What we need for better conflict resolution
There may be a secret to continuously growing throughout our lives. A key ingredient that leads to a rich, successful life with deep impact and high-quality relationships.
In one word: curiosity.
That’s what the president of Birkman International, a behavioral assessment company headquartered in Houston, believes, and she has reason to know a thing or two about what makes us tick.
Amy Shepley has 20 years’ experience within positive psychology and a lifetime’s exposure to research on behavior and perception. She is the granddaughter of Dr. Roger W. Birkman, a psychologist who developed a methodology for accessing personality that’s been used by millions of people and thousands of companies around the world, according to the company’s website.
The Birkman personality test is used by the likes of corporate America, marriage counselors, career counselors and more. It’s a professional service that ultimately seeks to uncover how someone is likely to behave and why. Through osmosis and her own career track, Shepley knows a lot about motivation, perception, behavior and what constitutes success. So, I picked her brain.
What are the through lines she’s observed from the back end of all those personality tests, all the research, all the experience? What takeaways are relevant and applicable to all of us?
She says the heart of it all is this: Everyone’s perception and experience of the world is completely unique.
“We know that, but we don’t realize the full impact of that statement,” she says.
“How you understand love and connection, respect … all these emotionally loaded things — every one of us has a very different road map.”
Shepley says just knowing how much our perceptions vary (even when it comes to seemingly objective things), can be transformative. That awareness alone can spark growth and lead to better conflict resolution. But that key ingredient is curiosity.
“Always withhold judgment, be curious and assume positive intent,” she says.
Just think, if we could do that — pause when we find a mismatched perception (say, in a disagreement) and, instead of firing off a reaction, just get purely, eagerly curious to understand the opposite perspective — how much we could learn, grow, have deeper and more resilient relationships, and even achieve better outcomes.
“Diversity of ideas leads to better outcomes,” Shepley says.
It isn’t our natural instinct to pause and curiously dig in when we don’t see eye to eye, though. That takes more energy and self-restraint. It’s more comfortable to stick around folks who think the same as us and have emotional reactions when views don’t line up.
But, if you’re willing to give Shepley’s advice a try, she says “help me understand” is a phrase to keep in your back pocket and use a lot. That’s ultimately the goal. Curiosity is a means for understanding.
We don’t have to agree or even find common ground, just understand.
Shepley says that if we can come to see someone else’s perspective and recognize how they arrive at their conclusions, everyone wins.
We all fundamentally long to be seen and understood, and when we grant that compassionate attention to others, “we can get something from every single person.”
“It’s my belief 99 percent of interpersonal conflict in the world is because we are perceiving things differently and don’t even realize it,” she says.
Shepley says she has personally seen how utilizing curiosity as a vehicle for understanding creates more peaceful and productive ecosystems in organizations, office dynamics and, I would venture to guess, her family.
I’m curious to give it a try.