4D Human Being Podcast

The Grit in Your Oyster: Transforming Conflict into Pearls

• 4D Human Being • Season 4 • Episode 43

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What if conflict isn't something to avoid, but rather a doorway to creativity and growth? In this episode, Philippa and Penelope Waller challenge us to transform how we view disagreement in our personal and professional lives.

Most of us instinctively avoid conflict or approach it as a win-lose battle. We've been conditioned to see tension as destructive rather than potentially creative. What if we viewed it as a refreshing alternative: conflict as the spark that ignites innovation and deeper understanding. Like "the grit in your oyster" that eventually produces a pearl, our most uncomfortable moments often lead to our greatest growth.

When working with teams and organisations, Philippa and Penelope explore how conflict signals what needs attention in our relationships and systems. That persistent friction between colleagues? It's rarely about the surface issue – it's the system's way of highlighting deeper needs for recognition, clarity, or fairness. By listening to conflict rather than suppressing it, we access insights that might otherwise remain hidden.

Also how can a understanding of the drama triangle (victim-persecutor-rescuer) make us work towards the winner's triangle (creator-challenger-coach). This powerful framework offers concrete roles we can intentionally adopt to transform unproductive tensions into opportunities for collaboration.

Ready to stop sweeping tensions under the carpet and instead harness their creative potential?

Subscribe to continue exploring how intentional communication can transform your relationships and unlock your potential as a four-dimensional human being.

Speaker 1:

Hello, my name is Philippa Waller, my name is Penelope Waller and we are two of the directors at 4D Human being. And welcome to the 4D Human being podcast. What's it all about, pen? It's all about your personal and professional relationships. It's about your communication skills, how you lead, how you work and build teams, how you are looking after yourself and your well-being, and how you are much more at choice. What do we mean by that? Well, sometimes we can get a little caught in patterns in life and we can all be a little bit on our automatic pilot. So 40 Human being is all about helping us get back to choice and being a four-dimensional human being, and your fourth dimension course is intention. So, whether it's about your impact, your leadership style, your team dynamics, whether it's about your well-being, it's about your communication or your presentation skills anything that involves human beings interacting with other human beings 4d human being are here to help. We're going to take a deep dive and look at some tools, insights, theories that are going to help you go from a 3D human doing to a 4D human being, so that you can happen to the world rather than the world simply happening to you.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the 4D human being podcast and the second part of Managing Conflict. Yes, and we're doing this. For those of you watching on video, we're doing this in a slightly different location today, because very often we're in one of our offices. Today, we're both in your office and we're doing this, yeah, from the sofa. From the sofa, yes, we've been filming today. So not much conflict today, luckily, and it's very hot, which is another thing that can cause drug conflict without us really being aware of it. It's true, though, isn't it? It's really hot when we think about heat in a conversation, I mean when it gets hot and you get flustered. That on its own, yeah, although my poor dog is going in the opposite direction with the heat, because I haven't had him cut for ages, because my kids love him having shaggy long hair. It's really hot this week in the UK, and he hasn't gone into conflict. He's gone into sort of lethargy, catatonia, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So we, on our last podcast, we talked about conflict and some of the challenges or patterns that we have around conflict, and today we're talking about conflict as an opportunity, which is not always the way we look at it. Let's be honest, it's not. Don't think this is mythical. There is the Chinese symbol isn't there that both means challenge and opportunity, and it's the same symbol. And there is a real truth to that. Well, there is something, isn't there about? If we as human beings and the world constantly lived and operated and interconnected in an absolute state of equilibrium and balance, just sort of theoretically, you feel like nothing would actually happen. But you're absolutely right, there is a truth to that. I mean, we'll come to that.

Speaker 1:

How nice does that sound? Well, or would it be? Or would it be actually quite dull? Because actually, if we think about creativity, there's got to be some friction there. There's got to be an idea to almost push back against, to have another idea Like how are you creating if everything's just simply in flow? It doesn't quite make sense, doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

And so it's really interesting that you use the word creativity, because, of course, when we think about conflict, we think much more negatively, or we think about something being destroyed or broken or causing rupture, but in a way, energy is being created and manifested and, as they said in the minecraft movie, it's a choice whether we direct that towards destruction or creativity, and actually that conflict, that disagreement, can be the start of either of those things. Yes, so if we think about rather than thinking about conflict. If we think about energy seriously my dog is now trying to lick my face If we think about it as energy, there's something going on in that energy. Something needs to happen. I was also thinking more globally that with all of the conflicts that are, you know and we use that word for wars, of course with conflicts that are going on, you hear again and again and again that with all of the hand-to-hand fighting or weaponry fighting, there's no resolution without conversation, without dialogue. And it's so interesting that we know this that you can have all the conflict you like, at some point you've got to have that creative dialogue to move forward. So we know it at a really fundamental level that actually that's what it's calling for. Yeah, exactly, and something, something's got to change. Exactly, there's a need, there's a want. Yeah, there'll be sort of a rupture or a yeah, something's wanting to happen from that. Yes, and it's really interesting to think about that energy, that conflict, as an opportunity rather than as something to be avoided Absolutely. So we can have that argument or really speak our mind. That, hopefully, is the moment where we can release some of that energy and start to move forward and get to, once we've released that energy, get to dialogue. But all the time that we are in that stagnation, that stonewalling, or I'm not going to talk to you, we're just stuck. So it's not a very creative space, it's a stuck space.

Speaker 1:

And the second piece on top of that, layering on top of that, is the mindset that you have around conflict. So, first of all, understanding that that energy can be useful. But secondly, how do you frame conflict and challenging conversations in your mind? And I very often have this conversation around interview skills, which sounds like a strange kind of link. But of course, sometimes we get deliberately difficult questions in an interview, such as you know what's been your most difficult moment, or what's your weakness in this role, or you know those kind, those kind of questions? Because I always say, even if they're kind of pushy, difficult questions, what's the gift and what's the opportunity, what's useful about this slightly annoying question? To shine a light on the good stuff and highlighting, well, what might be an opportunity off the back of that. Yeah, and that mindset is a really interesting thing to think about when we're thinking about conflict.

Speaker 1:

When someone comes in with a challenge or conflict, where does our mind go? What could be useful here, or how am I going to win and destroy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was one of your most difficult moments? Actually, you know what? I had? A really tough moment when we missed a deadline in the team, and what happened was, and what I learned was, and what I was pleased about was, and why I absolutely know. Yeah, absolutely Opportunity opportunity so also in the tension of disagreement, of course could be the spark of something new, and this, of course, goes into the myth of the lone genius.

Speaker 1:

All the time, it's just me on my own, calmly, with my own ideas, and no annoying people to disagree with me. All I've got is my history and my bank of knowledge. I've got nothing. There's nothing else that can come in. There's no other input In that tension of someone else coming in with oh hold on, have you thought about?

Speaker 1:

In that tension is a whole gateway to a whole other perspective, a whole other bank of ideas. Now I can frame that conflict in oh, that's going to disrupt my lovely enclosed fortress of personal ideas If I open that door rather than ah, there's a whole bank of other ideas here. Yeah, ooh, this is definitely going to disrupt me because I've got used to my ideas and, yeah, what could happen there? And it's the fear, isn't it that? What that? Somehow, if I open up other ideas, if I listen, if I integrate other ideas, what are we fighting? We're going to go off piece. So I'm going to end up doing more work. It's not the mindset of what might happen, what might be interesting about this, exactly, even if they're, even if they're difficult. Yeah, so there's so much that conflict can give us, so it can be the tension that can create a spark for something new.

Speaker 1:

And we've had this quite recently I think. I showed you a whole piece of a project and you immediately questioned something. And I immediately felt that irritation of I've done all this work, like that's not what I was thinking, that's not where I was going. And 24 hours later I sat with it and I started integrating those ideas. And I would definitely say, with conflict, the opportunity isn't only there. In the moment, you still might have your reaction to it because it wasn't what you were expecting, but in the following hours and days that might trickle in and start to integrate and open up something else, and if you can allow that and it's never, ever too late to go back to that conversation and say, OK, I had quite a strong reaction to what you said because I was so in my own idea. Since then I've really allowed that thought to sit with me and it's really made me realise actually I'd missed that, or I can see that opportunity there. So it's never too late.

Speaker 1:

The conflict isn't only one second and it's over. It's an ongoing tension that can actually open up new possibilities, and I wonder if you know part of this for some of us not all of us I wonder if part of this is similar to something we spoke about on the last podcast, which is that perhaps we haven't taught ourselves or been taught how to look at conflict in that way. So, as a result, we will possibly try to avoid it. Or, if we don't avoid it, we've learned a certain way of stepping into it rather than seeing it as an opportunity or a possibility, and it's not always easy to reframe that. Those are the patterns we're in. It's the water in our goldfish bowl. We can't always see it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think one thing I've learned over my life and over my career is, yes, as you said, that spark of conflict can give rise to new creativity, new ideas. But the other thing, of course, that it can do is it can lead to personal growth, because you so often have to hold up the mirror when you've been in conflict with somebody and those are the moments, those really are the moments when you can grow and develop and learn something about yourself and how you are in a relationship and even though that can feel really hard at the time, what a gift. I mean what a gift. And you want to be that wise mind as you grow older. But if you're constantly in a state of equilibrium, it's very hard to learn the lessons we need to learn. Exactly. The growth comes through discomfort often. I want to say something on that, because that's really lovely what you say.

Speaker 1:

I think we can sometimes look at conflict or feel conflict and feel like it's all down to the other person. There would be no conflict here if it wasn't for them and by holding the mirror up and recognising that baby it takes two to tango that even if you're being passive, that you are still contributing, by being passive possibly, to that conflict. So we are part of the dance Totally. We are part of the dance. And also I remember my coach many years ago. I don't work with her anymore, but I loved having my coach, katie and I was going through a kind of a tough time in my personal life and she used the expression it's the grit in your oyster, and I can think about that also in terms of a professional relationship I had quite a long time ago now and that actually, with hindsight, very often lots of us will look back at those quite conflictual times and really understand that we've become the person we've become or we've been more successful as a result of that growth. And I think using the term the sand in your oyster is such a nice the grit, the grit in your oyster, it's such a nice phrase because it's uncomfortable but gives rise to a pearl. Yeah, I love that, oh, I love that, and that's actually both personal and relational, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So something you said just before that made me think about our patterns in relationship that because of how conflict, fight, argument, how those words or concepts are presented to us, we can consciously or unconsciously think of them as win-lose, yeah. Or we might think of them as compromise, sort of meeting in the middle ground, sort of bargaining our way to, sort of a sort of not very satisfying halfway mark. Rather than bargaining, we can build Rather than compromise. We can build rather than compromise. We can collaborate.

Speaker 1:

I don't think we always think about conflict as opening the door to a whole other way, a whole other solution, something we never thought of. That actually, neither of our ideas are the final solution, if you like, the final answer. Our ideas are actually creating that energy, that tension that's going to burst open to a completely other target or end goal or result that we could not have imagined, we couldn't have thought about on our own or even together without this tension. So it's like we need a reframe on it entirely, that we're not looking to score points or one of us to win. A win-win would be nice. That's our sort of baseline. Really, we want a kind of whole, not even a win-win a whole new win, a whole new shared win, totally.

Speaker 1:

And I think maybe you know a couple of the blockers to that. You know, one thing we mentioned is just what we've learned really in terms of what conflict means and whether we want to step into it and best to avoid it. Perhaps is a lesson that we've learned. But the second thing is and we talk about this a lot is in order to really leverage and get the most out of that friction and, as you say, kind of burst open the opportunities. We do need to have a certain level of kind of self-trust and skill that we can have that conversation in a way that is going to open it up to possibility. And we talk about this a lot, phil, don't we? That it's very often not the fact that you're worried about what the other person is going to say or they're going to say something rude to you or you're not going to like it, it's that perhaps you won't know how to respond in order to help that conversation get where it needs to go. And I think that self-trust and that skill is so important when we think about conflict, I agree, and even if you feel like you're at a place at the moment where you don't quite have that, you don't feel like you're masterful in these conversations.

Speaker 1:

You know what? There's something really really wonderful and inviting about really being explicit with the other person about the difference between your emotional and your intentional self that you could own and state. I want to be really honest with you. I find these kind of conversations really really tough and my intention is I really want to break through this with you. I do find it hard. Let's try that already. You've just put so much in that relationship. You've opened up the honesty about even the dynamic that you've already really covered a lot of ground. I mean, that's quite hard to push back on, isn't it? As the other person? Yeah, totally, and it's such a nice phrase to hold in mind, whether that's in your personal life or your professional life. And I think one of the reasons to try and use that kind of skill or phrase and really think about conflict in a different way is thinking about the creativity and the level of work that you want your team or your organisation to produce.

Speaker 1:

And I do sometimes hear from you know, from friends or from clients, that they wish that perhaps the quality of thinking, creativity in their organisation was higher, and perhaps part of that because people are not generally lazy and people are generally not short of ideas. In my experience, I think part of it is the skill, the energy and the effort it requires to step into those rather challenging conversations. Well, it makes me think. How many times have we heard the problem with our team is they're just too nice to each other? You wouldn't believe it because, of course, so much of a leader's energy and so much of often our energy when we come to dysfunctional teams is to get that collaboration, that uniting, that friendliness, if you like, care and safety. But actually that's the base.

Speaker 1:

Once you've done that, it's not job done. That's the first stage. Exactly Now you can play. It's not stop there and just be nice to each other, because that's the problem. I mean exactly that. That. As much as a conflicted team is a problem, a team who are just nice to each other is a problem, because they'll never, ever risk stepping over a line or saying something that might upset somebody, which of course, means it's low in creativity. Yeah, exactly, and we do talk a lot about investing in that connection, collaboration, relationship and trust, and it's hugely important. But, exactly as you said, it's only the first step. It's the first step, exactly. It's like the Lencioni Once you've got that trust, now you can have healthy conflict. It's not now we've got trust, we all like each other, let's go and have a cup of tea. You're only on step one, exactly. It's also making me think in terms of conflict being an opportunity. It's also an opportunity to understand, if we think systemically, what's happening in this system, because, just like in our personal lives, in our work lives.

Speaker 1:

We can end up fighting about I don't know who's replacing the coffee machine in the kitchen. It's not really about that. Or we can be arguing about one tiny detail in a project, but it's not really about that. It might be about the fact that people are being left out. At a higher level, the leader might be showing favourites, that somebody has had roles or responsibilities taken away from them, or they feel like they haven't been appreciated I mean any number of things, and it's not about the thing on the table. Well, we talk about this very often, don't we?

Speaker 1:

In terms of if you have a team and there's kind of a maverick or a difficult person and they kind of get the finger pointed at them, and then, you know, the other people are sort of saying, oh, they're difficult, they're difficult, yeah, but they leave, and still there seems to be a maverick or a difficult person that rises up in that team. And it's a really good example, systemically, exactly as you've said, that when there is that kind of friction in a team, it's usually not about the person themselves. It's usually because something is not working, something is wanting and the sort of representation of it has come up, manifested in that person, but if they leave the team, it will generally pop up in a different way. Yeah, suddenly Bob's the annoying one. Yeah, exactly, it's like atoms of friction that are there for a reason Exactly. So you can think about conflict or disagreements not as unique to that person or owned by that person, but as a voice of the system. And then the question is what is being, what is wanting here, what is being asked here of the system? Where's the opportunity? Rather than Bob's annoying Exactly, where's the opportunity here, exactly?

Speaker 1:

And the other thing that I think conflict can also be an opportunity for is to recognise, when you simply need time out and human contact together, that actually you know what's that phrase All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy with some sort of nursery rhyme or something. Wasn't it many years ago, nursery rhyme or something? Wasn't it many years ago? But actually, if conflict is arising and actually it never quite gets resolved or it keeps repeating, it might also simply mean that you're overworked, people haven't got enough space, or you you have not invested in people simply spending time together. Yeah, and when you do that, you might find that those personal connections do a lot of the work for you without having to have the conversation.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's another great example of listening to the message that that conflict, that friction, is trying to bring. And you know whether it's because we are slightly English and sort of like to brush things under the carpet sometimes. But you know, if we are trying to avoid conflict, what we're really doing is we're ignoring the messages that either the other person or the system generally is trying to give us. We're sort of brushing it under the carpet. Can we talk about brushing under the carpet? Because I think that's really important, because I think we you know many people we talk about the big mound in the middle of the carpet, exactly that Pen it can be. So you know the other version is kicking the can down the road. Eventually you're climbing over the mound in the middle of the carpet and everyone's pretending that they can see across the room, when actually it's just a mountain carpet. We've swept so much under it. We've swept so much under the carpet and we're all pretending that it's a flat carpet.

Speaker 1:

And actually there's something again about the opportunity of saying I'm just wondering here if anybody else is feeling like there's some, there's some things under the surface. You know, it's the elephant in the room, isn't it? And you don't even have to say. I think you know Bob's annoying. Maybe all you have to say is I'm wondering if anybody else is feeling like we keep sweeping things under the team carpet. Is anybody feeling like we've put a lot in that under that carpet or you know, or into the team cupboard? You know we're trying to keep it shut and the door just won't close. It's like Monica and friends with her crazy cupboard in the corner and you're like, yeah, when you open it you go. We all know it's there.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's interesting because in some of the work that we do and actually I was having a conversation with a client yesterday, strangely, it can be that just by letting people acknowledge that they are sharing similar feelings or, as you say, sort of putting something on the table or putting the elephant in the room on the table, although not metaphorically, obviously, not literally. That's got to be a sturdy old table. Sometimes that is enough, absolutely. Sometimes that will diffuse the conflict without having to go further. Absolutely, you know what this reminds me of it. It reminds me at a deeper, maybe more personal level, in therapy, if you're dealing with trauma, you might not go you very often when you certainly won't start there.

Speaker 1:

You don't have to go into the details of that trauma. We can work around it and with it, knowing that it's sitting there at the centre. But actually what we might initially be interested in is how does it impact you, the fact that there's something big that you're holding or something unspoken? What's the impact on you? How can we help you sort of stabilise and recognise that? And if we think about two people who maybe have had um in a couple, you've had something difficult happen in your history. You might not want to go open up all the details, but if the two of you could say, actually that period of time, that situation was really tough for us, it had an impact on us both in different ways and we both live with the impact of how that had. How do we want to move forward? You may not even have to go into the details. You might save yourself an enormous amount of energy.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think about this in terms of the drama triangle, which is a model that we absolutely love, and it's the relational dynamic where you have someone who perhaps feels like they're being victimised. You will then have a persecutor, who is the person who is being difficult, and then you're likely to have a rescuer as well. So you've got this sort of three-way dynamic, perhaps in a team the rescuer, the persecutor and the victim. And of course, if we constantly try to avoid conflict and try and not see it as an opportunity, we may think we're doing the nice thing by ourselves and our team. But of course we will spend so much energy in terms of gossiping about that. Yeah well, racing around the drama triangle, racing around the drama triangle, exactly feeling bad or, you know, complaining about somebody else. We can waste an awful lot of energy when we don't kind of step into it and, as you said, we don't have to step fully into it. We can just acknowledge that it's there, and that can often do a huge amount of the work. But don't be fooled into thinking that by sweeping it under the carpet you won't be spending energy on that situation, because you will.

Speaker 1:

Somebody said to me many years ago if you're feeling it in a relationship, the other person's feeling it Because I think we can really kid ourselves that I'll just pretend we'll smile and say everything's fine, as if there's nothing you know nothing going on, there's no disagreement, no conflict, as if the other person can't feel it. They can feel it, they will definitely feel it, and I had a really good example of this recently with a client who, at a more cultural level in terms of employee engagement and the cultural positivity, simply by having conversations about it. So not necessarily recognising every single person's annoyances and, you know, dissatisfaction, let's not do that Simply by saying we are going to regularly have conversations about our culture and what it means and how it feels has had an enormous impact on the culture. So you Just letting people know that it's okay to talk about it can be an incredible step. So you might ask in that situation, what's one thing that we can all do today to put into the mix of how we can all be more collaborative or how we can acknowledge this difficulty? And then people feel like we're talking about it. Yeah, we're talking about it. We're not surgically tearing it apart, we're acknowledging it's there and we're all taking some responsibility for trying to move forward.

Speaker 1:

Talking about the drama triangle, I think one of the things to finish on it's one of my favourite things. You know it's. I mean it's why we spend so much. I don't mean you and I, although probably occasionally People do. Yeah. Yeah, as human beings we spend so much time in it, racing around it. Most people will have at least some form of the drama triangle in some of their relationships. No question, it's a really good opportunity to look at the winner's triangle because that's a real kind of solving. Somebody put that in after the drama triangle was originally created and so if we think about the winner's triangle, we take the victim position becomes the creator. So from there, oh, I can't, they're always, I never, I don't know is what can I do here, what can I put in? And that's really switching that victim position. That's a wonderful opportunity.

Speaker 1:

In conflict, if you find that you've taken the victim position, disempowered, can't do anything, ask yourself what can I do here? What's the one thing? If was a creator, would I buy everybody muffins and say, let's, you know what would I do to do something? The persecutor which I love, this becomes the challenger, and this is a wonderful way to think about conflict, rather than the grumpy disagreeable you know, pushing back and blaming. Actually, I'm the challenger and if you frame it like that, say, okay, I have very different ideas from you. I really don't want to create a fight here. I'd love it if I could take 10 minutes. Could I be the challenger for 10 minutes and put those thoughts in and see what that gives us? The word challenger sounds so different, doesn't it? It's like, can I challenge that and ask a question? Very different, yeah, very different, exactly. And if you frame it and say I'm going to take this role for a moment, great, much more intentional than emotional. And then finally, the rescuer who becomes the coach? It is a great role in conflict.

Speaker 1:

If you or other people are in conflict, take the coach position. Okay. So someone's gossiping to you? Oh, my God, they're blaming someone else. This is what we do when there's conflict or difficulty. We go to everybody but the actual person have a complaint about it, have a moan about it. Why don't they? They never Did you hear? On and on it goes.

Speaker 1:

If you know that you're a rescuer and normally you want to go into oh, I know you're so right or you want to go and tell the persecutor off, or go and tell the persecutor off and you want to get involved and and exactly, take sides, take the coach position. Yeah, exactly. What could you do Exactly? So, ask questions to encourage the other two people to step into the creator and the challenger role. You have so much influence over people's behaviours as a coach. Exactly so if they're moaning and blaming, I really hear you. What one thing would you love to be different? How could you help that along? What would they love to hear from you?

Speaker 1:

Right now, and in fact sometimes, it's really useful to have quite a solid structure in place when you're dealing with conflict, either with another person or in a team. So you might explicitly say let's use these three positions of creator, challenger and coach to see how we can resolve this. Sometimes the structure is super useful. Yeah, absolutely so. That final position, that coach position, is a really, really good place to take If you know that you're sick of conflict in your system and you feel like you're being pinged about trying to help everybody, empower other people to take responsibility for conflict, because that will also be a long-term strategy. That means you're feeding your whole team, your whole system, with the ability to be with conflict, to be with challenge, because they know how to do it now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there is so much more we could say about conflict. We've done a couple of podcasts and no doubt it will come back. One of our huge topics for 2025-26 is going to be all around challenging conversations and feedback, where sometimes conflict can come in there as well. So there's much more to come on this. Hopefully, the last two podcasts have been super useful to get an idea about how to step into conflict in a healthy way and also how to see it as an opportunity.

Speaker 1:

I want to leave it as a both, and If you don't like conflict, own it. Do you know what? I find conflict really difficult, and let's see what we can do here. What's the opportunity on the table? Yeah, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 40 Human being podcast.

Speaker 1:

We hope you enjoyed the show. Do take on board some of the insights, tools and tips, because every time that you try something new to get back to choice, you are making a vote for the you that you want to become and I love that phrase, penn, I do too and please do share this episode with somebody that you know would really benefit from the lessons and learnings we've been chatting about today. And, of course, if you're interested in more from 40 Human being, do get in touch. We run workshops, trainings, online in-person conference events and keynotes. We've got the 4D on demand platform for your whole organisation, and we do have a free essentials membership where anybody can sign up for absolutely free, to access some of our insights, tools and tips, so do get in touch with us if you'd like to hear more. We cannot wait to hear from you and to carry on the conversation.