Conflict Is a Skill—Here’s How to Get Better at It

Most of us have been taught to see conflict as a sign that something has gone wrong. Today’s guest, Priya Parker, sees it differently. After more than two decades working in conflict resolution, she believes the right kind of fight can bring us closer, make our teams stronger, and help us understand each other better. In her new book, The Art of Fighting, Priya gives us the language and the skill set to do it well. Priya joins Emma Grede to talk about why so many of us choose what she calls “unhealthy peace,” and what we lose when we avoid saying what we really think. They explore how our families and cultures shape the way we fight, why some disagreements are worth staying in, and how to tell when it’s time to let go. This is a conversation about what healthy conflict can look like in practice and how our differences can ultimately bring us together. In this episode, you’ll learn: The questions to ask yourself before deciding whether a fight is worth havingWhy calming your body can change the way you show up in a difficult conversationHow leaders can make it safer for people with less power to speak honestlyHow Slack and digital tools have changed workplace culture Why humor and play can help people move through conflict without losing connectionSpecific examples from Priya’s work in conflict resolution, from boardrooms to restaurantsThe simple language Priya uses to start a hard conversation with someone she cares about

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  On Aspire, I want to understand the skills that actually help us build better careers, relationships and lives. And today, we're talking about one I think most of us could get better at: conflict. My guest is Priya Parker, a conflict resolution expert and the author of the new book, The Art of Fighting. Priya makes this really interesting argument that most of us don't have too much conflict, we actually have too little, because we avoid the conversations we know we need to have. Priya's first book, The Art of Gathering, changed how a lot of us think about why we come together and what makes those moments meaningful. Her new one turns to what happens once we're in the room and we don't agree. The point is, sometimes fighting is exactly what we need to do. And by the end of today's

• 0:52Emma Grede?

  conversation, you're going to know how to recognize the conflicts worth having, what you're really fighting about, and how to do it better. This is Priya Parker.

• 1:09Emma Grede?

  Priya Parker, welcome to Aspire.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:12Emma Grede?

  I'm very excited to have you. I spend an enormous part of my life building companies and building teams. And so much of what I do is actually trying to align people around one vision. But that doesn't mean that that is without any conflict, or that I expect everybody to just be in agreement. And so I was really drawn to your work.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  You're like, this is what I do, and she's saying it's okay.

• 1:36Emma Grede?

  Exactly. Basically, she says, I'm right. And I love that. But it's interesting, because as soon as you start talking to people about conflict resolution, they kind of go into a ball. And people love to sort themselves into, I'm great at conflict, I'm not so good at conflict. And what I understood from so much of your work is actually, it's much like a muscle. Like, you can learn to get better at this stuff. There are those that will face conflict head on, there are those that never ever want to do it. And for me, it's an inevitable part of being successful, that you have to find your way around conflicts. And because it's not something that we just come up in our work, it's also in our lives, with our partners, with our family, with our kids. The first thing that I read about you was

• 2:18Emma Grede?

  that you said, it sounds crazy, given the world that we're living in, but that we all believe that we have too much conflict. And your point of view is that actually, we have too little. And I'd love to just start there, because I don't feel like anyone feels like that right now.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 2:33Emma Grede?

  But I'd love to know your point of view.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Priya, what are you saying? So, most of us are actually pretty bad at conflict. And when heat arises, whether it's in our families, or whether it's in our workplaces, we tend to take one of two kind of stances. We either avoid and kind of hope it'll pass, like an ostrich stick our head in the sand, or we swing the opposite direction and we escalate and burn the house down. And in part, because we are taught that conflict is scary, dangerous, even dysfunctional, and not something that is also creative and can actually be crucial to the communities of our life. And I've been a conflict resolution facilitator for 25 years. And the surprising

• 3:14Speaker 01

  thing that I've learned is that conflict, the right kind, builds community. There actually is pro-social conflict. And groups and companies and teams can't form without a fight. And we're just not taught this. We're just sort of thought, we think conflict is sinful, it's dysfunctional, right? It's like when groups or companies call me, there's always apologizing, like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, we're so messed up, we're so embarrassed. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. You are having the crucial conversations to actually figure out who you are and what you're about.

• 3:47Emma Grede?

  I love that you address it in that way. One of the best things that I heard you say is that actually, you don't have conflict unless there's an element of care.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:56Emma Grede?

  Like, it shows that we care enough about the relationship, that we would take the fight, that we would meet the issue head on. And I thought, I immediately told my sisters on the sister chat, I was like, this is why we fight, because we love each other.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  I'll drop this into your group chat.

• 4:12Emma Grede?

  Move, tell everyone. I was like, I knew there was a reason.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:15Emma Grede?

  But it's such a beautiful reframing of why we are in conflict sometimes, because we actually care enough to decide that we're going to try and move through that thing, move over that thing and move past it. I also saw that you wrote that you're actually pretty conflict averse. And I was like, how did you end up in this world?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Well, my first book was called The Art of Gathering. And in it, I demystified why some gatherings take off and others, like, don't. And one of the things I found when I researched and looked at other people who created transformative gatherings, like World Cup, hockey coaches, rabbis, choir conductors, that many of them identified as introverts. And I thought this was really surprising. And I asked one of them, you know, people say you're one of the best gatherers around, but you're also an introvert. Why do you think that is? And she said, I am so uncomfortable at so many of the gatherings I go to. I decided to host gatherings I would want to attend. And people seem to like them.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And similarly, some of the best conflict resolution facilitators are conflict averse. In part, because conflict is a learnable skill. And I'll say for myself, my parents, I'm biracial and bicultural, my parents were married for 13 years, and they then separated. And when they separated, everyone was shocked, because they never fought. And so I learned from a young age that there's great loss and avoidance. But I also learned, I mean, to this day, I'm still conflict averse. Like, I'm paid to help hold people's conflict. And when conflict arises in my own life and in my job, my palms start getting sweaty, my heart starts palpitating, my tongue gets dry, like, I still have these somatic symptoms

• 5:57Speaker 01

  that are like, you need to get out of this room. And part of what I learned is in part because I lost by being in a family that had such deep conflict aversion, that I wanted to learn the skills. And conflict is a skill, like you said, it's a muscle, to be able to stay in the room. And much of our conflict, you know, we tend to be either conflict-seeking or conflict averse. But whether you're conflict-seeking or conflict averse, doesn't mean you're good at it. Just because you like conflict, doesn't mean you're good at it, right? You can do it really badly.

• 6:23Emma Grede?

  And that is why everyone, including me, should continue listening to this podcast. Because I was like, I've got this down, I'm excellent, I never avoid a conflict, doesn't mean you're good at it.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:33Emma Grede?

  So, a lot of us grow up with the idea that good people don't fight. And I'm interested, for those listening at home, what you think avoiding conflict actually costs us?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Avoidance, first of all, can look like, I call it unhealthy peace, people never actually saying what they think or believe, real conversations never happening, a team where some people feel unsafe to say what they actually think. And what it costs us is actually closeness, often in our teams, better products, more high-performing teams, communities that can handle crisis. Our conflict avoidance is actually making us more fragile. And so part of the opportunity here is that friction is actually good. One of the groups I looked at, there was an executive that was telling me this story. She was responsible

• 7:24Speaker 01

  for like, a merger between these two large companies. And it was in the middle of a contentious negotiation. And she had to fly across the country to go meet her counterpart. And she like, walked down the hallway, and it had been a rough time between the two of them, and it was substantive issues. And she took a deep breath, braced herself for conflict, walked into the room, and was really surprised. And on the table in front of her was a butcher, butcher paper rolled out, with black stones on the table, and a couple of glass vessels. And in like, handwritten Sharpie said, choppy seas make a skilled sailor. Franklin D. Roosevelt. And she looked at it and like, kind of gasped. And her counterpart

• 8:07Speaker 01

  didn't say anything. That was the context of the meeting. And immediately, what her counterpart did was reframe this from something that was messed up, to something that was worthy of them. And it changed the whole dynamic. We're not going to get there unless we go through.

• 8:23Emma Grede?

  Yeah. And I think that that is the inevitable part of why I really want people to listen, and to certainly to read your book, but to listen to what we're talking about today, because none of us can avoid conflict in our life. But there are people that do try to avoid it. And so if you're speaking to somebody at home right now, to somebody who's really conflict averse, what do they have to gain from getting better at having conflict?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Closer, more intimate relationships, particularly with people who are different from you, which, by the way, is everyone.

• 8:54Emma Grede?

  Is absolutely everybody.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I'll give a simple example. You know, in any type of relationship, a friendship, a marriage, a colleague, we all do things that hurt each other, even small things, or annoy each other, or break trust. And over time, if you decide not to say anything, one, your grievances can build up and build up and build up, and then you dump on the person, or you exit. But if you start having normal, everyday moments where you have the skills to be able to say, hey, can we talk about something? I call it in the book, mole hill clearing.

• 9:26Emma Grede?

  Oh.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Can we clear this mole hill? I got this term from a restaurateur named Gabriel Stillman. He has a restaurant in Brooklyn called Sailor. And we were doing a staff training there, and he said, You know, people often say, when you bring something up, like, I didn't like how you did that, to defend themselves, they'll say, don't make a mountain out of a molehill. And what he says, like, sure, don't make a mountain out of a molehill, but keep molehills molehills. And so, one of the things that he does, and restaurants that realize that conflict is baked into every night of service, is not making it such a big deal to be like, hey, like, didn't love how you talked to me like that. Next time, can we figure out how to, like, share the order differently?

• 10:06Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  And vice versa. I mean, part of the reality is, conflict requires equality. It's a vulnerable thing to say, you hurt me, or like, I didn't really like that. And a vulnerable thing to take it, right? Who are you to tell me, right? There's actually a lot going on in order, but conflict is basically a bridge to find how to be in a team together, or be friends together, in a way that people want to be a part of it. Like, we figure out who we are through each other.

• 10:33Emma Grede?

  Well, and essentially, also, sometimes to find the best solutions, because so many businesses, and I think it's one, it might even be Franklin Roosevelt, but the idea of this team of rivals, right? The idea that you can put people that have

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Lincoln.

• 10:46Emma Grede?

  Just Lincoln, you're absolutely right. This distinct idea that you can have very differing opinions, people that purposely think differently, and you're going to come to the best solution.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:58Emma Grede?

  But to get there, you have to go through conflict. And there's a couple of helpful things that you talk about in the book. You talk about unhealthy conflict, healthy conflict, and something that you call unhealthy peace. But I wonder what unhealthy peace actually really looks like, like, in a marriage? What does it look like in a friendship, or in a workplace?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  It basically looks like one side, over time, and so maybe it's both, but, but one side, over time, not feeling safe enough to be able to speak up for what their needs are. And all group life, at some level, is the balance between the I, what I need, and the we. And a conflict, what we call conflict, is often the way we negotiate what it is we need from each other. And it can be something simple. I mean, I had a friend, years ago, who was holding his 40th birthday party. And he wanted to, he had read The Art of Gathering, and he wanted to make it specific and disputable and meaningful. He didn't want to invite everyone under the sun. And he was part of, like, many large communities. So he could

• 11:58Speaker 01

  have invited, like, 200 people, because everyone has a crew. And he decided to only invite 40. It was his 40th birthday, 40 people. And he was part of, like, Broadway communities, like, the reason there's such big communities is, like, there's casts involved, like, everyone's connected to everyone. And so, he put out his birthday invitation, invited 40 friends, it was for a weekend away. And he had to figure out, like, how to draw that line. And what he decided was, if I haven't seen that person one-on-one for a year, I won't invite him. Sends out the invitations, and

• 12:31Emma Grede?

  I'd have no friends at my birthday, by the

• 12:33Speaker 01

  I know, I know, I know. These numbers seem crazy. Me too, me too. But a friend, a couple of people were really surprised they weren't invited. And one such friend, a person in his life, called him up and said, hey, right? So just pause, if you're the listener, forget the number. You are not invited to a gathering that you feel like you should be, right? A wedding, a baby shower, a birthday party. What are your options? Right? One is just to lick your wounds. And, and also, maybe just be like, it's okay, like, not everyone's invited to anything. But if it actually bothers you, then you have a choice to say something or to not, and then how to say it. And so, one of these friends called him up and was

• 13:15Speaker 01

  like, hey, I'm so happy you're having a birthday party. I have to say, I'm a little surprised I wasn't invited. Did I do something to upset you? And the friend, like, said, hey, thanks so much for calling. I really appreciate it. I'm, you know, in our communities, like, everyone's kind of connected to everyone. And so, I wanted to have a relatively, like, intimate birthday. And so, I decided to only invite people I have seen one-on-one for the last year. And the guy goes, we haven't seen each other?

• 13:46Emma Grede?

  Hmm.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  One-on-one in a year? Is that true? Oh, my God. I think I've been taking you for granted. Can I take you out for a birthday meal when you get back? And it brought them closer. Right? And it's not always going to go that way. But part of these moments of opportunity is, conflict is vulnerable. Conflict is intimate. It actually requires me to admit you affect me, and me to admit I affect you. And that actually is an intimate act.

• 14:16Emma Grede?

  I love that story, because I feel like that conversation could have gone so many

• 14:20Speaker 01

  So many ways.

• 14:21Emma Grede?

  But the very point that you face it, that you call up, that you have the interaction, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  And that it leads to a new dynamic with them, right? It actually leads to a difference. Also, a lot of conflict happens around gatherings. And then the planning of gatherings, because people have to ask, like, well, what is this for? And who is this for? And what are we doing here? Weddings bring up a lot of conflict in the planning. So, another example, a bunch of guys who worked together at a tech company, half of them got laid off, but they're still friends, and half of them were still working. And one of the guys who was still working, texted the group chat, booked a table of 10 at this restaurant, so excited to see you, like, please come celebrate my birthday. One of the guys who was laid off, like, looks up the restaurant, he's like, you know, pit in his stomach, he's like, it's a really expensive restaurant tasting menu. And he's like, oh, man. So, group chat, often happens,

• 15:11Speaker 01

  goes into a sidebar. So, they're going through processing, figuring out, like, what do we do? Kind of mad, kind of hurt, kind of embarrassed. And then, one of the guys was like, you know what? I'm going to say something. And again, some, like, no, no, no, don't say anything. He says, but what are you going to say? Like, and he texts the guy, again, it's skillful. And he says, hey, man, we love you so much. I want to celebrate your birthday with you. But a few of us are a little worried about being able to afford it. So, action one is the sidebar. Let's figure out what we think of this. Move two is deciding whether to face or not. He faces, he does it well. He doesn't blame him.

• 15:46Emma Grede?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Okay. So then, you get this text, right? You're the birthday boy. He, at first, again, it's like, kind of embarrassing. It's like, oh, gosh, did I do that? Oh, man. Also, they're going to say something? Right? We all go through those moves. And then he pauses, and he thinks. And a few days later, the entire group chat gets this message from the birthday boy. Change of plans. Wear your best suit to my house. I'm cooking. We'll go out dancing after. And this is, in a way, a micro-conflict, but actually, it's incredibly skilled on ours, all sides, which is, this is, as all friendships are, a friendship across difference. And we are different in different moments. And one day, I may be unemployed, and one day, you may be unemployed. But what we're trying to do is figure out, how can we have a shared experience?

• 16:30Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Without all having to be the same.

• 16:32Emma Grede?

  But I love that you talk about difference, because I often think about it in the context of where I come from. I was raised in East London. There was conflict all around me. And I think that that's one of the reasons that I feel comfortable in conflict, because it's just something that I grew up with. It was in my house, it was on the street, it was all around me. And I'm curious whether you actually see a difference in cultures, and the way they choose to think about conflict.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 16:57Emma Grede?

  I see it so clearly. I see it so clearly.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Conflict is cultural.

• 17:02Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  It is deeply cultural. Our own, we may think we're individuals. We're not. We

• 17:07Emma Grede?

  We try.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  We are. We, like, what your own conflict style is, is influenced by your family of origin, it's influenced by your culture, it's influenced by your class, it's influenced by your nation, it's influenced by your race. So, conflict is cultural. And particularly in the US, and in most cities globally, we have a lot of folks from a lot of different nations and cultures. And part of the invitation of this book, particularly in workplaces, particularly in groups of friends, is to find a way to have a common culture, so that you can connect. One of the best books I read for The Art of Fighting is a book called The Culture Map by Erin Mayer. And she looks at how conflict is influenced, based on which country you come from.

• 17:48Emma Grede?

  Oh, yes.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  She maps out conflict-seeking cultures, and more conflict-diverse cultures. And on the conflict-seeking, or conflict-comfortable, are, if I remember correctly, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, conflict-avoidant, Thailand, Japan, China. And the US and the UK were sort of more in the middle.

• 18:06Emma Grede?

  I was going to ask you that.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was like, I have an English stepfather, and I'm like, you're more conflict-diverse than I am.

• 18:12Emma Grede?

  Oh, really?

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you think the opposite?

• 18:13Emma Grede?

  I think the opposite. It's so funny. Yeah. I mean, again, we can really break England down. But I always think that, I think that actually, as an English person, I find it much easier to be in conflict, because we're so truthful. And I know, it kind of goes, perhaps, against how Americans would traditionally think. It might be regional.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  And race and class.

• 18:31Emma Grede?

  It might, it might just be, you know, being a black, being a black girl from East London. It's like, I don't know, call it whatever you want.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  But as many things, as many influences in you.

• 18:38Emma Grede?

  But it is really many influences. And I actually think it's been hugely advantageous that I don't shy away from conflict, but also, that I don't immediately make a disaster out of a conflict. Because when I can see that happening in the workplace, to me, it's a signal.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  It is a signal.

• 18:54Emma Grede?

  To me, it says, something is happening here, that can turn into something disastrous down the line. But here's a moment for us to address it. And so, for me, I think of it like a smoke signal. I'm like, great, that this is actually happening right now, and you can see it out.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Pay attention to the tension.

• 19:10Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Just start there. Just start there. And one of the things that Erin Mayer says, in terms of the difference between these cultures, is the ones that are conflict-seeking are the ones, or conflict-comfortable, are the ones where they can separate, or they separate the person from their opinion. And the ones that are, are conflict-diverse is when that's collapsed, when the person is the opinion.

• 19:28Emma Grede?

  It's like management training 101. It's like, the first thing they teach you, critique the behavior, not the individual. I was like, shut that down.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Got it, got it.

• 19:36Emma Grede?

  You know, like, when you're a 30-year-old manager, it's like, okay.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  You were being a jerk. No, no, no, no.

• 19:40Emma Grede?

  No, no, no, no, no. This is a jerky situation.

• 19:49Emma Grede?

  One thing I've learned from being around founders is that the unglamorous parts of building something are usually the parts you can't afford to ignore. Everyone wants to talk about the idea, the brand, the launch, but the structure underneath the business matters just as much. That is where LegalZoom comes in. If you're starting a business, they can help you set it up correctly from the beginning, so you're not trying to unwind avoidable issues later. LegalZoom helps you get it right the first time, saving you time and fees down the road. They have 25 years of experience and have helped launch millions of businesses, which is why LegalZoom is America's number one online legal services company. Once the business is running, there are still deadlines, filings, and requirements that have to be handled.

• 20:33Emma Grede?

  LegalZoom can help you stay compliant by tracking those deadlines and filing the required reports for you. It also applies to your personal life. If you're creating a will or a trust, LegalZoom creates a will or a trust that's specific to your life and what you care about. Built by attorneys, tailored by you, and accepted in all 50 states. When you need a legal hand, visit LegalZoom. Go to LegalZoom.com to get started. LegalZoom provides access to independent attorneys and its law firm, LZ Legal Services. LegalZoom is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  And I'm Scott Galloway.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  And we want to tell you about Pivot, our twice-weekly podcast.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  That's right, Kara. What a thrill. It's a chance for us to break down all the big things happening in tech, business, and politics.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yes, and I keep you in check so people can make it through each episode, whether it's digging into constant changes in the world of AI and social media, or trying to keep up with whatever the fuck Elon is doing. We're here to give you our take on all of that.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Every Tuesday and Friday morning, we drop a new episode about some of the major stories of the moment.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  And Scott is a prediction machine, gazing into his crystal ball to tell you about where it's all heading.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  So if that sounds like a good time for you, especially Mr. That's Right, you can follow us on your favorite podcast app to get new episodes every week.

• 21:59Emma Grede?

  Why do you think most people just try to keep the peace even when they know that something isn't working?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  I mean, it's a rational move and for multiple reasons. First, conflict is dangerous. It carries risk in it. It can blow up, but it also is relevant. And so, I mean, there's studies that show that when we are in conflict or perceive that we're going to be socially excluded, we experience in the body with the same pain receptors as physical pain.

• 22:25Emma Grede?

  Really?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Conflict is also very physical, and the anticipation of conflict is telling our bodies to flee, right? Or to fight or to flight. And so some of this is also, you know, biological and sort of historical. I mean, I will talk as a conflict resolution facilitator who's conflict diverse. I have physical practices, like a high-performance athlete, and my peers do too, that we do before we go in to hold the fight, in part so that we can have a relaxed body.

• 22:51Emma Grede?

  You're absolutely right about the physicality of it, because when I've spoken to people within my organization, you know, they'll have heart palpitations, they'll not want to come to work, they won't want to face that meeting. So what are the signs that you're actually avoiding a conflict that you really need to have? And how is it physically manifesting?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I mean, avoiding the conflict, one is like you're ruminating on it, right? You're thinking about it a lot. It's affecting your behavior. It's affecting your ability to be engaged in a meaningful way. But in the, in the actual conflict, one of the things that I did, you know, The Art of Fighting is based on the natural life cycle a group goes through when it experiences an internal reckoning or fight. I had an early reader read this book, and she said to me, well, this is all great intellectually, but what happens when my body flips out in the room and I can't follow it? And she said, please put in a chapter or a small interlude with like a body expert to tell us what to do. And so I went and I interviewed Prentice Hemphill, who's an amazing facilitator and a somatic expert.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And I basically said, Prentice, how would you help us be in our body during a fight or even anticipating a fight? And Prentice said a couple of things. First, they said, a relaxed body is the most powerful body we have. A relaxed body, you know, we're thinking like, go to the gym, reps. But it's actually when we're relaxed, it expands our range of options. We're able to think, our voice is able to be modulated. And so in The Art of Fighting, I have two checklists. One is Prentice's checklist that they go through before they go in to facilitate really complex fights internally, and my checklist. And what I do.

• 24:25Emma Grede?

  How do you get a relaxed body?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  So breathe. So a couple of things, like very, very simply, before any, even in public speaking, any type of physical requirement, I breathe often for 10 minutes, sometimes just.

• 24:36Emma Grede?

  Are you holding hand on your heart?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  I often am holding my hand on my heart. I take three deep breaths. If I don't have a lot of time, I take 10 minutes if I do.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  And I'll breathe in through my nose and exhale through my mouth. And literally, it just relaxes your body very deeply. I listen to, I have a playlist that are my grounding songs, which is different than a pump-up list, which is songs that have the frequency that I want to be like in a room, that allow me to feel like I am myself and where there's still openness. John Batiste is a playlist I will listen to often. And then I will also, I mean, one of the things Prentice says is shaking out your hands, shaking out your feet, finding different ways, rolling around your neck. Because basically, when we are really tight, it's not just limiting our physical options, it's actually limiting our imagination. It's limiting our choice. I mean, when you're able to be present in a conflict or in a conversation

• 25:27Speaker 01

  that's really hard, your moves with the other person are actually much more generous. And if it's somebody that you really care about or knows you, friends, I do this with my husband, when he and I start really getting into something, again, there's no screaming, there's no insults, it's healthy heat, but it's something we both really care about. And there's a real difference in opinion about whatever, like how much freedom to give a child in organizing their room, like whatever it is. I will, and our kids are in the kitchen or in the room and they're watching us, and they're kind of, you know, like starting to get tense, I'll often stop and I'll look at them and I'll say, we're arguing because we love each other, like half to me as much to them. And they look and I'll say, like, my parents never fought. And they obviously know the outcome of that. And part of being in a really important, part of being part of a

• 26:12Speaker 01

  family is learning to argue well. And then we'll go back to it. And so I'm also trying to change the story in the family.

• 26:18Emma Grede?

  I was going to say, that must be such a hard thing to do, because I know that anytime there is a raised voice around my own children, the immediate reaction is that they are like, oh, my goodness, like you're in a fight. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, this is like a good fight. This is like, sit down, watch, get the popcorn, watch how adults do this thing, you know? But that's, that's not easy to teach a kid.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  I remember years ago, when Audrey Gelman, she used to run the wing, and she was, there was some, I don't know, like, story that she and her best friend, Lena Dunham, were in a fight. Audrey Gelman was the character, Marnie was Beige Soffler in Girls.

• 26:54Emma Grede?

  I love that show.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  And a journalist said, I hear you're in a fight with Lena Dunham. Do you want to respond? And she looked straight into the camera and she said, friends, fight.

• 27:03Emma Grede?

  Amazing.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:04Emma Grede?

  Like, no shit.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Emma Grede?

  Yeah, go figure.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  It was such a brilliant response.

• 27:08Emma Grede?

  It's an absolutely brilliant response. There's something that you talk about, you use the term relational longing. So what are we actually fighting for when we're fighting with someone that we really care deeply about?

• 27:19Speaker 01

  We're fighting to be heard by someone in relationship, right? We're fighting to be heard about what it feels like to, maybe in a Christian family, want to be deeply part of the family, but not believe in God in the same way, and still want to be part of the family, right? We're fighting to still be understood, even if there's difference. Sometimes we're just fighting for another way to do things, right? I mean, it could be something as simple. One of my examples in this book is an intern in a law firm in England was shocked to find out that the law firm was watching the World Cup, because it was the year when it was in Qatar. And the intern like dropped into a chat, like, are we really going to watch this game where in a country where homosexuality is illegal?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  And not realizing like totally triggered, like a core us-ness line in the firm, it's a law firm, but it's like, what we do is watch Team England, no matter whether it's Wimbledon, whether it's.

• 28:15Emma Grede?

  I don't know. That's going to go down anywhere. I'm like, whoa, who's doing what?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  And part of what they were doing was beginning to ask, like, what does it mean to be a firm? What does it mean to do things together? Is this a core to who we are? And so often, things don't change, except through conflict.

• 28:36Emma Grede?

  Yeah. And you have to go through it to understand, to have those conversations, and actually even to bring that to everybody's awareness. Sometimes I do think, though, that we don't even really understand what we're fighting about.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  And so that's true.

• 28:48Emma Grede?

  You know.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  We're often having the wrong fight.

• 28:50Emma Grede?

  Right?

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:51Emma Grede?

  So how do you figure out what a fight is actually about?

• 28:54Speaker 01

  I mean, that is, The Art of Fighting, I organize it through the natural cycle that a group goes through when it's in conflict. And there's only one chapter, there's 10 chapters and 10 interludes. There's one chapter about the actual facing. It's called the room where it happens, or the Zoom where it happens. The first six chapters is literally trying to figure out, what is the need? Why is this happening? What is the right conversation for us to have? What is the right fight? Do we need to face this? Not all fights are meant to be faced. And then the final three chapters is like, how do we come out of it? And so often, we're having the wrong fight. And I'll give a simple example. Friendships also go through cycles, and friendships in modern life are much more important than they were traditionally. Like, in most communities, traditionally, your cousins were your best friends, right?

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Or you're part of a community and those are your people and there's nowhere else to go, you know? You got to figure it out.

• 29:42Emma Grede?

  And you say they're more important now. Why?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  The majority of people don't live in their hometown.

• 29:46Emma Grede?

  Like, the breakdown of the traditional family, you mean?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Not just the family. The majority of people leave their family, meaning as a 20-year-old or as an immigrant, and for college, and just move to a city in which they weren't born in.

• 29:56Emma Grede?

  So your friends or your colleagues become your family?

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:59Emma Grede?

  And then it's even more important to go through it?

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yes, but also that they change over time.

• 30:02Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  And so I had a friend who, she was one of my closest friends, and we lived in different cities, and like, so much of the way we communicated, we're like texting all day, you know, just, or often, and she was just like a big part of my kind of psychological experience. And one day, she just kind of went like AWOL, like stopped responding, or like one word, you know, one-word responses. And I'm like, I know. I was like, oh, what is happening? And at first, I was like, is she okay? So I checked in with some common friends and they're like, nope, we're hearing from her.

• 30:35Emma Grede?

  Just you love.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was like, okay. And so then I tried to sort of check in, and like, there was just sort of, like, nothing coming back.

• 30:44Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's the worst.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  It was the worst.

• 30:45Emma Grede?

  That's the worst.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  And I went through like my own little grieving process for like nine months. I like hosted a little funeral for our, you know, like with this one-sided thing, like, what did I do? How do, you know, and obviously, in all friendships, there's stuff underneath. I'm like, well, could we just talk about it? Just silence. And finally, I was like, okay, you know what? It's okay. Case closed. And nine months later, I get this little chirpy text. I'm gonna be in town. It's been a while. Should we catch up? And I was like,

• 31:15Emma Grede?

  You better bring a pen and paper. You better come ready for a big conversation.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  We don't need a catch up. We don't need a catch up.

• 31:22Emma Grede?

  No, we need a conversation.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yes. And so part, again, but if slowing it down, to your point of like, we're often fighting around the wrong thing, I'm not gonna show up for a catch up. And so the pre-laying the groundwork, and this is a very simple example, but I had to pause, I had to breathe. I had to think about, do I want to say something or not? Do I want to see her or not? Do I care enough to now go back into this or not?

• 31:45Emma Grede?

  And what do you want?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  And what do I want? That's an important question. So I write back. I decide to be honest. I say, I don't know about you, but I've experienced a big change in our friendship and I have a lot of grief around it. I don't think we need a catch up, but I would be up for a clearing. And I use a language that facilitators often use.

• 32:04Emma Grede?

  You've got that.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  She, two minutes later, wrote back to her credit, thank you for the good languaging. I'd be up for that. So in that moment, I mean, I'm a facilitator, but we can all learn how to do this. I'm actually right sizing and making sure that if we're gonna show up, we're on the same page.

• 32:22Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  It's not a cat and mouse chase. I'm not, we're not like pretending like, wait, what's happening here? We're up for saying, what happened? And so the opening of our entire conversation was, you go first. What happened?

• 32:33Emma Grede?

  That's such an important thing. You know, when you talk about languaging deliberately, I think that that is so lost in modern society because it's so easy for us to just walk away from relationships. It's so easy for us to just ghost people, like the idea that somebody, I've never ghosted anyone. We'll never ghost anyone in my life.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Have you had like a slow fade?

• 32:55Emma Grede?

  Oh, I've had plenty of slow fades. I mean, I'll fade them out. That's just, I'll fade you.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like an intentional, totally.

• 33:02Emma Grede?

  But rarely without conversation. I'm very rarely just gonna do like a slow walk back. And I think there's realities to grown up relationships. That happens. But the idea of ghosting someone feels unfathomable to me. And I often think it's because people just don't know the language. They don't know that the difference between a catch up and a clearing.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Yes, we're not taught it. We're not taught it. I love that you're bringing this up. I'm sorry to cut you off. But part of this, like, we actually need more language. I'd heard of a word called a clearing. I heard it from a facilitator called Amy Elizabeth Fox. And I was like, okay, I know a model. It's called a clearing. Let me offer that here. And it gave us a bridge. And part of what I'm trying to do with The Art of Fighting is expand our languaging to be able to say, not everything is a dumpster fire.

• 33:48Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  But that doesn't mean that we don't talk about it.

• 33:50Emma Grede?

  But that is the important thing because again, as we say the word conflict, what immediately comes up is a big blazing fire.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:57Emma Grede?

  And it doesn't need to be that. And you speak about that so beautifully, that not every conflict has to be this like giant heart wrenching thing where somebody gets hurt and there's a clear winner and a clear loser.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  No, at all. In fact, conflict is a, it can be a creative force. If you think about story or film, like the lifeblood of of forward motion is conflict and conflict within, as well as conflict across. One of my favorite examples in the book is a group of 10 girlfriends. They've been friends since they were in kindergarten. They grew up in North Carolina. They now have kindergartners, right? So they've been friends for 30 years. And they've always been in touch over text or WhatsApp as a group chat. But it never raised to the level of anything existential. And during the pandemic, like so many groups, they hopped onto the Zoom happy hour bandwagon. Do you remember this phase?

• 34:44Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  And so for the first time, they had, I mean, sociologically, a different forum. And so they're all in these like weird little boxes, right? With like, I don't know, a glass of wine. And with, as it was described to me later, like within three or five minutes, by the way, half of them had moved out of the state for college and stayed out of the state and like evolved and changed with their social beliefs or political beliefs. Half had stayed in their hometown. They never talked about it. And part of what happened on these Zooms was people were saying things on these Zooms that kind of shocked the other side. Like this pandemic is overblown, or those quote unquote dangerous riots in those dangerous cities. By the way, which half the group were in those protests themselves as white women.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  And they stopped having the Zooms. And one of the women called me up and was like, I'm heartbroken and I'm confused. These people, I've known them for 30 years and I love them. And also I'm kind of morally horrified by part of what they're saying. What do I do? And I write about this friendship group in the book and they're not alone. And so part of what she had to do was first, I loved your question, what do I want? Before, it's not just being like, okay, let's call them up and yell at them, right? Or say, I want to talk. It's actually pausing and first going through a set of questions. Do I care about this relationship still? Do I need this group to reflect my values?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Do I still have longing for this group? Do I think by saying something, I could alter the situation? And then deciding, is this worth facing? And then if so, what do you say? Like after 30 years, someone makes the same joke they've been making for 30 years, now you're gonna say something? And so part of the invitation here is beginning to become more discerning about which fights to face and then how to do it with care and how to build our muscles so that we can actually have these conversations together.

• 36:39Emma Grede?

  And so many people can relate to that because again, as you, you know, you talk about yourself in the book and how you and your father have very big ideological differences. I think that we all know people that we fundamentally disagree on very big things with. But it seems to me that that is more strained than ever. And for whatever reason, we are finding that as a reason not to meet people, not to be in, you know, in friendship groups with them. And so how do you, how do you address that? When you have deep ideological differences, are we really supposed to be looking for everyone around us to reflect the way that we feel and to be in unison?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was working with this group of friends and sort of listening to them, interviewing them, helping them, I came across a study that basically said that they're not alone, which is in the US at least over the last 10 years and particularly since the triggering event, and I'm saying that sort of sociologically of the election of Donald Trump. The way Americans perceive your political affinity has increased in importance.

• 37:43Emma Grede?

  I will just say as an English person, just very quickly, because I came here 10 years ago and I couldn't actually believe that there was such a divide based on your party. That, you know, perhaps it's like we weren't going to dinner with this couple because of that. And, you know, when I would hear people say that, I was like, are you kidding? I've never in a million years would I think that based on the party somebody voted for in England, that that would or wouldn't be your friend.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  And

• 38:12Emma Grede?

  But that's only gone up, is what you're saying.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  And also nations can change, countries can change. 30 years ago, that was not true in America. It was more unusual to have an interracial marriage than an interpolitical one. Today, according to Pew, it's more unusual to have an interpolitical marriage than an interracial one. I know.

• 38:33Emma Grede?

  Mind blowing.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  But part of this is because the election of Donald Trump, for many Americans, raised the stakes. And so the meaning of your political identity changed. It used to be, okay, maybe you want a bigger government and I want a smaller one. But now the perceived meaning is you are voting to destroy me and my people. And so when the meaning changes, it fractures the relationship. And so part of what I am looking at in The Art of Fighting is the places in which they're still longing within families, within friend groups that have been friends for 30 years, that are trying to figure out, what do we do? And one of the most surprising findings of The Art of Fighting was how important humor is

• 39:17Speaker 01

  and play and joy is in also being able to hold conflict and difference.

• 39:23Emma Grede?

  Can you explain how?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  One of the things is, this is about conflict in relationship, in community. I mean, studies show NASA, they can predict how astronaut teams, how well they'll get along, down to a 75% accuracy. And when they are forming these teams, right, four astronauts, tight quarters, 18 days, right? And when they are able to put together these four astronauts, whatever it is, the number one most important trait for an astronaut to hold, to be able to diffuse conflict is a sense of humor.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  It is deeply important. And so I started looking at different couples that fight well, different organizations that fight well. One of my favorite examples is a couple who, they knew each other in middle school and then they re-met in their twenties. They started dating and they got married. And they have a lot of healthy heat. And the woman told me that sometimes when they're really locked in and they're really fighting, you know, arguing with each other and it's getting really tense, her husband will start singing to her mid-fight. And we'll start singing things like, because they went to middle school together. I wonder what Anna DeCosta would think about our fight right now. I bet she'd side with you. And she always just like, can't help but laugh. And it cools it off.

• 40:39Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  And so, so much. And so I looked at restaurants that embed play into release valves because restaurants are really tense. And so the restaurant Canlis in the Pacific Northwest, every month they have scheduled play that the entire restaurant does, including games of laser tag. They have like 30 laser tags in like a storage unit in their parking lot. And the entire staff plays laser tag. And when you're actually Yes. When you're, when like the server is like rolling under the table, what's this called when you go like this, like?

• 41:09Emma Grede?

  Oh, like the, the army crawl?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, the army crawling on their belly with the head chef. It's such a relief. It's such a release. They're laughing, they're playing. And then they also are really expected to repair with one another, not during the game. But it's basically, you want to water the garden. Like when communities or groups are in conflict, counterintuitively, you need to add moisture metaphorically.

• 41:31Emma Grede?

  But there are times that it makes sense to avoid conflict, right? And I wonder when you believe that avoiding conflict is the wisest choice.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  I have an entire chapter, it's chapter three of the book, and it's called To Face or Not To Face. And in that chapter, I have 12 reasons not to face. One of them is, nothing's gonna change because of it. One of them is, the fight is not something to build a bridge over. It's just revealing. It's sort of like when people show you who they are, believe it. So again, it's discernment. And one of the challenges is we can say like, oh, I don't care about them. And that's actually masking, that's our conflict aversion. We're so terrified by facing it. It's like, eh, I'm good. And so there are many conflicts not to face. And part of discernment is beginning to understand what to face, what not to face. And when you choose to face it, how to increase the likelihood that it goes well.

• 42:27Emma Grede?

  Okay, I think I've just found the latest wellness studio everyone's going to be talking about. It's called Studio New Zealand, and here's the twist, it's an entire country. This isn't just about adding yet another juice cleanse, a meditation app, or a grounding mat to your wellness routine. At Studio New Zealand, wellbeing happens naturally. It's influenced by Maori culture and a holistic approach that is felt through connection to nature, people, and place. The country is your all-in-one wellness studio. Think lake dips instead of cold plunges, geothermal spas, native forests, fresh local food, and birdsong for your sound bath. The best part, you don't need weeks to experience it. In just one week, you can experience Studio New Zealand and come home feeling

• 43:12Emma Grede?

  100% restored. So I might just be ditching my morning wellness stack and giving Studio New Zealand a go.

• 43:24Emma Grede?

  I want to talk to you a little bit about conflict at work, because this is one of the places that I think we need to learn to be so much more skilled. But it really starts at the top. And I've understood over the years that so much of my behaviour impacts the rest of the team. What everybody sees and allows the leadership to do really does trickle down. And I wonder what a leader can do to actually make disagreement feel safe in a workplace.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  I love this question, and you're absolutely right. Whatever your conflict style is, if you're listening to this and you have power, it's going to become the weather system of the group. And if you don't know your conflict style, ask your direct reports. They do. I had a manager call me up, and she said to me, you know, I have this weekly meeting, and no one ever brings me bad news.

• 44:10Emma Grede?

  Oh, that's the worst.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Right? And I tell them to, I say, I want to hear it first before anyone else. But like, it was overly polite, overly positive. What do I do? Do I like, stage a cage match? And I said, no, like, start small. Change the first 5% of your meeting. Change how you start these meetings. Which, by the way, is a principle in The Art of Gathering. The first 5% really matters. And I said, every week for 10 weeks, you have a 60-minute meeting, the first five minutes, no longer, no more than that, go around and quickly ask everyone their rose and thorn. Best part of the week, worst part of the week. But do it 10 weeks in a row. So she did it. First few weeks, some people were up for it. Some people were kind of like, okay. And then they started sort of getting a cadence around it. And I said, keep doing it. And by week seven, I called her up, I said, how's it going? She said, well, it's actually really interesting. One, we're learning a lot more

• 44:55Speaker 01

  about each other, and we're widening our aperture of each other. But once I started doing it after six weeks, the rest of the meeting began to change. And I said, what do you mean? And she said, we normalized thorns. We normalized that you can talk about thorns here. And it began to change how they viewed me. They thought I was only somebody to bring good news to. And so as a team, they were building their capacity to widen their geography to include thorns in the garden.

• 45:25Emma Grede?

  And I love that, because it is such a culture. Because as soon as you make those changes, I don't, you know, I'm so glad they did it for 10 weeks, but it doesn't even take that long. You normalize certain behaviours, and then teams learn that, and they carry it into the next meeting and the next. But it's also very hard for leaders to see what's happening because of their power. And you talk about that in a really fantastic way that, to me, was so clear in the book.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Both The Art of Gathering and The Art of Fighting, I think of as power-literate books. Meaning, every relationship has power between it. Every group has power in it. And if you kind of think like, oh, I'm going to hold my nose and not think about power, you're going to do a disservice to your group and to your team. And so part of what I talk about in this book is, first, if something happens in your organisation and you have power, feel your emotions. Everyone should feel their emotions. Emotions are actually the lubricant of relational longing. When you're actually feeling a way, it's because you care, and that's energy. But don't necessarily feel it for the first time in front of your direct reports. Right? They're not your siblings. They're not your friends. You can fire them. You have power over them. And so part of it is both feel your feelings with a coach,

• 46:31Speaker 01

  with a peer, with someone outside of the, outside of the office. And then to be able to come in, process it so that you can actually appropriately hold your role with the people around you.

• 46:40Emma Grede?

  So if you've got less power, how do you appropriately bring disagreement up with a boss or someone more senior to you?

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Host a pop-up book club and have everyone read The Art of Fighting.

• 46:53Emma Grede?

  I love it. We will do it. But it's a difficult thing for people to master.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  It's very difficult.

• 46:58Emma Grede?

  And again, it goes back a little bit to culture, because I'm married, I'm married to a Swedish man. And in Sweden, the culture is so different, that companies are just not so hierarchical. So anyone can speak to the boss in a certain way. You come to America, and it's entirely different. And I think people really struggle with being able to manage up in that way.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  And different cultures have different norms. And, and by the way, groups work when there's an internal coherence. And everybody understands what the norms are, and they're up for them. So whether that's pretty flat, or whether that's hierarchical, neither's bad. But when we don't understand where and how to move through it, that's when there's a lot of problems. It's not on the weight of the person with less power to speak up. You may, rationally may not make sense. And so if you have power to begin to, when somebody does raise a question, or says something, you know, that that feels a little bit pokey, also to then say, hey, thanks so much for bringing the heat. We need more of this. Right? There's ways that you either punish, you may not even realise,

• 48:02Speaker 01

  or that you reify, and you bring it, you bring it through.

• 48:04Emma Grede?

  How much responsibility do you think a company has for, like, really thinking about the emotional needs of each individual? Because that's a really difficult thing. Like, I'm wondering, at what point does prioritising one individual become the kind of like, the damage of the overall collective?

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, one of the best essays written during the pandemic, he was writing about progressive movements, but it's by the writer and organisational theorist and political party leader Maurice Mitchell. What he talked about is unanchored care, is the term he used. And he basically said, one of the mistakes a lot of political movements, particularly in the progressive space, are making, is that they are over addressing the needs of the individual. And there are certain needs that are inappropriate for a workplace to take care of. That should be taken care of in therapy. That should be taken in external trauma needs. But it's a leadership line to discern when is an individual's needs negatively affecting the group, and whether or not you can help coach that individual

• 49:06Speaker 01

  up into the group, or whether that individual is not a good fit. And so that's some of the hardest part of leadership. But your job as a leader is to first be clear about what the purpose of this company is, to help people feel a part of it, to help them understand their role, and then to help them actually become a high-performing, resilient, vibrant team, where people have each other's backs and want, and are doing the work of their life. But that is actually about both helping the individuals be the right individuals, and then helping the team be one that trusts each other.

• 49:37Emma Grede?

  As we talk about teams and work culture, it really takes me to Slack. It's one of them, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. I have said for years, as a, a non-S Slack user, that it's one of the main things that really throws a group off. And I feel like it's a disaster for company culture. And I heard you say that Slack has hyper-turbo-charged conflict. Will you explain how?

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Slack was introduced as an app, I think in 2012. And as I was looking at, by the way, one of the reasons I was on to this was because in the summer of 2020, there was all of these reckonings happening within organisations, ostensibly triggered by the twin forces of both the pandemic, in the sense that many people, for the first time, were working from home. And then in the summer of 2020, many offices were trying to bring them back. So that was one big source of conflict. And then the other in the US was the Black Lives Matter racial uprising. And so there was all of these kind of internal implosions within companies all across America, that often were things like, whether you put a black square on Instagram or not, whether you put a statement up on the website or not, about what was happening in terms of national events. But once that was happening,

• 50:44Speaker 01

  it kicked up all this other stuff. And not even race-related. I was getting bombarded with screenshots from Slack rooms, that were totally kind of people yelling things and accusing each other, and accusing companies and organisations of all sorts of things that they would never say in a town hall. And so much damage was also done. Yes, there are some good things that come out of it. Yes, sometimes an organisation needs to unionise. But often, these digital forms are not made, they're not designed for conflict. And it's not like these companies make these digital enterprise decisions to have Slack on everyone's phone.

• 51:26Emma Grede?

  No, it just happened.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  It just happened. It was self-organised. It was the fastest-growing app ever.

• 51:30Emma Grede?

  And it's crazy, because I also feel like it didn't really come from the top. It was something that was done within the organisation. It wasn't a big management decision. It was something that people said, this is creating efficiencies within this group, and this project, and this individual thing that we need to do over here. And all of these groups formed. And before you knew it, there were like, a billion Slack channels, and it became part of the culture.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Yes. Part of what Slack has allowed is that it's all the time, 24-hour, instant communication. Anyone can start a channel about anything.

• 52:01Emma Grede?

  And anyone can invite anyone.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  And anyone can invite anyone. Right? And so basically, whenever you're trying to, which is both a radical act, like, it completely shifts power in an organisation from the leaders to everyone. And there are some benefits. Many union, unionising efforts began on Slack, in these small, private sub-channels. Often, I mean, at some level, you know, the Whisper network around Me Too was also people connecting to each other, sometimes on Slack, sometimes elsewhere, that allowed for an entire movement to happen. There are good things that can come out of it.

• 52:36Emma Grede?

  No doubt. Absolutely no doubt.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Overall, it creates a, both complexity and chaos, that is not really helping anyone. And so part of what happens with Slack is that's this kind of like, Other force that no one agreed or decided to come with, and it's totally and completely affecting the culture of organizations, well beyond how they coordinate work. And it affects what people think of what it is and where does they work? It is a cultural force.

• 53:08Emma Grede?

  And as you talk about what is work, where is it? And how do they work? Then we get into the idea of bringing everybody back into the office. How do you think that work from home culture has affected work and conflict? And how we see our colleagues?

• 53:25Speaker 01

  I think the biggest, probably the biggest crisis in workplace in the last century was the pandemic. Because it fundamentally, for at least non-first responders, or what in the US is called non-essential workers, which were people who all of a sudden could do their work from home. And why it created such a crisis for the workplace was because it opened the question of what is work? Where is work? And what should the level of work and the office and colleagues be importance in terms of my lifestyle? And so part of what happened is when people started working from home or remotely, they started, one, being able to do many other things with their time. But the second is the hold, the cultural hold on,

• 54:09Speaker 01

  and also things like mentorship and apprenticeship basically fell out of the bottom. But also, I think in a good way, companies are requiring people to come back to work. That's not what I'm saying is good. In a good way, people like working from home. And so what the pressure it's put on employers is you gotta make the office good. What's the point of coming in and everyone's in their own cubicle on Zoom, like trying to plug their ears so they can't hear everyone? If you wanna bring people in, make it worth their time. It is amazing to be with other people when the meeting is run well, right? When you're actually bumping into people, when there's enough density where you would never get to be in an elevator with like three managers above you, but because you both share a common joke or a salad, all of a sudden, right?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  It actually benefits people with less power to be in physical proximity with other people. If you're a reporter, to actually be able to hear how a journalist, a very senior journalist, like cultivates a source, that's actually how you learn your craft. But if it's not happening in the office, why would I come in?

• 55:09Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  But again, these are good debates. These are worthy grapples.

• 55:14Emma Grede?

  Do you know what? They are great debates, and they're debates that rage on for a reason. And I think what's really interesting, and we don't need to go into my views around working from home because it's been done to death. But I do think it's interesting that there is still such a huge debate and how generationally that has become, to me, the big pull apart. And right that older people in the office go one way, younger people think it's another way. And again, to your very point, what are we actually fighting about?

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:46Emma Grede?

  And I think that that is the difference because it's the very idea of what is work?

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:51Emma Grede?

  What can we call work? What do we call work?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  And what do we want it to be?

• 55:55Emma Grede?

  What do we want it to be?

• 55:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not different from our political identity thing, right? Which is 30 years ago, a political identity in the US was like maybe like third or fourth or fifth in terms of importance or relevance to connection.

• 56:14Emma Grede?

  Before you start a difficult conversation, what do you need to get clear on?

• 56:18Speaker 01

  So I have a Substack newsletter called Group Life. And every month I do a webinar. And if you're, you can join for free, you can join for the cost of a sandwich a month. And every month, we take one tool, one skill, just like this, and we practice. I call them group help labs. We have enough self-help, we need more group help. And on one of the most recent ones, I did a group help lab on healthy heat. And we worked through your exact question, which is what do I need to get clear on about whether or not to face? And I'll share the secrets here. One is to ask, is this worth facing? And to figure that out, as I said it earlier, is to say, do I care enough about this to say something?

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Counterintuitively, do I wanna be closer to this person? Meaning, if I do, you should say something. Do I need to have this group change in order for me to be a meaningful part of it? It's to go through your own, what I call your algorithm of worth. Do I have longing to this? It's first, just actually starting with the self and asking, what do I want? And do I think by saying something, I can alter this? And then the second is to get into that relaxed body. And then finding, and I write about this in The Art of Fighting, finding what's the right forum to do this? It's probably not public. Is it a text message? Is it picking up a phone? Is it asking permission first, like with my friend? Like, can we have a clearing? Is it going on a walk? Also, I talk a lot about families and children and giving our children skills and these conflict skills.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  It's a lot easier often to have a conversation, a difficult conversation, when you're walking or when you're in a car. Not when you're just, you know, eye to eye, like combating in a table.

• 57:55Emma Grede?

  Side to side. It's like we're here, but we're there.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 57:58Emma Grede?

  What's the best way to start a conversation that you know the other person just doesn't wanna have?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  I wanna have this conversation because I care about you. If it's a friend. I wanna have this conversation because I love you. I wanna have this conversation because I care about this friendship.

• 58:16Emma Grede?

  In the workplace?

• 58:17Speaker 01

  I want to have this conversation because I want to work with you.

• 58:21Emma Grede?

  It's really simple.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  It's starting with the idea, the radical notion, but the true notion that I'm doing this because I want to work with you.

• 58:28Emma Grede?

  You talk about the healthy heat, but how do you even know when the discomfort in a conversation is gonna be productive?

• 58:34Speaker 01

  It's the million dollar question, right? This is, as I say in The Art of Fighting, welcome to the mess. Like, you don't always know. But part of it is growing our capacity to hold, to even just ask, is this healthy or is this unhealthy? Just getting more workplaces and individuals to ask that question is massive progress.

• 58:53Emma Grede?

  Priya, if somebody listening to this conversation is sitting there thinking, I know that I'm avoiding conversations. I know that I'm not good at conflict. What is the first thing that they should do?

• 59:05Speaker 01

  Drop this podcast into their group chat. I'm serious. Part of what we're doing here is building a common hymnal. And so it's really hard to explain and change a culture on your own. Have them listen to this conversation. Have them read The Art of Fighting. It actually expands our notion of what it is we're wanting to hear. That's why books are created. That's why culture is made. I have had people DM me saying, I shared your interview with a friend of mine. Or I posted your book. And someone DM'd me and said, ha, ha, ha, ha. Saw you posted this book. Would you be open? I've been meaning to tell you something.

• 59:44Emma Grede?

  It's a good catalyst. I tell you, the book is phenomenal. I mean, I am a big reader and I loved this.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 59:52Emma Grede?

  I gobbled it up.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 59:53Emma Grede?

  And it was actually so helpful. I think the way that you wrote it, the way that you broke it up, it's so actionable. And I'm so happy that you came on because there's so much for all of us to learn. And when people feel right now so at their wits' end and they feel so hopeless and they're like, oh, my goodness. This is actually, The Art of Fighting is about bringing us together. It's about making us closer. And it's about getting to the very heart of what it means to be a human and to care about people and to care about what it is that you do. And so I really thank you for this because I thought it was unbelievably useful. Everybody should go out and buy it.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:00:31Emma Grede?

  And really just have a little go, like have a little go at some of those things that you're saying. I think that we would all be better for it.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  And as you do, breathe and remind the person, counterintuitively, because you're doing this because you love them.

• 1:00:45Emma Grede?

  Because you love them. You can't have a fight if you don't love them.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Emma Grede?

  It's really true. All right, I'm gonna get you for just a couple rapid fire questions. What is the last conflict you personally had to solve in your own life?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, every day. I mean, for being real, I recently, I launched The Art of Fighting this week. And I had a small party after my local book talk. And I invited all of the people who are like nearest and dearest to me and the people who worked on the book. I wrote down my list of thank yous. And right before I was about to get up, I lost the paper.

• 1:01:17Emma Grede?

  Oh, it's the worst.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Thank yous really matter. And they're also high stakes because then if you don't mention someone, it's like, and I kind of winged it. Is that the past of winged?

• 1:01:29Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I winged it, winged it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  And I, and I kind of went like visually through the room and thanked people and told stories about people, but I couldn't see everyone. And as soon as I got off, you don't even, right? It's like, and I realized like, oh. And I realized there were like literally five people I didn't name.

• 1:01:45Emma Grede?

  We are literally living the same life. At my book party, I did the same thing. I had four hosts. I thanked the three that I could see. And the woman that paid for the whole thing was behind me. Nicole LeVant, Nicole LeVant, Nicole LeVant. And I didn't thank her.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  That's repair. You're repairing right now.

• 1:02:01Emma Grede?

  But I immediately went to her. I was like, oh, my God. And she was like, whatever. But you know, you wanna die.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Stick to my stomach. You wanna die. So the last 24 hours, like, you know, tail between my legs being like, I'm so sorry I didn't thank you publicly. And it's not the same thing to thank you privately.

• 1:02:15Emma Grede?

  No, you're bad at rapid fire like I am. So that means I like you a lot.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  I am. Actually, can I thank one of them right now?

• 1:02:22Emma Grede?

  Yeah, go, thank them.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Robin Davies, she's absolutely amazing. She is a stylist who works within people's closets. So that you are working and wearing sustainable stuff. And then we'll just itemize and find certain pieces, often through upcycled brands.

• 1:02:39Emma Grede?

  Yes, Robin.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  To help you. So Robin Davies, thank you.

• 1:02:41Emma Grede?

  There you go, Robin. Thank you. Thank you again, Robin Davies. What makes a great dinner party guest?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Someone who is thinking for the group and helping the host get the guests to connect, freeze on, be part of a vibe that feels good.

• 1:02:59Emma Grede?

  If you haven't read The Art of Gathering, you have to read The Art of Gathering, after The Art of Fighting, because you should go and buy that book first. That's, that's what we're working on, get the things in order. What's something that your kids have taught you about conflict?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Oh, so much that I still need to practice.

• 1:03:15Emma Grede?

  Good answer. Good answer. My kids are teaching me that too. Patience. What's a hill that you die on?

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Oh, petty or?

• 1:03:24Emma Grede?

  Give me a petty one. I'm a petty girl.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Most people don't know how to make tea well.

• 1:03:28Emma Grede?

  Oh.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  You're British.

• 1:03:30Emma Grede?

  I'm British.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  You're not in America.

• 1:03:32Emma Grede?

  They don't. I can concur.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:34Emma Grede?

  I give very strict instructions.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 1:03:36Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  The water needs to be just boiled.

• 1:03:38Emma Grede?

  Oh, I need it boiled and I want it the color of my skin. Yeah, yeah. But you sound like a real asshole when you say that to like a new person coming in. Make it that color. She's like, I'm leaving. What's a book that's changed your life?

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  I mean, Man in the Mirror by Anand Girdardas. It is an opera that is the true story of the tragic encounter between Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny on a New York City subway three years ago. And all of the things that went wrong in the city. That allows for a moment like that happening in the subway. It's by Anand Gairathas, who also happens to be my husband. And part of the reason that book has changed my life is because he is somebody who is not looking for clickbait. He's not looking for the things that devise us. He is radically making us have to ask and allow for each of us and all of us to actually be humanized, not dehumanized.

• 1:04:34Emma Grede?

  Oh, wow. We should all wait for that book.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  It's beautiful.

• 1:04:37Emma Grede?

  I'm sure it is. Priya Parker, thank you for coming on Aspire and thank you for your work.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:04:42Emma Grede?

  Pleasure.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  That was so fun.

• 1:04:44Emma Grede?

  It was so fun.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  I could just use forever.

• 1:04:50Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Grede is presented by Audacy. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Our executive producers are Ashley McShan, Derek Brown, and me. Executive producers from Audacy are Asha Saluja and Leah Reese Dennis. Producer KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Phil Sweetech and Carla Stelgada. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale.

• 1:05:32Emma Grede?

  Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME, Josefina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekle, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Viera. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelled G R E D E. That's aspire, A S P I R E with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.

• 1:06:09Speaker 04

  Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app.