Managers need conflict coaching Guest: Cinnie Noble

Welcome back to another program of We Can Find A Way, a podcast about conflict resolution. My name is Idil Elveris and I'm a mediator based in London and Istanbul and have been teaching mediation for a while. Since I moved to London three years ago, I have found the opportunity to discover even more about conflict resolution and started to cover all these areas in the episodes of the podcast. As you know, this is a bilingual podcast that covers alternative dispute resolution methods, issues in conflict, and new developments in the area. I talked to many people from all over the world, and in the three years since I started this podcast, I made already 58 episodes, 14 of which were in English. For ease of reference for the listeners, I now have put all of the episodes in a playlist. And all the episodes in English are now under a separate heading in this playlist, so please follow. Write a review if you can. This helps the podcast to be found easily in search engines. I don't know that many bilingual podcasts, so it would be greatly appreciated.

Now, in this episode of We Can Find A Way, I will cover conflict coaching and my guest is Cinnie Noble who is a pioneer of conflict management coaching. She's a former lawyer with a master of law in dispute resolution, a chartered mediator, and a professionally certified coach. Cinnie and her team train mediators, coaches and others, and she has already written two coaching books. Now let us move to the interview that took place with her on 25 March 2022.

Hello, Cinnie and thanks for agreeing to talk to me today.

-My pleasure. Thank you for asking me.

Can you please tell us what conflict coaching is.

-Conflict coaching which is also known as conflict management coaching, is a technique that is used by coaches and mediators and other people who work with clients in conflict on a one to one basis. It is a process by which people who go to this kind of coaching are wanting to engage more effectively in conflict. They want to develop and strengthen their skills so that they can better be in conflict and manage themselves, manage how they react. So it's really about making a better version of yourself when it comes to how you engage in conflict so they could be conflict competent. Skills that people are aware of, skills they don't have that if people are in a dispute, they're in the middle of it and they want to manage it better, they could see it all derailing and they want to better manage it. It could be before a conflict people anticipate that this is going to go in an organizational context. An example might be giving a performance appraisal to somebody. It could be this: after conflict when someone's just agonizing or not feeling very resilient about what happened and they want to figure out what to do about it, if anything. What if this happens again? How do I carry on before, during, after conflict, or generally? Because people are looking to be better at how they are in conflict.

Let's say there's a lot of conflict in this company. And as the human resources we have to deal with all of this. Can you please teach us how to be more competent in handling conflicts?

-You can do coaching, group coaching. I don't I prefer one to one work. And why somebody would see somebody one to one is they specifically identified. These are the things that I have trouble with. It's not issue driven as a mediation might be what's going on amongst us. What I found over time is that there can be a lot around communications which is not only around how do I deliver these messages, how do I respond to them, how do I receive what they say to me? And I like to think of conflict management coaching as shifting people from reaction to reflection to response to resilience. So there's a trajectory they go along but once they go into actually dealing with the situation, how can they move to the part of their brain that thinks that evidence can problem solve but that isn't reacting? We've talked a lot about the neuroscience and has been around for a long time, but we're thinking about it more in the conflict management field than ever because of people who've done some really great research around. That perfect example is in conflict where you can't help but be operating from the emotional part of your brain if you're upset about something. But that isn't the same part of the brain that's going to problem solve. So part of what happens in coaching is shifting, helping, facilitating that shift.

And how long would you work with somebody usually or does it depend on the person?

-It does, I would say minimum of six sessions. They're about an hour long and it takes time to start shifting. Most of my clients are more than eight sessions, mostly because people who choose or referred are really trying to make some durable change. It's also not just about the dispute, and that's not an easy thing to start to shift habitual ways of doing things. And so it does take time to work away. And I have a process that I work with.

Can you give us some examples where your conflict coaching worked well and also expand on why we need that kind of coaching?

-One is a new manager. So people who go into new management positions are often promoted based on skills and a lot of other good things. But it doesn't mean that they know how to manage conflict. And many managers will tell you that's something that they don't know how to manage very well. The people in leadership position who are always in the face of conflict don't come with that competence automatically. And some have trained in it, some have worked on it because they know it's challenging. And having said that, many people get into the position and realize the real life examples that require them to be stronger in their competencies. And so I have a new manager who was just appointed to a job and he, right away, was in a conflict with one of his coworkers who wanted that same job and they both competed. And now he's trying to manage the group when everybody knew that in the group, and particularly the person who lost the job, is reacting very poorly in teams and otherwise. And so he's trying to figure out, how do I manage this better? Because he reacted really quickly to it at the first meeting. And so, he wants to not do that. I have a woman who is.. she's going into a mediation with four family members. And it's about what to do around a family estate. She knows within that family, the siblings that she's going to react strongly to, and she knows what they're going to say. And she said, I don't want to repeat the same patterns because it never got us anywhere before. It's not going to help now. So she wants to look at her way of reacting and how she's going to respond differently. Can be relationships with friends, neighbors, the people you are managing. I've certainly coached people who aren't at management level as well, trying to work out how they're going to get along within a team where they're not managing very well. I use a model for premediation, coaching to prepare people to engage in mediation. And typically, people can identify where they know they're not very good in conflict. If they think about situations where they just don't want to repeat bad patterns, then they're likely to be really great candidates for coaching.

But that requires a lot of self reflection, even self awareness. And not many, people have that also in managerial positions.

-I disagree with this, to some extent. I think they have it. It hasn't been tapped. And I think that when people are referred to coaching, for instance, they might start with being resentful of being referred. Well, they have the ability to self reflect. The starting point is they're not very happy about being told to go there. There's been a growth in coaching cultures around the world, which means that people get what coaching is and they don't see it as punitive as it might have been at one time. It's much more seen as a developmental frame. Many of the clients that come, even those who are referred, are not necessarily resistant. They might not like being referred. They might feel like they're being punished for something. Mostly are more inclined to say, this is for me to be better at what I'm doing because I just don't do it well.

In what type of organizations do we see that? It sounds to me like bigger corporations rather than small to medium sized businesses. Please tell us more where it's really growing.

-I see it growing quite broadly. It's not just large organizations, although they might better be able to fund it rather than people who are deciding to do this independently. Depends on the organization's attitude towards conflict. Trying to say look, it's inevitable, it's normal, so let's give people the tools. It has been a long time in coming and there are some organizations that will be ahead of the game and all this. Yeah, let's just make sure we're not having a workplace that's going to cost us money, time, reputation, because we're always in conflict and we lose people or other people complain about us. It does take a certain mindset on behalf of the organization, whether it's public, private, nonprofit, whatever it is, to say “how is conflict working for us?” And generally people say “not very well”. And that takes some vision. On behalf of the leaders, I would say some organizations are better at it. Some of the best referrals I get are people who've had coaching. But there are certainly many organizations that don't. There are many people who think it's therapy or something. They're being referred for some kind of therapeutic intervention. Others think it is remedial, oh, they've been bad as I mentioned. So it's part of being a coach is marketing and effectively so people get this is what it is, this is about development, this is about being a better version of who you are when it comes to conflict. And so it takes leaders to get it and individuals who if they don't get it, immediately start to understand that they can do better than they're doing and probably already can identify where they're not. It's just giving into the idea that there's opportunity in this and they can shift the way they engage in conflict because many people will say, well, this is who I am, this is what I've learned. And they don't see maybe there are different ways of doing what you're doing. And once they get it and start to think about the coaches as big support persons where they're an ally of the client, this is where we partner. And once clients catch on to that and get it, then they are more relaxed and trusting and they're more likely to say: “yeah, this is where I'm not very good and where I need some help”. I think one of the things that people don't appreciate or realize around coaches is that we partner with our clients in order to develop a rapport so that they can trust us and trust the process in order to try out new ways of being able to take a really close look at their habits. And for those for instance you mentioned, it may not be self reflective to be empowered to reflect. Many people work in organizations where they're just told what to do. And so when they come to a coach, they'll tell me what to do. And to have somebody else say: “I'm not, I'm going to tap into what you want” is new to many people. I've seen many people blossom and do better at what they're doing in life because they're comfortable and more competent and more confident around how they engage with people. When there's fractious situations, what type of.

Conflicts that you really see people fail in handling, especially in corporations or your clients?

-I don't use the word fail.

Yeah, sorry.

-I think it's a matter of people strengthening what they've got.

Right or which cause friction, let's put it that way. Needs to progress.

-Well, some of it has to go with their style of engaging. They may be avoiders. He was a manager who avoided conflict and every time somebody went to him with something, he said: “oh, we'll work it out, we'll be fine, don't worry.” And minimizing, minimizing, minimizing until there were big conflicts and then it blew up. It might be, if you're too competitive in an organization. It can happen too, if people are too accommodating. I had another case with a gentleman who was a great collaborator in his organization. And then he only had ten staff members and they started to complain about him saying: “make a decision. You are calling us all the time”. He believed he had to have a collaborative decision and they weren't collaborative about it, so they were saying: “just make the decision, here's where we stand”. He was fearful, too afraid to make decisions, and that doesn't look very good on him. And so he had to look at when has he collaborated and when did he say “okay, I've listened to what you've said, this is where I'm going with it”. He doesn't want to hurt people's feelings if people are going to get angry, blow up, tell people off, put people down. All of the kinds of things that are sort of childhood kinds of behaviors, but come out and when people are stressed and tired and when it's really a habitual way that they have learned. And it doesn't work in many organizations anymore. In some organizations it's expected, but many organizations will say, it's just not on. But we have generations of people that now are saying: “I'm not going to put up with it” and they leave. And so that attrition has started to cost organizations. So organizations where the old way of that we're culturally expected about how bosses are or how you are in this organization. Many are saying “no more”. Those would be common and well, I get a lot of people who are new leadership positions. I certainly have people who are of the old guard and they're saying: “this is the way I do it and this is acceptable. And how come it got me this far?” without looking at what it does for relationships and building a community. And if you ask people around what they want from their organization, many people will say they want a sense of belonging. They want to feel part of a group. They want to feel united. Those who don't are more likely to feel on the fringe, be marginalized, be in conflict, start conflict. We don't learn how to be confident managers as kids, and we learn from our families mostly, or for there's significant others around that might have an influence on us. Conflict management training per se is just one part of what is needed. It's, really about how can you help people shift their habits, which they've learned from a pretty young age about what conflict is all about. I would say the range of what comes in front of me is often people who have struggled over time with not liking conflict, not knowing how to do it, possibly avoiding or overreacting and anywhere in between. And the reason they come to me is because whatever they're doing just isn't working in their current context.

There will be always, like, some industry sectors that will be more conservative. Like, one of them I'm thinking is probably like the health sector, legal sector. What do you see? Is it really like business sectors that are more aware?

-One of my biggest clients have been hospitals and health care centers. Over time, there's been huge shifts in how things are managed internally. And there's certainly still a bit of a hierarchical thing going on, and that does cause some conflict. But also I have seen some shifts over time and looking at how it has started to impact patients and the hospitals or the clinics has led those visionary leaders to say, this is how we run. I have worked in many public and private sector organizations. Banks, NGOs, private companies, small companies, large companies. It's not specific to any organizations. But a lot of people who are expats and moved to other countries to work in other organizations where how you manage conflict or how you are interacting will be extremely different. Those people will seek out, I don't know how to do it here. And it's not that the coach knows. It's really up to the client to start noticing and observing what's important; to fit in and be able to work out how you're going to get along in an organization that's perhaps antithetical to how you're used to interacting.

My last question probably is how to become a conflict coach.

-There are a number of coaching programs now that are being offered. It's not the most common in the field of coaching. The International Coaching Federation is one of the major organizations in the world. That's coachfederation.org for those who want to look at it. The International Coaching Federation has chapters all over the world, and they have programs that teach people to become accredited as a coach. So that's business coach, life coaches, sort of general package. People like myself come up with a niche that we see as a gap. I train mediators, human resource coaches, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, union, anybody who is managing people with conflict or dealing with people in conflict who want another tool, who want to do it better, who want to be more specific about zeroing in on what's going on for clients to be able to get underneath their conflicts.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

-I don't think so. I think you've covered a lot.

In this episode my guest with Cinnie Noble. She and I discussed what conflict coaching is, why it's needed, and in which areas it thrives. Cinnie described how this process focuses on clients on a one to one basis in order to strengthen their conflict competence and maximize their ability to engage in conflict. She also underlined that the old ways of managing isn't really working for new generations. And increasingly, many managers are even referred to conflict coaching to handle this matter much better because people are looking more meaning in their work.

So I hope you enjoyed the program. I will upload a picture of Cinnie in the Instagram account of we can find a way. I will share some excerpts from the program in Instagram stories as well. Lastly, I would like to close by thanking musician Imre Hadi and artist Zeren Goktan, who allowed me to use their materials in this podcast. Thank you and see you in the next program.