534: How To Make Conflict Healthy in Your Practice - Heather Crockett - a podcast by ACT Dental

from 2023-02-06T03:00

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How To Make Conflict Healthy in Your Practice

Episode #534 with Heather Crockett

Conflict can be helpful and productive. It starts with a safe, open environment where you and your team can communicate. To help you create that space in your practice, Kirk Behrendt brings back Heather Crockett, one of ACT’s amazing lead coaches, to share the secret to building trust and vulnerability with your team. Channel frustration in a healthy, productive, and meaningful way! To learn how, listen to Episode 534 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:


Links Mentioned in This Episode:

Traction by Gino Wickman: https://benbellabooks.com/shop/traction

Main Takeaways:

Before anything else, have your core values set in place.

Understand destructive versus productive conflict.

Discuss and define what conflict is as a team.

Be willing to engage in productive conflict.

Don't settle for artificial harmony.

Quotes:

“I want to start with our favorite equation, E – R = C, expectations minus reality equals conflict. If our expectations and the reality don't match, conflict ensues. This is something we talk about a lot. When this conflict happens, especially amongst team members or with yourself and a team member, what do you do? And how do we put a system, a protocol, in place for when it does happen? How do we deal with it?” (2:08—2:38) -Heather

“I hated conflict. So, what I would create was called artificial harmony. If you think of this spectrum, on one side of the spectrum, you have this artificial harmony, which is, ‘It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. I don't want everybody to be upset. We’re just going to get along for today.’ And what it does is it creates unresolved conflict that ultimately becomes a crisis. And then you've got, on the other end of the spectrum, destructive conflict, where you're driving conflict. And your job as a leader, as a parent, as a spouse, is to find the sweet spot in between.” (2:46—3:23) -Kirk

“In the past, I would have team members say, ‘You don't trust me. You don't trust me.’ Well, we’ve got to have rules, and I've got to stick to the rules. Part of the rules is how do we communicate. You've got to have core values, and you've got to have structured meetings. And when you start to have these rules, these are called boundaries, people know what to expect and you can engineer some vulnerability where you can share how you're feeling. But it’s in an environment that's protected by...

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