[MUSIC] Two reasons, first power is oftentimes ruled by ego, and ego can oftentimes block us from hearing things that we either don't like or don't wanna hear. And they may be things we need to hear as part of resolving that conflict effectively. To resolve conflict I feel that we need to remain humble and also be vulnerable, and that's because in most conflicts we may need to talk about things that we feel, things that we need. We may need to acknowledge things that we either don't know or maybe need help with. We may need to compromise or to make apologies and that's a big part of being humble and vulnerable as well. Ego can often times block some of these things from happening. People are often times highly motivated to save face, especially when they're in a position of power. Secondly, power can silence people. The person with the least power may just shut down. And just say yes to whatever it is that they think the other person wants to hear. And in some cases, it may lead to what is called malicious compliance. Meaning that the person may comply with what is being asked, even if they know that that will fail or may cause embarrassment to the manager or may even bring harm to the company. We see this happen all the time in business, the employee follows the manager's directive even though they know that it will be detrimental to the company. And yet they don't say anything. Why? Maybe they express a concern, or maybe they challenge the manager's perspective, or directive, and the manager shuts it down. And therefore the employee doesn't say anything and things don't turn out as expected. I was once on a project where I was assigned to be the lead. And I had two peers who were given vague instructions to be involved in the project and to help out. So as we began the project, my responsibility, of course, is to develop a project plan and to identify roles and responsibilities, action items resulting from meetings. So as we began going down the project, I noticed that we would have meetings, I would assign action items and things just weren't getting done. And this confused me at first and then I realized that their manager had never really got gotten clear, on what she truly wanted their role to be in this project. So there were all these competing priorities that were hijacking their involvement in the project. And one thing I recognized was that, until the manager really got clear on whether or not she wanted them to be highly involved, or have their involvement more optional. This wasn't going to be a smooth project, unfortunately. And from my perspective, what I was experiencing was the manager was kind of flip-flopping on what she wanted these two employees to be doing with this project. In the end their delay, of not completing action items and deliverables, was impacting the project so severely. That I ended up taking on their role for myself, and driving the entire project home on my own. This extended the project plan from what was initially anticipated to be six months, develop 12 to 13 months. So it did have a severe impact on the project and also on our ability to deliver something that was high profile and was desperately needed by the organization. I had a coworker who was assigned a very high profile, huge project. And she ended up dropping the ball right when the project started getting intense, which happened to be right at the moment we're about to roll out this big project. And so I was asked to step in and help get things back on track. And as part of my process in taking the project over, I uncovered a number of things that were deeply concerning. And I had to inquire with her about these items. So when I inquired with her about the project, she grew very defensive she was very confrontational she got very angry. And conflict was arising from this and at the moment we needed to push this project out so that we would have a seamless execution. So no one would be aware that there was any problems going on behind the scenes. So I chose not to address the conflict with her at that time. Because top priority was to roll this project out on time. After the project we did a post mortem. We sat down with her and we were able to address the conflicts that had come up as a consequence of me stepping into this project for her which was a very awkward time for her. [MUSIC]
