IAM1062- Leader Guides People on Conflict Resolution and Management

[00:00:14.90] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

[00:00:42.79] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jeremy Pollack of Pollack Peacebuilding System. Jeremy, it's great to have you on the show. 

[00:00:52.00] - Jeremy Pollack

Good to be here. Thanks.

[00:00:53.39] - Gresham Harkless

Definitely. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Jeremy so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Jeremy is a leader in the field of workplace conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He is the founder of Pollock Peace Building Systems, an international conflict resolution consulting firm. Jeremy is a master coach, master trainer, mediator, and author.

He coaches and trains executives and employees at a variety of levels, industries from Fortune five hundred companies to major non-profits. Jeremy is a regular contributor on the leader topics of leadership and organizational conflict management to publications such as Forbes.com, Fast Company, Industry Week, and many, many more. He is also the author of the recently released book, The Conflict Resolution Playbook, practical communication skills for preventing, managing, and resolving conflict. Jeremy, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

[00:01:42.40] - Jeremy Pollack

I'm ready.

[00:01:43.40] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So you're the one that keeps the peace in all levels of our life and business that it sounds like. So, to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started, what I like to call your CEO story.

[00:01:56.20] - Jeremy Pollack

Yeah. Sure. I've been an entrepreneur for a long time, a serial entrepreneur, I guess you could say. I've had a lot of different businesses. I started I guess I always track back my conflict, and resolution start to my martial arts background. I was a martial arts instructor, and then I had an academy and a couple of academies. I started a coaching practice during during that. So when I was when I was teaching, I started doing some personal coaching for some of my students. I liked that so much that I ended up selling my martial arts company, and I just went and was a full-time coach for a while and eventually got interested in helping people resolve conflicts.

I was doing that sort of organically with couples and then some business owners and between business partners and stuff. And I thought this was an interesting field. I wanna kinda get more into it. So went back to graduate school and got a degree and master's degree in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. And then I launched my consulting firm and just started marketing myself as a conflict specialist, and it grew from there. So that's I guess that's the nutshell.

[00:02:59.00] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. And and so funny that you say that because I'm a big believer in learning a lot from activities and sports. Like, there's so many, like, lifelong skills that you can kinda learn from doing sports and having that. So I love that the sea was sound was planted from the martial arts background because it's something that you can use, as you said, in so many different ways in your life.

[00:03:18.30] - Jeremy Pollack

Yeah. I saw a lot of parallels between what I was doing in martial arts and helping resolve conflicts. I mean, that's one strategy to resolve a conflict is to defend oneself. Right? But there are a lot of other strategies. And that's what I was interested in. How how do we do verbal de-escalation? And that was where I first started. And then well, how do we do some more, like, sort of general de-escalation and conflict management, conflict resolution? So it it did stem from that first interaction with conflict and peace at a very physical level, and then came came the mental side of it.

[00:03:50.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I imagine they both probably go hand in hand as well. But I think that as said so well, I feel like so many times when we think of conflict, we think of defending ourselves. We think of kinda lashing back out. It's always like it's just one way. So I love that you have that kinda full range, and you help so many people understand that as well too, it sounds.

[00:04:08.00] - Jeremy Pollack

Yeah. And one thing that I was I didn't know early on, that I started recognizing that there are there's a lot of creative opportunities in conflict. And the most amount of change happens with conflict, and it doesn't I don't necessarily mean interpersonal conflict. I mean, intrapsychic conflicts. You know, when we conflict with ourselves, that's a catalyst for major growth and change. That's the only major catalyst for growth and change is when we start feeling like something's wrong, then we change. We grow. We figure out what's wrong. I mean, so and that and that's the same thing that happens at an interpersonal level.

It's the same thing that happens at an intergroup level, which is what we can see now in society. It's the same thing that happens at an inner organizational, interdepartmental level. So conflict has a lot of opportunity and so for me, it's like, how do you it has that only the opportunities can only be capitalized on if you manage it correctly because it can also be destructive. So do we wanna be creative with the up with the conflict, or do we wanna be destructive? And if we wanna be creative, we have to learn the right skills and tools. That was what I was interested in.

[00:05:09.80] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's so powerful. And I appreciate you sharing that, you know, so much. And then the synergies, I guess, with, you know, conflict and an opportunity. And as you said so well, only if it's managed correctly because I think so many times when there's that conflict, you feel we can feel like we shy away from it or it can be catastrophic. But knowing that there's another side of the coin, so to speak, where it is, something that can be empowering if you understand it or can manage it well is extremely powerful. So Yeah. I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know I touched on it a little bit when I read your bio. Could you take us through a little bit more on how you use those skills and help out your clients and support them?

[00:05:47.39] - Jeremy Pollack

Yeah. I mean, we offer, I guess, three main buckets of services. So we do conflict interventions, and that means one of our experts, we have a whole range of different what we call our peace builders or our consultants and experts, come into a company and assess the situation and do a variety of different techniques, whether it's coaching, dialogue facilitation, maybe some training, group coaching, restorative practices, different types of methods which are all encompassed in our organizational peace-building work.

So we do their interventions. Hey. You're having a conflict either between two individuals or two departments or this group of people, and we're gonna come to intervene and help, at some level to get you back to a place of cooperation and peace and how to move forward productively and rebuild trust and rebuild a relationship. So that's one bucket, the conflict intervention bucket.

We also do, training work, which is a very preventative bucket. So, especially leaders, but a whole staff learning de-escalation skills, learning conflict management skills, learning, basic leaders leadership mediation skills. So training is another one and then coaching. So one one-on-one coaching, some group coaching. That's that can be both preventative and and, responsive to current conflict. So those are the three three main buckets in terms of what we do to help companies.

[00:07:07.19] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's huge, and I think it's insanely empowering. And so I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself or the business or a combination of both. But it's something that you feel sets you apart and makes you unique. But I almost wonder if that perspective, the mindset that you see related to conflict might be the thing that sets you apart.

[00:07:27.69] - Jeremy Pollack

It certainly could, I guess. Yeah. I mean I think a lot of conflict practitioners also practice that mindset. So, but, yeah, I think that's I think it's unique among business leaders for sure. A lot of business That's why we have work because a lot of business leaders don't wanna deal with conflict. They don't like it. They don't wanna they don't wanna look at it. They wanna pretend that it doesn't exist and maybe it'll go away and I think so. Certainly, I think the other thing that I always talk about is how I put care first in all of my relationships, professional relationships personal relationships, there's always going to be challenges to solve. There are always going to be, problems to figure out.

But if I'm not putting care, care for the people that I work with, that work for me, that I work for if I don't put care first, I think I'm living in a short-term world. I'm living in how to solve a problem, and that's very short-term thinking. I think if we put care first, how do I care for this individual and then get to solve the problem? I think that's a more long-term way of looking at things. So maybe that's something that sets me apart is how I put care first, and care for individuals.

[00:08:40.29] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And that's also a perfect blend for a secret sauce. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And, I wanted to, switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:55.39] - Jeremy Pollack

I mean, maybe this is obvious, but I don't see a lot of people doing it, one-on-ones with my direct reports. Reports. So having that personal time. And during those on-ones, those are not me reviewing them. That's the reviewing me. I ask, what could I be doing better or different? What could the organization be doing better or different for you? Making sure I understand what are your goals.

How can I or the organization support you in getting those goals, even if it means your goals aren't here? If you're you wanna end up moving out of this company to something else, how can we support that career growth goal of growth? So for me, it's one meeting and being there, practicing servant leadership. How can I serve my workforce? Because they are the biggest asset that I have. Without them, my business doesn't run, essentially.

[00:09:45.39] - Gresham Harkless

And so, I wanted to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:09:56.20] - Jeremy Pollack

What's coming to mind is something around slowing down you don't have to do it all right now. Take your time, create it create a reasonable timeline, and do it right instead of doing it fast.

[00:10:12.29] - Gresham Harkless

That's extremely powerful. And you know what I love? I love how it ties into what you talked about before about conflict, because I think people might be listening to this thinking, how do I, you know, flip that switch so that I change and I look at conflict as something positive and negative? But I think in so many aspects of business, but definitely in conflict, if you notice that you may not have or you might have a negative, focus on conflict, but being able to kinda change that, it doesn't happen overnight and to slow down and to take it step by step is a great way for that to happen.

[00:10:38.50] - Jeremy Pollack

You're right. The one thing that I do when I train in these skills, it's like, this these kinds of things are hard. I'm still learning. I'm still trying. I'm not perfect at it, and this is what I do for a living. So don't think that this is gonna change overnight. Don't think you have to be perfect right away. Just learn little by little. And over a year or two years of, like, learning this stuff, it'll start to become second nature and a little bit more, have it rather than having to put a lot of effort into it.

[00:11:07.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate that, Naga. You start to be able to work out that muscle, and then you start to get and see your improvements in the progression and related to everything that you're doing. So Yeah. Appreciate that. And so now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Jeremy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:11:29.00] - Jeremy Pollack

I think that being a CEO means to lead through support, to support my team. You know? So I do my job is not to dictate. My job is to support all these different people in doing what they're good at. I can't do it all. They're better at it than I am in certain areas, and I'm gonna support them in whatever way they need support to get their jobs done. So really, from support or, like, again, like, that servant leadership type of perspective.

[00:11:59.29] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It's so funny you said that. I was thinking back to when you were mentioning that servant leadership and being able to kind of, you know, create that culture in that environment. I think it's huge because I think, I think there's a saying, like, even if you can do all the things, don't try to do all the things. That's what, you know, teams are for. Oh. And to win and be successful, you have to be able to learn and create that culture, that environment to support yourself, but also the team members so that everybody can kind of, excel and succeed.

[00:12:24.60] - Jeremy Pollack

One of the things that I learned early on that I learned the hard way, and it's something that I see in new CEOs and that I try to help them with is learning to let go of the rings. Because you're used to doing a lot of stuff and you think you know it all, and eventually you start to need to bring on a team, and you need to find the right people to lead the right departments. And you have to start letting go and trusting that they're doing their job correctly. When I did that, it was hard because it was it was I and some conflicts arose because it was so hard for me to let go.

And when I finally let go and I just trusted, I said, I trust you. Go do it. Everything went so much more smoothly. And I and I started realizing every time I start putting my toes in someone else's lane, it's just it's it's not only creating conflict between me and that person, but it's it's making the whole company more inefficient. So just stop. Do my job as a CEO is to support my team and let everybody do what they're good at, which is heading out their departments.

[00:13:21.60] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Nice. I love that. And it's so counterintuitive because so many times we think that to maintain control, we have to hold on to everything. We have to have not just our toes, our feet, every part of our body in every single lane we can, but really, it's allowing and creating that supportive environment for people to excel and to flourish in the things that they do and the gifts that they have. And I think that's a a great reminder for leaders and CEOs, to get to that next level.

[00:13:45.79] - Jeremy Pollack

Yeah. I and I the the other thing I would say is one thing that I noticed with new CEOs is, a lot of CEOs are visionaries. Right? And that's great. And that's what a CEO should be on some level. As a visionary, they do lead the direction on a high level, but a lot of them are not operations people. And so if they're not operations I often act both as CEO and COO and just because I seem to be decent at it.

But I think that a lot of CEOs need a partner who's a COO or an operations person, and that person becomes the glue for the staff to make sure people are communicating well and everybody's aligned and doing their jobs and stuff because the CEO, a lot of times, as a visionary, it is they don't have any operational foundation under them. And so the thing is they're creating, we're not opening up a space for that stuff to actualize.

So I would highly recommend, if you're not an organized, you know, high-level operational person, find someone who is and partner with them or bring them on as, like, a, you know, a director-level COO or operations director.

[00:14:51.10] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I think having that vision and, as you said, the systems, the processes, those things that are in place to kinda see the vision come to fruition are so necessary. And to have either or, like, we kinda talked about the solutions, and not having the caring part, it makes it a lot harder to kinda reach that success. So, Jeremy, truly appreciate that, and I appreciate your time even more.

What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get ahold of you, find out about all the awesome things you're doing, and, of course, get a copy of your book.

[00:15:22.79] - Jeremy Pollack

Sure. Yeah. Would would love to connect with anyone, that I could so that I can help we can serve. So, my company's site is pollackpeacebuilding.com. And, my book's called The Conflict Resolution Playbook. You can get that on, Amazon or other booksellers.

[00:15:37.29] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow up with you. But thank you so much again, Jeremy. Truly appreciate you and all the awesome work you're doing. And from helping us start to flip that switch between seeing conflict as something that can be an opportunity, I think it's empowering for everybody in so many different walks of life. So I appreciate you for the work you do, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

15:58 - Outro

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