Kim Faircloth is a conflict resolution expert with over 30 years of experience in mediation, executive coaching, and leadership development. As founder of Conflict Sparks Change, LLC and senior principal trainer at the Mediation Training Institute, she has guided thousands in transforming workplace conflict into growth. With a doctorate in conflict and mediation, she’s held roles from ombudsman to HR director—always driven by a passion for peacemaking and empowering individuals and organizations to thrive.
Dawn Bedlivy is a seasoned mediator, ombudsman, and conflict systems coach with 30+ years of experience in alternative dispute resolution and leadership development. Known for designing innovative conflict resolution strategies, she has led impactful organizational change across sectors. As adjunct faculty at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, she educates future professionals while continuing to consult and train nationally. Her work bridges legal insight and human-centered solutions to foster healthier, more productive workplaces.
In this episode, Jason, Kim and Dawn discuss:
- Why conflict is a catalyst for transformation, not just disruption
- How leaders can shift their mindset and skill set around conflict
- The “Four C’s” that build trust during conflict
- Practical models from their book, including the HERE and SORTED frameworks
- Real-world leadership stories where team conflict was successfully transformed
Key Takeaways:
- Conflict isn’t just a workplace nuisance—it can be the spark that ignites innovation, progress, and cultural transformation.
- Self-reflective leadership isn’t optional but essential; those who own their conflict style earn lasting trust and influence.
- Trust doesn’t materialize during tension—it’s built brick by brick through visible competence, calm confidence, behavioral consistency, and authentic care.
- Through the HERE model, a practical framework unfolds—guiding leaders to stay present, establish clarity, and co-create a productive path forward.
- With the SORTED method, listeners are handed a new lens to decode complex, emotional situations, turning confusion into actionable understanding.
“Conflict does spark change. It's when two ideas, values, interests, disparate thoughts don't coexist well yet, and something new is trying to emerge.”
- Kim Faircloth
Connect with Kim Faircloth and Dawn Bedlivy:
Connect with Steve and Jason:
- LinkedIn: Jason or Steve
- Website Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
- Email: grow@rewireinc.com
Listen to the podcast here:
Kim Faircloth & Dawn Bedlivy -Conflict Sparks Change
Hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell and I have a question for you. What happens when a doctor of HR gets together with an attorney? Oh, I know, I know it sounds like the beginning of an extraordinary, provocative and maybe even mysteriously wild take of intrigue and world domination, right? Well, not exactly. My two guests today, Kim Faircloth, who is said doctor of HR and Dawn Bedlivy, the aforementioned attorney, did indeed collaborate what I think is a much needed book and topic of discussion, which is that of conflict and dispute resolution. They wrote a book together titled “Conflict Sparks Change”. It is provocative, I think, but here's what this book has been called. It's been called the guide to transforming tension into teamwork and fostering a thriving workplace. Kim, Dawn, welcome to the show.
Gosh, thanks for having us. And I like that intro. I agree.
Are we off to a good start? We're doing we're doing good so far.
Fantastic.
I have all kinds of questions about the title of the book, conflict, dispute, resolution, all these things. But the first question that I want to get started off on is a question that we ask every guest on the show, which is today, as you and I engage one another, it's the beginning of the second quarter of 2025, you know, we all happen to be on the east coast, but we're together right now through the magic of technology. Who or what are each one of you grateful for this morning?
I'm grateful for my partnership with Dawn, my family, my faith and I'm grateful for love.
Dawn?
I think that's an awesome question. The first thing I thought of is being grateful for the partnership with Kim. I'm grateful for the opportunity to come on this show and share what we've created with others. That's what I'm grateful for right now.
So two people that wrote a book on conflict, the first thing that you all do is just agree with one another on the show. I was expecting, like, come on, like ,get in a fight together and show me how you resolve that. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
No, no. I mean, imagine coauthoring a book together. Dawn and I, we are very different. So we live our truth. That's a fact.
I've written a book and I had a few conflicts with myself. I would imagine doing it with somebody else, like, there's probably a discussion or two. Is that fair to say?
Fair to say. I don't always agree with myself either. I really don’t.
Yeah, probably got to actually practice with one another what you were writing in the book. So, when your information crossed my desk a month or maybe a couple of months ago, right away it was a hard yes, and the reason that that's the case is, you know, I spent some time in corporate America with big global companies and conflict was a pretty common part of my life back then. And even now, with the people that we coach, most of the executives that we coach want to grow in a certain area, whether it's sales, productivity, profitability, headcount, whatever it is, but very often, when you're in the middle of a coaching conversation, there's some sort of conflict that we're talking about. And so, I just see this is pervasive. And so, first of all, why did you all write the book? I mean, you have a law background, HR background. Why did the book even get written in the beginning?
I'll start there. I think because what you just pointed out, which was conflict was pervasive, and our early career lives, and maybe mid-career lives were spent immersed in the unproductive space with conflict. Sitting with leaders and HR professionals and ugly situations and then wondering, how did we get here? You know, what was the beginning of all of this? And wanting to really back it all up to the point where one word or a way of handling this really could have transformed the situation into something that was actually productive. So, I believe the genesis for our book was, how do we help leaders, how do we help HR professionals, coach leaders and help others create pathways using that conflict productively. I don't know what you'd add to that, Kim?
Yeah, for us, first of all, an interesting fact is we didn't name the book this. We set out with a name that was completely different, and this after reading the book, our editors and our team of experts, which have been fabulous, said, you know, you should consider this name, because this is what the book's about. And it was an aha moment for us. We both firmly believe that conflict does spark change. Think about it. It's when two ideas, values, interests disparate thoughts and don't coexist well yet, and something new is trying to emerge. If you stay focused on the possibility, right? Get rid of this thought that that the disruption stage is harmful. Our change model spends as much time in the disruption stage as we can. Bring in those ideas. Don't call them devils advocates on your team. Stop that. Stop the car. You bring in these ideas and debate them constructively. It's only when we're tired, we have a deadline, you know, all of those life things with humans. If it wasn't for humans, it would be great. So, all those human things happen, and we start then having tension that becomes unproductive, but if we could learn to really harness that disruption stage and really focus on the benefit of it? Magic.
Yeah, you're bringing up something. Like, I'm automatically thinking of a few particular instances in my career where I had the thought process, and I didn't know what to do with it, but I had the thought process. Gosh, if we were spending as much energy, as we are right now arguing with one another, if we spent that energy in a positive way where we're rowing together, my gosh, we could not only solve this problem, but we could do some serious stuff. Like, this would be so productive. So, harnessing it is a word that really resonates with me when you say that. So, okay, that's the why behind the book. We see it everywhere, and it is something that needs to be addressed. What are some things that you think of? I'm going to start at 10,000 foot and then we're going to dig into the weeds, if that's okay, but what are some big ideas of the book? Like,10,000 foot view, where you said when you were mapping out and wire hanging this book, where you're like, well, that topic needs to be there. That topic, too. That that needs to be there, too. What are, what are some big ideas that you all came up with?
I think we start out the book with the major one, which is about mindset and shifting our mindset. What we saw often was that our clients would see conflict as a negative. You know, they would come in like, I'm in this conflict, I don't know what to do, this guy's a whatever, I don't know how I got here. How do I get out of this? And nobody really came into us with the mindset that, wow, isn't this great? We've got all this disagreement and angst on the team, and I really want to just harness that for good. So first and foremost, we said the book has to begin with talking about mindset and how do we look at conflict very differently? And say unproductive conflict keeps us from what we need to do, and it's a sign of some change emerging, or some creative thought happening. So, how do we shift that and help give people the tools that they need to really put that into a productive space? I don't know, what would you say, Kim?
I agree with all of that. Yes, and I think that a big part of it with this mindset shift is self-reflection, and taking some time to level up your skills, right? And by self-reflection, I often ask when I'm teaching leaders, you know, how do you want to be remembered as a leader for handling conflict? Like, go find yourself a quote. Go find yourself a guiding principle that that really resonates with you. Not what Kim says or Dawn says, but what resonates with you? And then what would it take for you to live that truth in how you deal with conflict? And it's rarely that a leader picks, I want to avoid it. It's rarely that a leader picks, you know, I'm just going to yield so that we all get along. Really, I think our leaders are great. I am like, I love leadership, and they're fabulous, but this is a difficult topic, and I think it's a difficult topic because we haven't done that self-reflection. And so, right away, let's just have a tip. There are four C's that make employees trust leaders in conflict. I call them the four C's, right? And so, it's easy to remember, and as you have your quote, think about this. Are you competent? So, I trust my husband of 45 years, but he's not giving me a root canal, Jason, because he's not competent to do that.
Great example.
Trust has a component of confidence. It absolutely does. So, that means you have to level up on these skills. You have to have an approach that's repeatable, because the next thing is confidence. Also, not going to go get my root canal by somebody that's there and is scared to death and is not projecting any confidence at all. So, for me to trust you really, even as a podcaster, Jason, I need to see some confidence from you.
Yeah. Well said.
The third thing is consistency. I want the root canal to be as I expect it to be. I want you to have gone and learn some steps to do a root canal. I want you to be consistent with those. If you start bringing in wine into my root canal, or anything odd, I’m not trusting you.
Sure.
Trust me, our employees don't trust leaders who are not well thought out and consistent in values. Consistent to that guiding principle. That very much helps. And then the final thing, Jason, is that they're caring. You know, if I perceive that you care about me, I can receive feedback from you and I can be present.
True.
And so if you look distracted, and you're just doing it because it's a job, I can tell.
You know, first of all, that example of the root canal is so, so good, Kim. But as I think through those things, they really do need all of them. Like, I know when we started Rewire, it's been over a decade now, but one of the things that we use as a litmus test for coaches that we bring on board is, do they actually care for their clients? That's just a big one. And in the beginning, and this was a misstep in the beginning, we brought on coaches, oh my gosh, on the caring relativity scale, they were an 11 out of 10, but maybe the competency wasn't so high.
Exactly, right.
And or there was a little bit of confidence, but they cared, and they were great people, and we loved them, but they actually weren't that effective.
They can't get anything done.
Right. And so, this is resonating with me. So, caring, you know, yeah, all that's important, but all of the four C's is what I'm hearing from you.
That's right.
Dawn, I love what you said around mindset. We're a mindset coaching company, so you're already singing from the same tune as Rewire. Both of you, like, I love everything that you're saying so far. Without harming any type of confidentiality or anything like that, I'd like to go from 10,000-foot view to like, okay, we're working with clients, and this is what we saw. I know I'm putting you on the spot, but are there any stories that you can think of where either the mindset, self-reflection or any of the four C's, where you're like, you know, this is an example of an organization that we got involved with, this is what we saw, and this is what we did, either employing the four C's or the mindset or self-reflection piece of that?
Now I'm trying to just discern which one would be the best one to talk about. As you know, confidentiality is big for us, so I'll anonymize everything.
Please.
In some ways, working with teams, what we noticed is the teams never really took the time to talk about what their values as a team were. So, one of the mindset shifts I think we found that was necessary with teams was setting a stage around their own experience with conflict. So, we would go into teams that were terribly conflicted. We had situations where one leader would be going behind the back of other leaders and talking to their employees, and they like that, because, as we all know, sometimes that's an element of power that people have, right?
Sure, yeah.
I have more information than my coworkers. And you can imagine how that went over with the other team members.
Yeah.
So, the first mindset shift for the whole team there was we have to come to an agreement as a team about how we're going to handle conflict, and what are we going to do when this employee comes to this other leader complaining about somebody on the team. What are you going to do?
Yeah.
And the mindset shift, which I think was kind of almost mind blowing from all of them, was they weren't all in agreement.
Surprise, surprise.
At the end of the day, one of the leaders left the team. They didn't want to be part of that agreement anymore. So, I think one thing that we found in this mindset shift is it's great to shift your own mindset, but at the same time, it's not going to work unless you make that open and known to everybody around you. And a leader really set the tone there and said, okay, are we all in agreement to deal with conflict in a particular way? And one person, you know, we love good to great and the lessons there, but one person was like, I'm getting off this bus because I don't want to go there. I like the power of hearing about all of my other co workers.
How interesting is that? I'm picturing the scenario in my brain as you're talking about it, Dawn. That needed to happen anyways. It sounded like you all were the conduit to which an improvement was made on the team by maybe, you know, deleting a member.
You know, well, and it's interesting, Jason, because I think oftentimes it's almost like, what am I going to stand for as a leader? And I have to give myself permission to say this person has to go. And it wasn't that obvious to the leader what the conflict actually was the time. So, it just brought everything out into the light what was really happening here on this team.
Thank you for that story. I appreciate this. I'm literally thinking of clients in my head, or some of my own experiences in the past when you start talking and when you bring up conflict. I'm thinking about our listeners driving in the car, taking a jog, doing the dishes, listening to this, what are some scenarios that you see the most of, if you wouldn't mind describing that? And then maybe a solution or two that you would have where a listener is hearing this and going, yeah, that's me. How are they solutioning this? Like anything come to mind, where, like, I don't know, the top three scenarios, if you will, that you see type of question there?
Well, roles and responsibilities. Let me just tell all leaders, this competition and this duplication and confusion around that is something to pay attention to, for sure. The other is this misalignment with what you say you want to happen. So, let's use an example. We know Tuckman, loosely 1969, form, storm, norm, perform, right?
Yeah, sure.
What did Tuckman say? Form and then storm?
Yeah, yeah.
It's literally, for me, a conflict theory. He didn't say put on your cute galoshes and go play in the mud puddle.
A storm, that's right, yeah. I remember that.
And then think about that. Form, Storm, Norm, Perform and then atrophied the team, right? So, this is all teams. It was amazing research. So, form. Let's say in form, I say, as a leader, I value teamwork, right? How many times do we say, you know, in our first 90 days, really, this is me.
Sure, this is easy to agree to.
Looking back, I don't know who started that you should show up your first 90 days. They're waiting for you. They either hate you, love you, they're scared, whatever it is, but they're waiting. So, show up. Then you say I value teams. Next thing that happens is Storm, right? Well, in storm, part of that theory is employees like to be individually noticed. Go figure. Knock on the door. Hey, boss, let me tell you about what I'm working on. I'm working on this, I'm working on that, and leaders fall into that, oh, that's just wonderful, tell me more. Really, if you said teaming was what your goal is, in storm, it's not a bad thing that people are doing the things that they do in storm. Go study it. But you should literally be saying, that's amazing, who else was working on that with you, and why don't the three of you come in and tell me about this? The next thing that happens after storm is norm. That's your norm. Not what you said is your norm, but what you've allowed to happen. So, there goes back my trust thing on consistency. If you stay consistent with your messaging, a lot of conflict can really be avoided, and your confusion about what is going on around here. When we go in and study teams, we always look at the form norm transfer, and really realize that it's a place that employees are in conflict with it to begin with. You know, you're a new leader; you're a big deal. I think we forget, like, you're a big deal.
Everybody's watching.
They may be humble but, yeah.
For sure. Yeah, so, that's a scenario, for sure, and I love the little tip or two there about how to handle that, in the beginning. Anything else comes to mind, as far as, like, yeah, we see a lot of this?
Lack of skill. Dawn, let's go ahead. Jason, how about we give you a couple little models out of the book, because the book is full of models.
Yeah, yeah, please.
So, let's tease you with a few of them, but actual useful ones. So, we'll start with here, and we'll move on to sorted. Why don't we start with here first, Dawn. Why don't you tell him about the here model?
So, like, one of the most common pieces that we'll hear about will be when something erupts and it catches a leader totally unaware, right? Like, what was going on there? I can't discern why that person got angry about x? Usually, it's something super minor that all of a sudden leads to this big eruption. What we found when we dig into the conflict is that was sort of the tip of the iceberg, and there was really this other conflict actually brewing. It was something completely different that had actually maybe even happened months earlier, and the person had just been stewing, or the team had been stewing. Sometimes we have these battles going on, and we're unaware as a leader, because everybody's very good at going underground when conflict happens.
Oh yeah.
Keep it low. So, the here model is, how can we as leaders, and how can your HR professionals be very present in the conversation that happens after either this eruption happens, or hopefully, what we're trying to give leaders are tools that help them intervene very early? And really pay attention. What are the signs you're seeing in your workplace? And the here model is about first, I'm going to have a conversation with somebody. I've got to psych myself up to do that sometimes, but, you know, that conversation says, hey, I saw you get whatever in that meeting, so let's have a conversation about it.
Sure.
And the first is honoring the relationship. I can never step away from my role as the leader, I'm always the leader. If I'm an HR professional, I never step away from that role. I am an HR professional. So, when I bring that person in and have a conversation, I'm talking about why I'm doing it. There's a business problem here. The team isn't functioning well. It's affecting something. And I need to find out what that is. Oftentimes, we'll find in our work that there may be something serious going on in the organization. So, the person's coming in saying, I'm happy to share, but I don't want you to do anything.
Yeah.
And so, I mean, that's the first sign that honoring the relationship is so important, because right away, we're saying, that's not an option that I do nothing, and the reason we're having the conversation is so that we can figure out what's the best way to go, to move forward, because we have to move forward now. Now we had this eruption that happened in the workplace, and we are not going to ignore it. So, the first part is honoring talking about what are the parameters of this conversation. At the end of it, we have a moment where we're working together to figure out what are the next steps.
Yeah.
So, we talk about, first of all, what's the container for our conversation? What's the rule set around it? The next is exploring the story and really giving that individual the opportunity to tell you what's happened and what's going on. And then that means I'm not sitting there doing my email at the same time, I'm not texting with somebody else, I'm giving somebody my full attention, and people know when we're thinking about something else or we're glancing at our computer. I mean, you know that, and they're going to clam up, they're not going to tell us what they need to tell us. Then we reflect with the person, you know? Let me talk about what I just heard you say, here's how I'm hearing it, here's what I heard, you know? Checking in to make sure, and it doesn't have to be stilted. It could be part of a regular conversation. The last part we think is the most important, which is really talking about what comes next, so that everybody understands leaving that conversation what I'm going to do as a leader, what I'm going to do as the HR professional, and what the person's going to do. And that's our here model. It seems very simple, but oftentimes when something's coming into us, it's not that simple to think of all these pieces. And then at the end of it, the person leaves with one thought. Well, I thought you were going to do X, and I'm like, well, I never said I was going to do x and we have even more conflict happening over trying to resolve the conflict.
You're making me think of a scenario where I thought this was such a good leadership move, and it didn't maybe follow your here model exactly, but it had elements of it. So, I was in mortgage banking for 21 years and we dealt with a lot of realtor teams. One of the largest realtor teams in the country we had as a client at the time. This is years and years ago. And what he would do is when a team member would come in with a conflict with somebody else on the team, he would say come in close the door, rant and raving, or whatever, this team member, said this, or can you believe that, or whatever the scenario was, what he would regularly do is right then and there, he would let the person know this is what I'm about to do, but he would say, we're going to get that person right now, and the three of us are going to get in a room together, and we're going to do this, because I'm not going to have this person come in and then leave and then the other person comes in and tells me a completely different story about how evil the first person. Whatever. He's like, we're going to get in a room right now. And he would say things like, because I care so much about both of you, I want to honor the relationship and have you all honor one another. Like, let's figure this out right now. And then he would play a little bit of a mediation role. And sometimes that little threesome in a room didn't go well. Like, it didn't always go well. But what happened was, over time, is he would have less and less people coming in, because they would know, boy, if I go into his office and I'm complaining about so and so, he's just gonna go get so and so we're gonna have to go get in a room together. So, what they would do is they would work it out over time, they would work it out on their own, because they knew what the leader was gonna do. So again, it wasn't exactly the here model, Dawn, but there was elements of it where being present, honoring the relationship, let's figure this out right now, exploring opportunities and next steps, like there were elements of it there. So anyways, you just just made me think about that where, golly, I go back to what we said at the top of our time together, which is harnessing that energy and that power to go in a similar direction with one another, as opposed to just the scattered kind of yuckiness type of thing. I really like how you all break it down and organize things into chunks, because I'm not immune to conflict either, and we teach conflict resolution either here at Rewire, and my wife and I used to teach it when we used to do premarital counseling. Like, that was a whole session conflict resolution, right? You know, spouses actually conflict with one another, surprise, surprise. And so it's obviously a really big deal, but harnessing that energy to be able to then move forward together can just be really fun. So, I really appreciate the way that you all chunk this down into your different models.
And just before I turn it over to you, Kim, to talk about how we teach leaders to organize information, one thing you said about what that gentleman did, Jason, I think is so important. He kind of jumped into mediation, which we also discuss in the book, how you do, but there's a point when that story is first coming into you that we that we found was really essential before even making the decision to involve that second person, and I think that's where Kim's going to pick up our story in talking about don't rush too soon. Oftentimes, if there's something really not good going on in in the organization, that's not going to come out in the first 10 minutes, it's not going to come out in the first 15. Sometimes people wait. And by the way, I'm being XXX, right, like, I am being harassed or something like that, and that comes out after 35 minutes of conversation. But Kim, I'll turn it over to you to talk about why we added sorted to make sure that we're getting to the real heart of what is actually going on.
Yeah.
So, we left off with E. Enable and empower, right? H, honor the relationship. E, explore the story. R, reflect. E, again, here, enable and empower. So, I'm going to give you another acronym, right? As sort of a code word. When employees come to you, there's this moment as a leader where you have some choices to make, and one of them is to to find a way to both capture the notes from the employee's perspective, because you've got to take notes right? De complexify it, if that’s a word, right? Because it's a mess right now.
It's a word today. That's a word right now.
It's a mess, isn't it? And not look like you're investigating, right? So here means I'm going to be here with you. I'm going to be present with you. I'm going to meet you where you are and care enough not to leave you there alone. I'm going to meet you where you are. Here. But I need to take some notes for both of us, right? And I always tell leaders two things. First of all, this is not where you're writing your thoughts down. This is where you're capturing what's coming forward. And secondly, stop shaking your head up and down. Yes, I know that you're trying to acknowledge when you do that, I'm doing it right now. If you could see me you would see that, but it is read by the employees as you are agreeing with them. So that's two tips right away.
Interesting.
The second thing is, take your notes in a quick bullet sorted fashion. Which brought us to the acronym, sorted, S, O, R, T, E, D, sorted. The first is it, and it doesn't come out this way, it comes out all over the place. You're putting it in the right bucket, right? Supportable. What's supportable? Is there an email, social media? Not if it's a fact, because you have no idea about what fact says, but there is some supportable evidence of something being said. So, the employee has said, Tom sent an email about me and put it out on social. That's supported, right?
Sure.
What was objectionable? Like, I think we make assumptions about that without really clearing the air about the moment you decided to come see me. What made you up the phone to reach out? What was going on right then that it had reached the point of being objectionable and I cannot deal with this anymore? What was that? That is a very important point. Not just in general what was objectionable, but if you bring them back to that point, you can learn a lot. What was the thing? The tipping point? What were their reactions? What did they do and what have they done since? Separate that. What did they do and what have they done since, you know? What have they done, right?
Sure, sure, sure.
What are their thoughts about it? Not what's supportable, but what are their thoughts? The T is, what do they think the other person's doing, why do they think the employee might have done that. That's the first step in perspective seeking. When you start exploring thoughts, both yours and gently, the other person's, already, it's starting to lean across the table. If you're going to do mediation, perspective sharing is huge.
Yeah, right.
So good start the journey, right there. Emotions. How did the employee feel? Don't assume they were mad or angry. Maybe they're frustrated, embarrassed, who knows. Ask. Ask them how they're feeling about it. Then how do they feel about it? And how are they feeling now at the end of the story? How are they feeling now about things now, before you launch out. And then, D. I love desires. D desires because, you know, maybe when I stopped in to see you, I really wanted you to go to the cafeteria and hang a sign of shame down there about this other employer. But really, now that the story's unfolding, what are your goals now for this? Like, what would be the next steps? We love mediation. We teach mediation to managers all the time. All the time. I think every leader that leads other people should have basic mediation skills. When I teach mediation, and I do a lot, I have managers in my classes all the time.
Yeah.
Very important. And so, that's D. Sorted.
With your sorted model, there's just so many elements of that that I can relate to. I mean, what you find objectionable, that that's trying to gain clarity thoughts and emotions. I think of our iceberg model that we use it at Rewire where thoughts and emotions are kind of below the waterline, if you will. And what you're doing is trying to bring that above into view above the water line. So okay, what were you thinking? How did that make you feel? Let's look at that, because the more people can actually put words to it, What's that saying? If you can name it, you can tame it. Because typically when conflict happens, my wife, who's a health coach, she has a saying, when emotions are high, logic is low, right? So if my emotions are all over the place and I'm mad and I'm conflicting or in conflict with somebody else, I'm not even making sense. And what your sorted model does, at least in my mind, is it tries to, again, like I talked about before, break things up into chunks, and now it's not this crazy emotional mess. It's like breaking it down, seeking clarity, and then maybe we can tackle things one at a time. So, I'm gonna read the book, you guys. I'll admit to you ahead of time.
There’s a lot of good stuff in there. There is a lot of good stuff. It's real. It's really
Selfishly, like, I got a page worth of notes here.
You know, the brain does biologically, like you used to have to be dead to study the brain, right? Right now we know that the brain when it is hijacked, fight or flight, turns out our ancestors could see it and know it before science came in. Fight or flight and others atrophy, you know, but they're real. And so, when you get hijacked, your reasoning skills can literally be compromised.
That's right.
This is a moment when you sit and you start to be here with them and sort this out a bit, that just starts to give the brain something to do. A task to do.
Yeah, yep, yep.
I think if you can conquer intake, you are already launched on an amazing path.
No, it's good. One of the things that we do at Rewire is we help leaders gain the toolbox that they didn't gain when they were individual contributors. Because what we see more often not and this leads to conflict, I'm sure they eventually get to you, a person is a really good individual contributor, they do really, really good then they get promoted to leadership, and they don't know how to lead. And that just is the part of a germinating seed of something that turns into conflict down the road, either with themselves or the people that they're leading, because they're just they don't know these models. And so this tool, your book, especially the way that you break things down, this is the third time I've said this, but I really appreciate the way that you break things down into these bite sized chunks. It seems to me like a resource that every leader should have. So if I'm right about that, and people want to reach out to you and go, hey, tell me more about that book, or let me buy the book, or what is it that you guys do, or I I have a bigger problem than you all even talked about on the podcast, can you guys help me? How do people find you? How do they find the book? What happens now, Kim and Dawn?
So, you could go to our website, ConflictSparksChange.com, and there we list our book and how to contact us.
Great.
Jason, something else you were saying kind of sparked in my mind about how we don't know how to lead, right? Oftentimes, it's based on what we see, or we try to pick out people, but that was the other reason we wrote the book, is this recognition that you can learn tools that help you lead. And all of us need coaching. It's not just NFL players or famous tennis players, right? Nobody got there without a code.
True.
It's really a combination of, you know, upskilling, I think, like you said, Kim, right? How do I continuously upskill and get better at what I can do? And what we've seen is that we can get better at conflict.
Well, you all are living proof of that, and you're helping people. As long as there's humans kind of like you said earlier, Kim, there's going to be conflict. It's part of what makes us unique and beautiful and wonderful but also is problematic at times.
Yeah, were all human.
100%. I’m sure I am.
I’m sure at some point.
But you've given us in the business community these life skills, really easy to break down, simple tools to use. So great. ConflictSparksChange.com. That's how they can find you. I know that you all are on LinkedIn as well, so I would encourage our listeners to reach out. So yeah. Kim and Dawn, thank you so much for your time, thank you for your expertise. Thank you for being generous with the tips that you brought to us today, and I feel confident that people will reach out to you as a result of it. Thank you.
Thank you. You're welcome. We love you leaders.
Boy oh boy. One, I enjoyed that episode. Two, I got a lot out of it. I'm not kidding. I will be buying the book. And just the things I like how they started off with mindset and self -reflection first, as opposed to when you think of conflict resolution, they're talking about looking at yourself first, which I just appreciate that model. And then just the different models that they have. The four C's, the here model, the sorted model, the way that they can break down conflict resolution step by step by step. I know that, gosh, early in our relationship, my wife and I, when we had conflict, and we learned similar models to this, we used to literally go, okay, let's go get the book. Let's break down this conflict and let's go through it. And I can't tell you, even though sometimes that might see l seem very elementary, when you're in the middle of an emotional conflict, it's tough to just make sense of things. And I think what these guys did here, Kim and Dawn, was they put together a model where you can go, okay, let's just follow these steps, let's follow this roadmap, and let's get back to what we value, which is each other, our relationship, the project, the organization, the completion of where it is that we want to go. So anyways, I don't know. Those were insights, those were learnings, but they reminded me of the importance of step by step conflict resolution, so conflict sparks change. Those were my insights. But as we say at the end of every episode of The Insight Interviews, it doesn't much matter what my insights were, dear listeners, but what insights did you have?
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