Repair Rituals: How Teams Heal After Conflict

Lars Nielsen (00:00.514) sorry. Didn't we want to these episodes with some chitchat? Just chitchat, yeah. Because we completely started forgetting that again. Yeah. Because I have a great story to tell from last week. Okay. Hey Paulina. Hey Lars. How are you doing? I'm great. I'm sitting right next to you in Coving. Exactly. We're sitting in the same studio for once in my home and you are getting so surprised that my room actually is compared to how it looks on camera. Yeah, looks gigantic on camera and it's actually really cozy. like it. Busted. Good setup. So what's been going on for last week? I wanted to tell you, I had the weirdest situation last Thursday because we had a complete power outage for three hours. I mean, I lived in Syria and there it was normal. There was everyday life that you wouldn't have any power for an hour or so every day. I was really surprised that in Germany in this day and age, you can have such a power outage and just 10,000 households. And for three hours there were no traffic lights, no lights at all, no water because the water needs power to run it up the pipes, No internet because even though the phone masks were down, I didn't even have mobile internet for three hours and it felt so disconnected. It was really scary to be honest because I couldn't even research what's Lars Nielsen (01:51.372) was going on. was like living in the Middle Ages and it was really scary and for me personally because it was also super annoying because I had three customer calls and I had no way of reaching them to let them know that the meeting couldn't take place right. couldn't call them. I couldn't email them. I couldn't WhatsApp them. I couldn't Slack them. I just, had no way of reaching out to them. And I actually ended up sending my co-founder, and I also didn't know how long this was going to last, right? But I ended up sending my co-founder SMS and I don't think I've sent SMS in the past five years. And it took 20 minutes to go out. 20, 40 minutes. And by that time, the first meeting was almost over. But he then reached out to the customers and let them know. And it was so bizarre because you don't realize how dependent you are on power. And when I realized, okay, I don't have internet, there's no way I'm gonna work. get to work anytime soon. like, okay, I'll be productive. I'll do the laundry. No, you're not. You can't do anything. Okay, then I'll at least have a nice cup of tea. you're not. You can't do anything. You can't do anything. can't do anything except read or sleep which is what I ended up doing because I was like okay if I can't do anything I might just as well be then go to sleep you've never been so rested in your whole life I was really anxious because I was like I have so much work to do Lars Nielsen (03:47.962) And now I'm missing out on those meetings that I'll have to reschedule and I can't do anything else because obviously all of my work is cloud-based. So I couldn't access my Notion pages, couldn't access my emails, I couldn't do anything. we don't realize it before it happens, right? Yeah, we really don't. That's insane. Story from everyday life. Hopefully not every day. Okay. Okay, are you ready for today's episode? Perfect. Let's do it. Welcome everybody to Cultures from Hell. My name is Lars and today we are diving into something every team faces. Conflict. Lars Nielsen (04:37.658) Let's do this. Welcome to Cultures from Hell. My name is Lars and today we are diving into something every team faces. Conflict. Disagree... Disagreements. Welcome to Cultures from Hell. My name is Lars and today we are diving into something every team faces. Conflicts. Disagreements are inevitable. But repair isn't. My guest today live in studio is Paulina from the Culture Code Foundation. Paulina, welcome so much to Copenhagen and in the studio. Thank you, Lars. It's amazing to be here. How is it to be in Copenhagen? I mean, it's one of my favorite cities, so I love to be here and I'm super lucky because it's amazing weather out there. which is not always the case, to be honest. This is the Nordics. Yes, and it's autumn. in the Nordics but I've been really lucky for four days and have seen only sun. Even though it is really windy. Yeah. I wouldn't bet it's really windy these days. Yeah it is but I don't mind the wind. No me neither. As long it's not rainy which I've seen lot of in Coat Main. So Paulina let's start by setting the stage for this episode here. You often say conflict is inevitable but repair is treated as optional. Why do so many teams skip the repair step? Because repairing requires processing uncomfortable emotions and uncomfortable conversations. And that is just something that most people tend to avoid. I don't think we only see this in companies. I think we also see this in all sorts of relationships that people try to avoid having the hard conversations. Lars Nielsen (06:41.26) And especially in the work life, we tend to celebrate performance rather than vulnerability. And say when conflict happens, teams usually have this silent hope that over time it will just disappear. from my experience, and I think that's not just a personal experience, time doesn't heal those kind of things it usually hides the resentment and then it will boil up at a later stage with even more power. What first brought you to to study like team conflict and the repair part as well? Well So for me, the team conflict part is crucial when it comes to working with leaders or with team success, because I've seen very, very successful team handle conflict really well. And I've seen dysfunctional teams that are incapable of really dealing with conflict. it comes around, what goes around comes around over and over and over again. And I have two short instances that maybe also really paint a nice picture of it. And the first one was a remote startup that I was working with and when no one addressed tension. you could feel it. Disclaimer, I'm an empath. So I tension really easily and early on. I saw a senior person actually really disconnect after a conflict. He really withdrew himself. He went silent and he... Lars Nielsen (08:46.038) And within months he actually left the company. So there was just one conflict that completely unraveled his reality in that workplace and actually made him leave. And then everyone said, well, that's resourcing issue. So just making up excuses for what had happened. Nobody was really addressing that this has happened, had happened because of the conflict. So not only the conflict was, was basically hidden twice once in the moment started and then it was even ignored as a reason why a person left the company. And so there was one extreme example and I've also seen the other side. So for example, I've seen CEOs, co-CEOs that were clashing regularly. were having it out. They were discussing it and they were... They were upfront about them being very opinionated, having very strong opinions. They were upfront about being said in their ways, but they would always do a check-in every Friday where they would ask each other what worked between us this week, what didn't work, what can we do differently next week, and then they actually try to implement that. and so they surface the tension, they actually use it, right? I mean, I've said this before, tension isn't a bad thing. Conflict isn't a bad thing. It's the way you handle the conflict and the way you repair a conflict if somebody gets hurt. Lars Nielsen (10:40.172) And it starts obviously with, ideally you don't have a conflict that's on a personal level, but you have conflict that's on a topic level. Then a conflict isn't, then it doesn't need repair because nobody gets hurt. But if people get hurt, then you do need the repair. my perspective, repair isn't optional if feelings got hurt or if anything got personal. I've mentioned my wonderful girlfriend a couple of times here on the show and I just want to do it again because when we have a conflict and we have this thing about I know this kind of thing for lot of people saying that we don't go to bed being angry with each other and we have the same thing and I think that the wonderful part about our relationship is that we actually talk about it. So every time we have a conflict, we talk about it. And she always ends up saying that, I am the kind of person I feel guilty when we have a conflict. Yeah. And I feel sad afterwards because I don't want those conflicts. But she always looks at me and said like the wonderful thing about having conflicts, it actually brings us closer to each other and it surfaces things about each other or ways of treating things or reacting that we didn't know already. So that actually brings us closer together. I agree under one condition. If you manage to repair that conflict. yes, I always do. That is the thing, right? Just surfacing it doesn't bring anyone closer. no, of course not. So from my experience, you, and most couples aren't good at this and in companies it's even worse because you have less to lose, right? If you lose a colleague, it doesn't hurt as much as if you lose a partner or a child because you have a bad relationship with them. But conflict tends to Lars Nielsen (12:41.26) be like broken glass and if you don't repair the broken glass or you don't clear it away, broken glass will pile up and pile up and pile up and pile up and it will become more and more difficult to look across it or to cross that bridge or and then to reconnect. So conflict per se on a personal level actually brings you further apart. The repair is what clears out the rubbish and then brings you... So how does repair look like in a team setting and we are not just talking about saying hey I'm sorry. no exactly. So repair is about intentionally restoring the relational integrity. it's not exactly offering a apology especially if you don't really mean it if it's like this obligatory, oh, I'm sorry, I fucked it up. I swore again. Damn it. I don't know, I did it again. This is your own podcast. You can do whatever you want. Very bad for the algorithm, So a true apology or a true repair, it definitely involves acknowledging the impact. So even if my intent was good, I can acknowledge that what I did or said had a different outcome than or landed differently than I expected it or intended it to do. I need to give space for feedback. So give you the room to tell me what happened to what my actions ignited within you. So it's not just my narrative, but both of our narratives. And the most important part from my perspective is agreeing to actual change. not just saying, I'm sorry, but to say, this is, I know that what I said hurt you in that and that way. Lars Nielsen (14:56.362) And because you are important to me and because it's important to me that our relationship works as friends, as colleagues, as partners, I am going to work on my behavior and this will show up in this or that way. So being as concrete as possible, obviously, which isn't always possible, but... It is just making sure that you have a behavior shift that you actually follow through on obviously. So what I often say is repair is when the actual behavior changes, not just when the tension ends. And can you give an example where let's say a small thing or a small ritual completely changed the atmosphere? Yeah. we think quickly. I have seen a team in a startup, a development team. botching a launch. I think we both know that that happens. It's quite a lot, which has to do with the fact that it's really, really difficult to predict what kind of issues you're going to run into when went shipping a product, right? so, and in this case, emotions ran really high. There was a lot of pressure on the team. it was a crucial business, business topic, and there had been layoffs before, so there was a lot of anxiety. around, not making things on time, getting things ready on time. And then the launch failed or was botched. And then people got really anxious. And so what happens if people get really anxious in such a pressure environment? Blame starts to hit the fan. So everyone's finger pointing, and you're missing. All of that. Lars Nielsen (17:04.966) And then one engineering manager actually completely turned it around by asking the simple question, what, let me just do this right, what am I protecting? then the conversation turned around, every person had got like two minutes to explain what fear or value they were trying to protect or trying to avoid during the conflict, not pre-launch, but in this conflict. he shifted the perspective from the launch to the conflict itself, which was crucial. and gave everyone space to share their perspective, but turn it back on themselves. So take away the blame moment for others, but really reflect on your own behavior. And that also turned into a moment where people could connect over things because they realized most of them were protecting the same or similar, similar things. So they were protecting, they wanted to protect the quality or they wanted to protect the speed or they wanted to, avoid conflict with the customer later on. they found moments where they could connect again and they took away the the blame function. That was really, really crucial. And how does, let's say language, specific phrases or scripts play into making repair possible? I believe that language is always crucial in whatever instance, but especially when it comes to conflict because it can completely make conflicts fire out of control or it can build bridges. And especially it can build a bridge out of shame or get out of the shame or guilt instance into the... Lars Nielsen (19:10.49) repair into the reconnection. So that is, it can be a beautiful thing, but that needs for most people because... Who learns how to argue? Who learns how to do conflict? Who learn without getting personal? It's a crucial skill, but nobody really teaches you that. So we like to help teams find that kind of language that builds those bridges. And you can use questions, for example, like, I've realized I didn't show up how I wanted to. Can I try again? So that is one of those bridges, right? Acknowledging my impact, just as I said before, right? That this is important and then can I do this? Can I have a redo? That's one way. Second way, similar instance, what I meant isn't what landed with you. I'd like to hear your side, your perspective. Again, opening up this room, the space for the other narrative. And third way that you can do it is I want to understand what impact I had or what my part in this conflict was. I'm open to hearing your side. very similar things, knowledge and then opening up the discussion or the narrative for the other side. And these open doors and with our approaches like this, people will stay locked in resentment or in silence. And obviously it's not just, it's not just the single sentence is also really crucial how you react to what is then the other perspective. If you then say, okay, no, this is complete BS, what you're saying, then you're back in conflict mode. So obviously you need to follow through on. Lars Nielsen (21:10.236) and I always say be really curious about what's going on in the other person's mind and try to move into their seat. Cause that is so, important if you want to actually repair anything. And if, if let's pretend I'm a manager, I'm managing a group of people and I want to introduce, let's call it repair rituals. What would be a good first step here? Well, I am a huge, huge fan of the leading or the leading with appreciative inquiry, which is a full methodology, methodology that I'm not going to teach you now, but it actually comes very, very helpful in those instances. So right after a tense meeting, again, this requires you as a manager to be very reflective and to be very empathetic to really sense that there is conflict going on and a conflict that's on a personal level. And then you can stop the meeting right then and there. I would definitely advise it if something like this comes up, stop the original meeting and go into, okay, what's off here? What's happening? Why are we moving in a direction that we don't want to move into? And what strengths can we lean on to do it differently next time? Again, Lars Nielsen (22:48.214) if you go, so you you acknowledge that there's something going on, you assess what's been going on and then you turn it around into, how can we do it differently next time? How can we move away from this? How can we move past it? That's the repair function. And that question refrains a conflict as a learning portal and shifts again away from the blame game. And the most important thing here is that this question also works in teams that have low trust. Because it focuses on strengths and not faults. Yeah, I think we're gonna... Let's dive into this a little bit later. I would also definitely say as a manager, don't make repairs optional. build it into your retros, into your one-on-ones, into every team meeting or at least leave space for doing that because those systems then create culture. I've spoken about the after action reviews a couple of times already that can be a great way of bringing this into your structure, into your everyday encounter structure. Because again, conflict per se is a good thing. It is important in order to hear every perspective. It is important to develop constructive, innovative, creative solutions. It is crucial to bringing teams forward. As long as you do it well. Let's say I'm part of a team. We are having a meeting and it completely blew up. What are three practical scripts that we can start using the next day after this meeting completely blew off? Lars Nielsen (24:55.684) Well, if a meeting completely derails, think it's important to have a little break, not necessarily do the repayment. That's why I'm saying next day. that's it. good. And then really ask if we could redo yesterday, what would we do differently than from what we did yesterday? Yeah. And then in the discussion. you ask when you're an employee, the manager in that discussion then should really focus on making sure that people don't say, well, you need to do this differently and you need to be better in that, but that they stay with themselves in self-reflective mode, The second thing that I would definitely recommend is And that is something that even as an employee, you don't necessarily need to do this in the whole team, but you also do it one on one, right? say you and I had a conflict with each other, then either one of us could approach the other one. with the question, what do we need to surface here? What's going on underneath that we need to bring out in the open? And you can use the question, is there anything unspoken you and I need to clear to move forward together? And the third thing that can be done is one word check-in. That, in my perspective, requires quite a high level of trust. it could be... Lars can't just jump on his level. But it could be question like how... Lars Nielsen (26:47.012) how are you feeling about how we left things yesterday? And to just answer that in one word, and then obviously it's not the full conversation. I want to be clear about this as well, but it can be a good starting point because it opens up. It's a very vulnerable situation, obviously. But if I really understand where you're at, then I might be more willing to really... listen to you. and tapping into your experience from the Cultural Foundation, you've been talking to like multiple companies, do you notice kind of a cultural difference on how teams handle stuff like this? so obviously there are also national cultural differences. But what I see more of is a difference in what I call trust maturity. So if you have a team that has been working together either for a very long time or on a very high level of trust, because the manager is really good in creating a very trusting, psychologically safe environment, then you usually don't see hurtful conflicts to begin with because the conflicts are done on a topic level, not a personal level. even if they turn personal, then people trust each other enough and they trust their manager enough to surface that and to really bring it out in the open and do the repair. Usually even very much unguided. I've seen teams that can just wait. single people just approach each other and say okay I f that up I'm sorry about it and what do you need from me to repair this yeah that's like I've seen I've seen those instances and there are always moments when I'm like this is amazing that's amazing that people manage to do this Lars Nielsen (29:03.054) And in teams with low trust or low psychological safety, which are very closely interrelated, obviously, then you just, you really need different scaffolding to ensure that this repair is happening. Yeah. Because otherwise you bring yourself into a loop that is going to enforce that low trust and low psychological safety. Yeah. And is there, tapping into all your experience and so on you'll you probably heard it all so is there a myth about a conflict resolution that you want to debunk here on the show I don't know if it's a myth anymore but it's still something that's very much lived and that silence will heal the wound or that silence will heal the conflict at some at some point I've heard so many teams, people, individuals say, well, I've moved on, doesn't matter anymore. But just by the tone, already can tell that they did not move on at all. They just basically moved around it. we just avoid certain topics altogether because it's gonna end in conflict. And I've seen this on myself in the personal, in a personal area. there are certain people in my life where I know when I go down that road, if we start discussing that topic, it's gonna blow up. So I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty of from time to time avoiding certain topics. I just don't wanna get into it. But yeah, unprocessed conflicts. will always live in the body of a team and convinced of it. Not just the team, by the way. Also, all of that is also true in personal life. But in teams, then it can show up as tension and slack threats, passive aggressive. Lars Nielsen (31:16.618) messaging, comments, weird meetings, unclear roles, all of that can be signs of unprocessed tension and conflict. And what's the biggest mistake leaders do when they want to like try to let's do this in quotation marks force repair in a team? From my perspective that they mistake repair for closure. that they just after the first conversation about a mistake or a conflict for example they will then let's quash it and think okay we're done now with this we've discussed it let's just move forward and That is not actual repair because you don't see the behavior change. So you need to reinforce or at least follow through on does the behavior actually change or does it happen again? Right. So, and the second mistake that I see a lot as so many other topics, if you ask for certain things as a leader and like, for example, do the repair but then you don't model it yourself and you always always always no matter what you set the tone as a leader in a team or in a company and you always get the culture that you tolerate. So the worst behavior that you tolerate or that you model yourself is the tone you're setting for the team. And if you don't model good conflict resolution or even how to do, ideally, how to do conflict in a constructive, productive, positive way without going into any personal harm, then that is what's going to replay in your team over Lars Nielsen (33:22.233) and over and over again. And have you ever, have you ever, you yourself been in or ever heard about like a conflict where repair didn't happen? And then what was the consequence of this? Hundreds of times, hundreds of times. And yes, there are so many different instances of conflict. It can be about salary negotiation where people don't see eye to eye. It can be about Mm. something individual going on. think I told the story about two team members where the one completely kidnapped the meeting of the other person. But the other repair did happen, right? let me think. Maybe from my own personal experience. I did clash with my manager, my direct manager, on the values that we both stood for. obviously we stood for different values and those values clashed. Lars Nielsen (34:37.56) We both didn't really realize it at the time and so we froze and that emotional storm made kind of kind of thing we were just like okay we want it this way I want this one what are we going to do was like It was like in Lucky Luke, who's gonna hold the gun first? I like that you're bringing Lucky Luke into our podcast. It kind of speaks into how old we are both. Let's not go down that road at all. Please continue. Instead of naming the rupture that we had both seen or experienced, I compensated by overworking and by just trying to prove my worth in another way. But that didn't work because I didn't trust him anymore. He also didn't, I assume, because we never talked about it, I don't know if he didn't trust me anymore, but our relationship got so frail, at least for me, because I need to be able to, I can't work in an environment where I can't trust my manager, I just can't. And I can also completely understand if you don't want to work with an employee that you don't trust anymore. and so we also decided that we don't, that we're not gonna work together anymore. Unfortunately, what happened in this instance was that because we had different values, he lied to me about this. So he found a reason not to work with me anymore, that he just, so he told me some bollock story about Lars Nielsen (36:29.56) budgets and set up and whatnot. And so the funny thing is the conflict ended in the way it had started because our values clashed again. Because I don't, I don't mind at all if somebody doesn't want to work with me anymore. It's just life. and especially in business, just happens. And if you don't trust each other or if you just don't have completely different ways of working, that's fine. But just tell me, just look me in the eye and say, Paulina, we both know this is not working. Can we find a way to figure this out? Or can we find a way to separate in a good way? Instead he lied to me, to my face and that really annoyed me. Because again, again, went against my values. But yeah, so that's probably that's that's story from my from my own personal experience. And if if Lars Nielsen (37:37.753) Put a pin in that one. Didn't scroll down. Sorry for kicking you all the time. It's okay. That's how it is. someone is listening out there and it kind of feels like burnout from repeated over and over over conflicts. How can rituals stop the cynicism? That might be an unpopular opinion that I'm sharing now. if I continuously am part of conflicts, could be a really good point to ask yourself, what is my part in creating those conflicts all around me? How do I contribute to that? And what can I do differently to change this pattern? Because if it keeps erupting around you, there is a high likelihood that you're the common thread. Sorry to say. I know that people can't see this if they're listening, but I have this thing that I always remember that if one finger is pointing towards others, you have three fingers pointing towards yourself. Yeah, exactly. So you know me by now. I'm a huge, huge advocate for self-reflection and taking accountability for your part in any situation that you find yourself in. you can therefore, one ritual should definitely be this kind of self-reflection. You can do this once a week. What showed up this week that really... mess with me or where I was in a conflict, that I couldn't repair, that I didn't want to repair and why was that? So that is the self-reflection is ritual number one. another ritual that you can try to solve for yourself is Lars Nielsen (39:53.339) not just reflect on your own part, but also to see, what is one thing that I really appreciated this week? Because that can shift your focus from all the negativity to the good things that have showed up in your work week as well, right? And then secondly, look at one regret. What is one thing that I did that I shouldn't have done? and believe me, must have least one regret for a week. It doesn't have to be an interpersonal one, but could also be like... I regret that I didn't get this task done on time or that I wasn't as focused as I wanted to be or that I didn't bring as much energy as I wanted to. be any of those. And the third thing that I would always look at, what is one boundary I want to set for next week? Because boundaries are also a super important part of good conflict. Lars Nielsen (41:00.788) doesn't take long, right? The first part, the active self-reflection of what could be my part in conflict, then it's not necessarily something that you need to do every week and that is definitely something that's gonna be... repetitive thing and that's going to take more time. But those three questions appreciation, regret, boundary, that doesn't take longer than five minutes. So it's really an easy quick, quick thing that you can incorporate into your into your work week. And it can shift first your own perspective and then over time if you do if you then follow through on those things and you potentially even feel bold enough to share that you're doing this then it can seep into into how the entire team approaches this and maybe you infect people with with doing the self-reflection and then it can transform the entire team's response to conflict from defensiveness to responsiveness. And especially if you're a leader, you can model, you can really model this and then you can stop like any of the silent poison trickling into your teeth. And if we want to leave our listeners with, let's say one thing to remember about repair rituals, what would that be? I would say don't wait for perfection. Rather, try out different things, do them frequently, do them often and try to figure out what works in your setting. don't wait to do everything to, yeah, hit the right spot every single time. Paulina? Lars Nielsen (42:51.21) yet another episode live in studio in Copenhagen thank you very much for coming and before we round up as always please tell our listeners where can they find you company culture Culture Code Foundation? my god, that was so hard to say. Where can they find you and the Culture Code Foundation if they want to reach out and get good advice or hear more about your services? Well, for any companies out there or leaders that might want to work with us, can always find us on LinkedIn or you can find us on culturecodefoundation.com. And for anyone who just wants to get some free advice maybe, subscribe to our podcast. obviously we, Lars and I, both love to hear your personal stories. So you can always reach out to us either via LinkedIn or... Instagram will put all the social media handles in the show notes and then Lars and I would love to hear your story. can recount it here on the story on the podcast. Or we would love to have you on the show live. We always do this anonymously. You can even get a cool pseudonym. If you want to be live on the podcast and just tell your story, that's perfectly okay with us as well. Absolutely. We love that. Lars Nielsen (44:20.57) And again, you can do this. will do this in any form, way or shape that works for you. you can, we don't, never share company names, but we can share your actual name. We can, we can give you a pseudonym to protect your identity a bit, but we would love, we always love to hear your personal stories on the show. So if you, if you have something to share, just reach out to us. Perfect. Thank you very much, Paulina and to all our listeners. We'll talk. or see you next week. Thanks everyone and thanks Lars for having me in your studio. You're welcome.