Episode 2
Pressured Priya: Stuck in the Middle - Navigating Competing Executives
Episode: Pressured Priya: Stuck in the Middle - Navigating Competing Executives
Link: https://thehrmediators.captivate.fm/episode/pressured-priya-stuck-in-the-middle-navigating-competing-executives
What this episode’s about:
In this episode we hear from "Pressured Priya" who was hired to stand up an onboarding program at the large Tech company where she works. Unfortunately, no one warned her that this would drop her right in the middle of a longstanding conflict between two executives. We help her analyze the situation from the perspectives of conflict resolution, HR, and psychology to help her make a plan for how to move forward.
Why listen:
Learn how to collaborate successfully despite entrenched conflicts.
Key takeaways
- Learn about the five standard ways people approach conflict
- Improve your ability to adjust your communication style and approach to your audience
- Develop your skill in building psychological safety
Resources
- An Overview of the Thomas-Kilmann (TKI) Instrument - This is also the Link to Purchase the TKI Test
- Purchase the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI) Book
- What is Psychological Safety
- Four Steps to Build the Psychological Safety That High Performing Teams Need Today
- Google re:Work - Guides: Understand team effectiveness
- Books | Keith Ferrazzi
- How to Lead Without Authority
- Complete Employee Onboarding Guide
- Theory of Games and Economic Behavior | Princeton University Press
- Project Management Statistics
- To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them - HBR quote about the value of an onboarding program
Reach out for guidance: TheHRManagers@Gmail.com
Website: TheHRMediators.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehrmediators/
About the show
Workplace conflict is inevitable, but with Karen & Kendra’s mix of HR savvy, mediation experience, psychology insights, and humor, you’ll learn to turn conflict into connection.
Credits & notes
Hosts: Karen Gleason & Kendra Beseler
© 2025 The HR Mediators
Privacy note: These are inspired by real experiences, but we change all identifying details, adjust timelines, and blend similar accounts.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello and welcome to the HR Mediators Podcast where we navigate workplace conflict one coffee chat at a time.
Speaker B:Our goal is to help you build skills to better navigate challenging workplace conflicts with compassion, grace and ease.
Speaker B:I'm Kendra, certified HR Professional and mediator.
Speaker A:And I'm Karen, also a certified HR professional and Mediator and founder of Common Ground HR.
Speaker A:Together we bring over 30 years of HR experience and 15 years of mediation practice and we have teamed up to answer your questions around workplace conflict.
Speaker A:Grab your coffee and let's get started.
Speaker A:A quick note about the scope of this podcast.
Speaker A:We are certified Mediators with deep experience in HR and conflict resolution.
Speaker A:We are not lawyers, therapists or licensed counselors.
Speaker A:Nothing shared here should be considered professional advice related to any of those fields.
Speaker A:Think of these scenarios as food for thought.
Speaker A:Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and be sure to trust your own judgment.
Speaker B:Thanks, Karen.
Speaker B:For anyone new here, we start each episode by reading a scenario inspired by real workplace experiences.
Speaker B:To protect privacy, we change all identifying details, adjust timelines, and blend similar accounts.
Speaker B:Workplace conflicts often sound familiar, but any resemblance to specific people or organizations is purely coincidental.
Speaker B:Today's situation comes from someone we've named Pressured Priya.
Speaker B:I manage the HR onboarding program at a big name tech company.
Speaker B:Think high stakes, high egos and very political.
Speaker B:My role is to create a streamlined corporate onboarding experience that reflects company wide expectations with while giving departments flexibility to layer on their own team specific onboarding.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:Yeah, that seems like a good way to approach it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Here's the problem.
Speaker B:Two executives from different departments, both incredibly influential, have completely opposing visions for what the standardized onboarding should look like.
Speaker B:And for some reason they're both passionate about it, even though it feels like maybe they should be spending their time elsewhere.
Speaker B:I've heard rumors that they don't like each other because of some unknown history, but I don't know the details and I don't think I want to but but I am wondering if that's creating some of this mess.
Speaker A:Probably.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, it sounds like there's some some contention there.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Then to make matters worse, my manager is totally hands off.
Speaker B:I asked for support multiple times but he doesn't have any real advice.
Speaker B:And honestly, it seems like he's intentionally avoiding becoming involved.
Speaker B:He tells me to handle it.
Speaker B:Uh oh yeah.
Speaker A:Too tough for him too.
Speaker B:Uh yeah.
Speaker B:I'm ready to start job hunting.
Speaker B:Since I feel like literally cannot do the thing that I was hired to do, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker A:Thanks for reaching out.
Speaker A:Priya.
Speaker A:Before we Continue.
Speaker A:We invite you all to briefly pause the podcast and ask yourself some questions.
Speaker A:We will play you a little music for a few moments and we hope that you will reflect on this and then we'll reconvene and talk about it.
Speaker A:So ask yourself some questions like what do you think are the problems here?
Speaker A:What emotions does this bring up for you?
Speaker A:Always important in a conflict resolution situation as well.
Speaker A:And what would you do in this situation?
Speaker A:We'll be right back.
Speaker B:Well, we hope you had some excellent thoughts while enjoying the music and now let's dive in.
Speaker B:So Priya seems like she really cares about the work she's doing.
Speaker A:She does.
Speaker A:And you know, she wouldn't be put in this position if she weren't pretty good at it too.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:She's got some, some emotional skills and.
Speaker B:Some technical skills and she really wants to do a good job with this onboarding program.
Speaker A:She does.
Speaker A:I can hear that.
Speaker B:It kind of feels like she's, like we say here in the United States, stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker B:You really, like, have a not a lot of place to move here.
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker A:I really feel for her.
Speaker A:She's trying to do a good job and sort of please everybody, which sometimes you just can't do.
Speaker A:But her career is on the line here too, and sounds like a pretty visible type of role.
Speaker A:And who doesn't love onboarding?
Speaker B:I do love onboarding.
Speaker B:I mean, we are HR people.
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe not everybody does, but she.
Speaker A:Really wants to make this work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's disappointing to me the lack of support she's seeing from her manager.
Speaker B:It seems like maybe there's either not the interest, maybe there's some fear there, maybe there's no capacity to support her.
Speaker B:But it sounds like there's something going on there with the manager.
Speaker B:Here's a one minute answer for anyone who wants to get right to the point, but we hope you'll stay because we're going to share our thoughts and opinions from a variety of perspectives during the rest of the podcast.
Speaker B:We suggest that Priya get used to leading without formal authority and managing up.
Speaker B:It's really important that she find a sponsor or a decider and really understand what the responsibilities are for each person on the team.
Speaker B:If her manager is going to stay hands off after her asking for additional support, she should probably start escalating to her skip level manager or hr.
Speaker B:Additionally, these executives have some contention between them, so getting them to share their honest opinions, interests, fears and ideal outcomes in a group is going to be unlikely.
Speaker B:So we really suggest doing one on ones, maybe a short values focused survey or email.
Speaker B:And then when she's running these meetings, especially when they're together, it's important to keep the session safe with some psychological safety.
Speaker B:Set the norms.
Speaker B:We're not criticizing people.
Speaker B:We are working on the problem, making sure that everybody has equal air time, promoting that perspective taking.
Speaker B:Also, we encourage that she look at evidence and data, get everybody to agree on success metrics so that we can look at what needs to change and then if necessary, pilot the contentious pieces.
Speaker B:Finally, for those competing execs, be brief, show them what's in it for them and try to find a both sides solution.
Speaker A:Lots to talk about here today.
Speaker A:If you need to go there was the quick answer for you.
Speaker A:But we hope you'll stick around because clearly there's a lot more to say about all of these items.
Speaker A:So during this conversation, we're going to look at this from a broad perspective.
Speaker A:And then as we dig in, we'll also discuss the situations from a few angles.
Speaker A:This is what we do here.
Speaker A:We look at it from a conflict resolutions standpoint, from a human resources lens, also from a psychology approach and some other thoughts as well.
Speaker A:We bring you our wisdom from our education, our experience working in Fortune 100 companies, from volunteering and from running our own business.
Speaker A:And we can't wait to have this conversation.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So shall we start with conflict resolution?
Speaker A:Yes, let's do that.
Speaker B:So I'm seeing several conflicts here.
Speaker B:I think maybe it'd be valuable to talk about all of them.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker A:So much going on.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So the first one that comes to mind, which might not be the initial one that everybody sees right off the bat, but is between her and her manager.
Speaker B:If her manager is telling her to handle it, not getting involved when she's asking for support, that feels like a pretty big conflict that is kind of derailing her as she's doing this work.
Speaker A:I agree.
Speaker A:And I think that, I think her manager knows something.
Speaker A:I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because I think that if he's just, you know, being lazy or something like that and saying, no, no, you handle it.
Speaker A:Let's say he's not.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:And we're guessing about some of these things.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because we're not here with a person live.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We don't know.
Speaker A:But I, I have a hunch that he's familiar with the personalities here and he's like, oh, hot potato.
Speaker A:I'm not getting into that either.
Speaker A:You do with it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That could be what we call a CLM a career limiting move.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:For him to jump in, stick heck out.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And maybe he's avoiding that because he doesn't want to risk his career.
Speaker A:I agree.
Speaker B:Which is a really terrible manager move, honestly, because that's kind of what your role as a manager is, is to protect your people and be that kind of shelter for them.
Speaker A:Yep, it is.
Speaker B:At least in my opinion.
Speaker A:It kind of goes into that territory of here's what he should do.
Speaker A:But the reality in his mind is probably, again, we're guessing here, but the reality in his mind is probably that this is a dangerous thing for him to go and, and therefore he won't.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And if we assume positive intent, maybe it's just that he has a lack of time and capacity.
Speaker B:Maybe he is not really sure how to navigate it and doesn't have the skills to help her.
Speaker B:And maybe he just doesn't understand how much she needs his help because we don't know the conversations that she's had with him.
Speaker B:And so maybe it's not been as direct and forthright as it needs to be for him to understand that he needs to step in.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I like how we have different perspectives on these situations and you know, between the two of us, we sort of COVID some different aspects of this because my first inclination was to be like, okay, he's not going to get involved, let's see what she can do with the executives.
Speaker A:And you're just like, oh, what about what this manager though?
Speaker A:So I love it that, that you're really kind of focused on, hey, what's going on with him?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I just think that it would be really valuable for Priya to be very clear if she hasn't already been.
Speaker B:Since we don't really know the conversations they've had.
Speaker B:I'd really like to see her state the struggle she's having it like in clear terms of like this is, this is the thing that I can't get past and have a clear and specific request of the manager to help him understand what's at risk without his support.
Speaker B:And then I know a lot of companies offer coaching for either for free as part of a benefits package or they're willing to hire somebody to come in.
Speaker B:So if that's an option for her and her manager's not getting involved, that feels like that could be a path forward or maybe involving hr, maybe involving her skip level manager.
Speaker B:Seems like there's some options here to kind of get that upper level support that she needs on this.
Speaker A:Yes, definitely.
Speaker A:And I Think that's great to not necessarily take that at face value that he says, no, I'm done, I'm out of this and really find out kind of what's going on for him and, and really continue to seek that support from him, if that's possible.
Speaker A:I like that approach.
Speaker B:But let's pivot to the bigger, more od obvious issue here.
Speaker B:The conflict between the executives.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Sounds like Priya's hearing some rumors that maybe there's some long standing grudge, some family history here, so to speak.
Speaker A:Probably.
Speaker A:You know, I'm gonna guess that's true because it happens.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I mean, sure, we're all humans at work and sure, I would say let's assume there is a history here between these two.
Speaker A:I mean, without, you know, her seeking out what it is and trying to find out.
Speaker B:Really necessary.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:And I think can go forward with just assuming.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:There's, there's some maybe hard feelings between the two of them from who knows what.
Speaker B:It's kind of irrelevant what it's about.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And it's above her pay grade to try to fix it.
Speaker B:Like she, she should know that she's not going to fix this.
Speaker A:Like they're right.
Speaker B:Not related to the project.
Speaker B:She just needs to figure out how to navigate with them around this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:For the project.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:She's not their counselor, she's not their coach.
Speaker A:She's just trying to do her onboarding program.
Speaker A:And she's got a lot of stakeholders and they're not the only stakehold.
Speaker A:It sounds like there's two influential executives, but for a program of this scope at a large company, they are probably not the only voices in this.
Speaker B:You would hope so.
Speaker A:You would hope so.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm gonna assume that she's probably already talked to them both about their different approaches, at least a little bit, because now she's not even sure if she can get this moving forward.
Speaker A:But I do think that one on one conversations with them to really figure out kind of what's driving their two different viewpoint points would be a great next step as well.
Speaker A:And framing those conversations around project goals and ask what they might like to see included and then she can get kind of a compromise type of outcome potentially by saying this is the goal, what might you like to see included in it?
Speaker A:And then if she can pull in instead of exclude items, then they can see themselves in the project and then that's kind of the nature of a compromise.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've managed a lot of contentious projects in the past and one thing that I've done often that has shown a lot of success is meeting with each person one on one when there is that conflict, when they don't feel safe to talk about their opinions in front of other people.
Speaker B:And then some of the questions I like to ask are, what are your biggest priorities?
Speaker B:What makes you care about those priorities?
Speaker B:What are your biggest fears of something going wrong?
Speaker B:And then what's your ideal outcome?
Speaker B:And then sometimes if there is that conflict, you can kind of do some perspective taking or encourage the other person to do some perspective taking of the other party.
Speaker B:So something like, what.
Speaker B:What do you think their goals are in this onboarding?
Speaker B:And like, why do you think that matters to them?
Speaker B:And kind of getting that.
Speaker B:I think the other really important thing here is to help them, like, bring up their perspective by a level, because right now they're so focused on their own thing that by getting that focus on the overall goals of the onboarding program.
Speaker A:Big picture.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And under, like, helping them understand the impact of not having an onboarding experience, I found a recent quote from hbr, Harvard Business Review, that says organizations with a standardized onboarding process experience 62% greater new hire productivity along with 50% greater new hire retention.
Speaker B:That's huge when you're.
Speaker A:I believe it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Especially at a big company and a tech company where, like, that retention is important.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:So I think helping them understand the impact of this program hopefully will help them back out a little bit, see the big picture.
Speaker B:See the big picture.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That kind of.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's data.
Speaker A:That's money.
Speaker A:When you have turnover.
Speaker A:Oh, for sure.
Speaker A:Especially when you're talking about large groups of people and large percentages of large groups of people.
Speaker A:That adds up very quickly.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I think the only other thing I would kind of add here at this point is if she's talking to them separately and trying to understand what they want.
Speaker A:And by the way, actually, when you were talking about all the questions that you like to ask, here's what was going through my brain.
Speaker A:How much are those sounding exactly like what we do during a mediation?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:So much.
Speaker A:I mean, that's just a great outline for mediating what we do when we sit down with two people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But it's great for sitting down with one person.
Speaker A:It's a great guide for that.
Speaker A:And that's what we want.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We want something that we can put together where the values of both people can be included and we can find something with the space for both of them.
Speaker A:And I'll Talk in a little bit about a difference between compromise and collaborating.
Speaker A:And I think if for some reason that's not working, she's getting stuck with that, which is really the first approach to go see if you can get them to actually bring out those values and concerns and what do they want to see and what's a good outcome?
Speaker B:The underlying interest.
Speaker A:Underlying interest, all the good stuff.
Speaker A:I would say as a plan B, you could do a compromise and that's by saying what would you like to see in it?
Speaker A:And then she pulls in pieces of what they each want to see happen with the program.
Speaker A:So different compromising is definitely different from collaboration.
Speaker A:All those good questions should lead to some collaboration.
Speaker A:But obviously this is a really tough situation.
Speaker A:I feel like Priya has some skills or she wouldn't have been put into the position in the first place.
Speaker A:So giving her some things we can, that she can try here, we're offering that up today.
Speaker A:But I would also say if she can organize a joint meeting, that might be possible as well.
Speaker A:I get the psychological safety thing too.
Speaker A:So like I said, just offering out some variety of options that she can try.
Speaker A:And she could even do a group survey to collect that stakeholder input and then focusing on the underlying values in that survey, not just features of the program.
Speaker A:So that can lead to more collaborative solutions in, in a way where people can all see themselves in the program.
Speaker A:But it's tough the more stakeholders you have.
Speaker A:Oh my gosh.
Speaker A:Yeah, really difficult.
Speaker B:I love that perspective.
Speaker B:And that is something that I've done in the past where once I've gotten the feedback from everybody, like using surveys, using one on one conversations, using group conversations, then taken all of that and distilled it into what does this actually mean?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And how should we move forward?
Speaker B:And, and coming back to the group with a recommendation.
Speaker B:Here's what I'm seeing.
Speaker B:This is where everybody's focus is.
Speaker B:These are the 10 things that we agree on.
Speaker B:Here are the three things that we don't agree on.
Speaker B:How do we want to move forward on those three?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:How does, how is she going to implement this?
Speaker A:Yeah, because having those good conversations with everybody is going to hopefully help get those executives on board.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Onboard the onboarding.
Speaker A:But still, how do you get it into actually moving forward to implement and also showing you've been heard and I've pulled your input in this way.
Speaker A:I like how you're talking about rolling out the results of that survey and communicating.
Speaker A:Because we know anytime you do a survey too, you gotta respond to it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:People want to know that the time they took to fill that out actually matters.
Speaker A:Yes, definitely.
Speaker B:I feel like we're in a good place to switch over to our HR perspective.
Speaker B:What do you think?
Speaker A:I think so too.
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me is a project management office, which might not be intuitively something that people tie to hr, but with HR being corporate, oftentimes they're involved in setting up a PMO or project management office.
Speaker A:Or maybe they don't know that they have one.
Speaker A:Or maybe it's underutilized.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Maybe it's on the east coast and they just don't use it as much out here or something like that.
Speaker B:So true.
Speaker A:That's a good point to bring that up though.
Speaker B:It could be department based too, or it could be enterprise wide.
Speaker B:I did see A stat from Monday.com, which is a common project management tool.
Speaker B: That said, in February: Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:But the great thing about a PMO is it helps set up those governance standards and it helps people have an approach for how to apply a raci or RACI is a commonly used project management tool that says responsible, accountable, contributing and informed.
Speaker B:It just kind of helps show who's involved and how they contribute.
Speaker A:A real guide.
Speaker B:Yeah, a guide for involvement.
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:That could be helpful for these executives to sit down and say, hey, here's some process we need to talk about here.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:I love your thoughts on this.
Speaker B:Kind of in line with that.
Speaker B:I'm just thinking about really.
Speaker B:There's a lot of HR research backed data out there that shows what a quality onboarding experience looks like.
Speaker B:So why isn't the HR leader assuming that neither of these leaders are the HR leader?
Speaker B:Why isn't the HR leader kind of the decision maker here?
Speaker B:And how could we bring an HR leader along to be a decision maker?
Speaker A:You know, I have not thought of that actually all along I was not thinking of this being an HR department, but they would be probably.
Speaker B:I mean, I think so more than likely.
Speaker A:Uh huh.
Speaker A:That makes a lot of sense to reach out to the, to the PMO and see what they have for guidance.
Speaker A:That would make a lot of sense here and HR taking a stronger role in this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think her manager really needs to step in.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:When we talk about the HR perspective, I often think if I were the HR rep in this situation and this situation came to me and I think if HR is aware of these exact personalities, they might be able to kind of nudge a little bit on the cooperation between the two of them.
Speaker A:True.
Speaker A:That HR person might be able to kind of guide a little bit to encourage some working together and, and because they probably have a one on one scheduled with them regularly.
Speaker A:I hope if you find the right HR person who's actually the business partner for that part of the organization.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And see if there's a, a really direct way to solve the issue.
Speaker A:And I mean, sometimes it's an effective approach, but also it's partly why HR can be a bit of that sort of unsung hero, because they can do some things behind the scenes, but they're never going to go back to Priya, for example.
Speaker A:I shouldn't say never, but the likelihood that they would go back to the person who raised the issue and say, hey, I talked to that guy, he's going to cooperate now.
Speaker A:Definitely happens sometimes, but I think way more of the time they sort of do their work behind the scenes and then magically people get along along better.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And nobody even knows that they were there involved.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:I mean that indirect influence.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker A:They don't get credit for so much of what they do.
Speaker A:Or, or those execs bosses could even check in with them briefly if HR talks to their bosses, even execs report to somebody.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But if HR talks to their bosses, they can also say how's the onboarding project going?
Speaker A:And they can sort of get a conversation started.
Speaker A:And even if it's sort of informal, it can be pretty effective in getting some progress happening.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting because I do see that a lot of the times execs within their own department don't really care about HR policies.
Speaker B:They're off in their own world, running their own business.
Speaker B:And so the fact that two execs, from what we're assuming is not an HR department, are so passionate about this onboarding is like, it's interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Like normally, I mean, from our, from my experience in hr, it's been kind of like, okay, we have to do what now?
Speaker B:You know, like from the execs, like, okay, I guess we'll do this, I guess we'll participate, but it's not out of a passion or interest.
Speaker B:Normally.
Speaker A:I'd love to say what, all executives are laser focused on HR policies at all times, but I agree, I think some of them are very business focused without the part of the business that includes the HR processes.
Speaker A:And they don't necessarily see that as something integral to moving things forward.
Speaker A:But Sometimes they see it as slowing them down, unfortunately.
Speaker A:But I'll tell you, the ones that I've seen that have a good awareness of HR and what HR does, makes time for partnering with their HR person, has a good HR person who's really savvy.
Speaker A:Take some seriously.
Speaker A:Those typically are the execs who get those good employee surveys and who have good productivity and less turnover.
Speaker A:Just saying.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:True, true.
Speaker B:All this ties together.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I don't think I have anything else to add on the hr.
Speaker A:Oh, no.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:You know, what I was going to say is potentially a more formal escalation to the managers of those execs.
Speaker A:Obviously you are not going to do that right away.
Speaker A:Not for this, but it might be necessary.
Speaker A:They've got bosses too, so it could happen.
Speaker B:I think I totally agree with you.
Speaker B:And I feel like I would still escalate to her manager's manager, her skip level manager first, to try to get that support from her leadership before escalating to the executives.
Speaker A:Leaders.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Because of their influential place in the org and the potential for that to impact her career negatively.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:She should tread carefully with that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm thinking that is not a first or probably second or third approach.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And it might be a last resort.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it might be something that actually the HR office would do and again, probably not their first or second thing that they would do either.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So navigate carefully.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Maybe start job hunting while doing that too.
Speaker B:I'm kind of joking, but not entirely.
Speaker A:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker B:So you ready to switch over to psychology?
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker A:I have a bit to talk about on psychology.
Speaker A:And you probably do too, because we love it.
Speaker B:Why don't you start?
Speaker A:All right, I shall.
Speaker A:This situation brought to mind for me the conflict styles that are mapped out by Thomas and Kilman.
Speaker A:We just sort of casually call it the Thomas Kilman.
Speaker A:And it lists out five styles of handling conflict.
Speaker A:And you can picture what they've put together if you make a four square chart with an additional box right in the middle.
Speaker A:And that box in the middle is called compromising.
Speaker A:That's what it's labeled.
Speaker A:And the map itself is based on high and low assertiveness.
Speaker A:On the vertical axis, you've got high assertiveness and low assertiveness.
Speaker A:And then on the horizontal left and right axis, you've got high and low cooperation.
Speaker A:So that box in the lower left is going to be totally avoiding the conflict because that is no assertiveness and it's no cooperation.
Speaker A:You're just avoiding the conflict.
Speaker A:And then the bottom box on the right is high cooperation but still low on assertiveness.
Speaker A:And that's accommodating.
Speaker A:Just saying, hey, do whatever you want.
Speaker A:And neither of those are probably going to help her here because she needs to take some action.
Speaker A:She needs to get this going.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And then that box in the upper left is high assertiveness, but low cooperation.
Speaker A:And that's a state of competing.
Speaker A:And that's what is probably happening here with the execs.
Speaker A:They seem stuck in that competing mode, that high assertiveness, low cooperation.
Speaker A:And then as I mentioned earlier, collaborating, that's going to actually be in the upper right box.
Speaker A:So that's high assertiveness and high cooperating.
Speaker A:Collaborating would be great.
Speaker A:Or the backup could be compromising, which is right in the middle, which is medium cooperation and medium assertiveness.
Speaker A:It can be kind of a partial win win.
Speaker A:We do want to work towards that.
Speaker A:Collaborating.
Speaker A:Usually collaborating is better than compromising, but it tends to take a little bit longer and can be something that can slow things down a little bit for implementing.
Speaker A:But it really gets great buy in from everybody.
Speaker A:But as a backup plan, she could do compromising.
Speaker A:But I love that focusing on, okay, what's going on here?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:These executives are kind of competing.
Speaker A:And to think that overuse of competing can really damage inclusion as well as innovation.
Speaker A:Like it's happening here.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And team dynamics.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker B:It kind of makes me if you've heard the term zero sum.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B: Newman and Axar Morgenstern's: Speaker B:And it feels like that's exactly where those execs are.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And like you said, it really diminishes that psychological safety, the innovation.
Speaker B:Because innovation is very closely tied to psychological safety.
Speaker A:It sure is.
Speaker A:And you have to be aware if you're working with competing types, you can adjust to them a little bit.
Speaker A:You can try.
Speaker A:You can try a host of things.
Speaker A:And that's kind of what we've been mentioning along the way here.
Speaker A:In general, though, if you're going to work with competing types, you want to think about things like being brief, be confident and bring clear bullet points when you're going to talk to them.
Speaker A:And so you can do these things that are an effort toward collaboration, but know how you need to try to speak with them.
Speaker A:I mean, you don't have to.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But do you want your project to move along?
Speaker A:It's worth trying.
Speaker B:Common approach when you're working with execs.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:There's that adage beyond brief, be bright, be gone.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so I think that's a common approach for when you're working with those higher level people.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker A:And you have to kind of highlight what's in it for them as well.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:See the bigger picture.
Speaker A:What are we trying to do here?
Speaker A:Get them to sort of join on like, oh, hey, yeah, we do need this onboarding program and we do need it to be able to move forward.
Speaker A:So that's going to be important too.
Speaker A:Keep the focus on the project's needs, not on people's personal positions.
Speaker A:And then ask them directly for a solution that will work for both sides.
Speaker A:So you can do that.
Speaker A:We do that in mediation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:When you're sitting down with two parties and one is saying, well, I need this and it's going to be maybe good for them, but it totally stomps on the needs of the other person.
Speaker A:You can say, what's a solution that you can think of that might work for both of you?
Speaker A:So you can ask that question when you're sitting down with the exact Priya.
Speaker A:And that might help as well.
Speaker A:And then if they stay stuck in a power struggle, she might need to assess if this environment is sustainable for herself long term.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:A lot of the things you're talking about kind of tie into the same psychological principles that I was looking at.
Speaker B:So I think the first one that I'll mention briefly is Leading Without Authority, because that's really what she's doing here.
Speaker A:She is.
Speaker B:There's some really good books out there, actually about halfway through one called Leading Without Authority by Keith Farazi.
Speaker B:I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's good.
Speaker B:And it's just talking about, like, how you need to go about building relationships, winning friends and influencing people to be effective in your role.
Speaker B:So it might be something that she digs into a little bit and builds her skills in.
Speaker B:And then the psychological safety piece, which we've been talking about a lot throughout this.
Speaker B:So Google had a research team that they put together that was focused on figuring out what makes the most effective team.
Speaker B:Google describes psychological safety as being a place where teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members.
Speaker B:They feel confident that no one on the team is going to embarrass or punish them or shame them for making a mistake, for asking a question or for offering an idea.
Speaker B:So it's just a place where innovation can really thrive and people feel kind of at home when they're at work.
Speaker B:And the research that Google did is really consistent with a lot of research that has been done by great organizational leadership researchers.
Speaker B:While most of the time this is set by leaders kind of top down, often, I mean, really psychological safety has to be implemented by leaders.
Speaker B:But I think that as an informal leader with an indirect influence, Priya could start doing some of these things that help create psychological safety.
Speaker B:So there's an article from Harvard Business Review.
Speaker B:All these sources will be in our notes.
Speaker B:And they say that there's really four key things to do to help cultivate psychological safety.
Speaker B:And I think that Priya can do some of these with her team.
Speaker B:So the first one is encourage teams to bond through day to day tasks.
Speaker B:The second one is normalize opportunities to learn from mistakes.
Speaker B:The third is ensure everyone feels seen.
Speaker B:And the fourth is seek input with humility and openness.
Speaker B:I feel like where her power is going to be is in the third and fourth ones here.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:With executives setting the tone with psychological safety, I totally agree with that.
Speaker A:I think when they do that, the various layers of leadership underneath them can do that and then Priya can do that if that's, that's being modeled from the top.
Speaker A:But if it's not, you're right, she can do that sort of in her own corner of the world and have influence where.
Speaker A:Where it's possible.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's gonna be hard and it might not even make an impact, but I think it's at least good to try.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:She can give it a try.
Speaker A:And I think that with her skills and with the authority she's been given and having some different approaches here, I think infusing it with that thought of psychological safety all along the way is going to be a good guide throughout.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker B:Well, I think we've had some, some great thoughts.
Speaker B:Is there anything else that we want to add before we close it out?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Let's wrap it up, shall we?
Speaker B:Okay, so to summarize, Priya is being asked to create an onboarding program for a large tech company and there are two competing executives.
Speaker B:She's not getting the support she needs from her leadership, so she's having a hard time moving forward.
Speaker B:We suggest that she talk to them one on one, infuse psychological safety within her conversations, really try to get them collaborating, but be willing to move to a compromising stance instead and then really start practicing and improving her indirect influence.
Speaker B:Today, we hope that you leave recognizing that if you're having a lot of conflict within a team.
Speaker B:One on one conversations are very valuable.
Speaker B:Additionally, it's really important to learn skills to be able to adjust your style to your audience, and indirect influencing skills are valuable for everyone, but especially when you're a project manager, they're pretty essential.
Speaker B:Finally, if you don't have a PMO or project management office at your company, it might be something to look into, or if you do have one, maybe turn to them for some valuable resources on alignment.
Speaker B:We hope that this chat gave you some ideas and tools that you can use if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, and all other resources.
Speaker A:We referenced in the podcast can be found in the show Notes.
Speaker A:Please send us your thoughts, ideas and questions.
Speaker A:Also, if you'd like to hear our thoughts about a workplace conflict scenario you're facing, reach out to us and we might include it in this podcast.
Speaker A:We want to hear from you.
Speaker A:Check out our website at thehrmediators.com or email us at thehrmediatorsmail.com thanks for joining.
Speaker B:Us on the HR Mediators.
Speaker B:Stay curious, stay kind, and stay brave.
Speaker B:You've got this and we'll see you next time.
