The 4 Helpful Horsemen for the Conflict-pocalypse 🐎

A couple of weeks ago, I co-presented a free webinar with Dr Samantha Hardy (expert in conflict conversations).

We had a great time (yes, talking about conflict) with more than 40 people from all over the world, together online. A few times, Sam and I couldn’t keep up with the chat box — it looked like the fast-scrolling credits at the end of a movie!

It was very obvious, very quickly, that everyone is uncomfortable in conflict, whether we withdraw or accommodate, or get angry, we all wish we had said (or not said) things. Or behaved differently. And everybody agreed that conflict takes up a lot of emotional energy and mental thoughts, at home and at work.

We shared lots of skills and tips during the webinar, helping participants take away some new language they could apply immediately and free themselves from the exhaustion of conflict.

If you didn’t make it 😥 — or even if you did — Sam has made a few quick clips with some of the best conflict tips we shared in the webinar; the key skills we know really make a difference to how you can do conflict well*.

This clip is about the four essential elements you need to engage with confidence in conflict (AND keep your integrity intact too); The Four Helpful Horsemen, if you will, whose names are:

🐎 Calmness

🐎 Values

🐎 Rising

🐎 Trust

Check out our 5 minute clip at the top of this post.

In summary, The Four Elements, are:

1. Calmness – it’s essential that you remain calm, and try to breathe!
2. Values - sticking to your values as your anchor points because heightened stressful situations can quite easily lead to us ditching the things we hold dear (our identity) in the heat of the moment.
3. Rising - being able to rise from the conflict with learning, having a genuine exchange, rather than just yelling or going quiet or saying yes when you mean no or maybe….
4. Trust - building trust from the conflict. Despite how it feels, conflict is actually one of the best opportunities we have to build trust.

Do you take all Four Helpful Horsemen with you on your journey into conflict? What would it take for you to have this posse, fit and ready to ride?!

*And remember, doing conflict “well” doesn’t actually always mean that everyone agrees at the end. What it does mean, is that you leave the conflict feeling confident, that you did your best, and you kept your integrity intact.

PS: If you’d like to see a full recording of the webinar to get more conflict ”keepers”, just let me know.