What if the real solution to conflict is not about persuading the other side, but in transforming yourself first? That’s the provocative question we explore in today’s episode with my guest, Ursula Taylor.
We discuss why self-awareness and authenticity must precede empathy, versus what some other thought leaders you may be following are saying. We examine where traditional conflict resolution processes fall short, and why it truly only takes one person to change the energy of a dispute, answering the most common question I get about how to deal with someone who is not showing YOU any empathy! And finally, we consider why peacebuilding and sustainable resolution start from the inside out, requiring us to release our energy and the need for control to cultivate neutrality within ourselves before clarity and solutions can emerge.
If you’ve ever found yourself entrenched in conflict, whether at work, at home, or with others in these very divisive times, this conversation will invite you to reimagine what resolution really looks like.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for:
- Keys to approaching negotiation and conflict with self-awareness.
- The right energy to bring for healthy conflict, and how you can release your own emotional charge when someone is not showing you empathy back.
- The impact you have on others when you set the tone in your interaction with them.
- Why the win/loss dichotomy is not important in conflict and negotiation
“When you’re in an interaction with someone who’s not capable of empathy, it manifests as self-absorption or even narcissism. You’re with someone who’s not there to hear you. They’re there to talk. You want to make sure you are sourcing your energy from you and not from that person.” — Ursula Taylor
Episode References:
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
- The Empathy Edge podcasts with guest Robin Dreeke:
About Ursula Taylor, Founding and Managing Member, Conflict Reimagined:
Ursula specializes in guiding individuals and teams through conflict resolution using holistic and strategic methods that go beyond traditional dispute resolution. With seventeen years of experience as a nationally recognized managed care attorney in commercial litigation, Ursula now focuses on helping clients avoid or limit costly legal processes. When litigation or arbitration is unavoidable, she supports clients in finding efficient resolutions.
Ursula combines intuition, deep discernment, practical experience, and analytical skills to help clients understand the broader scope of each issue or dispute, including underlying drivers, emotions, and limiting beliefs. She partners with individuals and leaders who prioritize business results, cooperation, and productivity, and who are open to innovative approaches for addressing and preventing expensive and uncertain conflicts.
Connect with Ursula:
Conflict Reimagined: https://www.conflictreimagined.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ursula-taylor-b0ba4729/
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What if the real solution to conflict is not about persuading the other side, but in transforming yourself first? That’s the provocative question we explore in today’s episode with my guest, Ursula Taylor, founder of conflict, reimagined after 17 years as a nationally recognized managed care litigation attorney, Ursula shifted her focus away from prosecuting and defending legal claims to helping individuals and organizations approach conflict from a more holistic perspective. She combines deep intuition and discernment with practical, legal and analytical experience to guide leaders who want to preserve relationships, avoid costly disputes and discover more evolved mechanisms for resolution. In our conversation, we’ll discuss why self awareness and authenticity must precede empathy versus what some other thought leaders you may be following are saying, because people can always detect when empathy is being used as a tactic rather than authentically felt. We’ll examine where traditional conflict resolution processes fall short and why it truly only takes one person to change the energy of a dispute answering the most common question I get about how to deal with someone who is not showing you any empathy. And finally, we’ll consider why peace building and sustainable resolution start from the inside out, requiring us to release our energy and the need for control to cultivate neutrality within ourselves before clarity and solutions can emerge. If you’ve ever found yourself entrenched in conflict, whether at work or at home or with others in these very divisive times, this golden conversation will invite you to reimagine what resolution really looks like. So many insights. Take a listen. Welcome Ursula to the empathy edge podcast to talk to us about all things conflict resolution. I’m so excited to talk to you today. Thank you, Maria. It’s great to be here. So before we dive in to all the juicy nuggets you’re going to share with us today, tell us a little bit about your story and how you even got into this work?
Ursula Taylor 03:03
Sure, so I practiced commercial litigation for 17 years. Wow. I went to law school, got my JD, started a big firm, and never felt completely settled in what was going on and how we were going about it in terms of efficiency. And then as I kind of grew in my practice, I sort of always told myself the way out is up. Ursula, just make partner. Ursula, build your own client base. Ursula, build your own niche practice. Ursula, go start your own law firm. So I did all those things, and then I was still left with sort of this sense of limitation around the ability to actually achieve results for my clients, to actually align to their business objectives, to use litigation as a path to realize their greater goals. It often doesn’t. The business case for it is often not there. And I felt, I would say, stifled and limited, and I got to a point where I just really couldn’t do it anymore, yeah, and I decided to leave to close my law firm, transfer the files, leave the practice of law, and I kind of thought I would go in house, or I I thought maybe I’ll go into policy or something like this. And I took some time to really just kind of reflect and go inward. And I started conceiving of this like conflict, reimagined what’s actually driving conflict, and how do we actually help clients, help businesses get back to doing the thing that they’re there to do? And started realizing and understanding within myself and more broadly in the world, that conflict is actually opportunity, if you understand what it is.
Maria Ross 04:38
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s the absence of conflict. Is not empathy. It’s that’s not collaboration, right? We need a little bit of that conflict, that friction, to innovate, to grow, to question what we’re doing, to make sure that we’re getting another perspective and another point of view. And I come from an Italian American family where we’re not afraid of conflict. Yeah, yeah, but it, I do understand how it can go off the rails for people in so many ways, and so let’s talk a little bit about that, and kind of the link to empathy and perspective taking. Because the way we talk about empathy, as you know, on this show, is more about perspective taking. You can share emotions, and that’s often a part of sort of the traditional definition of empathy, but it’s also about being willing and able to see, understand and appreciate another point of view. You don’t have to agree with it, you don’t have to condone it, you don’t have to cave into it in order to be empathetic. So it speaks right to this idea, especially, one of the myths that I bust about empathy is that empathy is not about agreeing with someone, right? It’s just about being able to get their perspective and understand each other’s perspective enough that you can take a next right step
Ursula Taylor 05:53
forward, right? You can ultimately realize your own goals and understand in the first sense, is what those are. So the way I kind of approach conflict resolution, and I think this will resonate with your approach to empathy as well, is that you’re not going to be effective in a negotiation or attention or a conflict or in an effort to espouse empathy, unless and until you have a good awareness of yourself and you’ve released your own charge and you’ve gained your own sense of clarity. If your back is up, if you’re amped, even in the smallest irritation. And a lot of us, especially high performers, are really good at not knowing or feeling ourselves, but the energy is still there. And so we’re driving forward. We’re bulldozing forward. We’re achieving, we’re getting stuff done. We think we’re on the path, but we are transmitting and spreading an underlying energy unconsciously that is actually limiting us and the teams around us. So you’re not effective in navigating conflict or in realizing conflict as opportunity unless you’re really utilizing it to go more inward in yourself and release your own blocks.
Maria Ross 07:03
I love that. And we were talking before we started recording that the first two pillars of my five pillar framework and the empathy dilemma are self awareness and self care, because you’ve got to get your own house in order and understand how you show up in the interaction. What are you contributing to it, right? And what are your emotional triggers? So you’re prepared. You can sort of rehearse that ahead of time, but I would love to hear more from you about that key role of self awareness and authenticity. You know, again, even before you get to empathy, in the role of having healthy instead of saying conflict resolution, I’m going to say having healthy conflict, right? We both were talking about Chris Voss, yeah, the expert in negotiation and kind of using tactical empathy, tell us where he might be getting it wrong or missing.
Ursula Taylor 07:52
Sure, yeah, I’ve read his book. I think it’s never split the difference is that, right? Chris Voss, he comes at empathy from the background of an FBI hostage negotiator, right? So he is basically using different strategies and tools to make the other side feel heard, mirroring, mirroring their voice, their cadence, their body language. All of that is great, but what I will tell you that’s missing from that analysis is that that is not effective unless and until you have a handle of your own energy and emotions. Because if you are irritated, even if you are doing a great job of keeping it repressed, it’s coming through. We are intuitive beings. We feel each other’s energy. It’s not the words, it’s not the scripts. It’s the energy that underlies it. It’s the emotion that underlies it. And so if you’re an FBI hostage negotiator, and you’re negotiating with someone to release a hostage, that’s not your child, that’s not your family member, that’s not you know, so yeah, you can come in and like, have all these great external strategies, and they’re brilliant and effective, but if you’re not doing the work to know what this is and how that transmits to the other side, then you’re not going to be at your full power. I guess I would say, yeah,
Maria Ross 09:11
absolutely. And I think, you know, it works for the situations for which it works. But when we’re talking about everyday empathy, when we’re talking about empathy at work or in our relationships, we are bringing, I don’t want to say baggage, because that sounds so negative, but we’re bringing our stuff to the situation always, even if it’s at work and we think we’re very analytical and data driven, we’re still human beings, and we still have our biases, we still have our perceptions, we still Have our lived experience that we’re bringing to those discussions or conversations or debates, no matter how hard we try to be neutral.
Ursula Taylor 09:49
That’s exactly right, and that’s what needs to be honored. You know, this idea that we can like emotion is the problem, so let’s put motion to the side. No, you can’t. Yeah, we are emotional beings. We are. Driven by emotion everything we do, and emotion underlies every conflict and every tension, so the quicker we can just accept that and honor that the best we can do as human beings. Because, to your point, we’re never not going to have fear or insecurity or anxiety or worry or pride or shame or guilt. The best we can do is develop a self awareness or the habits and patterns that will allow us to be self aware, because once we can bring self awareness to it, that’s when we’re empowered to not only navigate what limits us, but to actually have an impact in a negotiation, in a leadership team, in any kind of high stakes or low stakes conversations?
Maria Ross 10:42
Yeah, absolutely. And just side note I’m going to put for my listeners, I’m going to put a link to my interview with my two interviews with Robin dreek, who was head of the FBI counterintelligence behavioral unit, and we talked a lot about this, and he has evolved his strategy to move beyond just the specific situations that he faced in those roles, of converting people to be spies, right? And he talks a lot about self awareness and emotional regulation, and it’s like he’s got that missing piece in there. So I’m definitely gonna put a link to his episodes in the show notes for everyone who’s kind of interested. But I want to talk also about this idea of we talk a lot about it takes two to tango, and that’s true, right? You’re bringing your energy, I’m bringing my energy. We’re both bringing our baggage to the situation, and we’re reacting and responding to each other in the moment. But you talk about the fact that it only takes one person to resolve a conflict. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Ursula Taylor 11:47
Yeah, it takes to tango. So what if you don’t have two you have no tango, conflict, tension, or any kind of interaction between two humans is an exchange of energy. There’s energy in our words, there’s energy in our feelings, there’s energy in our actions, and we are spreading that back and forth. You know, you can go back to quantum physics and little law of attraction and think about, you know, subatomic particles being attracted to subatomic particles of the same frequency. That’s what happens, unless and until we change the energy. So if you’re in a tension with someone, and we see this in our national politics too. Actually, we can see this broadly and on a collective level or an individual level, like what we’re going to do when we’re sort of just going back and forth and not pausing and taking stock of ourselves is we’re just going to reverberate the same back and forth. Now, if one person takes a break and they really go into themselves and do the work of unraveling their limitation or their block. They release the charge. I like to say they they are releasing the charge of their own to use your verbiage baggage or their own emotional block, they’re going to come back to the conversation emanating something different. And guess what? That spreads too. Okay, that spreads too. And so if you are coming into the conversation with a sense of courage, neutrality, hope, love, peace, you’re going to bring that energy, and you are going to affect your counterpart. If you can stay in it, you cannot stay in it until you’ve brought the self awareness, the consciousness and sort of some of the strategies that I utilize to kind of help people, like move those blocks. But what’s awesome about it is it’s not just about self improvement. Oh, I’ve got this issue. I’m sad, or I’m, you know, this, or I’m that, and it’s limiting me, or I’m scared I need to block that it’s you can actually harness real power to affect change within your high stakes negotiations, within your teams, it’s incredible you can become the more full, powerful, creative version of yourself.
Maria Ross 13:50
Essentially, I love all of this because I have to share with you one of the things I talk about in my leadership workshops when I get the question of, well, what do I do if the person I’m in tension with is not being empathetic to me, and you know listeners, I know you’ve heard me say this before, but we can’t control other people, that’s right, and so the only element we can control is ourselves and what we’re bringing to the interaction, and we can model how we Want that interaction with that person to go and they may not be impacted by it in the moment where they stop and they realize what they’ve done, you know, in an unhealthy way, and they’re thanking you for changing the tone of the conversation. It’s probably not going to happen in the moment, but you are impacting that person even when they walk away to realize that, wow. You know, I was being asked questions. I was heard. They really remained calm, even though I was coming at them, they’re going to be thinking of all of those things when they walk away. And so all you can do is set the tone for the kind of interactions that you want to have with people. And I love hearing this today. Just. Because I am struggling with my own feelings of being an empathy teacher, and where I’m not embracing empathy for people right now, and I’m struggling with that and and it’s like, well, it just feels, it feels like such a Herculean task. You know, I feel like Sisyphus of like, pushing the rock up the hill and having it roll down again. But you’re reminding me, you’re sort of giving me a touchstone on you can always have the impact with what you bring to the discussion and what you bring to the challenge that you’re having.
Ursula Taylor 15:32
That’s exactly right. So for me, the way I like to think of it, when you’re in an interaction with someone who’s not capable of empathy, or, let’s say, even worse, they’re really just like in their cave. They’re in their cave. It manifests as like a self absorption, or you could even use the word narcissism, you know you’re with someone who’s not there to hear you. They’re there to talk. They’re not there to listen, they’re there to tell and in those moments, what the way I like to think about it when I find myself in those moments, and I was in one yesterday, is that you want to make sure you are sourcing your energy from you and not from that person. So it’s I was in on this call yesterday. It’s not what I expected. I suddenly realized the person I was talking to like the call was to understand me and my approach and my way of thinking, right? So I was expecting to talk and have other people listen and take notes. And I found myself dealing with someone who was bringing in energy that was resistant, and I don’t want to say antagonistic, but it was like defensive and arguing, and he was telling me starting, and then I just, I took a breath, I noted where I was. I didn’t know I was going into that kind of a call, noted where I was, I took a breath, and I said internally, back to me, like, back to me. So I brought all my energy back to me, and I stopped resisting and engaging and trying to get a word in Edge wise. Because when we’re doing that, even if it seems polite or professional, if we like, like this, like, we are actually energizing that. Because now we’re battling it. We’re bringing a resistance, yeah, you know. And so it’s the same energy because we’re fighting it. So I said back to me, like, I’m not doing this with this person. I’ll find another way speak to another person, speak on a different day. All my energy has got to come from me, because if it’s about the ping pong with him, all I’m doing is draining myself. So if you’re with someone who’s not able to be open and curious, that’s not what they’re there to do, they’ve got their own stuff happening, their own dynamic internally, or maybe with other people on the call. It’s that awareness, that moment, and you can feel it in your own body, oh yeah, yeah. Feel my feel it in your head. Was like, Yeah, I felt like
Maria Ross 17:41
I was a kid back in my childhood home trying to be like, but listen to me, and I was like, no, like, you don’t need to convince
Ursula Taylor 17:47
anyone that’s not losing. Want to be no. I’m energizing the wrong thing. And so I bring it back to me, back to me. I focused on my own body, my own breath, and I got a little more quiet and a little more observing, right? And I stopped trying to convince and persuade and compel and like, that’s a resistance energy, and it’s not powerful, it’s draining and limiting.
Maria Ross 18:10
Okay, this is so good. I’m so glad we went down this route. So I want to ask the follow up question that I get from this, which I don’t know how to answer very well. I’ll be vulnerable. Let’s try. Does that mean I’m condoning or I’m sort of relinquishing my position if I do that? No, and how do I get you know if you’re in that conversation, how do you still stand firm in your way that you want to do it, or the strategy that you’re recommending, or whatever it is, in that moment where you’re not making the person feel like they, quote, unquote, won. That’s what I get. Like, how do I do it so they don’t feel like they won?
Ursula Taylor 18:46
Oh, you. Well, first of all, you can’t affect how they feel, right? And I would submit that you have to let go of winning. Winning and losing is not the paradigm to operate in. Go back, have a conference with yourself about what do you need, and what you need is never to win, to make them wrong, to make them feel this to you know, righteousness or victimhood, no business is built on righteousness and victimhood like that’s not what drives the bottom line. No one is cusping into the next level as an individual or a leader of business by like, being right and making other people wrong. That doesn’t that’s not right. What do you need for this deal? What do you need for this contract? What do you need for this relationship? What do you need from a practical, logical neutral like, pretend you’re an Excel spreadsheet. There’s no you’re an Excel spreadsheet of neutrality, right? What do you need you know, and you know that within yourself, right? And I was on a call with someone who’s like, I just need them to know that, like they can’t push me around.
Maria Ross 19:44
Yes, exactly. Yeah, you’re still
Ursula Taylor 19:47
carrying an emotional charge, and you need to go back and release that charge so you can get the clarity to answer that question and when you can answer that question, and so you’re in more of a grounded, neutral state. You’ve released your charge, coming back. At that person. How do you deal with them, making sure you’re sourcing energy from within yourself. And then once you’re in that space, you can start doing a little bit of what Chris Voss does, right? Your curiosity, like you’re just a you’re kind of a blank canvas. And then you can hold space for them, and you can ask them questions and put the focus on them, and it is not letting them win, right? Giving them the room, the space to release their own emotional charge. Yes, and you’re basically kind of almost like a friend or a therapist or something like observing when we know our worth, when we know our worth, and we feel solid and grounded and powerful and clear. We don’t need to convince anyone of anything, right, right? So, right? It’s so interesting, because you don’t need to find your energy or your power, your worth, from what that person does or thinks, because you just know, yeah, you know, yeah.
Maria Ross 20:53
Well, that’s why that Foundation’s gotta be so solid, so that you can take on another perspective and ask the curious questions to get to what’s underneath. Get to, like, what’s actually causing this resistance for this person? Let’s let them talk and be heard, and let me be in a place where I don’t take that in with defensiveness or fear, exactly right? So, yeah, because that’s the thing, is being able to get curious about finding out what their context is. And again, it doesn’t mean we have to agree with them, but it’s going to give us more information. And I love, you know, telling this to my more analytical types. Think of empathy as information gathering. Think of it as a way for you to just remain curious and try to understand where the other person is coming from, so you can figure things out together, because the more information you get from them, number one, like you said, when you get them talking, it lowers the temperature of the whole thing. They start to feel heard. They start to maybe even bring their energy down, because they realize there’s nothing for them to rail against. There’s no you put down the rope. There’s nothing for them to tug anymore, right, right? So, right? That actually kind of gets them in a state of like, Oh, I’m actually being listened to right now exactly. And again, we don’t have to do what they say at the end. We can just now have a conversation where we’re sort of, and this sounds a little patronizing, but you know, we’re, we’re the adult in the room, right?
Ursula Taylor 22:19
Yes, you’re the adult in the room, so you have to release the charge. You have to release your own charge, your own emotional charge. You have to go a little deeper with yourself in terms of what is being touched or effect. If you’re in a space where you’re like, I’m letting them win, then you haven’t released the charge. Yeah, you know, if you’re still worried about letting them win, or what they might feel, or
Maria Ross 22:39
getting your weight, like, I’ve got to close the like, the pressure of like, let’s say it’s this, you know, I’ve got to get my contract terms. I have to get my contract terms. You’re just like, you’re holding on so tight. Or, you know, I’ve got to get my budget plan approved. I have to do it this
Ursula Taylor 22:53
way, right, right, right. When you release the charge, it’s less like I need to get my budget plan approved. It’s more like what I need is a budget plan that’s approved. I think this is the highest and best way to go about it. I’m going to talk to this person. You come into the call, you’re more neutral, you’re clear, yeah. And then they’re bringing in energy and the magic power. The thing that’s wild that happens is when you’ve released your emotional charge, you also get clarity, not just about strategies and solutions, but you get clarity about the other person. Yeah, you mentioned you’re the adult in the room, because you can suddenly see, oh, this person is like you would view your child, who’s having a tantrum. They’re going through a storm cloud. They’re or they’re scared, or they’re scared insecure, or they are overwhelmed, or whatever it is. I want to ask a follow up question that Sure, what are some ways to release your emotional charge? What are some ways that work for you? That’s a great question. And I think for those of us who are just like, I’ll use the word of my 14 year old daughter, big brained. We’re like, big brains, you know, is so much intellectual power. And like, yeah, we get stuck in the story. So the ways are going to vary person by person, but the core of it is you want to replace the energy, the energy of the emotion, and bring in a new feeling. It’s not about the story, it’s not about the what you tell yourself. It’s not the drama or the script or the thing. It’s not a mantra, it’s an energy. So you literally go into it, find the feeling, feel into it, acknowledge what
Maria Ross 24:29
it is, don’t try to deny it.
Ursula Taylor 24:30
Yeah, don’t you gotta honor it, you. But drop the story, because like an emotional feeling is like something that passes through. We keep it alive with our thoughts. So when we add the drama in the story and the He Said, She Said, we pick up the phone and we complain to our best friend. We can’t believe what happened. Like we are just keeping that energy alive and perpetuating it forward. But if you can go deep, and maybe you need to take a walk or exercise, and for a lot of people. And this includes me, at times, finding that feeling can be hard, yeah, take a break and go get into nature. For some people, it’s yoga. For other people, it’s meditation. This is exactly what I say all the time, yeah, yeah. Maybe it’s lifting weights at the gym or walking your dog or doing a puzzle.
Maria Ross 25:16
It could be active. It could be rock climbing. It could be going to do improv. It could be, you know, all of these things that we talk about when we talk about self care. Self care is not just Manny and peas, yeah, and I love this new way you’re framing this. For me is self care is actually a way to change the story and release the energy, release the energy that’s not serving you, I guess I should say, right,
Ursula Taylor 25:41
and replace it with something different.
Maria Ross 25:43
I love this because this is such a new way for me to talk about this with full props to you on looking at this, and I love how you are balancing that we don’t take the emotion out of the interactions, but we find a way to work through it. So you know, when using all those analogies about a blank slate an Excel spreadsheet, you’re not telling people not to feel what you’re saying is get yourself to a place where you’re more grounded and work through the emotions. Don’t deny them, and don’t pretend that this is all so cold and clinical. And I think that’s hard for some people to understand. They’re like, well, am I supposed to embrace my emotions, or am I not supposed to embrace my emotions? Embrace my
Ursula Taylor 26:23
emotions? Yes, yes. It’s feel it to release it, but be careful not to perpetuate it. Feel it to release it, but don’t stay stuck in the churn of He Said, She Said, drama. Don’t post on Instagram about it and comment here, or pick up the phone or text this, or don’t spread it, even journaling to yourself. If you’re like complaining and angry journaling, yeah, angry journaling, you can be perpetuating the energy within yourself. Yeah, feel it to know it’s there, and then make a conscious choice. Because there’s power in our thoughts. There’s power in our choices to bring in something new. Think about time when you felt at peace. Think of a time, you know, like an exercise. I like to do with myself is to sort of imagine myself as separate from me, maybe a different time in my life, when I was a teenager, when I was a child, or some other version. And speak to that version, and bring that version and talk to it and say, I’ve got you. I care about you. I I’m interested in hearing what you have to say. And, yeah, bring that energy, that energy of self love and self care. Replace it with replace that feeling of being uncared for or unseen or unheard. And yeah, and it’s really about the feeling, and less about the words in the story. And I think we’re humans have gotten tripped up is that we’re so smart, we’re so intellectual, there’s so many books and words and things that we’ve lost touch of the feeling, in the emotion and the energy, and we’re trying to intellectualize everything. Yeah, and the best self care are those things that create a gap between our intellectual mind, ego mind, and like the energy in our bodies. Yeah, yeah.
Maria Ross 28:09
One of my past guests, Chris Johnson, talks about the power of the pause and just being able to take a minute to realize what’s going on and try to take yourself out of that loop that you’re talking about, that endless loop. So, yeah, oh my gosh, this is so good. I’m just curious, when you were in litigation, was this where you discovered some of these techniques, were these almost survival techniques for you? Like, how did you go from applying it there to the work you’re doing now with leaders and teams, like, where, yeah, great
Ursula Taylor 28:44
question. You know, I think what’s woven into this is my own human evolution, my own sort of, like awakening and like, growth, right? Like, and, you know, as I I’ve always been an intuitive and empathic person. I’ve always been a bit of a sponge and, like, absorbing it. And so I’ve always sort of wanted to, like, help my clients, right? And, you know, I’m not helping them if there’s a huge legal bill attached to whatever win you know, occurred. And so there was that, there’s this intuitive, empathic part of me, and then I think I just got to a point where, you know, I didn’t come into litigation wanting to talk about fear and feelings. I didn’t even start this consultancy, like, fully like, with the idea that like, I want to talk to people about their feelings and their fears and get to the root of it. Yeah, I wanted to solve problems. I wanted to make people better. I wanted to help my clients achieve their business goals. Guess where that took me, fear and feelings, because that’s what’s at the root. Totally. You know, I came at this as like, this very like practical, intellectual like law school, legal process, and right, I’ve got all that, like, I got all that I can do that that’s not a problem. But if we’re really solving what’s at stake, I gotta go into fear and feelings
Maria Ross 29:54
we do. And I’m just wondering, I guess my question is more like, did that come up with for you in litigation? Were you sort of started to see this, and did it actually change your outcomes within that profession?
Ursula Taylor 30:06
I mean, it helped to have this mindset in that profession, but there’s so much fear around the process of litigation. Yeah, and I can remember one of the last cases I was handling, I got a hold of an audio recording of the other side call. I was representing a managed care like health plan, and I got a copy of the recording of the other side calling in. And I could hear the person. I could feel their energy. I could hear their voice. And I got it. I was like, I get what’s happening here and why this is turned into all of this. Yeah. And I remember saying to my client, who is also a lawyer on the inside, not the business person, not the person on the other end of the call, not right? The Council, yeah, in house lawyer like, this is what’s going on. This is what this is really about. And can we talk to this person or that person? Oh, no, no. We don’t let our outside litigation Council talk to our business clients like it was, like, you’re over there. That’s your lane. So, and then there’s all this worry and fear once you’re in that process. Like, you don’t want to give anything up, you don’t want to reveal anything, you don’t want to show weakness, you know, just the mirror. Like, I think we should mediate this dispute. Oh, then you don’t think you’re right, you don’t think you’re going to win.
Maria Ross 31:17
So it’s counterproductive to resolving the issue, which is what you thought you were there to do, right?
Ursula Taylor 31:22
It’s counterproductive, because it perpetuates everything and almost disconnects it all too, right? So, yeah, I really wasn’t permitted as outside, you know, I’m not even I’m outside litigation counsel, and the next to me is in house, litigation counsel, and the next to that person is, you know, her boss, and the next to that person is maybe a business leader, and then down the corporate tree, two or three steps is the person who’s actually responsible for this relationship, who could speak to it and say the words that might make a multi $100,000 litigation process go away. Yeah, I don’t have the power or the proximity to do
Maria Ross 31:58
it. You’re like, I’m out. I can’t do this anymore.
Ursula Taylor 32:01
Yeah, you want me to write interrogatories. What
Maria Ross 32:05
you’re like this is, this makes no sense, yeah, yeah. So, and now you’re helping leaders, and you’re helping teams and organizations navigate this. What as we kind of wrap up, I’m curious, what kinds of challenges? How are they phrasing the challenges they have? They might not be coming to you saying we’re having conflict resolution issues, right? So what are some scenarios for our listeners to understand where this advice is applicable? I guess. What are the pain points your clients are communicating to you?
Ursula Taylor 32:34
Yeah, the pain points is maybe an organization is scaling rapidly, and they’re feeling like the growing pains. They’re feeling frustrations between and among themselves and or maybe they are dealing with an external partner or someone internally, and they’re just feeling the pain of not being able to get their way. And they’re like, they’re a little amped, and maybe they have an idea that what litigation costs they want to talk to someone else first. Or maybe it’s more internal. They’re like, I know we’re not going to make it if we don’t like smooth some things out, because we’re going quickly and right, this is only going to get more painful. And so I think my ideal I do sort of workshops and trainings and internal stuff, and then I also consult on like, potential disputes or tensions. And I think what’s nice about me is that I bring in this backdrop of litigation, litigation process, what it is, what it isn’t, what it costs. So we can speak to all of that and compare and contrast and sort of it’s, I’m a good person to talk to before you call your outside litigation counsel.
Maria Ross 33:33
That’s a great way to look at it. Well, I mean, and there’s so many issues that are just these people and communication issues that get in the way of the actual work that the organization is there to do. And it’s if you’re feeling that that tension, if it feels like people are not working together as a cohesive team, if there’s a lot of, you know, side conversations and backstabbing, it’s and it’s this is inherent on the onus to solve this is on the leadership, to be able to see that this is going on and to not be afraid of it, not to try to ignore it and hope it resolves itself, or hope it goes away like No, we’ve got to have an intervention here if we want to move forward. Things are moving too rapidly. We’ve got AI. We’ve got five generations working in the workplace. We’ve got a market that’s like going all over the place these days, we don’t have time to help to for these things to kind of work themselves out on their own, because they won’t. So we need people like you within organizations to be like, Yeah, let’s nip this in the bud. Let’s be honest. Let’s be vulnerable. Let’s just deal with it so we can move
Ursula Taylor 34:37
on. Right, right, right. And it’s interesting, as you were talking, what came to me is like, one of the red flags when I know like an organization needs some work, is when everyone is dead quiet. You come walk into the room or on the Zoom call and no one’s talking, right? No one’s chit chatting, no one’s how’s your weekend? No one feels free, no one feels safe. Yeah, everyone’s eyes on the voice. Was allowed to have an opinion. Yeah, exactly that. Why it is deafening, like I when I feel that and see that in a room with a group of business leaders or colleagues, I’m like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, oh
Maria Ross 35:16
my gosh, Ursula, you have just, like, charged me up today. I love it. This is so good. I need to put this episode in my ear for a lot of situations that I run into these days and just honestly dealing with the world at large right now. So so thank you so much for this. We are going to have all your links in the show notes, a link to your company, conflict reimagined, but for anyone, when anyone that’s on the go, tell us where they can connect with you and find out more about your work.
Ursula Taylor 35:43
Yeah, conflict, reimagine, that’s my website, www dot conflict, reimagine.com, google me. Ursula Taylor, I think I pop up here and
Maria Ross 35:51
there. Great. So, yeah, great, great, great. And we will put, like I said, we’ll put all the links to things that we referenced in the show notes as well. But thank you so much for your time and your insights today, we really appreciate it. Thank you, Maria. It’s my pleasure, and thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do. Please rate review or share it with a friend or colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive, take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy. Visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop, and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events, please follow me on Instagram at Red slicemaria. Never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place. You.