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Today's episode is going to hit home for a lot of people, because we're talking about something that we all deal with but rarely understand.
High-conflict personalities.
You know those conversations that spiral no matter what you say, the ones where the person never takes responsibility, gets stuck in the past or keeps pulling you into blame.
Most of us try to fix them, reason with them or give them insight.
And as you'll hear today, that's the exact thing that makes the situation worse.
And that's why I'm excited to have Bill Eddy on the show.
Bill is one of the world's leading experts in high conflict behavior.
He's a lawyer, a therapist, a mediator, and the co-founder of the High Conflict Institute.
And he's learned everything.
He teaches by doing the wrong things first, so the rest of us don't have to.
In this conversation, Bill breaks down why high conflict people act the way that they do, the traps we fall into when we deal with them and the simple shifts that help you to move someone from blaming to problem solving, sometimes in under 30 seconds.
If you've ever felt stuck, Overwhelmed or drained by someone's behavior, this episode will give you a way forward.
Bill, thank you for coming on the show.
I've been admiring your work and you're one of the most brilliant minds in the world when it comes to navigating not just conflict, but high conflict individuals.
And so I think a fun place for us to start would be not talking about the things that we need to make sure that we do, but instead starting off by talking about what are the biggest mistakes that most people make that we need to avoid.
Absolutely.
Well, thanks for having me on.
And this is one of my favorite things to talk about, because I learned everything I teach about eye conflict.
By doing it wrong, I can learn.
So I can tell other people, don't do this, don't do that.
So the first one is don't try to give upset people or high conflict people insight into their own behavior.
It does not work and it makes it harder to work with them.
So when you feel like saying how can I make him understand what he's doing wrong, that's not going to work.
How can I make her see it's her fault?
It's all her fault or mostly her fault.
And if it may be true, but they can't see it, there's a psychological barrier to it.
They won't have the insight that you want them to have and they won't like you as much.
So that's one of the first things.
And people just that's probably 80 percent of what people do is say well, let me tell you buddy, you shouldn't do such and such.
And you just have to forget about that.
What I need to tell you is instead focus them on what their choices are now.
In other words, don't focus them inward.
Focus them outward on their choices.
And then you can make progress and they can work with you in a lot of situations.
That's number one.
Incredible.
And Bill, you know what I think is happening right now?
I think a lot of people are pulling over, stopping their workouts. stopping their shorts as they're listening to this and just having this eureka moment realizing, wow, I've never approached conflict well because I always make that mistake.
And we can understand psychologically, as you described, and we'll get deeper into it why this happens psychologically.
But I think it would be good for us to do a bit of a deep dive psychologically into ourselves and get a better understanding of why it is that we feel so compelled to do this very thing in our tough conversations.
Well, it's so easy to see other people's bad behavior and to go here's what other people need to do.
We're really good at criticizing other people, it's harder to look at ourselves and go oops, maybe I made a mistake here.
I wonder what I should do different.
Even though that's where progress really comes, is looking at us.
But when we're busy looking at other people especially if they're high conflict people, which I figure are about 10 of adults and about 20 of major disputes is we're just seeing they have a lot of behavior that's difficult, a lot of behavior that's a problem.
But when you point it out to them, if that's part of their personality, that's the last thing that's going to help them.
They're going to argue back, say, no, I'm not.
You're the one that's doing such and such.
And even though you may be right, totally right about their behavior, you can't get through.
And so thinking you can get through if you hit harder or if you speak softer or if you put it in writing or whatever, it doesn't matter.
Trying to give people insight into their own bad behavior.
Trying to give high conflict people insight into their own bad behavior just doesn't work.
And that's part of why they're high conflict individuals.
They have a narrow pattern of of extreme behavior, unmanaged emotions, all or nothing thinking and a preoccupation with blaming other people.
And so it's easy to see from the outside, but you can't break through.
And that's so important to know.
It doesn't work.
Get them focused on what to do next, not what they did before.
What I'm doing, and listeners, I want to be clear on where I'm going here, because there's a reason.
I want to focus one more question on the internal side because I think it's so important because once we can start to get an understanding of why it is we feel so compelled to approach conversations in these inappropriate or unsuccessful types of ways, once we start to get an understanding of it, then we could recognize the feeling in the moment and then do the opposite, which would be the right thing under the circumstances.
Right.
Because we're going to spend more time getting into the nuts and bolts of what to actually do.
But I just want to spend one more question on this, because I think there's a level of satisfaction that we're looking for in these conversations a little bit of vindication or maybe a little bit of a vindictive drive we have where we say listen, I want to catch the bad guy in the act and I want him to come to his knees and say you know what Bill, you're so right, I am so wrong and I apologize.
And we never get that moment.
And so, for the listeners, what is it that we can do, either before, during or after the conversation, that can give us the sense of validation or satisfaction that we're most likely not going to get from the other person?
Excellent question.
So I think what I do especially like when I've done a lot of high conflict mediation, before I go into a mediation session, I call it putting on my armor.
And what it is, is I remind myself of several short phrases.
My favorite first one is remember, Bill, it's not about you.
I'm the mediator.
They have a conflict with each other.
And yet when it escalates, they're frustrated with each other.
They may become frustrated with me.
But what I have to remember is it's not about me.
How can I help them?
How can I redirect this?
So I have to not get defensive.
And that helps me as it's not about me.
Another one is I'm not responsible for the other person's outcomes.
And I used to worry, I'd wake up early going, how can I make this person see?
How can I make them do?
How can I make things happen?
And what I've learned is I can't make things happen.
I can't control other people.
And high conflict people are often kind of on their own track.
I may be able to influence them, but I can't control.
And often because I've been a lawyer, a therapist and a mediator.
As a lawyer, often I know what they should do, but they just somehow internally have to do the opposite of what I think they should do.
And I have to get used to not blaming myself for that.
It's like they're just sometimes dedicated into going in the opposite direction of what I think will really help.
So what I have to do is adapt.
So I'm not responsible for their outcome.
I'm only responsible for doing my part.
And so the more I do give information, I give advice, I write things, prepare things, do all of this, I have to give up being invested in it happening because the client may decide.
That's not where I'm going to go.
I'm going to go somewhere else in terms of solutions.
And maybe I can go with them and can say you know, I don't recommend that, but I'll work with you on that.
Or maybe we're going to have to split up.
It's like, I can't do that.
Someone wants me to lie in court on their behalf, and I can't do that.
We're going to have to end our working relationship if that's what you want from me.
So I just have to remember, I can't control their outcome, that that's in their hands.
I can just try to influence and educate and empathize, but I can't control that outcome.
I love this approach Bill, because really what we're seeing here is that we might know what to say or what to do in the conversation.
We might have the right strategy or tactics that we want to employ in the conversation.
But if we don't understand the mindsets that needs to go along with it, then it's going to be incredibly difficult to utilize those strategies when it matters the most.
Because there is a lot of Zen and some elements of stoicism that I'm seeing going into this to minimize the role of the ego so you could focus on the process itself.
And focus not so much on the outcome per se, but on the elements of the process that you can control in order to affect the outcome.
Exactly, exactly.
It's a letting go process, but still doing your best because you have knowledge, or I have knowledge, and I want to make sure I share that with them.
But I can't be certain they're going to use that or even like it.
But sometimes they do.
And so I have to keep putting it out there, but not not be attached to it.
And so you're right.
It's kind of a Zen thing.
You know you're putting out into the universe but you can't control the universe.
But you can do your job.
And that's what I try to do.
Right.
Oh, this is great.
And.
Let's talk about the personality type or actually I'd be interested to see your terminology for this but the high conflict individual.
Earlier you mentioned that about 10 of our interpersonal conflicts would be with people who are high conflict, and then about 20 of actual litigation would be categorized as high conflict which, when you think about it percentage-wise, that means the It's going to be more likely than not that you're not going up against somebody who is high conflict.
But at the same time, oftentimes our experiences with people who are high conflict loom large in our memories.
And then it might cause us to overestimate how frequently we engage with people who are high conflict.
So can you tell us a little bit more about the frequency of these interactions and then also how you're classifying people as high conflict within your framework?
Yeah, so my framework is basically four characteristics.
It's a preoccupation with blaming others, which means they're not taking responsibility for their own part.
By conflict, people don't look for what's my part.
They see it 100% as other people's fault.
So that's about 10% of people.
Then the second is a lot of all or nothing thinking.
And so they see things as all good, all bad.
They see people as all good, all bad.
And this often goes together.
Third is unmanaged emotions.
They're more likely to be outraged.
They're more likely to I find burst into tears.
They're more likely to want to run out of a room because they don't like what they heard.
It just, emotions take over.
And the fourth is extreme behaviors.
They may do things 90% of people would never do.
Maybe punch a hole in the wall or knowingly spread a rumor on the internet or steal equipment from somebody's office.
But things that 90% of people wouldn't do.
Now, I don't include lying there because everybody lies.
They lie to a bigger extent and may fabricate things that aren't just exaggerations.
They may fabricate events that never happened.
And that's something also that we see.
So blame, all or nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behavior.
So that's kind of the package.
I estimate about 10 of adults with that, because we don't have research on that, but we do have research on personality disorders.
And there's maybe a 50-50 overlap with personality disorders.
And we do have research saying about 10% of people have personality disorders, about 10% of adults.
And this seems to be worldwide.
There's studies done in different countries, how many, what percent have personality disorders.
They put the studies together, came up with about 10% of adults have worldwide.
So that's if you're looking for a number.
But also something that's interesting, is it may this say, 20 percent of legal disputes may take 80 percent of your time.
Yes.
That's what courts and judges they go, you know. we can figure out child support.
We got a computer here.
We tell people and they go and they pay the child support and everything happens.
But 20% of people go, oh, well, that's not fair.
I'm going to appeal that or I'm going to, you know, fight about something else.
And that's what takes up court time.
That's what takes up workplace time.
Managers, you know, probably 80% of their time spent on 10 or 20% of the people.
So while it's a small percent, it can absorb a lot of time.
Yes, you're absolutely right.
And I think, As you're saying this, most listeners are going to be evaluating the relationships and interactions they've had in their life.
They're like, yes, he's 100 percent correct.
And what I love about this and I think the the blend between your legal background and the fact that you were a clinician for many years is bleeding into this, because you've been able to artfully create a profile for somebody who's high conflict that doesn't require actual diagnosis, which is what people often tend to do whip out the DSM-5 and say you know what this person's borderline.
No, you can't do that.
And you don't need to in order to utilize this strategy, which I appreciate.
Right, exactly.
And all the things we recommend someone has a personality disorder or not.
Somebody has this one or that one doesn't matter because you can use all our tips with anybody.
So you can avoid, you know, looking for insight.
You can avoid trying to change people and still resolve disputes, still negotiate agreements, et cetera.
Absolutely.
And, Let's talk about your approach to this.
So let's make it really tangible.
For the person who's listening and they say, okay, Bill, I'm on board.
I've got the... a person in mind that I need to have an interaction with.
And let's say, hypothetically, it's not a person that I could easily remove from my life.
Maybe it's somebody in my family.
Maybe it's a colleague at work.
And this is going to be a person that I'm going to have to interact with with consistency.
And there's a specific conversation coming up.
How should we approach those conversations with the high conflict people in our lives?
The number one thing I would say is make the focus on the future.
And this is where high conflict people try to pull you into the past.
They have past grievances.
You shouldn't have done that.
I was right to do this.
Also, don't get pulled into trying to rework emotions.
So I mentioned things to avoid.
Insight, the past, and emotions.
Avoid those things.
So really focus on where you want to go.
And because of that, I think come in with proposals.
Come in with, here's my recommendation or my idea or my suggestion.
So that it's concrete and gets people thinking about details rather than about emotions and resentments and all of those kinds of things.
So if there's been a problem, come in with a solution.
And I recommend that to managers, especially new managers.
They say, tell your employees, hey, I'm happy to hear about problems.
Tell me about problems before they bite me in the butt.
But when you tell me about a problem, tell me your proposed solution.
Because you're on the scene.
You're on the front line of the problem.
You know what might work.
So don't bring me a problem unless you also bring me a proposed solution.
This is interesting Bill, because I'm wondering your perspective on when it comes to different theories of emotion management.
So a lot of times we talk about the extension of affect labeling from different therapeutic interventions and how emotional labeling helps to manage emotions.
Are we abandoning that for high conflict people or are we more spending more time pushing towards the future and solutions?
While still touching on it a little bit,
I'm glad you pointed that out.
So we don't want to open up emotions for high conflict people, because they don't tend to grieve and heal loss and process emotions in a way that can put them behind them.
So we don't want to open up emotions.
On the other hand, we want to acknowledge emotions.
So we have what we call ear statements, statements that show empathy, attention, and respect.
I can see your frustration.
I hear your pain.
I can understand this is disappointing.
So we acknowledge emotions, but then we want to move on to problem-solving.
Because if you acknowledge the emotion and open it up, you get pulled into the past and people high conflict.
People especially drown in their emotions because they don't have the ability to grieve and heal them and move past them.
So they linger in them.
And that's something.
That's why we say steer clear of opening up emotions and yet acknowledge emotions and then move on.
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This is fast.
And that's a new one.
Yeah.
This is so interesting.
OK, so let me make sure I'm getting it right.
So you're still going to acknowledge the emotions.
You're going to tell them what you see.
So they feel respected in that type of way.
So you're using the empathy and acknowledgement.
But it sounds like we're not allowing them to dwell in that level of emotionality.
And so let's say let's make it really concrete.
So let's say hypothetically.
We're in a conversation.
We say, okay, it sounds like this was really frustrating to you.
And it seems as though the impact was significant in these types of ways.
Am I getting that right?
And then they say, yes.
And then they go on with this long diatribe.
And so at that point, how do we pivot then to problem solving?
That's when you pivot to the proposal.
So now let's look at the next proposal, or let's look at the next idea for what to do, so this doesn't happen again in the future.
So you want to acknowledge where we are and move.
And if you don't move, high conflict people will pull you backwards.
So that's and that's that's what we find.
We say, wow, I see how frustrated you are.
And they go, you're darn straight.
I'm frustrated.
You know the way that you treat me and the way that this organization and the way that and look at last week alone we don't want to go into that.
So we can say, I can see your frustration.
And now let's look at what do you propose can happen in the future so this will go better for you.
That's what we need to do.
Or I can say, I have a suggestion.
Why don't we try this going forward?
Or simply, let's look at our choices now.
So you've got to shift there, acknowledge and then shift.
That's so fascinating because I think a mistake that a lot of people make and I'll be candid here, I think a mistake that I have made a lot of times in the past is that I would focus on the acknowledgement and the validation of the emotions to the point where I'm saying I want to try to remove as much of it as possible by labeling until the temperature goes down to almost nothing.
But it sounds like what we need to do is not really focus too much on the minimization of emotionality, but showing the empathy, acknowledgement and respect which will lower the emotional temperature, but at the same time acknowledging we won't remove it completely, but we don't need to and we should push to solutions a little bit sooner.
That's exactly it.
In other words, we don't have to eliminate the upset emotions.
You can connect with the person by giving them empathy, attention and respect, and then direct to problem solving.
And they kind of follow you.
And it's like, well, I'm still a little irritated.
I'm still a little upset, but I'm going to see where this goes, is often what they say.
But an important thing in here I should spell out a little more is the reason that we don't want to open up emotions is is because they don't go through the normal grieving and healing process.
And let me just mention you know for people that most people have heard of it but don't remember the five parts.
So there's denial, there's anger, there's bargaining, trying to, you know, change the inevitable outcome.
There's depression or sadness, and then there's acceptance.
Well, high conflict people get stuck at anger.
And so they don't go through the rest.
And so they don't heal the past.
And so they talk a lot about the past.
They keep pulling things back to, I was right to do what I did.
You were wrong to do what you did.
And trying to rework the past so it isn't a loss.
But it is a loss, but they can't process it.
So what happens is high conflict people have a lot of unresolved emotions.
And so when they focus on emotions, they usually feel bad.
They feel worse.
If they focus on thinking and doing, then they feel better.
So what we've learned is, rather than resolving emotions with high conflict people, is we need to distract from emotions into problem solving, and then they feel better.
And that's quite a shift.
That's brilliant.
Brilliant.
This is so fascinating because so and so tell me if I'm getting this part right, Bill.
So with the high conflict people, they get stuck in their emotions.
They can't process it like somebody else could under the circumstances.
So it would not be as dangerous to spend time exploring emotionality and how their feelings and their perceptions about the past.
With somebody else who is not high conflict, it wouldn't be dangerous.
Okay.
And that's often how you can tell is because, let's say, 80 of people, you can talk about the past and they're not super defensive.
There may be like, yeah, what went wrong there?
You know, we had this conversation and suddenly we were irritated with each other.
What went wrong? oh, I misunderstood what you meant.
Okay.
And this is what I said.
And this is what I really meant.
Oh, okay.
That resolves it.
With high conflict people, it escalates.
How dare you?
And it really is all your fault.
And how dare you suggest I played a part in the problem?
And And.
As you get deeper into that, you go okay, high conflict person.
I'm going to shift the focus to let's look at what to do about this, to the future, to proposals, to choices and away from emotions.
And I remember one of my first mediations I did and I did 40 years of mediation, first as a therapist, then as a lawyer.
One of my first mediations was a divorce mediation, and it went nine hours.
And after nine hours, we got nowhere.
And I'm thinking we're trying to resolve this 20-year relationship and it's not going to be resolved.
They're getting divorced.
It stopped working for them for one reason or another.
And we said, look, Let's meet again and just focus on what you each want going forward.
And within two hours, we had most of their divorce resolved.
And this was two of us.
It was a co-mediation team.
And I learned so much from that.
Don't try to resolve people's emotions and resolve their relationships and When it's a really difficult situation, focus on the problem-solving nuts and bolts and calm and acknowledge emotions, but don't expect them to quote resolve their emotional disputes.
Brilliant.
And Bill, this gives us an opportunity to talk about your books too, because there are many, but let's focus on two.
We have Mediating High Conflict Disputes and And then the last one.
So what's your proposal?
Shifting from blaming to problem solving in 30 seconds, which sounds miraculous.
So I'm excited to get into this.
So first, let's talk about mediating high conflict disputes.
You just talked about one of the stories and one of the revelations.
Now, can you tell us a little bit more about what's in that book, too?
Yeah, it really talks about a whole shift, a whole different structure of for resolving disputes with potentially high conflict people.
And you can use it with anybody, but especially with high conflict people.
It helps to focus on the future, helps to focus on giving people both people a lot of empathy, attention and respect and not, you know, focusing on the past, not focusing on insight.
And so we really keep it future-focused.
The whole structure is designed.
As a mediator, I'm going to help the two of you move forward wherever you are.
We're not going to open up the past.
I'm not going to ask you to give me an opening statement, which is what a lot of people are used to in mediation or in other negotiations, like legal settlement negotiations.
Let's give an opening statement.
This is where we're at.
It's great for 80% of people, but with high conflict people, that's where they get stuck.
Let's not focus on an opening statement because that's about the past.
Let's focus start by focusing on what your proposals are.
What do you think we should do in deconstructing proposals to come to solutions going forward without having to go over the past?
People in the dispute know the past.
They can use that to make their proposals.
And that keeps the focus on really problem solving rather than venting and reworking grievances where people just spin their wheels.
Bill, this is revolutionary.
This is revolutionary.
So I was just in...
In Atlanta, talking to the Georgia State Bar, to their mediation and ADR committee too.
Oh, I spoke to them once.
Okay, small world.
One of the things that people were talking about a lot was in their mediation practice.
Some folks were kind of on the fence on the importance of an opening statement.
And I know when I was mediating, I did not require opening statements.
I just felt like it was unnecessarily combative.
And when you introduce this framework not just to mediators I feel like mediators might get it but to the participants, like the litigators, the clients.
How do they receive this structural change?
Well, I'll start with the litigator.
So the lawyers in a mediation.
I'll say this.
You know we're not going to start with an opening statement.
We're going to focus on your proposals.
We'll build an agenda and then get into proposals.
And one of the lawyers will invariably say wait Bill, don't you need to know the facts of the case?
And I'll say, actually, I don't.
I'm just a mediator.
You folks already know the facts of the case.
You can use those facts in forming your proposals.
But what I'm avoiding is the fact that they will never, ever agree on the facts of the case.
And when I've tried to mediate the facts of the case, it goes nowhere.
With high conflict people, with ordinary people, you can do that, but you don't have to do that.
You don't have to do that with anybody.
I learned to start my mediations with this whole proposal focus.
And I did it with all of them.
I didn't know if they were high conflict or not.
And as it became clear they weren't high conflict, I could explore emotions more.
I could talk about the past more.
But at start, hey, we're going to talk about a proposal.
People are like, great, I've got one.
So it's more efficient but it's less satisfying for people who can handle emotions, can handle the past to rework.
Maybe there were miscommunications.
Maybe there were emotions that can be resolved.
So it's designed for that like 10 to 20%. but can be used with anybody.
And that's what the book is about, really, this whole approach, this whole shift.
Bill, this is brilliant.
And what's funny is so many of the conflicts that we all have again, we have this human need to be right.
Our ego gets entwined in this.
And so when, like you said, the lawyers would say, well, don't you want to hear about the facts?
Really the translation is don't you want to hear why I'm right and why this other person is a piece of garbage?
Absolutely.
It goes nowhere.
Exactly.
And it makes me wonder how many of our conversations in our personal lives struggle just simply because we are arguing over memory.
And for me, when I studied psychology, I remember one of the most terrifying things was just how fallible human memory is.
Not only is it fallible, but it's incredibly biased.
And every time we try to access the memory, it gets warped more and more in our favor.
And then the other person is doing the same thing.
And we're just essentially arguing over imagination, when the only thing that we can have any control over going forward is the future.
And that's what we care about.
But we get so stuck in the past to our collective detriment.
Right, right.
And it's also entertaining.
A lot of our entertainment, movies, TV, dramas, are about the past and arguments about the past.
And our whole culture in many ways likes to pull us towards the past and pull us apart, because that's more exciting.
Solving problems, you know, there's no hit shows about mediation.
But there's hit shows about marshals and FBI and detectives, about things going wrong, instead of about things working out and resolving.
And I think we have that in our culture and it's spilled into real life.
We're actually reenacting a lot of what we see on TV.
One time I was doing a mediation and someone said, I can't believe you said what you said.
I'm leaving.
And they stormed out of the mediation room.
Of course, when that happens, I always say, we're taking a break.
We'll be back in 15 minutes.
And a lot of the time they come back.
But one day I realized, I've seen this movie before.
Where did I see this?
And I realized most sitcoms on TV include a moment where someone storms out of the room.
And that's where this we got.
We've been trained in this.
You're so right.
You're so right, Bill.
It's funny.
It's really monkey see monkey do.
And at the end of the day, we're just higher level primates and we operate in large, large part just by mimicry.
And to your point, when it comes to the media, I was in talks with a TV station.
I'll leave it unnamed. for a potential reality TV show, a conflict resolution-based show.
And I got really far in the process, met with the execs and everything and they said hey, we love you on camera.
It looks really great.
You have great charisma.
But we don't think that you'll hold the drama long enough.
In other words, we don't think that you will allow this toxic conflict to fester long enough for us to get ratings.
Right, right.
They want the conflict.
Don't spend so much time on resolving it.
Exactly.
It's so funny, but it's so human.
And also before we get Simone in, I have one other question too.
So let's say somebody is facing this challenge where they're talking to somebody who's high conflict and right now they're just stuck in their emotion.
And again we've kind of touched on this, but I wanted to answer it through the frame of the other book too.
How do we get them from blaming to problem solving in 30 seconds?
Because that sounds amazing.
Yeah.
Well, that's where the whole focus.
You just shift by just jumping in and saying so, what's your proposal?
So someone says, you never did this.
You never did that.
You always did that.
You always do that.
And you go, okay, so then what's your proposal?
And so when people shift from defending and arguing to proposing, it's a different part of the brain.
I think it's the left brain more for proposals, right brain defensiveness more.
It just seems like the brain's a little bit divided up that way.
And you go, oh, my proposal is...
And what's interesting is people's demeanor changes, people's intensity changes.
And I've done this in so many mediations where they start pointing fingers.
You know business partners, a manager and employee, divorcing couples, parents and teenagers pointing fingers, pointing fingers.
And I'll say, hang on, folks.
So.
Maybe this all happened.
I don't know.
I wasn't there.
So what's your proposal?
Oh, oh, my proposal is that Johnny does such and such.
Oh, well, Johnny, what do you think about that?
Could you agree to that?
Or would you say no?
Or would you say, I'll think about it?
And if you say no, you're going to have to make a proposal.
Well, gee, No, I don't agree with that.
Okay, what's your proposal?
Well, my proposal is, and you can like see the gears shifting.
And that's why I said in 30 seconds, because I've seen it happen.
People just get in, gearing up in the argument and say, so what's your proposals?
And it just totally changes the direction of it.
And people can do that.
But no one asks them, so what's your proposal?
They're busy defending and attacking.
And that's the culture.
That's what we're used to.
But this really works.
And I've taught it, like I said parents and teenagers, employees and managers, business partners, personal injury disputes, all of this.
And people go, oh, yeah, I can do that.
And it totally simplifies things and makes them very boring.
And boring is exactly what we're looking for here.
Exactly.
You know, I'm getting a chance to train judges more these days.
How do we talk to the high conflict litigants?
And I don't tell them what decisions they should make.
I talk about how to present your decisions, how to listen, how to talk.
And they like this.
And the thing I tell them is your goal should be to have a boring courtroom.
Because people are frustrated by high conflict cases.
It's because the disputants want what they see on TV.
And what you want to do is manage the dispute to the point that it's boring.
And then you don't have people keep coming back to court to complain about the prior decision.
If it's a boring courtroom, they don't get the emotional fix.
And some people go to court for an emotional fix.
They love the conflict.
You're so right.
You're so right.
OK, I could keep on flowing forever, but I want to make sure that we get Simone in here, because he's been waiting patiently.
So, Simone, what's coming to mind for you?
I have a question about the targets of blame.
So not about the high conflict person, but the person who's on the other side.
So.
Is there a characteristic or a mindset that that person has why she's being chosen by the?
Maybe a narcissist or the high conflict person?
Yeah.
So what seems to happen is high conflict.
People have to have a target of blame because they can't look at their own part in the problem and they're not happy.
And so to make things better, they need other people to change or so they think.
And so I have to figure out who's causing my problem.
With me and divorce mediation, it's easy because it's always the other spouse.
And so how can I make the other spouse go away or change their behavior or even stay married?
And so there's a target.
There's someone that it's 100% their fault is what the high conflict person feels.
And they honestly feel that way.
But it doesn't work.
It doesn't make things better.
And so they end up in these intractable disputes, which really become intractable if you get teams on both sides.
And that happens in high conflict divorce.
40 years ago, one of the researchers, Janet Johnston, in a book said, it's tribal warfare.
That's what high conflict divorce is.
You've got parents and grandparents.
You've got a lawyer, you've got a therapist, you've got two teams and they start to hate each other.
And that's because each side's seeing them as their target of flame.
Now, I don't want to say all high conflict disputes are two-sided.
Many of them, it's one high conflict person and a reasonable person on the other side trying to figure out what the heck do I do about this.
But anyway, yeah, the theme is targets of blame are characteristic of high conflict people.
They always have to have someone they can blame because they can't blame themselves.
And is there anything we can do to avoid being a target of blame?
Maybe it's the mindset that we have.
And they choose us because they see that we have a mindset or a behavior that is easier for them to manipulate us.
Yeah.
I would say avoid being too aggressive and avoid being too passive.
Right.
Because what happens is if you're aggressive, then they can say, see what he's doing?
He's abusing me.
I'm a victim.
He's abusing me.
Look how he talks at me.
Look how he frowns at me.
They'll see what you're doing as aggressive.
But if you are aggressive, it's really easy for them to point the finger at you and blame you for that.
But on the other hand, if you're too passive, it feels to them like you agree that it's all your fault.
And so the thing is to be assertive.
And the way to be assertive is to provide information and say, actually, that's not true.
I wasn't the person making that noise that bothered you yesterday, because I was out of town yesterday.
So that would not have been me.
So give information briefly like that.
Don't criticize them and say, you're an idiot.
I was out of town yesterday.
Just say, you may not be aware, I was out of town yesterday.
So give information that counters their distorted thinking.
But if you're too passive, they think you agree.
And if you're too aggressive, then they say you're the abusive person.
A fine line.
Now, let's talk about something that will make avoiding the past a little bit harder.
So let's say we push people to proposals.
And let's actually keep that same example that you used, Bill.
So let's say that we push to proposals and then the person creates a proposal that is unnecessarily arduous for you, considering the fact that it is based on inaccurate information.
So let's say you made the loud sound.
And, as a result, my proposal is for you to unplug all of your electronics and turn off your phone every single night going forward.
And now, in order to kind of combat that, do we need to wrestle with the factual inaccuracy of the past or do we still just stick with our proposal?
See, I would suggest you just say, no, I'd say no to that.
Now I've got another proposal.
And that, see, it's the attack and defend piece that we don't need.
We just drop that out of the picture and stay focused on problem and solution.
And say, you know, I wasn't there yesterday, so that wouldn't have been me.
Perhaps you might You know if it was disruptive to your work.
You might ask around who was around yesterday and if any of them had a loud radio on or if they were on the phone, or you know.
Kind of find out where the problem is so that you can solve that.
Maybe somebody was on the phone and they were talking too loud and they didn't realize that you were there.
Maybe there's a way to solve that.
Maybe when you're there, they should do their phone calls down the hall or something like that.
In other words, by keeping it so problem solving focused, you keep that emotional escalation out of it.
This is brilliant.
So, OK, so it sounds like there's the brief acknowledgement to say, well, I wasn't there.
And here is a solution.
And then they they might want to push into.
Yes, you were.
And then we could just kind of end it by saying, well, we could agree to disagree on that.
It doesn't make too much sense to argue on it.
But let's go ahead and talk about other proposals and just keep it completely fact based and proposal heavy.
That's exactly it.
Exactly.
And that's where a mediator can be real helpful, because they keep redirecting it to.
Let's stick with the proposal, the questions about it, new proposals.
But if you're negotiating without a mediator, you have to try to remind yourself.
Just focus on what to do and not the reaction.
So before you go, because I know we're coming up on time, but I want to focus on one more thing here too.
When it comes to these situations, I want to make sure that we address power dynamics.
So again, let's set the stage.
Let's say this is an illegal situation.
This is a situation, maybe it is a manager.
You are reporting to a manager and it's a situation where you cannot easily escape, but the person has more power and they are high conflict.
How do power dynamics play into your methodologies?
So you can use the same strategy.
I would emphasize what we call ear statements empathy attention respect, especially with someone more powerful as say you know boss, I really appreciate you know how clear your instructions were with those three projects for me this week.
And I need to know what your priority is because I can't do all three of them this week.
I need to know which one's the top priority and I should be able to get at least one of these done.
What which option?
You know, what what do you prefer?
What's your preference or something?
So, again, putting it into problem solving, giving them a chance to make a proposal.
I want you to do the first.
Now, if they're high conflict, they might say you have to do all three.
And and I would say, you know, I really wish I could.
I appreciate your your faith in me being able to do all of that.
But I really don't think I can get them all done.
So I just, if you can give me some priorities that would help me, be probably the most efficient for you, because I want to do a good job for you.
And that's probably what I'd say.
Butter them up a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah. but get them focused on the what rather than the why.
I really like that, because again we can get into that attack-defend dynamic where they might say well, you're being lazy.
If you were to work harder and all those things.
I understand that this is important to you and I want to make sure that I'm the best teammate for you.
So we're framing things from their perspective.
Yes.
Exactly.
It's almost like you run the High Conflict Institute or something, Bill.
I don't know.
You seem to be really sharp with all of this.
Well, let me just say I'm not alone.
I want to give Megan Hunter credit.
We co-founded High Conflict Institute in 2008.
So we're now finishing 17 years.
And going strong, we're teaching this stuff around the world.
Seems like there's high conflict everywhere.
Who knew?
Who would have thought?
Wow.
And would you say that it seems like high conflict or the manifestations of high conflict in these different arenas of our lives?
Would you say that it's increasing?
Yeah.
And I would say a noticeable increase after COVID, that People spend too much time alone without using their social skills, too much time watching TV and movies and social media, which tends to pull people apart.
And whatever bad behavior you have, you can find a group that will reinforce your bad behavior.
And unfortunately, that's part of today's culture.
So I think we have seen an increase since COVID.
All the professionals I speak to refer to that.
But what's exciting to me is we also have an increase in knowledge.
And we have a lot of resources.
Like you said, we've got like 20 books.
We've got articles.
Our website has video training.
We do consultation.
We have free articles, books you can buy that aren't like $20, pretty inexpensive.
Um, so there's a lot of solutions and a lot of people learning how to manage high conflict and and their stress just goes way down.
We talk about finding the missing piece P E A C E And, I should add, we also have a podcast called it's all your fault and easy to find.
So, um, Yeah.
So while we're seeing high conflict increase, we're also seeing high conflict decrease in individual situations.
And we just hope to expand that.
So I appreciate programs like yours so you can educate all of your people about ways to reduce high conflict.
Yes, and likewise.
And thank you for your incredible contributions to the industry too.
This is more important now than ever.
So Bill, thank you for joining us.
Really appreciate it.
