Pass the Questions, Please

How much room is there to disappoint each other? Kimberly Best, RN, MA, a St. Louis mediator and founder of Best Conflict Solutions, shares a personal reflection on family conflict and estrangement at the holidays. Drawing on research from John Gottman and Ed Tronick and her years in conflict resolution, she explores holiday tension, political differences, what conflict skills can and cannot do, and how to show up differently to create a better holiday experience.

In the Healthcare Leadership Excellence podcast, Karl Pister and I talked through ideas from my Best Conflict Conversation Cards, which he uses in his consulting work: the stories we tell ourselves, the anger iceberg, impact versus intent, and the power of a generous assumption. These skills matter in healthcare, at work, and at home, and every one of them can be learned. Here are nine ideas from our two conversations.

I don’t use ground rules in mediation, and I never have. In my mediation coaching and skills training, I watch what happens when someone is reminded of the rules: they shut down and start saying the right thing instead of the true thing. Here’s what I do instead, from an opening that asks people to listen to understand, to stopping and summarizing when it gets heated, plus the research on what suppressing emotion costs people at the table.

Children fall out with each other constantly, and the next morning they are back on the same blacktop. Somewhere between second grade and adulthood, we started treating a broken conversation as permanent. Our family conflicts and our geopolitical conflicts are the same conflicts scaled up. Only the weapons get greater. What two little girls told me about friendship is where repair starts.

Mediator Kimberly Best, RN, MA returns to Dr. Lee Sharma's Scalpel and Sword podcast for Ep69 to talk about practicing conflict skills in healthcare, the Best Conflict Conversation Cards, and why a hard conversation deserves the same rehearsal as any procedure.