On today's episode of WNYC's popup advice show, comedian Josh Gondelman, leads an advice call-in conversation about conflict, with facilitator and author Priya Parker, whose latest book is called The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict.. Listeners call in with questions and their advice about how to turn interpersonal friction into productive avenues of connection and collaboration.
Note: You are listening to the podcast version of a live radio show. The call-in number only works between 1 and 2 PM Eastern, while the show is live. Some music that was part of the live broadcast has been removed from the uploaded program due to license requirements.
If you'd like to submit advice questions to be featured on the show, or topic suggestions for future shows, please use the form on our showpage at wnyc.org/advice
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Josh Gondelman: Welcome to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm writer and comedian Josh Gondelman. I'll be performing at The Bell House in Brooklyn on November 11th as part of the New York Comedy Festival, but this week, I am delighted to be your host here on Please Advise. We're looking forward to some great conversations this week. Coming up tomorrow, we'll have Anna Sale here with us, the host of Death, Sex & Money, [unintelligible 00:00:28] the podcast from Slate. For our Election Day show, we wanted someone who knows how to have challenging emotional conversations and also someone with political chops, and Anna will have us covered on all those bases tomorrow.
Today, though, we'll be talking about conflict, whatever the subject. Sometimes, especially when we're in an autopilot mode, we're primed to avoid conflict. I know I am, at least. Interpersonal friction pushes all kinds of buttons that make us uncomfortable. There are so many unknowns built into conflict: "How's it going to go? How much compromise should we be willing to concede? Can we express our different perspectives without being misunderstood? Could this conflict permanently change a relationship?" Most importantly for some of us: "Are you mad at me right now?" Friction and all the questions it carries with it can be intimidating, but it can also create sparks of new growth, and it can be an important part of developing a kind of closeness, even when there's conflict, that can help us feel less alone.
Our guest for this conversation is Priya Parker, author of The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. Listeners, we want you to join the conversation. Do you have a conflict that you need some help navigating, or maybe you're deciding whether to raise a conflict or keep the peace, and you want some help weighing your options? Call or text us with questions and your own advice for navigating conflict at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Right now, Priya Parker, welcome to Please Advise.
Priya Parker: Thank you so much for having me.
Josh Gondelman: Oh, my gosh, thank you for joining us today. Priya, in addition to being an author of a book on conflict and another book about gathering together with friends and loved ones, you refer to yourself as a "facilitator." What do you do in that capacity as a facilitator, and how do you think about conflict as one of your tools in your arsenal?
Priya Parker: I help people and groups have conversations they've been avoiding that they don't totally know how to have, in part because they're often emotionally and intellectually complex. It could be a company going through a massive change, but it could also be a multigenerational family that is all up in arms because of a wedding.
Josh Gondelman: Sure. Do you see there being an anatomy of a conflict? Is there a formula for breaking a conflict down into its constituent parts, or is it every single one different?
Priya Parker: Most of us, when conflict arises, we take one of two stances: we either avoid altogether or we escalate and burn the house down. We move between what I call "unhealthy peace" and "unhealthy conflict." The core question in my new book, The Art of Fighting, is: How do we actually have more "healthy heat"? How do we hold creative tension long enough for it to reveal something new? To become an "artful fighter," the first step is to actually change our popular culture notion that all conflict is dysfunctional. Not all conflict is dysfunctional. Some of it is highly functional. In fact, long-term groups and long-term communities cannot thrive without conflict. I will start by saying I am a conflict-averse conflict resolution facilitator.
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Priya Parker: I've been a facilitator for 25 years, and so much of what we're taught is that "Good people don't fight. You're not supposed to fight with the people you love. "It's hard enough out there. Why would we fight in here?" The invitation is to actually say, by beginning to learn how to hold relevant conversations, we can have better teams, more resilient communities, and actually closer friendships.
Josh Gondelman: That sounds really beautiful. Listeners, if you want to get in on this conversation, we would love to hear from you. Give us a call at 212-433-9692. Priya, you've mentioned "healthy conflict" and "unhealthy peace" and "unhealthy conflict." Do you have some thoughts or a rubric on what makes for healthy conflict, and how do you recognize when you're moving towards it?
Priya Parker: Conflict is dangerous. It's risky, but it's also relevant. We don't fight about the things we don't care about, and we don't fight with people we don't care about. If we don't care, we leave. "Healthy heat" is the ability to hold the relevant conversation central to a group or a relationship in a way that allows you to get to the revealed truth, and so often, we're actually either avoiding the fight or having the wrong fight. I wrote this book, The Art of Fighting, with a core central question, which is: How do we fight with those we want to belong to? So often, we avoid because we're not sure exactly how to get the other people involved, or we're so nervous we end up botching it up because we escalate. We go from 0 to 100.
I think we need to live in a workplace. We need to live in communities where we don't just oscillate between saying nothing and suing each other. I look at lots of different groups and communities, from friend groups to a Boy Scout troop to a 100-year-old swim club, to look at when a fundamental rupture or reckoning happens within that group, what's the difference between those that fall apart and those that get through?
Josh Gondelman: That's wonderful. That's so exciting. I can't wait to hear more about this. Right now, we have our first caller of the show. Sharon from Nyack is calling in with a question about her sister-in-law. Sharon, welcome to Please Advise.
Sharon: Hi. This is a longstanding problem for me, and I have been trying to put it at the front of my list. My sister-in-law has stored quite a bit of furniture in my basement for 30 years.
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Josh Gondelman: You don't move too quick on these.
Sharon: No, but I want to now. She always finds an excuse as to why she can't come and get the furniture, and she won't let me give it away. She won't let me throw it away. I'm getting up there in age, and I want to clean my house so it's in good condition for my kids, so I don't have to deal with it. My husband really doesn't want to confront her because he's afraid she won't talk to us for many years after this if we really put our feet down and say, "You have to do something with this."
Priya Parker: This is your husband's sister?
Sharon: Correct.
Priya Parker: First of all, I'm sorry you have not only your own stuff but someone else's stuff in your basement, literally a lot of baggage. Here's what I'd say, which is before confronting her, I would get really, really clear on whether or not this is worth facing or not. I would get clear for yourself, and then within your and your husband's relationship. I would ask a set of questions, and this is actually in The Art of Fighting: "Can I continue to engage meaningfully without facing? Is this conflict touching on a core value of mine? Is the conflict making our relationship worse? How might not facing hurt our relationship, and will I regret not trying?"
I would actually get really clear for you, within your relationship with your husband, about, if the stakes feel high enough, what is more important to you: clearing out your basement and risking a new and perhaps worse, perhaps not worse, relationship with your sister-in-law, or letting it be. I would really, really get clear on that yourself first, so much of discernment is actually raising the stakes. There's many, many, many different ways to get the furniture out. I would think first for you: Is it worth it? Then the second is: Could you start thinking about a creative way to help her get this furniture out, and find out why is she so attached to it? Is there a way that you could, again, if it's important to you, find a creative way? Maybe you throw a party, with her permission, and get involved. What's her name?
Sharon: I'd rather not say.
Josh Gondelman: It's totally fine. [laughs]
Priya Parker: Don't say. I'll make it up. Say Franny, "Franny's Furniture Fete," and you host a party of some kind in which people come, and she tells the stories of each of those pieces and what it meant to her to different people who actually might need new furniture. Maybe it's people who are about to get married. Maybe it's a church. Often, we get stuck for all sorts of reasons around the furniture, including a lack of imagination. This is a very deeply embedded conflict. It's also physical in terms of your relationship with your sister-in-law.
I imagine that there's probably a lot of reasons she's blocking the furniture, and it's not necessarily particularly just about your relationship. If you want to get under it, to start loosening the soil, if you will, perhaps is starting to think about the different ways you could help her start releasing this furniture into the world.
Josh Gondelman: That's such a great point that it's clearly not just about whatever furniture is in the basement. If it's been there for three decades and she still is holding on to it, there must be more there. Listeners, if you have a conflict that you are embroiled in, it doesn't have to be a 30-year couch-related standoff; we want to hear from you. If you have advice from a conflict that you've resolved, if you have a conflict that's ongoing that you want advice on, we're here with Priya Parker, and we would love to hear you call in or text 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Priya, how did you get involved in this kind of work? How did you become invested and interested in helping people move through these kinds of difficult patches?
Priya Parker: There's the childhood origin story, and then the young professional origin story. I'm biracial and bicultural. My mother's Indian, my father's white American, and they met in Iowa. They moved a lot. We eventually lived in Virginia, and within moving to Virginia within a year, they separated. When they separated, everyone was shocked because they never fought. I learned from a young age that there's great loss in avoidance. There's part of me, kicking and screaming, become a conflict resolution facilitator to learn how to hold healthy heat.
Then, as a college student, I went to the University of Virginia, and one of the first questions people would ask me is, "What are you?" I didn't really understand the question. I thought, "I'm a first-year. I'm a woman." I realized that they meant racially, "What are you?" I began to realize that race was a very, very important part of this university. In the South, there's a lot of history to race and racism, and a culture of a tense racial climate. I learned about a process called "Sustained Dialogue." UVA has a strong sense of student self-governance: if you have a problem, do something about it. As a student, I learned about this dialogue process and started it at the University of Virginia, and that was how I began learning how to facilitate dialogues.
Josh Gondelman: Amazing. For people who, like me, and it sounds like you as well, don't naturally put ourselves in situations of conflict, is there a first step that you routinely recommend to people of like, "Start here, and start moving towards a healthy heat that way"?
Priya Parker: In the course of your week, whether it's in person, whether it's on a Zoom, whether it's with your friends, whether it's actually even on a TV show or watching cultural content, pay attention to the tension. That's it. We all have different conflict styles. We actually all have "conflict biographies." You may have been raised in a family of origin that was very conflict-seeking, and you may shy away from it, or vice versa, but pay attention to the tension and see if you can stay in the tension for just one breath longer before doing anything about it, whether trying to flee or whether trying to escalate it. So often, we're actually not even aware that when there's a charge or when there's a tension in the room, what our reactions are.
The very first step is to just start becoming aware in the groups and those relationships of your life: when is there some tension, and where and how can you stay in it for a breath longer?
Josh Gondelman: That's such wonderful advice. We have another caller. Joyce from West Caldwell is calling in. She has some of her own advice for Sharon. Joyce, you had a similar storage situation in your life?
Joyce: I did. We finally had to have a "come-to-Jesus" moment with her and say, "This is a burden on us. While we understand this is tough for you, we need you to understand what it does for us." It was a tough-love moment to say to somebody, "This is how much it would have cost you if you had been storing your items in my house for 30 years." If she comes to them and says, "This is a personal issue with us, and it's hurting our own ability to move forward, and here's how much we have saved you by putting this stuff in our place as opposed to a storage unit that you would have had to pay for."
Balancing those two personal things, both financial and mental, psychological problems of having somebody's stuff: if the house burnt down, what would happen to it? If you were angry with this person and you just wanted to toss it out and got somebody to come and take care of it, it would become a real problem. Sitting down with somebody and saying to them, "We don't want to go to this measure. We need you to take care of this, and it will take the burden off of us because we know you love us and we love you too, but this needs to happen, and here's a year for you to do it."
Josh Gondelman: Joyce, how did that go for you? It sounds like you really thought about how to approach this and state your needs really clearly. Was the resolution satisfactory on all sides, or was there a tough period of adjustment for one side or the other?
Joyce: It was a little bit of an adjustment, but after a while, she got into it and realized that it wasn't as hard as she thought. Being able to give her a goal to say, "You have a year. Here's your deadline date," helped her to look forward to this and to take care of it in a more timely fashion. Even when we'd get together for family functions and stuff, we'd talk to her about it and see how things are going, give her ideas, and she moved forward with it. It's like if you don't do something, it doesn't light a fire under someone.
Josh Gondelman: Thank you so much, Joyce. That was such helpful advice, and I hope it resonated with our listener earlier, Sharon. You're listening to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm Josh Gondelman, and our guest today is Priya Parker, author of a book called The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. We want to hear your questions and advice about conflict. Tell us about a conflict you're facing right now. Maybe there's a confrontation at work you're dreading or something you've been nervous to bring up with your friend or partner or even your family members.
Call in and share your conflict questions, and we'll try to share some advice about them. Or if you've made it to the other side of a conflict, like Joyce did, and you're happy with the results, call in and share the strategies that worked for you. The number to call or text is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We're going to take just a quick break, and we'll be back in just a moment with Priya Parker and more questions about conflict.
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Josh Gondelman: This is Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm Josh Gondelman, and our guest today is Priya Parker, author of The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. We're talking about conflicts of all kinds today and how to lean into them without fear and come out on the other side, hopefully stronger and better for it. We want to hear your questions and your advice. Tell us about a conflict you're facing right now, and we'll try to share some advice about it. Or if you've made it to the other side of a conflict and are happy with how everything turned out, call in to share the strategies that worked for you. The number to call or text is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
I think our initial caller, Sharon, really struck a chord because we have another caller with some advice and a solution, possibly, on the storage issue. Diane from Queens, we're so excited to hear from you. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on the storage conundrum.
Diane: Hello?
Josh Gondelman: Hello.
Diane: Hi. I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
Josh Gondelman: I can. Welcome to the show.
Diane: Oh, thank you so much. Only because I'm in my car, I just wanted to make sure. I know this is never the kind of advice that your guest could give because she sounds like a fantastic conflict resolver. In life generally, I try never to lie to anybody about anything, but with this issue, because it is her sister-in-law, so now her husband is involved in this, I would lie to them. I'm almost embarrassed to be saying this. I would tell them that I had a flood in my basement and that the furniture was damaged and got molded, and because it wasn't part of our insurance policy as something of extreme value, I was not able to put it in as part of the claim, but I'm really sorry we had to get rid of it.
I think there are things that I would never, ever lie to somebody about, but something like this, which is consequential but not really consequential, I wouldn't want to create strain in my relationship with my sister-in-law and, of course, the husband, because that's his sister. I give very strange advice, telling you to make up a lie. In the end, you will not be hurting anybody because they are clearly not realizing how much of an impact having this extra stuff in your basement is making you uncomfortable, and you have to take care of yourself.
Josh Gondelman: Diane, thank you so much for calling in with this, I would say, outside-the-box advice. Now, Priya, do you feel like this advice and the advice we heard before from Joyce are examples of an "unhealthy peace," or is this one tool in the toolkit for solving a problem, lying outright to your sister-in-law?
Priya Parker: First, I wanted to pull out two parts of her advice, the two callers ago. One was she said, "Start by saying, 'I really care about you.'" She said, "You know how much I care a lot about our relationship." That is a very good piece of advice. This is for anyone listening: when we're going in and deciding whether to say something or not, to always start by actually doubling down on starting with love and connection: "I care so much about you. I care so much about this relationship." Actually, when I studied lots of different traditional conflict rituals from all sorts of different communities, they would always start, within larger conflicts, with a meal. They would always start by first doing sometimes rituals to re-embed the importance of the relationship. In modern life, start with saying how much you care about this person.
The second thing that she said, I liked the timeline that she gave: one year. I thought that was a really interesting example. With Sharon, I would think about: "What is your year?" It's raising the stakes. A year felt compassionate. It may feel really long to Sharon, but it felt compassionate.
Josh Gondelman: We're talking a span of three decades.
Priya Parker: Right, exactly. Then every single time they saw her at a family engagement, again, they were hanging out, they were maintaining the relationship, but then they were helping, prodding. I just thought that was a really interesting mechanism to help her on her way. I think with the lie about it, the part is we don't fully know: What is this furniture symbolizing to the sister-in-law? Has it become the proxy for whether or not her brother cares about her? Has it become the proxy for whatever it might be? "Nice furniture, be a shame if anything happens to it." Disappearing it might create other problems. Would she believe there was a flood?
I would just say I think that it's a juicy example because furniture and stuff actually holds so much for each of us. In many families, one of the moments of a lot of rupture and reckoning and conflict is actually when someone dies, in part because of having to decide what to do with their belongings, but in this case, there's an extra wrinkle because it's not even their stuff. It's their sister-in-law's.
Josh Gondelman: This is such an interesting conundrum, like you said, from all sides, and so much of the issue with this furniture is actually an issue about relationships between all these different people and their different family relations. Speaking of relationships, Dineo from the Bronx has a question about sibling relationships. Dineo, thanks for calling in to Please Advise. What's your question?
Dineo: Thanks. I have two daughters who don't get along. I don't really know why, but one especially dislikes her sister and says she can't forgive her, but I don't know what it is. Of course, it's stressing me out. It's been stressing me out since time immemorial.
Priya Parker: How old are they now?
Dineo: They're old, 59, 54, something like that.
Josh Gondelman: Got it.
Priya Parker: How long has this been going on?
Dineo: Let me see. I don't know, quite a few years, but I think it's just intensified. I think that the one who said she can't forgive the other one, I think that part has gone on for maybe five years or something. Before then, we would get together, but there would be that--
Josh Gondelman: Dineo, I'm sorry to cut in on you, but I was wondering: Is what you're looking for specifically help patching up your sisters' relationship with each other, or just advice for figuring out how you can live alongside these fraught relationships, if that's what it's coming to?
Dineo: I'm living alongside it now. I would like to know: Is there any way or anything that I can say? I've tried different methods in order to bring them closer together. One, she doesn't want to hear it. The other one, maybe she may be more amenable to getting closer to her sister.
Josh Gondelman: Thank you.
Dineo: I don't know. Nobody killed anybody, but even if they did, they still would be sisters. I'm saying that it was nothing like that.
Josh Gondelman: Totally.
Dineo: I don't understand. Each one wants me to listen to their side. I don't want to take sides. I'll listen to them, but I don't want to take sides.
Josh Gondelman: Thank you. It sounds like to me you have this problem where maybe the two people in conflict have a different investment in resolving it at all. Priya, is that something that you've had experience with or have advice for?
Priya Parker: Yes. First, just listening to you, I'm sorry that you are in pain. It hurts when the people we love are having a tough time with each other, and part of it is we affect each other. You are a group of siblings. You are a part of the same family. When there is conflict between two people, it's not actually just between two people. It affects the whole. Thank you for sharing with us. You're not alone. This is common in many families. I would step back, and as a conflict-resolution facilitator, one of the questions I often have my clients answer is, first: What is the need? What is your need? What is the need of this family? What is it, at some level, that you most want?
You don't have control over their relationship, but to spend some time reflecting on what would you most love to experience within your family. Sometimes what you do have control over is changing the patterns of interaction, changing the way in which you gather. My first book was actually called The Art of Gathering. Sometimes when families, even one member, changes the way in which we gather, it can actually shake things up. One of the things I found surprising in my research for The Art of Fighting was often when people are willing to start facing harder things when there is joy, when there's love, when there's an experience of connection.
Sometimes doing something totally different, like having a blast with them, like inviting them to do something that would literally make all three of you be like, "I want to do that," go to a concert together, just shake things up a bit without touching the wound too much, allowing them to have a wider experience of each other rather than being in the same loops over and over and over again.
Josh Gondelman: That's such an interesting point, and it sounds like so much of what you're coming back to is maintaining and cultivating and celebrating these relationships that already exist and what's worthwhile about them, as opposed to just poking into the area of conflict, and using that as scaffolding. We have a caller, Candida from Westchester, who has another question about conflicts where not everyone is putting in the same effort to resolve it. Candida, welcome to the show.
Candida: Thank you.
Josh Gondelman: Can you tell us a little bit more about the situation you're facing?
Candida: Yes. My son, who grew up in New York, moved out to California and fell in love with a wonderful woman, and they now have 2 beautiful children, 10 and 8 years old. We did not move out there when the 10-year-old was born, which I deeply regret. My daughter-in-law and I have not had a great relationship. The distance has been really tough on both of us, and I feel like I missed the boat, but we did have a "come-to-Jesus" meeting a year or so ago, and I felt like we had made some serious progress. Both of us were very relieved, but I never followed up on it. I didn't, because of this conflict resolution, push to get FaceTimes or this and that. They're very busy, and I'm so afraid of interrupting their lives.
Now we come to Christmas, and it's our turn for Christmas. I was told by my son, "It's okay to book tickets, Mom, but we don't want to see you on Christmas morning. You can drop by during the day." I don't know if we're invited for dinner. I don't know any of the details, and my daughter-in-law's very, very, very scheduled. She always has a plan: "Saturday we'll do this, and Sunday we'll do that, and da, da, da, da, da." She's very, very, very, very organized, but we have no idea. Are we flying out for Christmas Day? Are we flying out for the day after? Should we come the day after and give them their privacy during Christmas? I don't know.
I know I have to. I'm going to text them. I don't know how to word the text to say, "Please, could we just have a FaceTime, the four of us, my husband and I and my son and daughter-in-law? Can we just have a sit-down for 10 minutes where you could tell us what your plan for Christmas is so we know and we can book tickets around it?"
Josh Gondelman: This sounds so difficult because there's so much emotion wrapped into this, and also cross-country logistics and expenses. Priya, do you have any advice for how to get the ball rolling for firming up these plans and firming up the long-term relationship within this family?
Priya Parker: First, I'm happy to hear you did have, as you called it, a "come-to-Jesus" moment a year ago. Often, it can build and build and build, and so these release valves are very, very healthy. The second thing I'd say is you're not alone. Holidays and moments of weddings and Christmas, we think of them as moments of warmth and connection, but they're often moments of group conflict, in part because they're forcing mechanisms, just like you're saying, "I need to know when to book the flight." I would remember what were the findings, for lack of a better word, from your "come-to-Jesus" moment last summer.
I would see if you could remember some of the frequency of even just the relief that you found with your daughter-in-law, even some of the language, or even if you had, like, a joke during that conversation, to recall back to that moment. It sounds like you both had a bit of a breakthrough, which it sounds like she also was very relieved. I would put it first into an email. In The Art of Fighting, there's actually only one chapter that's the actual facing. Everything else is, as you're saying, setting it up right and then coming out of it. I would probably put it into an email or a text message.
I would think about whether it's to her or whether it's to your son, whether or not it's to all four of you too, but if she's the scheduler, and you already have a relationship with her, I think what I would probably do is something like put it into your own words but send her an email or a text, depending on your communication relationship, and just say, "Dear so-and-so, we're so looking forward to seeing you all. I so appreciated our conversation last summer." I would start with, "We would love to spend some meaningful time with you when we are out there, and if you have some idea of what that is. Is it a half day, or is it a couple of days?"
Say, "I'm so happy to either join plans that you are already making, or if there's more time where you want to spend just with us, I would love to spend as much meaningful time as possible, but I also know you all have a lot going on. Could you let me know what your vision is for that time?" Because at some level, and this is the heartbreak of intergenerational relationships, is the parents at that stage of life do have the power more than the grandparents. Part of that is I would go in, say that you're wanting time and connection, and then asking her what would be delightful. At some level, if last summer she showed relief, I would actually start with: "What would be delightful to you?"
Often, generosity and a spirit of generosity begets a spirit of generosity, versus getting into combat or like a hand-to-hand battle over time with the grandkids. If you can afford it, if it's a place where you and your husband can be, you may even want to just go wider and go a couple days before and a couple days after, do some stuff in the area. I know it might sound odd, but it's almost like when we expand and relax, it actually expands and relaxes everyone else, and not to get into the tit-for-tat scheduling around it, but coming in from a point of excitement and grace.
Josh Gondelman: I love that advice because it really shows that Candida has respect for her daughter-in-law's scheduling and her nature as someone who is a planner, but also wants to become welcome as much as is comfortable for everyone. I think that's really excellent, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday. You are listening to Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm Josh Gondelman, and our guest today is Priya Parker, author of a book called The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. We want to hear your questions and your advice. Tell us about a conflict you're facing right now. Maybe there's been a confrontation at work you're dreading or something you've been nervous to bring up with your friend, partner, or family members, as we've been hearing.
Call in to share your conflict questions, and we'll try to share some helpful advice about it. Or if you've made it to the other side of a conflict and are happy with how everything turned out, call in to share the strategies that worked for you. The number to call or text is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back in just a minute with Priya Parker and more of your calls.
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Josh Gondelman: This is Please Advise, a pop-up advice show from WNYC. I'm Josh Gondelman. I'm a comedian and writer. I'll be performing on November 11th at The Bell House as part of the New York Comedy Festival. My guest today is Priya Parker, author of The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. We're talking about conflict of all kinds and how to lean into it without fear and come out on the other side, hopefully stronger and better for it. We want to hear your questions and your advice. Tell us about a conflict you're facing right now, and we'll try to share some advice about it. Or if you've made it to the other side of a conflict and are happy with how everything turned out, call in to share the strategies that worked for you. The number to call or text is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.
Priya, we received a text with a question I think that is about a common source of stress and conflict. The text reads, "What about issues regarding money? My wife gave a family member a significant amount of money, and they're not paying it back. How do you resolve that without relaxing the family relationship?"
Priya Parker: This question is not dissimilar, actually, from the furniture question, in the sense that we all, at all moments, are negotiating and asking: "What are our obligations to each other?" When an informal social contract breaks, the way I would think about the furniture in the basement is there's this informal, implicit contract that is no longer working. If it's lending a large amount of money and then it's not repaid, not only does it affect, obviously, the person who's not repaid. It puts a strain on the marriage itself. Pause and ask first within: "What is our need?" Part of what conflict reveals, particularly in a group, is that it makes the implicit explicit, which is: "What are our priorities? What are our values?"
When a loan is not returned, it also puts into stark contrast what is more important: getting this money back or, and I don't want to put it in a binary, it's not keeping the relationship, but allowing for the non-repayment to either continue or to forgive it. To first get clear on it, actually, the first conversation is within yourself. The second conversation is between you and your partner, and then to really think about: "Are we willing to either expand our range of options to get this money back?" Or if we don't think we're actually going to get it back, it's going to affect the relationship. At some level, to really escalate it, do you sue?
Coming all the way back, where and how do you begin to think about whether or not it's worth facing? It already is negatively impacting your relationship. I would really think about what is the most important relationship in this ecosystem, and where and how might you get other family members to potentially understand what's happening and help support you and this other person.
Josh Gondelman: Wow, it's so helpful to hear you talk about not just engaging in the moment of conflict itself, but going back a little while. What you said was setting yourself up for success by thinking about what you really want out of the situation.
Priya Parker: It's rewinding. The moment of conflict isn't just the intervention where you say something. We actually need to think about, as the earlier caller, "What do I actually say?" There are so many different ways to do this. Part of the art of fighting is we want to step back and actually expand our range of options within ourselves, and then also within the way in which we interact with the other person. It's slowing it down to get really clear on what is important here, and then what are your red lines.
Josh Gondelman: Excellent. We have another caller that I'm very excited to hear from. Richard from Staten Island is calling in with a roommate issue. Richard, thank you for calling in. Welcome to Please Advise.
Richard: Hi, thank you. I recently became the sole owner of my family home earlier this year, and I decided to rent out two rooms. I had a lawyer friend put together an agreement that was a licensing agreement. I call it a "roommate-licensing agreement" that both people signed. I didn't have any utilities in it. I just had one price for the room, and in the agreement, the utilities weren't even discussed, whether they were covered or not. In the end, one of the women had one room, and she had a dog, which I was looking forward to maybe walking, but it turned out the dog was lame and just always in the room, and the dog required a specific temperature and fan.
What happened was the air conditioning was on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 months, and on top of that, the ceiling fan and another fan for the dog. She'd be gone, and the AC was always on. Then, even when she was there, she was always in the room using a power strip with like six or seven AC things plugged in. What happened was that my circuit breaker downstairs started tripping the fuse again and again. Eventually, an outlet broke in the kitchen, and I needed to replace that. She moved out, and now I have a deposit, and I explained that I had to pay $140 to fix the outlet. The intention was that normal use of electricity was covered with the agreement. However, what happened was that excessive use, kind of like normal wear and tear.
I came up with a formula where I said, "There's three bedrooms: mine and two others." I split the bill into four quarters, and I said, "25% for bedroom one, bedroom two, and mine are the three." I told her, "I'm paying that 75%, but I'm viewing that final 25% as excessive electricity because of the special conditions you explained with the dog, which I did not complain about." They won't see it. They won't have it. They want the full deposit back. They say, even though she broke the outlet, that it should be my responsibility also. We're not talking about a lot of money here, but it's just the headache. Right now, I'm vacillating between going ahead. I have all the photo documentation of the outlet with the six things, and I'm putting together a letter explaining it all. They're threatening legal, that they're going to not get any deposit and legally go after me.
I'm torn between doing that, and then the other option I see is I'm just going to eat the electricity and just say, "Look, the outlet broke in front of me, and the reason it broke was because of the excessive use." I said, "I'll eat that $1,000 in electric bill."
Josh Gondelman: Thank you, Richard. That sounds like a really difficult problem, and one that you hadn't foreseen popping up. Priya, do you have any thoughts about how to resolve this, because it's an interpersonal problem as well as, of course, a financial problem, like we were talking about earlier?
Priya Parker: It's super stressful, and my actual personal advice would be to just let her cut and run. One less problem is one less problem. I'm not a lawyer; I'm a facilitator, but part of the reason contracts are so important, and as you're learning, this is a home for you. That's a new setup for you in terms of figuring out what the actual contracts are, is to invest in good lawyers to write airtight contracts, and so often, trouble emerges in the vague areas and the gray areas. In The Art of Fighting, I actually have a two-by-two framework to figure out what kind of conflict do you have on your hands. The type of conflict Richard has on his hands is what I would call a "kerfuffle," which is it is not existential, and in terms of magnitude of conflict, it's relatively low.
It can be resolved through a tighter contract. In this case, Richard, what I would suggest, honestly, if you can afford it, is chalk it up to the cost of doing business and learning: learning how to be a tenant, learning where and how to have really tight contracts, learning about all of the various scenarios that you would have never imagined, and working with a good lawyer to tighten up the next contract. I'm sorry, it's very stressful, but the more you also continue to decide where and how do you think about what you're willing to share with your tenants and whatnot, that should be deeply reflected in the contract.
Josh Gondelman: Another issue where preventative care, so to speak, can help going forward. Lori from Long Island is calling in now with a question about conflict. Lori, thank you so much for calling in. How can we help you?
Lori: Hi there, and thanks for taking my call. My question is: Any great tips on managing, whether it's a holiday event with family or friends, socially, when there's drinking involved, which can alter people's personalities or how they communicate? I think that's a really tricky situation for many people. Sometimes you can just remove yourself from some people or love them from afar, but sometimes you can't, especially with family. Any help for that? Thank you.
Priya Parker: It's a great question, and I think one many people share. First, I have a Substack called Group Life. You can go to priyaparker.substack.com, and there's all sorts of resources there. I did a group-help session called "How to Hold Healthy Heat with Your Family Over Thanksgiving or Christmas, and When to Cool Things Down," and I have a number of tips in that resource. One such one, particularly related to alcohol, is to find activities to do that actually crowd out the sitting around, talking, and drinking. One of the reasons games are actually such a helpful thing to do, particularly after dinner, is because it gets people up and active and moving and doing other things, whether it's charades, something very simple, or Priorities.
One, often people drink less because they're busy doling out cards or whatever, or acting. The second is the way in which we are engaging with one another. Whether it's laughter, there's actually less silence. There's less moments where people can say whatever they're going to say in front of a big group. One of the things, as facilitators, we think about is: Where and how do you create activities that lessen the desire or need to drink? Sometimes, also, people drink out of nervousness. They drink out of anxiety. They drink because it's boring. How do you actually increase the fun and the connective tissue by having alternatives?
Sometimes it is in the evening, but I know families who, in part because of alcohol and trying to find ways to meaningfully connect without it being the sole source of connection, will do an afternoon kickball game in the park. I know a family last Thanksgiving; they were bringing together in-laws for the first time, and one of the things one of the sisters-in-law did was she had the entire family do a sound bath together-
Josh Gondelman: Wow.
Priya Parker: -in part because it was two hours, literally, of them not talking. It was novel enough that people were up for it. It's a really good question. I think it's a question that many families struggle with, but actually, thinking about how do you design for connection so that we're not just waiting for things to combust.
Josh Gondelman: Priya, thank you so much. This has been so wonderful. It's been really great hearing everybody's questions. Your expertise has been so helpful. Real quick, in just a 15-second button answer, we talked a little about getting into conflict. Do you have any thoughts about how to emerge from conflict in a healthy way? How do you set yourself up for enduring success? Again, that's a big question with a short answer.
Priya Parker: In Chapter 8 of The Art of Fighting, I call this period "the aftermath." Just like in earthquakes and natural disasters, it's often a liminal period. Sociologists talk about when all of the rules and norms are up in the air; so too in conflict. In that moment, first, meaning-make. Help tell the story of, literally, "I'm so proud of us. That was hard, and we actually are growing our muscles. Good groups have conflict as normal. I'm really proud of us that we're actually doing this." Then, find ways quickly to also have a blast together. You want to water the garden and not spend so much time continuing to unearth the conflict, but do things that are touching into the other parts of your relationship and remembering, like, "Oh, there's actually still so much goodness here."
Josh Gondelman: That's beautiful. Thank you so much. That was our guest today, Priya Parker, author of The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. Priya, thank you so much for joining us. This time tomorrow on Please Advise, we will have Anna Sale, host of the Death, Sex & Money podcast. It'll be Election Day, so we're going to be talking about how to navigate democracy, especially when it challenges our relationships, our sense of self, and our hopes for the future. Tune in tomorrow for that. If you already know you're going to want Anna's advice, you can submit questions ahead of time at wnyc.org/advice.
Please Advise is now available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Give us a follow if you want to get all our shows sent straight to your device every day we're on the air. Thanks for listening, and thanks for calling in. I'm Josh Gondelman, and I'll catch you back here same time tomorrow.
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