Season 2 episode 13 of the Resist + Renew podcast, where we talk about a few tools to respond when conflict is happening in a meeting.

'The sad update that we have is, at least to our knowledge, there is no fancy Magic Bullet intervention.'

Show notes, links

An outline of the VERA model:

Validate

“I understand why it seems that way…”

“Yes, I can see why you think that…”

“Yeah, I’ve definitely heard that it’s a struggle to get council housing, given the long waiting lists…”

Explain

“I like to think of it more like…”

“If we look at [this fact], then…”

“…but I don’t think that’s because of ‘too many migrants’ taking houses – especially as so many migrants are barred from social housing lists…”

Reframe

“So if we look at it from that angle…”

“Which means I think…”

“…I think the the real problem is decades of underfunding of social housing, meaning that there aren’t enough houses for the people who need them, and the ones that are there are often shit quality…”

Ask

“What do you make of that?”

“…does that make sense?”

Some of the other tools we mentioned:

Name, frame, pause.

Pro = don’t need a solution to respond with this, or even know what’s going on.

Example phrase = “It feels like there’s some disagreement and heat here that’s not really being acknowledged. Is there something I’m missing here? Do you two maybe have different priorities when it comes to this topic?”

Request a group pause.

Pro = can use the break to reduce the heat and switch tracks to approach the conflict from a different direction

Example phrase =  “I think things are getting tense here, and I don’t think I can continue to focus, could we maybe take a few mins break and come back?”

Enhanced name, frame, pause — where you talk to someone else to explore a challenge and why your group isn't already dealing with the problem. Pro = dealing with thornier problems is easier with support.

Some resources:

Seeds for Change's guides on giving and receiving feedback and active listening

A handout from Boston University about using "I statements"

And finally, some perennial resources:

our sister facilitation collective Navigate have a conflict facilitation booklet (from back when they were called Seeds For Change Oxford).

See our "What is facilitation?" podcast episode page for more general facilitation resources.

We now have a Patreon! Please help keep the podcast going, at patreon.com/resistrenew. If not, there's always the classic ways to support: like, share, and subscribe!

Transcript

ALI

This is Resist Renew,

KATHERINE

the UK based podcast about social movements,

SAMI

what we're fighting for, why and how it all happens.

ALI

The hosts of the show are

KATHERINE

Me, Kat.

SAMI

Me, Sami,

ALI

and me, Ali.

SAMI

I'm recording this now, baby!

ALI

Shit, it's a podcast!

ALI

Okay, welcome back to the toolbox.

In this episode, we are going to look at tools and tips for handling conflict in the moment. In all the other episodes, we've given a lot of content around frames and ideas about conflict, and some tools for preventing it or handling it outside of the moment. And now we are going to get dive right into what to do if conflict is happening right now.

SAMI

Great, and I guess one, one thing that will probably soon become obvious is for various scheduling readings, various scheduling reasons, Katherine is not here for this recording. So you'll just have to make do with me and Ali. I hope that's fine.

And so we're gonna, we're going to put forward a few like, very high level scenarios, and then we're going to talk through so like: Okay, so in this situation, what could you do about it?

So one scenario could be the classic one, which is that there is some form of like active beef in a meeting. We've made the distinction before about like when there's forms of conflict that lie under the surface and forms of conflicts that like spiking up in a meeting. This is the spiking up in the meeting one. And to make this all purpose, you don't have to imagine that you're the facilitator of this meeting, you're just the person who's in this meeting, and is witnessing the beef playing out. So. What are some interventions that we could do in this scenario.

ALI

The first intervention we want to bring is called Name, Frame and Pause. And what we mean by this is just kind of pointing to the fact that you think there's conflict going on, trying to give some kind of explanation about what you think is happening, and then asking others if you think that's true, making space to talk about it. It's the minimal intervention in some ways, like, basically, drawing to the attention of the group that something is happening, and not letting it slide past.

So, as an example intervention, in this case, you might just say something like, ‘It feels like there's some kind of disagreement and heat here that's not really being acknowledged. Is there something I'm missing here? Do you two, who seems to be raising your voices have different priorities about what is being discussed in this topic?’ And then people may respond in different ways. But you've named it and you've given an explanation. And then everyone else can chime in with agreement or disagreement. Whatever.

SAMI

Yeah. And I think one thing that's, that's good about this one is, I guess it doesn't matter if your framing of the situation is right, necessarily, as long as you put it forward tentatively, then having a guess that gives people have the opportunity to be able to like, correct you and be like, ‘Oh, no, that's not what's happening.’ Or like, ‘Oh, no, like, it may seem like we're really annoyed at each other, but actually, this is like how we talk all the time.’ And it's totally fine. Well, maybe it's not totally fine that this is how we talk all the time, who knows.

And also, the reason that I really like this as a way, I guess it's the minimal intervention is like, you don't have to have any idea what could be done to resolve this as a situation, you just have to propose an idea for what you think is going on, and then be like, ‘Let's talk about it.’ And then there's a chance that especially if you're in a group of people, of like, maybe five, six, or more then like, there's a decent chance that somebody in the room will have an idea of something that could be done about it.

So you're like, making sure that the group takes responsibility for this thing, which is happening in the group, which is nice.

ALI

Amazing. And so often, these moments just slide by and people be like, Oh, I wish it did something. And I'm really simple thing is to just be like, ‘Aah, it feels like something's happening. I don't know what to do.’

SAMI

Yeah, it's the it's the record scratch intervention.

Okay, should we give another option? We're doing a bit of a quick fire what this episode, people! Another potential option is: take a small pause. If it seems like the beef is kicking off. So maybe take like a five or 10 minute break.

So, what we mean by that is if things start to get heated in meeting, then it can be helpful to give people space to just like have a slight cooling off before maybe trying to address what's happening. So rather than the previous one, which is: go straight in with, like, there's beef happening, let's know it this is a: maybe let's take a slight pause before we, before we do something.

So an example intervention could be something like, ‘It feels like things are really starting to like, get a bit tense in this meeting. And it's it's impacting my ability to focus on what's happening, because I'm starting to feel a bit tense as well. And maybe it would be good if we all take a maybe 10 minute break, go outside, have a little walk around, and then come back in 10 minutes, and then we can like, get back on talking about this as a thing.’

ALI

Sweet. Yeah. And some considerations to take in to consideration..? [both laugh] Yep, good, good, good.

What you might want to think about is, in the break, people might want to use that break to talk to people, particularly if like, some individuals are getting a bit heated, maybe you want to take take some of those people aside and just like, see how they're doing or whatever. It’s an opportunity to use, use that time. Maybe they just want to breathe, or you just want to breathe, and that's fine. But if you don't do that, maybe you might end up come back- coming back into exactly the same situation. Which could be fine. Or it could be easier if you'd done something differently.

And when you come back, maybe you want to try if you are the facilitator, or maybe you want to chat to the facilitator, you could ask people to talk to each other in pairs, just be like, ‘Maybe take five minutes to talk to your neighbour and be like, how are you feeling? What do you think's going on in this meeting, that's not really vibing for you at that moment?’ Because that, again, brings

all the other brains and feelings in the room to like, assess what's going on. It doesn't put it on you to like solve the conflict: everybody's going to have a view of what's happening. And that's really, that's more information than helpful.

SAMI

And I think I guess like that's a common theme. And what we're saying now is like, if it feels like there is like an individual disagreement that’s happening in the space, then what are ways that you can try and collectivise it and make sure that the group can try and hold it as a conflict.

And one thing that I think is nice about that, about this as an intervention is like if if there is like a conflict happening, and then you go straight in with like, ‘I think maybe we should all like, just take like all chat to the person next to us about what we think is going on in this conflict,’ it can feel like a really jarring intervention. And people will be like, ‘No,