Transforming, Not Eliminating, Conflict with Sarah Snyder

Season 3; Episode 1: Transforming, Not Eliminating, Conflict with Sarah Snyder

Sarah Snyder is the Founding Director of The Rose Castle Foundation whose mission is to equip leaders with the skills, tools, and habits needed to transform conflict. You know she’s for real when her other job is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Advisor for Reconciliation. 

Key Takeaways from this Episode:

Collaboration and leading from a place of abundance to survive scarcity

·       When you bring people together to collaborate, everybody wins. 

·       When you have collaborating communities across deep divides, you have less violence. You have less war. There is this awareness of the needs for all, not just our own needs.

·       We in the West have grown up with a scarcity model that says there's not enough for everyone, so I better take what I need now, in case there won't be enough to go 'round. 

·       Operating from scarcity often leads to fear-based decision-making. 

·       Those who operate from a perception of abundance, even if there is not an actual abundance in every area of life, are able to make decisions in a more holistic way. 

·       When you see people leading from a place of abundance, and the community responding with an abundance mindset, it becomes a very generous community, the most resilient in conflict situations.

Conflict is inevitable and leaders need to learn cross those divides

·       Conflict is inevitable. We live with conflict, disagreement, differences. There are always going to be divides and there are always going to be clashes across those divides. 

·       Leaders need to learn how to live across divides, how to live with difference. We have to rise above differences to transform potential conflict at its best. 

·       Conflict is an important part of life, often leading to innovation and change. 

·       The positive form of conflict often looks like a recognition of difference. And by recognizing our differences, we're able to collaborate with them, not by ignoring them.

Collaboration requires a recognition of vulnerabilities and a safe space

·       The most important aspect of potential collaboration is to be able to recognize the vulnerability in the other.

·       People who have spent a long time in opposition to each other have lost all empathy for the other side.

·       Make sure that the space in which people meet is a safe space. A space where you can say things that won't be used against you, and the facilitator has the responsibility for holding that space and holding the trust of both sides that whatever is said will not be abused in that context. 

The role of mediator in helping navigate differences

·       Navigating differences: helping each side look at what's under the tip of the iceberg. There are motivations and there are also fears, which must be avoided.

·       A facilitator is building trust in the leaders on each side, who need to know that you've genuinely got their back. That is a very unique third-person role. 

·       Facilitators have to be really good at communication and translating one style of communication. 

·       Be a cultural, linguistic, and ideological translator, to see some kind of similarity between two different approaches, and how to then connect those two so that each side can understand them. 

·       Be an extremely good listener 

·       A mediator needs to have enough gravitas to hold that difficult space.

An effective CEO is much like a good mediator

·       The best leaders are able to listen to diverse points of view, take it on board in a way that is genuine and then come out with a decision that is going to be the right decision for the organization. Everyone feels that their perspective has been heard, even if they know that their decision is not the one that's taken forward. 

·       In many organizations, you lose that valuing of difference. People feel they need to say things that are going to please the next layer up. That can lead to all sorts of disastrous decision-making.

Leaders need to acknowledge and affirm their “rock” but also consider the rocks around them

·       Part of the leadership journey is understanding the rock they stand on, the forces that have shaped them into the leader they’re becoming. Being proud of those forces, but also being aware of those forces. 

·       Ultimately, it's about making a choice. I choose to remain on this rock. This is the rock on which I stand, the rock that shapes me into the unique leader I am today, but I will only know how unique I am by looking out at all those other rocks around me and realizing that they're different, and that's okay.

·       We are better leaders when we listen to different points of view to our own. Not because we then change our mind and follow other people's ideas, but because we are better informed in the decisions we make.

Habits of a Wise Leader: 3 of the 12 

1.     An ability to show curiosity and ask why. 

2.     The ability to forgive when forgiveness is appropriate, to let go of some of things to break us out of that cycle of retaliation with others.

3.     The habit of hospitality. Open hospitable spaces for ourselves but also for the people we're leading. Also, taking the risk of going into somebody else's less comfortable space in order to learn more, in order to lead better. 

Being a woman in leadership spaces 

·       My voice was not always listened to in the same way other male voices were listened to. 

·       I learned to throw out seeds as questions, wait for them to be picked up as statements, and then affirm that statement, and know all along that I put that idea onto the table. 

·       They think they did it themselves. That is a great sign of success that they feel they made it work.

·       I'm less of a threat in a male competitive conflict environment as a woman.

Influences early in life

·       My dad's leadership within a courtroom environment, helped me learn a lot about bringing different groups of people around the same table to listen to one another before deciding how to proceed.

·       A servant model of leadership, leading from a place of strength, but also a place that served the wider good. It's about shepherding others to come in and go in a direction together that we all think is the right one. 

Differences between the current generation of leaders vs. the next generation of leaders 

·       I see, in the next generation, a more holistic way of observing the world. They care about ethics and morality in decisions that they're making, and the decisions that they're making impacting other parts of their life. 

·       The older generation is used to making decisions based on a series of facts that are presented to them. 

·       Part of the pandemic shake up is going to pave the way for tomorrow's leaders. They're going to be coming into leadership roles, knowing that nothing is definite, nothing is constant in their decision-making world.