The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, and thanks again for being here on the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. It's been a series of really fun episodes here to start the new year, and today's will be no different. I guess today is Hesha Abrams. Hesha is an internationally acclaimed master attorney, mediator, negotiator, and dealmaker who for more than 30 years has been renowned for her success in resolving high profile or difficult matters.

In fact, one of her cases was mediating the case over the secret recipe for Pepsi. Pesha has worked with Apple, Google, [00:01:00] Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Verizon, and a lot of other companies you've probably heard of, as well as individuals, inventors, and small businesses to create deals and solve disputes. And she has distilled all of that experience into this book, Holding the Calm.

The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Diffusing Tension, and in our conversation, we dig into a lot of really powerful ideas for conflict resolution in really high stakes matters, as well as just your day to day conflicts, we talk about it with respect to, you know, the various different parties that you may be involved in.

have to negotiate with in a sense in a, on a daily basis, right? As an educator, you may have at work your supervisor or your reports, your students you know, peers, colleagues, and then at home, a spouse, your [00:02:00] children, other family members, friends, right? Strangers. And when you're out in public, there's All these different people that you're interacting with on a day to day, there's all different kinds of tensions and conflicts or agreements that you need to reach when you need to find the other person's perspective, what's their self interest you need to clarify and advocate for the outcome that you want in a situation, and there's a lot of techniques that really can make that more effective.

This is something that, of course it's a challenge for so many of us and sometimes you know, it's really important to get it right. So, I think in this conversation with Hesha, you're certainly hearing from an expert on these matters and somebody who has lots of great stuff in her book.

So I think you'll find it really valuable and I sure hope you do. So please do enjoy my my conversation here with Hesha and it is coming up now.

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Ross Romano: Hesha welcome to the show.

Hesha Abrams: my [00:03:00] pleasure.

Ross Romano: It's so great to have you here. And there's so many things to talk about, so I don't want to waste any time in getting right into it, but we'd love to, to hear just at the starting point a little bit about Your career, some of the work you've done that led to you developing a lot of the ideas that you share in this book.

I think that'll be useful context for listeners to hear, you know, the various fires in which these ideas were forged.

Hesha Abrams: I love that. The various fires in which these ideas were forged. Isn't that excellent? You know, the hot, my husband says the hottest fire makes the finest steel. And you know, I had a very challenging upbringing. And so I had to learn how to handle a lot of conflict. And I've been doing this, you know, 40 years.

So in, in my day as a lawyer, as a woman lawyer, I got little ladied. And dismissed and pushed aside and either you crumble or you get stronger. That's the only choice you really have. And so I was a business litigator and I was tough and I was hard. [00:04:00] And thank God I've softened and you know, Classyized basically as I've gotten older and learned how you can get things done with much more grace and tact than with just aggression.

But we don't teach people these things. We don't have classes in how to negotiate well, when to fold them, when to hold them, you know, how do you maintain relationships? How do you be tough and hard? How do you know when to give? Those are such important skills and I just had to learn them on the fly. And I was a lawyer and in one week, I won a case that I should have lost because I just outlawed the other side.

And then I lost a case that I should have won because I was good old Boyd down at the courthouse. And it caused just a crisis in me that said, this cannot be how it is. This just cannot be. And I found mediation. I thought, wait a minute. You can talk to people for a living, [00:05:00] you can figure out solutions, even to the toughest, most intractable problems.

I don't want to be Pollyanna and go, oh, win, problem solving, let's all listen to each other. That works like 20 percent of the time. What about the other 80 percent when you're dealing with somebody hateful, obnoxious, narcissistic, power hungry, aggressive, stupid? Mean. All of that's where conflict is.

Real live conflict. And that's what I've spent my life and my career doing, and I've developed some really good tricks. And really good ways to streamline it and cut through it that can work quick. Boom boom, because that's what people want. No one wants to take the time to go get some PhD program in conflict management for goodness sakes.

What can I do today with my idiot neighbor, with my terrible co worker, with my horrible boss, with I know we're doing this in education podcast and I have friends who are teachers who say the kids are fine. It's the parents that [00:06:00] are a pain. How do you deal with them? These are tricks of the trade that if they can work with big, huge multinational corporations, they honestly can work with, you know, the a tough teen, you know, or a difficult parent or a coworker.

And I want to share these with people. That's why I wrote this book.

Ross Romano: What you know, I think a certain thing that to develop before starting to have success is the mentality piece, right? There's those situations, it may be, I mean, for some people, it may feel like just overwhelmingly Every day or just a particular situation where solution seems impossible, there's no way to work through this, either this person or these people I'm dealing with just can't be negotiated with, or I just have no idea how to advocate for what I want.

I, there's no and ultimately the lesson is that. There's a solution in there somewhere, but I think it starts with having the mentality and developing that and [00:07:00] having a true and honest belief that it's possible to find a solution if we approach it right. But what about that piece for maybe people who over time have developed that pattern of thinking that I'm not good at this, I can't do this, or certain situations are just unfixable,

Hesha Abrams: Well, I love the question because that's real and it's true for all of us. I'm an expert in this and I've an amygdala. My amygdala can get pushed and I can feel frightened and go into fight, flight, or freeze response. It's the normal human reaction to do this. So it's really a great question. And what I always tell people is that the only mindset you really need is that you haven't found a solution yet.

And the problem is that most people think the solution is going to be nice. It's touchy feely, it's happy, we all run through the meadow holding hands. No! Sometimes the solution is a very cold piece. You stay in your corner. I'll stay in my corner. Okay, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. So [00:08:00] being able to see what can be done and just trying to improve it a little bit.

I have a whole chapter in the book that I call creating small, winnable victories. And that's what you do. You don't create big solutions with big, broad strokes. It's brick upon brick, small little things to help it get better. And then what it does is it aligns self interest because the person you're dealing with.

you know, unless they are criminally insane, they have a self interest. They have something they want and why they want it. Well, when you can identify that and satiate that even a little bit, miraculous things can happen. Right.

Ross Romano: though this comes from a totally different chapter to me, the ideas relate closely around when you talk about the small winnable victories and which, of course, progress toward maybe the larger victory you're aiming for the larger outcomes and solutions and the [00:09:00] quote or the idea that was shared.

In a separate chapter from J. Paul Getty about, essentially, when you make a deal with somebody, make sure that you both make money, right? Make sure that both sides have positive outcomes from the deal, because if you always get everything you want and the people you negotiate with, don't get anything, people are going to stop dealing with you.

And that's part of it, right, is if you can demonstrate to your counterpart, your opponent or just your collaborator, your, whoever you're dealing with that, hey, look at each step of this, We're both having good outcomes there's smaller parts of this and I'm winning. I'm getting something I want, but I'm also being mindful of what you want.

And we're kind of then we can work together and work toward those bigger outcomes. And that's. What, as you mentioned, the self interest, you know, it's so important to have that empathy component and think about what does the other person want? What are they looking for? Because [00:10:00] one, if I can't even communicate that to them, they might be unwilling to even have a conversation because they're like, well, why should I waste my time on this?

But two, even if I win, the battle, I might lose the war, so to speak I get what I want the first time, but then it's so one sided and the person's like, oh, I'm never doing that again. And most things in life are not one offs. Most relationships, professionally, personally, right? Most negotiations, it's not the only time we're going to come into conflict with that particular person or that we're going to have to reach a solution with that person.

So there's a long game to keep in mind.

Hesha Abrams: I know you're very wise. That's exactly the right way to think about it. And to remind people, let me give our listeners a quick trick. Because when your amygdala is triggered, that's the fear and negativity center in the brain. It's two tiny little kidney shaped organs right above the brainstem. And when that's triggered, [00:11:00] all cognitive thought goes out the window.

You can't be empathetic. You can't think of solutions. You can't do anything because you're in this fight, flight, or freeze mode that you can't control. But this is the good news. Scientists have put people in MRIs. And they figured out that fight, flight, freeze response, it's called a refractory state, and it lasts 20 minutes.

That's it. You don't have to wait all day. You don't have to wait a week, 20 minutes. Then it tones down and you can start thinking a little bit. So I have a little trick I give people. Let's say you're engaged with somebody that you just, I see no solution here. You are impossible to deal with, you are fill in the blank adjective, evil, bad, selfish, wrong, narcissistic, because we label each other all the time, but I still got to deal with you somehow, so if I look at you, I'm going to ask myself one question.

Ross with this guy and to myself with this guy pull my kid [00:12:00] out of a burning car now 95 percent of the time the answer is going to be yes. So now I have to look at you with slightly different eyes. There's something redemptive about you. You're not as evil as I want to think you are, or as stubborn, or as stupid, or as resistant as I think you are.

That gives me just a crack, a tiny little shimmer of light to look at you, what do you want out of this thing? And is there any way I can somehow satiate that? For a lot of people, it's just validation. It's acknowledgement. It's not feeling wrong. A lot of people just cannot stand to be wrong. Their poor little egos are just so delicate that they'll shatter.

And it's not emotionally mature, but you're not somebody's shrink it's not your job to fix them. It's your job to be able to deal with them for you. So ultimately, this stuff is really quite selfish. [00:13:00] It's designed to make my life better. So that as I glide through life, I'm not doing bumper cart egos all the time.

I'm gliding through life. I want to make my path easier and glide a little better. So in reality, having empathy and caring about other people and self into all blah, blah, blah, is really ultimately about. making my life easier. And that's why learning these tricks and why I wrote this book. That's why I did this as a little inexpensive 15 paperback, because I wanted everyone to have access to this stuff because it should be taught in school.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. That reminds me a lot of an idea. Forgive me listeners if I'm wrong about those. We've done a lot of episodes, but I'm pretty sure it came from our episode on preventing polarization where the authors encouraged each party, and maybe, you know, we have different ideological beliefs or whatever it is [00:14:00] to pick out what's one thing you agree with the other person's position, what's one thing that you can say, yeah, I'm pretty much on board with that.

Right. And start from there to say, okay, we're not totally polarized. There are certain commonalities, no matter how small. And I've seen this idea used in some other situations too, around even if it's brainstorming for a project within a company and you're really, you're only going to end up doing one of the projects and there's a lot of ideas and, but starting out, what's one thing I like about this idea?

Okay, well, can we, and at least seeing that we don't always have to be in tension with each other even, even in things that maybe turn out to the outcome is more or less. a zero sum game, right? That doesn't have to mean that you either totally won or totally lost or you're, you know, you're completely right or completely wrong.

That sometimes we have to work toward, there's only a single resolution, but we can see that we [00:15:00] each have some interest in that resolution or that at least each person can be operating in good faith. They have good intentions. They have some different ideas, but we're not we have some commonality here,

Hesha Abrams: You know, I would give a corollary to that because you said it in a very positive light way. And, you know, I work in the trenches of human conflict. So when people are angry, hurt, scared, worried, power grabbing or power losing, they don't operate from their best highest self. They operate from their worst scared self.

So when you said, is there one idea that I could maybe agree with? That's great. Do the corollary. Is there something about this that at least I don't hate?

Ross Romano: right.

Hesha Abrams: Sometimes you're more receptive to that because honestly. I hate you. I hate everything you stand for. You have hurt me. You have betrayed me. You're not trustworthy.

You're selfish. You're [00:16:00] blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe there's something about what you just said that I don't hate. That's sometimes easier for people to grab onto and all it does is just slow the train down a little bit. I mean, that's it. And again, I want to remind people, don't think of this in a kumbaya kind of way.

If you can get it to where everyone is hugging afterwards and, you know, and holding hands and relationships are restored, rock on. That is fantastic. But that's winning the Super Bowl. Okay. The majority of the time, it's going to be various levels of cold peace. Okay, we can live with that. That's all right.

But you set your standard for it's just the cessation of conflict. It's just not having war. Anything above that is now icing. And you try for it. That'd be great. But you're realistic about what is and is not achievable.

Ross Romano: Yeah.

Hesha Abrams: it more attainable for people because I did a case years and years ago for a manufacturer, a big manufacturer, [00:17:00] Sears.

And the guy said to me, Best is the enemy of better. I fought with that. I argued. I said, that's just wrong I was very young at the time. You want best da. Well, I'm a lot older now. I see he was right. Best is absolutely the enemy of better. And you want to get better. And then eventually it moves up and it moves up, but it's within the realm of what can be achieved.

That's where happiness happens. That's where stress gets reduced, you know, because if you want it always to be perfect or idealized. Look, I want chocolate cake to not be fattening. I'm not getting my wish. I don't think, and you know, and why is broccoli not fattening? You know, it's just because we've all enjoyed over the holidays.

So we all have our weight loss. And our healthy affirmations for uh, this coming month.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And and to that point, right? I mean, [00:18:00] it's resources come into play, right? When we're talking about best versus better, you know, what progress can we realistically make sometimes in a, you know, certainly in a legal dispute, it's financial resources. One party can just, afford to keep battling it out a lot longer.

Other times, it's just there's just time constraints. I mean, we're dealing with a situation in a school with a particular student, for example, and we only have so much time to try to get an outcome. And okay, what will at least move us forward so that we can make a little bit of progress now and then maybe make a little bit more next time and a little bit more than that we can only get so far right now.

And If I'm only focused on what is the ideal best case scenario, final outcome, and it's that or nothing, a lot of times I end up with nothing, because,

Hesha Abrams: are exactly correct. Let me, because we've been talking a lot of of concept here. Let me give something concrete to our listeners because people are listening and saying, [00:19:00] this is great. All these ideas are great, but what do I do today? And that's what the book is all about is it's 20 chapters with 20 tools of what you can do today.

So let me give you one quick one. Let's say you go to school tomorrow. And somebody's angry at you, okay? The first thing you're going to do is you're not going to respond to what they're angry about. You're going to name the emotion. You're just going to say, you seem really angry. I'm not angry! I'm frustrated!

Okay, you seem really frustrated. See how it was still a win? It's at best is the enemy a better thing? It doesn't matter. So the first thing you're going to do is listen and hear that other person and name the emotion. Why is that so important? Because I give speeches all the time and do trainings inside large groups.

And I'll always say how many people feel completely heard and listened to in their personal lives. Raise your hands. And like hardly anybody does. So people don't [00:20:00] feel that way. They don't feel seen. They don't feel heard. Even if you're wrong, let's say I'm completely wrong and I'm angry and I'm losing my marbles.

What difference does it make? I'm losing my marbles. And if somebody is, says, I see you, and this is what's happening for you. It is unbelievably validating without agreeing. And what we normally do is we'll say, calm down. And I'll tell our listeners, never, ever, in the history of calming down, has anyone ever calmed down by being told to calm down.

It is the absolute worst thing you can do. Why? Because basically says, whoa, dude, you're not in control of yourself. I'm in control of myself. I'm going to tell you what to do. Wow. That just makes your amygdala go freaking crazy. So you never do that. The trick, number one trick is you name the emotion. And I said to our listeners, just try that.

Try it when someone's sad. [00:21:00] Try it when they're happy. Try it when they're angry. Try it when they're frustrated because you'll get better at identifying the emotions because people will give you immediate feedback. No, you're wrong. I'm not sad. Okay. Well, what are you feeling? Oh, I'm just a little depressed. Okay, now I have information. Now I know. Now I'm perceived as empathetic. And your amygdala now looks at me as friend versus foe. That's the beginning. Just that.

Ross Romano: yeah, I mean, that's a perfect example you chose and, because, you know, that should ring quite true and sound familiar to listeners, especially this podcast, who, I mean, think about the scenarios that so many of you have encountered with parent groups, with the school board, and the, You know, and the anger of those who feel unheard, unlistened to, unseen, and how that can also be weaponized against you if you don't [00:22:00] proactively go out and hear them and connect, right?

How Another party can say, you seem like you're not being heard, and they can ratchet up the anger and frustration associated with that, right, to work toward their aims, versus using it as a way to diffuse that and to see each other as, right, as allies, as friends, as, okay, I'm, you know, we haven't Figured it all out yet, but we want to we're on the same page.

We both want the same thing here. And in reality that's been something that's come up a lot here around it that it's a communication shortcoming, right? The fact is that we can't assume. that everybody understands that we have common goals if we're not explicit and going out and talking about it and saying, look, when we're talking about schools, you know, educators and parents have the same goals.

They want students to succeed. They want their kids to do well. [00:23:00] But. When that's never discussed, when it's just assumed, then, you know, everybody comes up with their own conclusions and says, well, they must not care about the same things I do, and that's really frustrating to me. Right?

Hesha Abrams: Would you like me to give another example? Because I want to give concrete to people. I want them to be able to listen to this podcast and have something concrete to do. So I want to give, these are, I have so many tricks in the book, but these are some of the ones you can use, like, right away. So, validation is the WD 40 of our world.

It is the number one thing you can do. Now, the problem is people validate really poorly. Oh, I really like your shirt. That's not validating. You handled that really well. That was a difficult situation, and you handled it with tact and grace. That's validation. Okay. So here's a little trick about how to do it.

Let's say somebody dumps on you. I don't care what it is. It doesn't matter. Good, [00:24:00] bad. They're dominating the conversation. They're controlling whatever they're doing. And you need to take control back. The number one way to do it is to look at them and say, You know what I admire about you and stop, guess what they do, they stop talking, nobody talks after that sentence down, nobody, you have my full attention ma'am, or sir, and you can use any verb you want.

You know what I admire about you? Do you know what I like about you? Do you know what I love about you? Do you know what I respect about you? Choose your verb. Whatever feels right to you in the moment, it stops the runaway train. And then you say something validating and true, like your passion, your curiosity, your commitment to finding the right way through, your enthusiasm.

Your energy. [00:25:00] It's how easy all that is. I can take somebody who is just an elephant in a tea shop going crazy. I can turn them in 10 seconds. That's one of the ways you do it. Simple stuff like that. And practice at home with your significant other, with your kids. Let's say your kid is just You know, if everyone was teenagers, you know, just say they're just going crazy and I always have such compassion for teenagers, man, they got estrogen and testosterone drop kicking into their little bodies in environments that are confusing and difficult and stratified.

And it's so challenging if you make this. What I admire about you, what I like about you, what I love about you, what I respect about you, a part of your daily life, I'm telling you, people will hang around you like lemmings, because they will be, they will open their mouths like little birds, feed me more, it is, it's [00:26:00] tremendous, and then what it does is it shifts The way you see things.

Because rather than me looking at you and saying, Oh my god, are you just obnoxious? Look how loud and crude you are or you're selfish, or you're power grabbing, or you're, which is what we tend to do, it shifts me. to shift you. Now I see other things. I see other possibilities. So I say to all of our listeners, in that encounter, who's got the power?

Person screaming and yelling, or you diffusing the bomb?

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I think, work on our use of listening and even, you know, Productive use of silence to work toward those, you know, those are all tension diffusers, right? And they're so powerful. I feel like As long as they ring true, right? There's some authenticity to it. I can tell that, okay, this thing you're saying to me, you've thought about it.

Ross Romano: You've observed it in me. [00:27:00] Even if it's something I've never really thought about myself before, but you know, you didn't just walk into the room, meet me for the first time and start. heaping a bunch of praise on me. I'm like, what is this person talking about? But there, I mean, there's a real piece to

Hesha Abrams: Listening

Ross Romano: listening and then saying, okay, I can tell what's the right time to use the right technique.

What does this person need to hear right now? What's the thing that's going to break through to them to just, you know, lower the temperature a little bit and have them be more willing to, or more able even to just engage in, in a more productive conversation.

Hesha Abrams: What do you do if you've got a parent that comes in, they start yelling at you? You know, your first response is to become defensive, right? I have a whole chapter in the book called the Blame Defend Justify Death Dance, because that's what happens. But if someone's yelling at me, the first thing I want to say is I am so impressed with how much you love your [00:28:00] child, that you're trying to be so protective of them.

You will stop them in their tracks. And to realize we don't teach this in schools, so people are actually incompetent. They're incompetent with negotiation. They're incompetent with communication. They're incompetent with listening. They're incompetent with seeing another point of view. Because we don't teach it and we don't train for it.

And so the more you do it, you're actually modeling this on how to behave and how to act and, you know, I like to use the analogy of the bomb diffuser, you know, the bomb in the town square and that guy waddles out in his Michelin suit. He doesn't just start cutting wires, he looks, he diagnoses, is it a pressure switch, is it a chemical gauge, is it remote control, what do I do?

So it requires, rather than saying listening, because we've all say that, we all talk about it, and we all do it very poorly. [00:29:00] Think of it as diagnosing. You're a bomb detector. You're looking at that situation. What do I need to do and honestly make it selfish. What do I need to do to make it better for me?

What do I need to do to have this person not yell at me anymore or move them on down the path or actually see a solution here? It when you come from that, you come from this place of I want to be effective. I want to get something done. And when you think like that, who's got the power? I've got the power.

Because when conflict happens, we all feel powerless. That's what happens. And when you feel powerless, you react poorly. But if you can do something to take back power, which is really what holding the calm, the secret to resolving conflict and diffusing tension. That's why I named the book that, because that's what it is.

It's not being calm. [00:30:00] It's not calming down. It's holding the calm for yourself, so you have power, and then you can actually dish it out to other people. And this is what will happen. People won't say, oh my god, Ross, you're so good. You know how to hold the calm. They're just gonna say, Everyone likes you.

You just seem to get along with everyone, or you just seem to get things done, or people just respond to you. That's how they'll say

Ross Romano: Do you have any any go to's for, you know, for people who maybe find the composure part of it particularly challenging, right? Especially independent of their counterpart's emotionality. Okay, somebody comes at me and they're really angry or they're really upset and I know I need to stay calm but I'm, it's hard because I'm You know, they're raising my level of response and you know, for some people that's more difficult than others, [00:31:00] or even just to figure out how to do it appropriately, right, because for me, personally, my When somebody else is ratcheting up, you know, my response is usually to kind of ratchet down.

And sometimes that's the right thing to do, but sometimes they may perceive that as, you don't really seem to care about this, or you're disengaged or whatever, or it's situational. Sometimes that might be the good way to deal with an interpersonal conflict where you know that, again, it's about there's something that's frustrating your partner today, but the next day, you know, there's another day and you just have to, you know, work through the days where somebody's upset about something versus a legal negotiation.

That's like, we need to reach a resolution today. So if, you know, you can't afford to say, let me. I'll lose this one willingly because it's no big deal. I'll win the next one. Well, no, we need to [00:32:00] win. But in any case, right? Okay, I feel my physiological senses raising, but I know that I really need to be calm.

Is there a go to that you'd say, try this one first and see how it goes for you?

Hesha Abrams: Name the emotion for the other side. That's why I started with that one first. And the reason is because it gives me power back. If I'm feeling triggered because you're yelling at me. Or you're in my way, or something's happening and I'm triggered, I'm not going to be at my best, so I'm going to take power back, and I'm going to see you, so I'm going to name the emotion.

That gives me a moment to calm down, get back into this holding the calm place. Where I'm holding the calm. That's why it really is the secret to resolving conflict because from that place I have choices and I have options so that's the number one thing to do. And here's the other thing I'll tell people, for God's sakes, [00:33:00] give yourself some grace.

You know, you are human, and none of us are up for perfection awards just yet. And, you know, we play bumper car egos. This is what happens. The best thing you can ever do when you screw up is to say, I screwed up. Can I have a do over? Nobody says no to you. Nobody. So if I handle something, Ross, with you wrong, you know, poorly, I'm having a bad day, I'm tired, I'm cranky, I wasn't at my best, and I just unloaded on you, or I didn't listen to you, or whatever I did that was wrong, I'm gonna see it in your face instantly, right?

All I have to say is, oh God, I didn't handle that well, or that didn't come out the way I wanted to. Ross, can I have a do over? You're not going to say no to me. Now I get to do it over. You actually encourage and engender more respect from the other side when you acknowledge you messed up and you try to do it [00:34:00] better.

And if you want to, you can even flower it up a little bit. You know what? You mean a lot to me. I care about you and I handled that poorly. Your feelings matter to me. And I really didn't acknowledge them properly. Can I have a do over? Stuff like that, I'm telling you, it's actually almost better than if you did it right the first time.

It's really fascinating how the human psychology works. But that, the number one thing in your family relations, close relations, you do this kind of stuff. You ask for a do over and I'm telling you, it's good.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So we talked about identifying the self interest piece and, you know, the other party and you also, there's a chapter in the book about or it might be a whole section, I think it's a chapter around the efficiency, you know, of reaching a resolution and getting there [00:35:00] in a timely fashion.

Right? And I'm wondering if you've found, especially with respect to day conflict resolution, right, things that aren't legal matters, but they're just interpersonal, you know, or professional matters if a common theme is a lack of communication, clarity and following all the way through to the point of being able to clearly and specifically articulate what we want, what I want, right?

What is my interest, right? Okay, I know that there's something, either there's something that is causing conflict because I don't like What the other person's doing. Right. Or I, you know, I know what I don't like, but I'm not really able to fully articulate, well, what do I want? What am I trying to achieve here?

Does that, you know, seem to come up often in your findings? And if so, you know, what's your advice around that?

Hesha Abrams: Sure. So that's very good because we are often unclear and muddied. We're almost, the human ego is almost like a [00:36:00] child. I want it because I want it. Well, that's not an action plan, right? And it's not thinking through the consequences of what you want. So the good news is that you learn along the way.

That's the benefit of this do over thing is that sometimes it's a great gift to not get what you want so that's what the life learning lessons are. So, trying to be clear, having an action plan, blah, blah, that's all great. I have a technique in the book called VUCS. V U C S. Validate, Understand, Clarify, Summarize.

It's a little four part thing designed to achieve exactly what you've just asked. In the end I want an action plan. So we have agreed that we're going to do one, two, and three. So you use that when you want to try to drive just a large, you know, screaming thing into, okay, what's the action plan we're going to do?

And that's the technique. And it takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an [00:37:00] hour, depending on the nature of the situation. And it's I go through it in step by step, you know, how to do it in the book. And it's really pretty excellent to get you toward an action plan. Sometimes you want an action plan.

Sometimes you just want to diffuse the bomb and move on, you know, so you have all these choices about what you want to do and how you want to do it. And, you know, notice I call the book, Holding the Calm, The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Diffusing Tension. It's kind of a long title and I was a little hesitant to make it so long.

But it's so important. Prevention is worth a pound of cure. And let me give everyone an analogy that you're all going to use. Spaghetti sauce. You drop it on the counter. Everyone. You wipe it up with a wet sponge. It's no big deal. You leave it overnight and you're scraping it off with a spatula. You leave it three or four months and it's old and moldy and nasty.

That, my friends, is conflict. But every [00:38:00] single piece of conflict, 100 percent of it, starts with tension. And the tension can either be yelling or it can be, that's tension, right? Even though it's unexpressed, wiping the spaghetti sauce up when it's wet is the smart move. We all know that.

Why don't we? Because we don't know how. We're scared. We hope it'll go away. We hope it'll somehow get better miraculously on its own. But it doesn't. It gets stored like little resentment nuts for the winter, you know? And so, if you see that happening, you want to speak to it. You want to say, you seem disturbed by that.

See, naming the emotion. I'm not disturbed. Okay, does this sound right to you? Well, no, it doesn't. Okay, I'm interested in hearing your opinion. See, it took four seconds and you make a right term. That's how you can do it. And that's what I, that's why I made the book so simple and easy for people to [00:39:00] practice.

Is you take one idea, just take one of what we've talked about today or one that's in the book and on my web page, I have all kinds of little one minute videos on little topics on, you know, how to handle family at Thanksgiving. I did a big thing on and, you know, stuff like that. Little, you know, how to fire somebody, how to deny someone a raise.

How to a student give us a student, a failing grade and tell the teacher, you're not gonna a parent, you're not gonna change it. I mean, those kinds of things. How do you practice that? Just pick one thing and practice it every day for a week, and then all of a sudden it belongs to you. Now it's yours. It's in your repertoire, and that's how you actually do it.

And then you just get. Better and better and I tell you, your relationships with your kids will be great, your relationship with your in law kids will be great, you know, the larger circle of life, you just will glide through a little easier. Doesn't mean there isn't bumps in the road, people are [00:40:00] still going to annoy you, you're still going to have difficulty, but you won't be blind.

You'll have glasses on, like you'll be able to see better when you have these holding the calm techniques.

Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned the resentment piece, right? And the, you know. There has to be a goal around if we have truly resolved the conflict, I've also resolved my resentment. I've resolved the conflict inside of me, too. If I haven't, then I haven't really resolved this and I think that relates back to, you know, what I was mentioning earlier about really knowing what we want and being able to talk about and probably a good illustration is It's something you mentioned in the book as well around the baseball salary arbitration process, right?

And I'll really briefly explain that for people who don't know how it works. But basically, the team will say a number for players who are subject to the arbitration process. Okay, we think he should make 2 million next year. And the player will say, [00:41:00] well, I think I should make three. And more times than not.

They'll go out and reach a resolution outside of the process and say, okay, well, we agreed on some number in between, right? But if it goes all the way to arbitration, both sides make their case, the arbitrator chooses one or the other. There's no compromise that way, right? Well, how would that process work if the team said, we think you should make 2 million, and the player said, No, I don't think I should make 2 million.

I don't think that's enough. Well, what number do you want? Well, more than that, right? You know, if you have to be really clear and precise on what you want or else there's no way to win, or, you know, you won, but you didn't get what you wanted, and now you're still upset because you're saying, oh, well, this, they gave me two and a half, and I think it should have been three.

Well, did you ever say that? Did you make your case for that? You know, and I think That happens a lot, and it, you know, in fact creates maybe conflict out of [00:42:00] potentially no conflict, right, when we sort of fail to just be direct and precise and say, here's a situation that's coming up.

Here's what I advocate for. And we're either hedged too much or used, you know. are too deferential and create a situation where we just, we're hoping the other person will decide what we want them to decide and instead they end up deciding something different and now there's a conflict. And now we either have to resolve that conflict or we just have a lot of resentment building up, whereas it maybe could have been prevented by having more clarity in the first place.

Hesha Abrams: I think it's very well said. Alcoholics Anonymous has a wonderful saying that says, Resentment is poison that you drink, but expect somebody else to die. I'm going to say that again because it's so good. Resentment is poison that you [00:43:00] drink, but expect somebody else to die. It's just so good. And the thing is, again, I want to tell our listeners, for God's sakes, have grace.

You know, this human living thing is hard. We make mistakes. We bump up against each other. We don't have right good skills. We're tired. We're hungry. We're angry. We're don't have resources. We don't have skill set. We don't have love and support, blah, blah, blah. You gotta have some grace. And if you have grace for yourself, then you're going to have grace for others.

Now, all of a sudden, you can move more fluidly through life when you can do that. And then the question is I want to actually tell our listeners something very interesting. There was a guy named Daniel, he's still alive, Daniel Kahneman who won the Nobel prize in economics. He's a psychologist.

By proving that Adam Smith's rational man doesn't really exist. People do not make. Economic decisions rationally. They think they [00:44:00] do, but they don't. So I'm going to give two analogies that everyone's really going to enjoy. One apples, 25 cents each. How many would you buy? I don't know. I like apples.

I'll probably buy two. Apples, four for a dollar. You get a 35 percent boost in sales. Now that's just stupid. It doesn't make any logical sense at all. You want an extra 10 percent boost in sales? Limit to. It's crazy, makes no sense at all, but I'm not gonna let the other guy get my apples. So I'll let him rot in my refrigerator and pay more rather than let the other guy get it.

So that's a huge part of the human psyche in a lot of people. The other part is that what Daniel Kahneman proved is that we all think people want to win. That is not true. 80 percent of people want to not lose. So think about that for a minute. If you're in a situation, is somebody trying to win or are they [00:45:00] trying to not lose?

completely different way of looking at it. It's a heads and tail of the same coin. And it just gives you a broader frame of reference. When you're dealing with somebody, if you're trying to, you may be arguing as if you're trying to win, like use your baseball player analogy he may be arguing that he wants more money, but it really may be that the other guy got more and he doesn't want to be seen as a schmo.

He doesn't want to look worse. And money is a way of ranking. So how else can you figure out? how to manage the ranking so that ego, which is this fragile, delicate little thing, doesn't get bashed about. Money is one way, but there's plenty of other ways. I've settled lots of cases with man of the year dinners, with donations to charity, with being in control of the drafting of something.

There's tons of issues that someone else will not raise. But that you can see [00:46:00] if I'm trying to find a win for them, I got to find a win somehow, or can I find a way that they don't lose, that they don't look stupid, that they don't look taken advantage of. And I'm telling you for 80 percent of the people, that's more important.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. Do you have, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on basically managing up to people who are not doing this effectively, right? If we put it in the school context and even the example we talked about earlier, okay, we have, you know, the parents of our students, they really aren't feeling heard and they're, you know, they're we're developing a little bit of an antagonistic relationship here because they, you know, they're not hearing from us, or we're not acknowledging their feelings, and they're starting to question what we're doing here.

And really, okay, maybe I recognize this as a teacher, and I'm trying to advocate to the administration, hey, maybe you should, you know, implement some new communication [00:47:00] protocols, or do some outreach, or blah, blah, blah. And for whatever reason, they're not succeeding at it, or they're, you know, I, a lot of people have been in these situations where you're reporting up to somebody who's doing a poor job of identifying the self interest of the other party, right?

And they're creating situations where you're just not able to come to any kind of resolution because, okay, you keep proposing ideas that are all in favor of our side, you know, whether it could be in private enterprise or otherwise. But, you know, not everybody's in a position where they are able to directly engage, but yet it's like, okay, I can see what's happening here, right?

And I'm trying to sort of manage up here and influence this, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts around that.

Hesha Abrams: I do. And I love the question because let's think about it. You're going to look up, let's just give it an analogy. You're going to look up and you're going to think the person is either stupid. unskilled or [00:48:00] has some kind of agenda, right? So identify what it is. Are they actually stupid? Because there's plenty of stupid people.

They just don't understand. Are they unskilled or do they have an agenda? I would say that more than half the time it's an agenda. Okay, because we will see people as stupid and unskilled because they don't do what we want. So look first for the agenda. How can you help satisfy that agenda? Now all of a sudden you become a power player and you become more influential.

because you are satisfying their agenda. As you do that, if you've got the skills, you've done these holding the calm things, you've read the book, you give them the book. I mean, I've got lots of organizations that are passing them out because I have discussion guides in the back of the book. So no one has money for training these days.

So I made it a free training. I mean, I have people that are buying it as like book clubs, teachers doing things and schools doing things as book clubs. Cause it's like I said, I did it as a 15 book. I did that [00:49:00] on purpose. And then you read it together and you do the discussions at the back of the book.

Now it becomes a training and then you can qualify for continuing education credit at the same time you're doing it. Now you've created a lexicon within your organization. So instead of you having to develop skills managing up, you could say, why don't we try VEX with them? Everyone, okay, everyone now knows what VEX is.

Why don't we try you know, the creating small, winnable victories? What can we do to give them this? All of a sudden you have this lexicon and it just, it works great. I'm telling you, I'm, you know, that's it makes your life easier because think about it too. If you're managing up, what's the ego of the person up?

Don't tell me what to do. Don't think I'm stupid. Don't think I'm unskilled. Don't think you know more than me, mister or missus, because you don't. Well, that's not good either. So [00:50:00] by Moving this lexicon and getting everyone working and rowing in the same way, you've just created a framework, and I wanted to do that because there's huge training programs that have all their ways of doing it, and they charge a fortune of money, and then they're good for a little while, and then they just kind of drop off because you're not continually doing them.

I wanted this to be like for everybody. I mean, everyone can afford a 15 paperback book, you know, and if everyone is talking about it in the same way, all of a sudden you're a help, not a criticizer. Yeah.

Ross Romano: question for you before you go, which is about so you have your chapter being the grown up which. applies wonderfully to a situation here where you know, listen to some listeners may literally be the grownup in the room.

Right. I'm thinking about this specifically as [00:51:00] relates to the day to day reality, where if our listeners are a teacher or a parent, right, you may be in situations with. People of, you know, three to four different levels of real and expected emotional maturity, right? You might go from, you know, being in some sort of a conflict with your supervisor, to having to then go mediate a conflict between two eight year olds, to then going home and having your spouse and your own children, right?

And try, you know, maybe it's about how to kind of reset or to be mindful of what it means to be the grown up, to hold the calm in those different scenarios where you have to adapt your understanding and, you know, realistic expectations of. how the other party is experiencing it when you're toggling between adults and children, between a [00:52:00] peer and a supervisor or a spouse.

Right. And so I don't know, whatever you think is a good thing to share in this reality. But you could, you know, imagine, right. In a given day, there could be a lot of emotional whiplash.

Hesha Abrams: Oh God, yes. I mean, that's the world you all live in. Validation is your friend. It's magic beans in your pocket. That's all I can tell you. If you start doing, you know what I really love about you. You know what I admire about you. You just start seeing people. I'm telling you, obstacles will melt away.

That's just what will happen. And then you progress to the part where, you know, you get good enough to notice something and to comment on it. So let's say for example, two kids or one of them just grabbed a toy from the other and the other one went and walked away. You go to that kid and say, I saw what happened.

You handled that really well. I want you to know I'm proud of you. Oh, for God's sakes, you just reinforced an amazing skill. [00:53:00] Then, of course, you can talk to the other kid, it's not nice to grab, we shouldn't pull it away, da. Do the same thing with parents. Do the same thing with supervisors. You notice, you catch somebody doing it right.

Where what we do, especially as teachers, you know, cause I teach also, you know, it's designed to catch people doing it wrong because you're testing. But the reality is if you catch people doing it right, you will be beloved. That's what will actually happen. You catch people doing it right. And then they want, people are like sunflowers are my favorite flower because they are heliotropes.

They always turn toward the sun no matter where they are. I think that humans are. Validation of tropes. We turn toward that which approves of us. and sees us despite our flaws, despite our emotional immaturity, despite how we acted. When someone sees you and still [00:54:00] likes you, like I joke when I, you know, train people, I talk about how the number one thing is to make sure that your give a darn meter is turned on, right?

But you need more than that. That's one, but catching them doing it right, magic beans in your pockets, my friends.

Ross Romano: Yeah.

Hesha Abrams: If you, and if you all like this stuff, connect with me on LinkedIn because I'm posting all kinds of stuff on LinkedIn all the time, Hesha Abrams. I've got my holdingthecalm. com website that you can sign up for.

I don't sell the list or do anything. And I just send out, you know, periodic, you know, little tidbits of things of how to make it better. And you just kind of stay in the conversation because those of us that are all trying to make the world a little bit better, God bless, we need to band together, don't we?

Ross Romano: Right. Yes. Absolutely. Listeners. Yes. Do you can find holding the calm, the book at holding the calm. com or at Hesha's website or Amazon or wherever you get your books, we'll put the link below to Hesha's [00:55:00] website. You could learn about additional resources there, as she mentioned, or connect on LinkedIn and find that all there.

Anything else people should check out.

Hesha Abrams: I would just say if you do buy it on Amazon, please be kind, or Goodreads, please be kind enough to leave a nice review because that helps the search engine optimization junk. And I feel like the more people that can have a few tools, maybe that helps all the rest of us that you know, we're not all Neanderthals anymore.

Ross Romano: Yes, this is I think, you know, no matter who you are, I think you probably have experienced the challenge with conflict resolution in one way or another, even if you're super skilled, you have encountered other people who are struggling, right? And then who, if you have a mentality toward finding solutions, if you're counterpart doesn't have that mentality.

You still need to help them kind of be willing to come to the table and whatever that is. So I think there's something we all can pick up from this. So, yeah, check out the book if you find it useful to [00:56:00] you or sign up for Hedge's mailing list or. whatever's valuable. Please also do subscribe to the authority for more in depth author interviews like this one.

We look forward to many more great episodes or visit bpodcast. network to learn about all of our shows and find a new one for you. Hesha, thanks so much for being here.

Hesha Abrams: My pleasure.