Ep 216, Failure Is A Component Of Success

Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown. This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome Andre Thornton. Andre is the co-founder and CEO of Whitman Consulting, one of the top 10 leadership development firms in the U.

S., which helps organizations grow their people faster than their challenges. A former engineer director at Lockheed Martin, Andre spent 16 years leading teams on advanced aircraft programs and capturing over $1 billion in new business before discovering his true calling, developing leaders. His book, Disrupted, introduces the two stabilizers and seven accelerators that turn chaos into growth, a framework drawn from neuroscience, engineering, and two decades of coaching experience.

Andre helps executives and teams raise their baseline, shorten recovery, and lead with clarity in times of change. He lives in Maryland with his wife, Myesha, and their two children. Morning, Andre, and welcome to Conflict managed. Good morning, Merry.

So glad to be here with you. Glad to be with you as well. I'm very much looking forward to talking about your new book, Disrupted, and hearing about all things you and what's going on with you. But before we get to what you're doing right now, I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person.

Oh, first job. Let's go down memory lane. My very first job was actually an internship after my freshman year of college. And I didn't expect it to happen.

It just kind of came out of nowhere. I was working for the Department of Transportation in the state of Virginia. And it was so cool. It was, I was an engineering major.

So it was the first time I was introduced to sort of what the white collar work experience could be like. Before that, I had absolutely no idea. My father was blue collar. And it was amazing for so many different reasons.

Well, why was it amazing? Tell us about it. This is where it got me, Mary. I realized that I was riding around in this truck with a guy named Ricky.

And all we really did was ride around and talk to people. And I learned through that. So I was waiting like, oh, when are we going to have to do the work, right? But what I learned was the work, when you get into thought work, is connecting with other human beings and just creating an environment where everyone can continue to move forward.

And I didn't expect that. And it was the summer, so we're riding around this truck. It was a lot of time outside, a lot of time inside. And so I got a chance to really see what it's like to get work done without being the one that is physically hands-on doing the work.

What a great internship. I mean, what a nice window into, important work, but different kinds of work than a lot of times we're exposed to, obviously, like when we're young, maybe a first-first job where you're just very much hands-on. But why engineering? Why did you decide to major in that?

So I was, pretty good in math, and my father really pushed engineering from the very beginning Once we found out that I, you know, could handle math and he always wanted to be an engineer. And, you know, so he said, hey, you know, engineering is a great, a great path. And then I started to do research and realized that engineers pretty much built everything around us. And so I just became fascinated with being one of those people that can figure out how to make stuff and really make useful things that people will have and cherish.

And, you know, it just became like, hey, how do I introduce stuff? My skills and the impact that I want to make on the world. And it just seemed like engineering was the best way to do it. It's funny because later on, I got an MBA in finance and I then learned about the finance world and was fascinated by it.

And we may get to this later, but that was one of my career changes was to finance. So I kind of went through this interest in evolution from engineering, building things to finance, being able to finance those things that are built. It is interesting how our life takes us on these different trajectories where we start. And as we get into the world of work, right away with this internship being, it's one thing to think, okay, I'm going to major in this.

This is the kind of work I'm going to do. And then see these sorts of distinctions, as you said, between thought work and the actual hands-on of doing the work. So as you were in your first phase being an engineer, were you more designing products on the design end or were you actually making the things? Actually making the things.

So I was hired right out of college to work at Lockheed Martin, Marietta, Georgia, which was a great location. And we worked in this huge plant. The building was half a mile long, and out of one end of it were F-22s moving down an assembly line. And the other end, I mean, literally, other end of the building coming out of it was C-130J aircraft.

And I had a chance to work on the production line indirectly as my very first job. And so we would put together projects to help move the production along. And so my hands-on first engineering job was building fighter jets. It was incredible.

Wow. So, you know, you talk about the kind of work, what was that work environment like? What was the management like? So the first job was I was brought in.

There was this very specific software that they wanted me to learn how to use. And I had a mentor that was, you know, not formally a mentor, but he was there in the same cube, had years of experience. So he took me under his wing. His name is Brian.

Incredible, incredible guy. And so the environment was very welcoming. I'm 22 years old. What was unique about that plant, the average age was 53 at the time, and I come in as a 22-year-old, eager to learn and grow.

And some may say, you know, so how do you fit into an environment like that, when everyone is on average different than you? And I saw it as, once I started to talk to the people that were there... I saw it as this incredible group of people to learn from. I mean, the guy that was adjacent to the cube I was in was literally a rocket scientist.

And so to just have a chance to sit beside him for, you know, the first introduction to formal professional career and pick his brain. So I went in with this fascination about everyone around me and I had an incredible man. I was really, really fortunate. I mean, Beth, they brought me in.

I got to go to training, formal training on how to use the software. They connected me with all these great people that were very generous and willing to share their knowledge. And they had a ton of knowledge and I had a great manager on top of that. So my introduction was fantastic and it actually allowed me to get a really aggressive start to my career.

What a blessing. I mean, hearing you talk, I think Like that's what we want for everybody's first job, second jobs, like all the way down the line. It just sounds like the structure is amazing. So not only did they want you to learn a particular software, they had extensive training for you to do it instead of just learn this.

Right. And so that cuts that the trial, a trial and error, you know, and just the confidence of learning. And then I love that you said you had a mentor, not a formal mentor, but he was anyway. Right.

He and you both treated the relationship that way. This sort of generosity of spirit, that when you have a healthy work environment, what do you get? You have people who are able to bloom and act that way and be generous and have that sort of spirit of camaraderie, real collegiality. Because when people feel freed to do their work and to do excellently, then it just has this wonderful, fruitful, this fruitfulness of giving.

That just feels so wonderful. Yeah, it was it was incredible. And when I go back and I talk to younger professionals, that are starting out, I think a thing that gets missed as an opportunity when you're early in your career is to be a sponge and ask questions. I mean, literally latch on to some of the people that you work with and, just bombard them with as many questions as possible because I don't think there's this pressure that younger graduates, for example, I know we're, you know, coming in college graduation, folks starting their careers, that there's this pressure that they have to know everything.

But every single human being at that company was in their shoes and remembers not knowing anything. And so the thing that matters is your eagerness and curiosity. Like they know you can learn, which is why you were hired. You weren't hired to be the expert right away.

And so what that does is it gives you license to truly be a sponge. And the beautiful thing that I learned about being a sponge and asking questions is people love to answer them. Yeah. It is so amazing how, and I feel it now, you know, when someone asks me questions, it makes me feel great.

It's like, oh, I, you know, I have something to share. And so to give people that gift just by asking them questions and then you get the gift of the knowledge is just something I don't think it gets talked about enough. I really love that. And thinking about that reciprocity of people love to talk about their experience.

They want to share. We want to. We're eager to say, I tried this. I tried that.

What about this? What about that? But a lot of times others don't ask because we don't want to be a burden or we imposter syndrome or we feel like we should already know, whatever it might be. And so these sort of artificial barriers or maybe someone who's more seasoned thinks, well, I don't want to impose.

I don't want them to think that I'm micromanaging them. And so there are all these sort of unseen, unspoken barriers that can separate. And I think also in our culture right now that we are told constantly that we're in a generation war with each other, right? That there are these really strong generation divides.

And so we kind of are now suspect of someone younger or somebody older. And yet... Many times it's just not really there. It's just this, what if this is there?

Or I'm told this is there. So I'm seeing things that aren't. Yeah, you are so true. So right.

And the idea that there is a war between generations in itself. And if someone hears that one time and they latch on to it, it changes the way they may interact and may not even realize it's changed the way they interact, but they're holding it, you know, subconsciously. So, so true. And the beauty of it, though, is any one of us can just decide to do differently and reach out to the other and start the relationship.

Yes, absolutely. Right. We can... It's, of course, always wise to pay attention to what's going on and changes around us.

But it's much wiser to treat individual situations and people as individuals, the way that we want to be treated and to try to look at their perspective. And so I think sometimes like this narrative from the older generation, this, you know, they don't want to work, is sometimes a great forgetting of what it was like in my first job. And what it was like to feel like I should know things, but I don't. And so, and maybe just different generational ideas of how do we interact, right?

And what is appropriate. And so, you know, getting over those narratives that even I think people who've been around for a while sometimes start to hold onto that are not helpful. Yes. Narratives that are not helpful, that create division.

And I know at some point we'll chat about conflict. Conflict is such an interesting word. It can be a negative connotation. I see it as something positive.

The challenge becomes when we see it as something negative and we don't see it as an opportunity for growth, and I've seen where it can go either way you know it kind of digs in and becomes a sort of trench a barrier and I've also see it become this incredible bridge, so yeah it's all in the human journey and you know learning and growing and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, and all we're all doing is showing up and doing the best that we can with what we have and so always have empathy for that.

Yeah, I really, it's so true. We're doing the best we can with what we have. And so I think it's a good question about, well, what do we have? How am I making myself today so that when I show up tomorrow, what do I have at that time?

And so, quote unquote, what we have is largely, a lot of times it is up to us because we can decide to be curious and grow and ask questions or decide to listen to some negative mantras and shut down and be isolated and have a me versus them sort of mentality. Yes, absolutely. And we may not realize we have the choice. We just think, oh, this is how I automatically think.

This is how I am. And it's so fascinating to me that we have as much agency as we do over that. Once we realize what's going on based on the neuroscience of how the brain works, that we can change even our own identity if we choose to, to become whatever we want it to be. And that's a really interesting concept when you sort of balance it with authenticity, that I know has been really important for the last several years.

And so I'm, you know, I'm geeked out about all this stuff. I'm now sort of, I call myself people engineering with the work and the book and everything. So I see how things work, understand why they work this way, how hard it is to change, but that we all can change once we understand what's happening. Yeah, I love that.

We all can change. And I like what you said. It's almost like this great forgetting that we as individuals constantly go through. We forget that.

I have decided that that's what this event means to me, or I have decided that I can or can't do something, and that we forget about our agency, and we forget that, you know, we tell ourself, I can't do anything else. Well, I mean, you can. What are the options? You know, what are the consequences for good or for ill if I choose one thing over the other?

And I sit with that for a while, and then it's like, poof, it goes out of my head, and I go back to the routine of what I've been doing it. It is pretty interesting. Right. It is.

There's this video I play in a lot of the workshops that we do, called The Elephant and the Rope. It's a story of the, have you heard the story before? So the story is there's someone that goes to like a circus and he sees this huge elephant tied up by a rope. And he asked the ringleader, like, how did you keep this huge animal tied to this small rope.

Like the elephant could just take one step forward and pull it out of the ground. And, you know, depending on how you think about this, it's really kind of cruel, but it's true. They tie, they use the same size rope to tie them when they're babies. And what happens is they're conditioned to believe that they cannot pull away.

And so now they've grown into these incredibly large creatures, but they don't even try anymore. And I play that video, and every time I watch it, I get reminded that these ropes are there and that I can break them. It is fascinating to me that we can know this fact, but forget it every day. It's like 50 first dates.

Every morning I wake up, I have to remind myself these initial thoughts. Oh, oh, I'm worried about this and what about that. I have to remind myself every morning that that does not have to be my train of thought that guides my day, that I have... Agency to choose different thoughts and those thoughts will drive different feelings and those feelings will drive different actions.

Yeah. Gosh, I'm right there with you. Humans are so very interesting. We are very interesting in how incredibly free we are and yet those ropes that we choose or maybe even some narrative that worked for a particular time for a particular reason.

But times have changed. I mean, one thing that's changed is you are not the same person you were yesterday, right? We are constantly changing and adapting and making decisions and solidifying behavior one way or the other through what we have chosen to believe and the feelings that we have and then the actions that we do. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I have a concept in the book I call fall down, grow up. And the idea is, you know, when something happens and we quote unquote fall down, a lot of times we'll say, get back up. And the way I think about it is we don't see that as an opportunity just to get up, but we see it as an opportunity to grow up.

And there's some growth that can come from it and that growth never stops. And each time we fall, there's an opportunity to get stronger and more expansive. And there's something for us to learn in that moment, just like a setback. You know, we don't necessarily want to come back from a setback.

I think we want to come forward as opposed to come back. So, you know, these interesting slight tweaks to the way we think about the circumstances and what happens to us on a daily basis. And the fact that just because we've done something over and over again and, fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, maybe we just haven't, decided to change the way we look at this and reflect on what can we learn and grow from it. And then we won't have that fall again.

Or we continue to have bigger and bigger falls and we have the capacity to handle them, which is the definition of growth in my eyes. Let's talk a little bit about this idea of failing or falling. Our culture is an ode to winning. We want to win.

We want to win everything. We think about sports, our love affair with sports. And you can look at a culture and see what they care about by what do they prize and who gets the biggest salaries. And we love a winner.

Of course we love a winner. I mentioned graduation. I just went to a graduation ceremony where the salutatorian spoke, the second person. And she gave a talk about being second and how hard that was.

She's second out of this class of all of these people. So she's got all these medallions, but she's second. And we do have this kind of narrative that all that matters on the podium, what really matters is first place. And as if anybody who's coming in first, there's a whole, you know, whole history behind them of when they did not, right, of all, the failing or the falling to get to, right, the perseverance and the resilience that they had to inculcate and develop in order to get to when they won.

But winning today does not mean that that's the next thing that's going to happen. So tell us, talk a little bit about this idea of how we should think about momentary falls and failures. Yes, they are so revered. There is this...

Stigma with failure as a thing, as if it's like this overarching, you fail or you succeed. And if you fail, you are failure as an identity. And it's so fascinating to me that it's the exact opposite and that failure is an actual component to success. Like it's the peanut butter and the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

You can't have success without failure. And what I've learned to do for myself, and you mentioned college graduates, I have a daughter that just graduated from college. She came out of Hampton University last weekend. We just celebrated her with a graduation party this weekend.

And there's all this pressure to have everything figured out and to not fail and go out into the world. And what I try to help people understand and really think about the way that they think about accomplishment is that everything, if you think of everything as just a practice. We start to get caught up in every moment feeling like the game winning shot or not. And if we can just shift to, I'm just constantly practicing.

And, you know, it could be the big job interview that you get or you don't get or the promotion or, you know, or the marriage or the, whatever the thing is. But if you can shift to it as just a practice, and no matter what happens, I'm going to learn, which is going to be a win. If you can make that your thought habit, then a couple of things happen. One is you take the pressure off of the outcome.

And the reason that matters, there's science that shows when we are so clamped and tightened on trying to get something done, a lot of times that will block the very resources in our brains we need to get it done. So you release the parts of your brain that will give you the best possible outcome. And no matter what happens, you literally do grow and learn from it, which is the win. And so that slight shift is something that I've used personally in my life.

It's something that I teach to others, especially young people, but older people as well. Because, you know, So again, everything we just talked about with how we think this is just how we are, the older we get, the more we think this is just how we are. But I've seen people 60, 65, 70 years old that decide to make a change and it's never too late. And so this idea of simply, hey, everything is a practice and no matter what happens, I'm going to be able to learn and grow from it.

It's something we can pick up no matter what age we are. I love that. There's so much packed in what you just said. And as you were talking, it made me think about our lives, right?

And we think about our life as a road. That's really the case, right? We are a collection of our experiences. We are who we are today by what we chose to do and think about and behave in our past, right?

And we're constantly collecting. And yet, I think a lot of times we think, what are we trying to do? We're trying to achieve X and then Y and then Z. Like we have and those are good things right like it's good to have these things that we want to achieve.

It's as if everything is wasted or we're treading until we get to the wind, until we get to this one particular thing. But really, that's not what life is like. If it's a road or summit, once you climb, you see there's the next thing and then the next thing. And so if we see those wins or losses are parts along the road of our life and everything is informing us, the victories are sweet, but it's not all about the victory.

I mean, you know, the tired line, it's the climb, you know, but it really is. I mean, what is life? The sweetness of life is found in the everyday because that's where we live. I mean, we live in the everyday.

We get a few mountaintop experiences and a few very Death Valley experiences, but most everything else is going along the line. So what do we want the everyday to be filled with? Oh, that is, that might be my favorite question, Mary, because I've gotten more and more clear on the answer to this. So I'll share a story, a quick story about a flight that I took that gave me this incredible lesson.

So I took, it was my first international flight and I had the opportunity to fly business class and I flew from Atlanta to Paris and then Paris to Northern Africa. So there was a long leg from Atlanta to Paris and then a shorter leg on the second. On the way there in business class, first I got to business class and I realized, wow, I never really knew what goes on up here. This is nice.

You know, it felt different. But I had this big meeting that we were going to Northern Africa for. So I was just really focused on that. I had my laptop.

I didn't really pay attention. So we get there, we have the meeting, and then I'm on my way back. And on my way back is when something magical happened. So we're on the long seven-hour flight from Paris back to Atlanta.

And without the worry of the destination and the goal, I was able to just kind of sit back and enjoy the flight. Now, the reason this mattered is because there are certain things that were happening that I missed completely the first time. So we think of a plane as like the ride on the plane is the journey in life. And then the destination is the goal.

I had a destination both ways, but coming back, I was able to really focus on the journey. And, you know, so they, we sit down, they bring out like glass of champagne before the plane even takes off. I didn't even pay attention. I missed that the first time.

Wow. Champagne. Wow. This is nice.

Okay. So then I open up my little screen. I have movies. They take my order for food, this elegant meal.

So I'm like watching a movie, eating great food. They bring out another snack. I take a nap. I wake up, drink more champagne, have another snack, watch the movie again.

And then this was the moment. I'm sitting there about to doze off and I smell... Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. And it was like, this is the best flight I've ever been on.

It was so much so that when we started to descend, I was sad. I literally, you know how a long flight over is. So what I learned in that moment was the journey. When the journey is amazing, we don't care about the destination.

And so what that has done, and I have this chapter in this stabilizer in the book called the 1440 method. And it's based on the idea. You just said it, you know, our daily experiences, our day is our life and 1440 minutes in every day. So how do we design a life that we just love the daily experience?

We set the goals and the milestones and all the things, but how do we make sure that we're connecting with the people that we really like to be around on a daily basis or weekly basis. How do we think about the work that we do and not just what we're doing, but where we're doing it? You know, can we take that call while we walk outside in nature as opposed to sit and look at a screen? Can we make that reach out afterwards to that friend at work that, you know, we just really enjoy being around and they always say something funny and, you know, we're just intentional about spending time with that person?

Or can we choose an assignment that we have this deep curiosity that maybe is outside of what our normal job is, but we're just really interested in learning about doing this thing in the community or this new initiative at work. So all of these things are available to us once we figure out, like, what is our average perfect day look like? And then we can build a life that is filled with these days. And then ultimately, back to what you said, and there's a quote about this, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

And you just create this thing where the journey, the journey is the goal. The journey is the goal. Gosh, I love everything you just said. And, you know, think about these goals, right?

It's very hard to, if you think about work, right? So we think maybe somebody's in a difficult work situation or whatever it might be. and we don't know what to do. A lot of times we don't know what to do because we're not sure what our goal is other than, I don't like this.

This is wrong. Something is wrong. I have the Monday Scaries. I'm crying in my car.

I don't like how I'm being treated. This is not right. And those are all obviously really good pieces of information. But then a lot of people get stuck because the goal is a very good goal.

It's nebulous, but it's to not be in pain. Okay. But, But if we don't have very specific, as you said, wonderfully put, if I don't know what my ideal day is, if I don't know how I want to curate my life, this takes intentionality and thought and it's dynamic given many different circumstances. If I'm not thinking that way, then it's very easy to sort of buffer in this, not being satisfied, being lonely, being however it might be that we're not moving forward in a way that is conducive to living the best kind of human life.

Yes, there's science that explains how to design a life that we love. There's this acronym DOS, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Neurochemicals that when released in our brains make us feel good and we can self-dose ourselves with the things that we do, things that we think about, and with understanding the things that will give us those neurochemical releases, we can be intentional about just dosing ourselves all day. Dopamine, for example, is this chemical that's released, and this goes back, you know, it's, you think about back when we had to worry about being eaten by, you know, lions.

And so these chemicals are released, you know, for reasons of survival. But if you think about as a mammal, best analogy is like a lion that sees a gazelle and they think they can go get the gazelle. The energy comes from dopamine and once they see that the thing is there the goal is there they're close to it they get this rush of dopamine and give them the energy to make the chase we get the same thing when we see something that we really want, then we can give ourselves a dose of dopamine and you know so you have to be careful about that so we can get through social media and all these unhealthy ways but we can also get it, by setting up a coffee or a lunch with someone that we really enjoy being around.

And every time we think about that date or that time that we're going to see them, we get a hit of dopamine. And people don't realize that it's that simple. And there's a long list of things I can go through, but it's really that simple. You find the things that are good for you that you enjoy doing, and you very intentionally, though, have to think those things through.

And then you just fill your life with them, and you can dose yourself all day. I love that. I feel like we've been dancing around talking about your book. So let's just talk right about it.

Disrupted, which is the two stabilizers and seven accelerators of growth through chaos. So tell us about your book, what brought it about and what we'd find inside of it. Yes, I love this topic for obvious reasons. So, you know, I backed into this book.

I had just tons of things that I was thinking about and had to figure out a way to try to get it out of just the clients that we work with. And the book is step-by-step guide as well as a framework, for creating a life that you love, and, being able to treat every disruption as a part of the journey that is an intentional part of the journey. Traditionally, I was a person who didn't want to deal with my own emotional regulation and thinking about what's happening to me. I'm an engineer.

I thought emotions were a distraction. And things like what I mentioned about Dose and some of the other things that I've learned are what this book is designed to teach someone so that they can lay out a framework for what they want their life to be. And then they have tools that help them take steps from where they are today to where they want to be in the future. And it's all based on the science of the human experience.

You know, I think of in leadership, you know, which is the root of it all. Leadership I see as, as like, like gravity, there's science behind it. And just like gravity, you don't have to believe in it for it to weigh you down. So the principles in the book are the science of how this stuff works.

And you're going to run into challenges and how you not react to them, but respond to them, will determine the kind of experience that you have with those challenges and ultimately whether you get to your goals as fast as you would like. So it's the best of both worlds where you're enjoying the journey and you're getting to the destination faster. And so the engineer brain in me had to figure out a way to lay that out into a framework where people can consistently, take the actions that they need to have that experience of enjoying the journey and getting to the destination faster.

That sounds fantastic. You know, when I hear that, you know, just even the title of your book, Disrupted, many times we don't like disruption, right? It's because I'm trying to do something, and now someone's talking to me, right? Like, I finally sat down with my book and a cup of tea, and now some of my kid wants something, you know, or something's happening at work, or, you know, there's just these sort of disruptions.

Typically, disruption is seen as something negative, right? And of course, we don't want to discount the real pain that people go through, right? People get health diagnosis. People, you know, their family members die.

They get laid off. A company goes under. War breaks out, right? They're real huge disruptors.

And though most of us, I mean, we don't wish harm on anybody, of course, but the fact of the matter is harm is a part of the human experience. We are going to feel it. And the big ones, the small ones. And so that is a fact of life.

I think, just like conflict, I agree with you. Conflict isn't the negative. It's how we deal with conflict. In fact, we want good conflict.

We want managed conflict. But when we don't manage it, then we have these issues, these disruptors. And so I see what's really important is accepting reality, which is you will experience disruption. You will experience pain or what is painful to you.

The question is, what are you going to do with that? How long are you going to sit with it? How long are you going to make it worse on yourself or not? Right.

So can you talk a little bit about the reality of really bad things that happen to people and thinking about that to, you know, to help on the journey? Mm. Yes, because that's the reality, right? Alan Mulally, who was a former CEO of a Boeing, commercial and then asked to lead Ford, who I had a chance to connect with as I was writing the book and he wrote an endorsement, has this concept that he talks about when he got to Ford, where Ford was, in the red, huge.

They were going to lose $17 billion in 2006. And he comes in as the CEO and he's going through the business reviews. And, you know, they have these red, yellow, green charts on how are we doing? And he said, all the charts were green.

And for weeks, people came in with all green charts. And finally he said, hey, hey guys, you know, we're going to lose $17 billion. Like, is there anything that's not going well? And finally, you know, this brave gentleman comes forward with a red on his slide.

And Alan said he starts to clap in the middle of the meeting. And everyone thinks that, you know, the guy's going to get fired because he brought this issue forward. But he starts to clap and he says, thank you. Now we can finally address the problem in that we can't solve problems that we won't admit exist.

And that is actually a big part of why I titled the book Disrupted. Because when we won't acknowledge the problem and we just, oh, everything's fine, everyone's fine, you know, then we continue to deal with the negative consequence of it and we don't search and find the solution. And so when we're going through life and things happen, there is the acknowledgement that things are hard or that this thing is hard and there is, a need for us to sit with that first. And the idea of being able to turn things into gifts is that, which is the purpose of the disruption that is going to help us in some way we're going to grow from it is that when the thing happens it is giving us a new problem to solve think of it as a new weight in the gym to lift, and it could be a heavier weight or a lighter weight but either way it's a weight, and through this process of lifting the weight, we get stronger and that's the growth.

And when we get into major life things that happen, that is a huge, huge weight. And that is one that, and I've had major life things happen to me personally, that in that moment, you don't wanna hear about, oh, hey, this is a gift. Just physiologically, we're not ready for that conversation. However, the science says what the science says.

And if we do find ways to productively move past it, we will become stronger. And ultimately, we will have grown our capacity to deal with things. And if we truly, truly search, there will be something we can find that becomes this new gift that didn't exist before the thing And again, I'm very careful on that conversation with life events, but on the everyday things that happen or like loss of a job. I mean, I, I, the end of my career at Lockheed Martin was technically a layoff, and it was that, that started my company Whitman Consulting 10 years ago.

And, you know, so one would say I had a son that was born two weeks before my last day at this company that I was at for 18 years. One would think that's a bad thing. But it was an incredible gift for so many reasons. One, the company started, of course.

But two, now as I'm building this business and he's growing, I'm getting to teach my son about this. And I'm learning all these things about human growth to use for the company, that I now get to teach to my son. That otherwise he just wouldn't, what he would have gotten was dad late nights, not there, maybe not able to go to his track meets because of work. But instead he gets a dad that has literally been researching neuroscience for 10 years and, and, you know, sharing these things and growing him through it.

So, and there's just a long list of things that can be guessed, but the, the idea is we have to acknowledge it. And when we truly acknowledge and sit with it and go through the process of the grief or whatever it is that we need to move through the negative emotion, then we can find a reframe on the other side. It really is really well articulated. I agree, right?

That everything really is an opportunity, is a gift, but it is not a part of wisdom and it's not kind to say that to when somebody is actively grieving, right? And it's Because anyway, you can't hear it and it sounds inhuman, but it is the case and time, depending on what kind of life event it was and. That person and who they were before this life event, how they come through it, right? What is on the other side?

But I love the example of a layoff because if you say, okay, somebody is getting laid off, what does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. I mean, it just means the fact of being laid off, but what does it feel? What is the impact?

Well, the individual does decide on the feeling or the impact. It could be something so awful or something so wonderful. It could be just another thing. That's what is so very interesting.

We think that events or other persons are laden with meaning, but we don't realize we're the meaning bringer. We decide what has happened. And so with conflict at work, so much of it is we are putting a narrative that we think is the God's honest truth, like that is it, and that's what it means. It doesn't have to mean that.

You didn't have to be annoyed. You could choose to think, oh, that's just how that person is, and I love diversity. Or I can be annoyed, right? These are all choices that we don't realize we're making because we think it's outside of us, but it really is inside of us what we're seeing and therefore what we're labeling and valuing.

Absolutely. You know, we do, we get to decide just like anything else, how we're going to respond to things. And when it comes to conflict, I've grown a really interesting perspective on it in that there's always something to learn from the other person. No matter how much we may disagree with the other person, there's always something to learn because we're learning more about the human experience and if someone has a different view than us then, they're just another person who's looking at us saying we have a different view than them so the opportunity is to be the one that's going to lean in and try to understand the other perspective so that we can learn from it.

And the most amazing thing happens when we do that. They will be more willing to listen to us. People are willing to listen once they feel heard. So if we can take the posture of curiosity just enough to genuinely pay attention and not just prepare our defense, and we can articulate back to them, this is when it gets really powerful, Mary, articulate back to them what we hear them saying and that we can understand it.

Then in that instant, you've gained an incredible amount of access to their listening because they finally feel like they're being heard. And once you break that threshold, then you can usually work through almost anything. Not that you're going to agree, but you can agree to disagree. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, and you keyed in on that word of genuine and genuinely, not I'm listening so that. It's my turn to convince you now. A lot of times we think we have this moral obligation or whatever business obligation to make sure the other person understands like the problem is you've got wrong information and I have got to impart the right information and then you're going to be like of course Andrea you're right you know, but that's not how it is right we all know it's relational and we all know like and you know this idea of he who has ears let him hear like well how do you get those ears right a lot of times I get those ears because all of a sudden I see they're actually attached to a human person.

This sense of being seen person to person instead of object to object, right? And actually entering into a kind of relationship with another person. And insofar as we can do that, it doesn't mean we're going to agree with it, but I can now humanize that person. And two humans who are really operating in that level are going to be able to do so much more and really be able to see things they couldn't see and hear things they couldn't hear before, because we are, you know, this all of these things belonging and how it feels to be treated with value and respect allows me to maybe soften or listen and consider something else, but it's so funny like that is true and yet we still stay in these, you know on one side and on the other side and and we just like we're computers and we're just fighting for our program to take you know primacy but that's not how person's work right right.

Right take privacy i love that and it goes back to the rope and the elephant you know like we think that this is just the way it is and it has to be and because it's our it's our initial initial reaction, it's us and we don't want to give up who being us as if we're losing by considering taking a step back and being curious about the other side it's a rope and once we break it, if you're someone who is looking for two things, one, peace of mind, and two, to be more influential with others, if that's the goal, and you talked about this earlier, kind of having a set goal or vision for what you want, then it really behooves you to find a way to get the other person to listen to you.

Again, back to the science, whether we believe in it or not, says that once people feel heard, they're a lot more willing to listen. So we kind of get to make that decision, but it doesn't feel like it because, you know, we're tracked into this programming. But once we realize that the programming is just a program and we can reprogram, and we're willing to just not do all the work to completely upload a new operating system, but just try one little thing to start the process.

That's the magic. That's when change happens. And it happens over time. Yeah.

And as you said, you know, sometimes these things are counterintuitive. Like, so if we come up across someone like the elephant and the rope, and we might want to, with something like an elephant, you know, we've got this rope, we want to maybe distance ourself from the rope, But with the leaning in, it's pulling closer, right? That's that curiosity, which is a superpower, right? You know, the curious person hasn't lost.

They are winning, right? Because what does that person have that really is genuinely curious? There's their self-possessed. There's a kind of confidence.

There's a kind of, you know, I mean, leadership, right? This is what leadership is, is this kind of authority, the authority that I have to really be generous, right? And people respond to that. You might respond out of fear to a title, but we really respond to how somebody is showing up and empowering others because they are empowered.

Yes. One of the things I love to ask leaders that are in formal leadership positions at a company is why would someone volunteer to follow you, Because that is true leadership, is when people will volunteer to follow. Not do what we say because we're their manager and we control their performance assessment. But what is it about you that would inspire someone to want to follow you?

And, you know, I was the first to get that question and not have the answer. And it took me down this path of everything that I'm sharing with you. In that, you know, I thought I knew until I realized, wow, I'm just doing what I was told by everyone else. And it's, you know, this kind of command and control way of doing things.

And, you know, they don't really have a reason to follow me other than I'm holding the stick, so to speak. And when I found that it actually is helpful for me, you know, from a peace perspective and a fulfillment perspective to buy into this, these counterintuitive truths, as well as it's helpful for others. It's just, I couldn't turn back. It's such a wonderful question.

Why would somebody follow me if I don't have the carrot, if I don't have the stick or the carrot? Why are they following me? Why would they, if they didn't have to? So to conflict, if you think about the first job you had versus where you are right now.

How do you feel about conflict at work and deal with conflict at work? Have you grown and developed over time or how have you thought about conflict? Definitely have grown and developed. The biggest growth has been, I would avoid it like the plague before.

It's so uncomfortable. It still is so uncomfortable. What's different now is I lean into it because it's like the, you know, when you're on a roller coaster, whether you like roller coasters or not, right before the big drop, there's this anticipation of if you don't like them, of this really scary thing that's about to happen. But once you do it, you realize, oh, it's not as bad as I thought.

And then you go through the whole ride and then you're at that end of it. You're so glad you did it. So I now embrace and look for opportunities not to create conflict, but to lean into it when it exists. And this for me, both personally and professionally, it has been the greatest relationship strengthener.

And I'll say that again, because this is what's ironic. Like, this skill is the greatest relationship strengthener, not the greatest way to win an argument, not that we're having these conversations with people that we may or may not have a relationship with, but it is the actual greatest tool. Because what happens in conflict, and people don't talk about this, is a lot of times it's the first time we truly get to see each other. You know, there's a lot of relationships that are.

Kind of surface level. And when you have a conflict, that means by definition, there's beneath the surface that is coming up for both people. So if you can work through that conflict, you get closer because you now have been exposed to a deeper layer and they've been exposed to a deeper layer. And when you work through it, you're connected on a deeper layer.

And when you think about it like that, then you say, hey, you know, how can I, if this thing is existing, let me use some of these tools so that we can work through it and get connected on a deeper layer. Gosh, I love that. I've been thinking about conflict for a long time, and that's just really well put. Thank you.

I love that. All right, so my last question for you is this. As you look into the future of work and think about your 10-year-old out in the workforce. What do you hope happens or what needs to happen so that not only will people be treated with dignity and respect, but that they'll be encouraged to thrive and flourish.

You know, I have a thought about the future of work. And the idea that's emerged is kind of interesting and connects to AI. Because I think what AI has presented, with all the concern that people may have about it taking jobs, what it has presented is a disruption, again, back to finding the gift, that is pushing us to become better at being human. So the future of work, in my opinion, is us figuring out how to human better.

And figuring out how to human better means understanding all the principles that we just talked through in this conversation. All these messy, counterintuitive, emotion-driven principles of the human experience and how these principles are affecting us in our relationships with other people, and how can we show up as a more effective version of ourselves. So I think learning about these things, as well as learning about AI and how to leverage it for what it is as a tool, which is what it is.

Combining those two things, I think, just elevates our experience as professionals. But you have to do both. I've seen folks that stay away from AI by all means. Word is going to take away our soul and everything that we have and know.

And I've seen folks that are just leaning all into AI. And I think it's that balance. You know, you kind of think of the left brain, the right brain and left brain logic, right brain creativity. So think of left brain is AI, right brain is human.

And both of them have an opportunity to expand in the future. I'm all for more human work, more human workplaces. Well, Andre, thank you so much for your time, and what a delightful conversation. Yes, my pleasure, my pleasure.

This has been great. Well, take care. You too. Andre, thank you so much for a stimulating conversation.

I just love what you said about conflict. It's something that I believe, but the way that you said it, that conflict is one of the first opportunities to be seen because now there's some, there's subtext or something else going on and we can lean into it we can have those conversations and therefore have better, working relationships or we can distance ourselves and, make it difficult more difficult to work with each other so, well thank you for all the work that you're doing and dear listener i encourage you to go out and get disrupted the two stabilizers and seven accelerators of growth through chaos conflict managed is produced by third-party workplace conflict restoration services and hosted by me, Merry Brown.

You can find us online at 3PConflictRestoration.com. Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday.

And if you would like and subscribe wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, it's much appreciated. Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot. And remember, conflict is normal and expected. Let's deal with it.

Until next time, take care. We're going to start for you Run to you Run a red light.