The Conflict Cure: Grounding Techniques and Resilience Tools for Leaders

Speaker: 00:00:00

Maartje van Krieken: Hi. Thanks for tuning in today. I'm glad you're here. This is a special episode because we are recording live from Potter palusa. The event happens a couple of times a years, for and by and with podcasters. It's kind of a serial podcasting and podcast recording day, and I am here today with Robin McTague, so we've been matched. We've not met each other, but I thought Robin would be an excellent guest on the show today because she talks about emotional balance, secrets and how to stay grounded in a chaotic world. And you all know that I love talking about chaos and chaotic worlds. Robin is the creator of a life choice, coaching and positive team engagement, consulting, speaker and author, and we're going to learn more about her. So Robyn, welcome, first of all.

Robyn McTague: 00:00:54

Thank you for having me. It was fun to be matched in the first one of the day. So made it.

Robyn McTague: 00:00:59

Maartje van Krieken: Yes. And my first question to you. I talk a lot about power to panic, right? I talk a lot about leaders and leadership, and how in these moments of overwhelm, where you realize that something's going to change, that where, wherever you're at right now is not sustainable, and something else needs to happen that it all starts with you as a leader, right, that you need to find that way to go from panic to power and take a first step. So thinking about that and thinking about the work that you do, what do you feel are some of the the key tools and tricks to in these moments, that it all feels too much to channel things enough to take a first step.

Robyn McTague: 00:01:44

Yeah, and I think, you know, our society has so much of us looking externally for those answers, and I would say that is the biggest key, is being able to step back and look inside and find those skills and that resiliency within because we've already been through many things, and so when we can tune to those different ways that we've done it in the past, we build more resiliency. Because often we think of resiliency as just pushing through, getting it done right, that very masculine kind of way of being in the world, where I'm just going to push through and I'm going to make it happen, but at what cost? So that's where when we can slow down and see when I actually slow down, take that breath and realize I'm an overwhelmed because we're not good at kind of feeling our feelings and understanding our feelings. That's something that we kind of squash right? I can't deal with that right now. I need to deal with this emergency, but the more we actually bring in what's going on with us, the more that grounds us into what's happening in the moment, because we know we can't deal with the past or the future in the moment, and so overwhelm often is not seeing what the choice is in the moment. So I'm thinking about the past, the future, what the consequences are going to be, but not thinking about what can I do right here in this moment? So that's the beginning part. Yeah,

Robyn McTague: 00:03:18

Maartje van Krieken: yeah. And I often talk about thinking about, what is the one step, one thing I can do now that brings me a little closer to being a place where I can create a half hour or an hour or an afternoon is more ideal, right to sit down and unpack all of it and what I have on my plate. So if we're really talking about urgent things, what is the thing? The one thing that I can start doing right now that would get me to a place where I can take a deeper breath.

Robyn McTague: 00:03:48

Yeah, and sometimes that is movement. For some people, I find that for myself. So just getting out in nature, even if it's walking around the block, just to get some fresh air and to really connect with different parts of us. We have three intelligence centers in our body. We have our body, well, three in our life, our body, our heart and our head. And often we're starting from the head, especially with our business or relationships, whatever is going on, I need to figure it out, because that's why we've been taught. But actually, if we start with the body, what's going on here, taking a breath, learning to self regulate, and then the heart to what am I feeling? What's going on? Do I feel a potential conflict? Do I feel shame in this moment that I can't figure it out? And once we get those online, then the head can come online and we can see that bigger perspective, but we're often starting from the top down, rather than the bottom up.

Robyn McTague: 00:04:51

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, and can you talk a little bit about how in the situations that I encounter, people have often been pushed. Pushing on and pushing on, right, wanting to do things that they previously were able to do themselves and are probably able to do themselves, just not all at the same time under that and its pressure. Right? It's typically not an issue of capacity, of capability, but of capacity in the moment of doing it all and then ending up in this overwhelm. Can you talk about some ideas or tips how, how people can intervene with themselves earlier in that build up and get a little bit more out of their head and get into those other two forms?

Robyn McTague: 00:05:35

And the exciting part is, right with neuroplasticity studies and brain studies, we see that if we actually focus on one thing at a time, we can calm down. That this myth out there that we can multitask, especially as females, right? And we've had to, especially caregivers. It hasn't worked out to our best advantage, because there is often that place of burnout, overwhelm, health issues. And so the first thing is to understand, yeah, if I break it down, but before I get there, how do I get there? It's understanding. I need to take that breath in that moment, take the pause, and before that, one of the tools that I use is a motivational map to understand what does energize me and what saps my energy. And I can also look at what are those internal tensions within so when we have that awareness, then we can have kind of a road map and get more in alignment, and so we can slow down and see what's going on. Am I feeling I have no energy? Because this particular motivational dimension is not being met right now. And we often think we know what motivates us and drives our behavior. But all of our studies show that people don't I would say maybe 10% 10 to 15% actually can know what their top three motivators, which accounts for 60 to 70% of our behavior, and then that bottom one, which often we have a blind spot about and this is where we run into trouble with relationships, so understanding who we are, that personal awareness of who we are. And then I go deeper with the Enneagram and our personality style. So a lot of these upfront things that we can can do when we're not in that overwhelm. It's the same with the pausing, with the breath taking time, with our three centers. We need to build this resiliency outside of the time we're in overwhelm, but that's usually when we're looking for tools. Instead, we need to incorporate it into our lifestyle to really be able to use it in that moment when we need it.

Robyn McTague: 00:08:01

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, yeah. And we talk about energy loss, right? Because if you're in chaos and is is about energy, and it can be positive, but if it feels really unguided and just it feels like treading water, you're very busy, but make no progress, then that's, of course, the energy draining type of chaos, and that's very that's where, if your business is in that state, you're not making progress, and you end up in trouble. And we talk a lot in leadership styles about that, your energy as a leader is infectious, and that's also what will power your team, and that asking for help is really hard. We all find it easy enough to ask somebody if they can empty the dishwasher for us. And somehow, the kind of help that actually is more assistance is really hard to ask for. And I, I love what you say, because I think thinking of it that way, even if you, even if you don't, in the moment, have the time to do their deeper analysis, which I think people should be done doing, to to find their inner motivator. You do probably know well enough what you all have on your plate that cost you disproportionate energy, because it's really not you really not your task type of stuff, and you might not be able to fine tune it, but if you have your workload, you can probably identify the 40% that is your biggest energy SAP. Well then start asking for help there. Because I bet that you will find it a lot easier to ask somebody for assistance in those space if you don't love that and it takes you disproportionate energy, right?

Robyn McTague: 00:09:43

It does. And the problem is, depending on our personality, depending on our motivators, we don't see that in the moment, or it's not in our frame of reference. So for example, one of the Enneagram types is the type that will take over if the leader isn't. It's like, I need. To step in, and that's my first reaction. But I'm not good with feeling vulnerable and being able to ask for help or having people see me as needing help, so I'm going to push through, and this is where they can expend too much energy and have the tight jaw and have heart problems and all these things. The other thing is, if I have a high director motivator, I like to be in charge. So how can I begin to understand that this is costing me? We don't see it for ourselves. We have these world views, and we all have kind of this map of how we see things, and it's automatic, so it does take time to really look at that and be honest with ourselves. And I think that's one of the biggest things too, is, are we open to feedback, dealing with the different emotions, shame, whatever it is that comes up for you when people are giving you feed feedback. Can I be open? And that's where I find having trained in conflict resolution, it really helps to understand communication styles and that ability to regulate our nervous system, to be able to accept that and have a conversation and not just go into anger, shame, hiding, aggressiveness, whatever that particular thing is for us.

Robyn McTague: 00:11:26

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, well, I think we have time for one more question, but it's, I think, a big one. I would like to turn this around a bit, because outward looking as a leader, because what I often encountered is when I come in that that when we do manage to narrow down the list of things that need attention now that then the problem begins as to who can take on the work. And there is this natural tendency to really want to place the work with whoever's got the job title or whoever was always perceived to be the right person for that piece of work. But in reality, that person might already have five projects on the goal, which might have been part of the problem, right? You might have too many initiatives in one department and not enough in another. And also, when people have been under pressure a long time and under, yeah, under emotional stress and whatever else is going on in the moment, some of your more senior people, or some of your resources that would normally be ideally set up to take on their scope really can't. So I talk a lot about cultivating that muscle and that ability to see your team and to Yeah, it's hard to see ourselves, but maybe we can see it in others and recognize that maybe you have somebody there who is more junior, or hasn't done this a ton, but who clearly, at the moment, is ready to take on more work and do this piece, and probably will be better placed to take the piece than the person who's overwhelmed and maybe, on paper, should be doing the work. So how does what you teach and what you talk about, how can leaders use that to help them to see better in these situations, see where other people are at, and train that muscle so they can allocate work smarter and better in these high pressure, turmoil type situations?

Robyn McTague: 00:13:21

Yeah, and a lot of that comes down to doing the team map, to understand both the individual and the team structure. And so it's very specific, right? It's not this cookie cutter thing. It's really about understanding each individual and then within the team. What does this team need to do? What are the different aspects? What's the gaps, what are the things they're doing? Well, maybe someone's on the edge of leaving, and this will bring that out, because they have too much so when you can pinpoint where those issues are, we can look at how open to change people are. Maybe you're going through a growth spurt in your company, or you have and you haven't dealt with the people part of it, right? You're just all about production, so you haven't really looked at how is the team doing, or maybe you have people kind of the quiet quitting we hear about. So when we can pinpoint what's going on and what really energizes people, then we can look at specific training if it's needed, we can look at all of those little pieces, and until we have that bigger picture of the organization and how everyone's working together, we're just, you know, working on our own, and we're not really a team. And this is where engagement really costs money for a business. So this is a huge leak of money and energy in a business. So when we can have that bigger picture and see where those issues are and address them directly, makes a huge difference.

Robyn McTague: 00:14:52

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, so true, right? And, and so in all these spaces, any amount of pre investment that you can do. Is great, right? And unfortunately, in the type of environments where I operate or where I come in, there's usually also extremely dynamic organizations, so where teams are not consistently the same for very long, which often becomes an excuse to not do the work, right? But yeah, and as you say, there is a scale also there, right? So ideally, you would invest the time to get to know your people and find out how people operate. But if you look at some of the earmarks around the energy and around how people are operating in the moment, and the physical signs and everything, there is so much you can learn in that space too, right? There's so many tools you can learn to do some of it more on the on the fly. So Robin, if leaders want to know more about this subject and what they can do and how they can use some of these tools, where do they find you? Where do they go?

Robyn McTague: 00:15:57

LinkedIn is always an easy one, and I have two different websites for the teams, it's positiveteamengagement.com, and for the individual and couples, it's alifeofchoice.ca. And so, yeah, really looking at the culture, looking at how we can shift things, and do we want to be in alignment with what our mission statement is and what that culture is makes a huge difference, and bringing in the curiosity is the number one tool with regards to conflict resolution. How can I be curious in this moment and ask questions?

Robyn McTague: 00:16:41

Maartje van Krieken: Well, thank you, Robyn. There is so much more around this topic. I'm sure we're going to spend more on other episodes on this, but I love this little segue and getting to know more about what you specifically can offer in this space, and to share with you listener what specialists are all out there, right there is really somebody who can help you with each and every specific challenge that you have in your business, people like Robin, who are now going to be part of my referral network. So thank you for joining the podcast today, and thank you listener for tuning in before we sign off. Robyn. Do you have a a parting wisdom to share with my listeners, I always ask for a chaos theory. So what is it that you tell yourself, or a quote or something that helps you when you feel in chaos, that you can share?

Robyn McTague: 00:17:30

When I'm in chaos, I think about I have another workshop I do on disempowering conversations. So the first thing I do is check with my body. Am I breathing? Am I in my body? Do I need to give myself a hug? Like, what is the need I have in this moment to really just connect to the moment, feet on floor, right? That's all you do. Where are my feet on the floor? Just to get present and take that breath. And then it's like, can I just detach from this and that emotional connection? Because there's usually some connection from our past that has created that cycle, and so that's another aspect I do, but really working with just seeing, yeah, this reminds me of that relationship. Or, you know, this is a pattern for me, because it's all patterns, unconscious patterns, that once we bring it forward, then we can address it. But really, I do that and, yeah, just taking that moment to make make sure, because if we're not here, we can't help anyone else, right? It's like the oxygen mask on the airplane.

Robyn McTague: 00:18:41

Maartje van Krieken: Yeah, what's that first thing that that equivalent of a deep breath, that grounding, for me, it's square breathing. I'll yours to the grounding, putting your feet down, the deep breath going inside your body. That's a great piece of wisdom to finish with. So thank you. That's it for today. Hope to see you here or hear you here next week. Bye.

Robyn McTague: 00:19:04

Thank you.