in the most challenging situations, we open the door to more constructive and collaborative problems solving. In doing this, we also want to maintain an awareness of, you know, it may be us that is wrong. We don't particularly like that term, but there may be some distortion in our perspective and we're using this interaction with the other person or the group or however that's playing out to also become aware of where is the distortion in our own perspective if there is one. And that, of course, obviously is going to be very helpful to us. So one way to find common ground is to identify shared values or goals that underline the conflict. Even if we disagree on a specific approach or tactics we may discover that we're all working towards the same ultimate objectives. For example, if we're in a disagreement with a fellow student or a colleague about how to handle some particular project, we might take a step back and recognize that we both want to deliver the best results possible to maintain the best client relationships or other goals and to contribute to the overall success of our team or organization or our running. By focusing on these shared goals, we can refrain the conflict as a collaborative problem-solving exercise rather than some zero-sum game. Another way to find common ground is to look for shared experiences or challenges that we can relate to on a human level. Even if our specific circumstances are different, we likely will discover that we're faced with some of our struggles, fears, aspirations, in our personal or professional lives. For example, if we're in a conflict with a team member about a workload distribution, we might recognize that we've all experienced distress and pressure of tight deadlines or the frustration of feeling undervalued or unheard. By acknowledging these common experiences, we can build empathy and understanding even in disagreement. We can even go and look at one of the basic human motives. And most of us at a pretty deep level want to feel appreciated, want to feel understood. Most of us want to feel connected, safe, and that our world makes sense. So if we go back to seek first to understand and you take the time to understand where somebody else is coming from at their deeper roots and can join them in that, because if we go deep enough we're going to have the same motivation, we may have a different understanding of how to get there. But that's where the negotiation begins is we have this thing in common and you're trying to do it this way and I'm trying to do it that way. How do we bring all of that together in a way that makes it better for all of us? It lets us approach this interaction with far less defensiveness or aggressiveness because we begin to be able to relate to one another and then we can ask even more questions based on our curiosity, our openness, our desire to understand their perspective and then we can find areas of agreement or compromise and can maybe be willing to let go of differences so that we can find a way to join together and work together. Finding a common goal doesn't necessarily mean that we always agree on everything whether we have to abandon on principles or needs, but coming at it this way often lets us broaden our sense of our understanding, our principles, our needs and there may be times even though they're still fundamentally different, we can agree to disagree in the implementation but we can appreciate where each other is coming from. And that lets us maintain a positive and collaborative relationship. So the point here is developing the ability to find common ground and this is a critical skill for navigating our way in the world and being resilient in our relationships. By actively seeking out shared values, experiences and goals we can approach even the most challenging conversations with empathy, curiosity and commitment to collaborating. With that in mind, certainly you can imagine if we do this consistently how much less stressful, how much more productive our lives are going to be. Thank you for listening. Our purpose is supporting your capacity to learn and to attain all that you can imagine. We hope you use the perspectives and exercises that we have shared. Feel free to send us questions, ideas, experiences that might benefit our listeners via learn to learn.org LEARN-TO-LEARN.OR Finally please help others by sharing our link with your friends, family and other loved ones, since how you learn is how you live.