The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam GrantCan Conflict Actually Make Our Relationships Stronger? with Priya Parker | The Curiosity Shop
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 12,333 words- 0:00 – 1:07
Welcome to The Curiosity Shop
- BBBrené Brown
Hi, Adam
- AGAdam Grant
Hey, Brené
- BBBrené Brown
You excited to talk with Priya Parker?
- AGAdam Grant
I can't wait. I have some fighting that I need to get better at
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, my God. The... I mean, I thought about us a lot when I was reading this book, and I thought about the teams I work- I thought, I thought about my whole life when I was reading this book. Growing up, now, um, what I've learned about conflict. Um, let's tell people who Priya is, in case you don't know. Priya Parker is a facilitator, strategic advisor, and acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Her new book is The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict. It's available now. She's trained in the field of conflict resolution. She's worked on race relations on American college campuses, on the peace process in the Arab world, in Africa, and in India. She studied organizational design at MIT, public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and political and social thought at the University of Virginia. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York. Let's bring on Priya. [upbeat music]
- 1:07 – 3:28
Priya Parker and Her Book: "The Art of Fighting"
- AGAdam Grant
Priya Parker, welcome to The Curiosity Shop. Are you ready to fight?
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs] Are you ready to fight? Thank you for asking me.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm always ready.
- PPPriya Parker
I, I... [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
I-
- PPPriya Parker
I know you are
- BBBrené Brown
I'm always ready to fight. [laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
I don't think you two are the 10 tended targets of this book. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
I don't know. I-
- PPPriya Parker
You, you, you're, you're, you're, you, you both are comfortable with healthy heat
- AGAdam Grant
And yet extremely conflict adverse. I speak for myself only here.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
But...
- PPPriya Parker
Really?
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. I don't, are you... I don't think you're co- I, I am not conflict adverse at all, but do you think you're conflict adverse, Adam?
- AGAdam Grant
Historically, yeah. I've worked hard-
- BBBrené Brown
Historically
- AGAdam Grant
... to overcome it
- BBBrené Brown
Man, you...
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
God, start, I- I- I'll start with an apology- [laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
... because working with you-
- AGAdam Grant
Apology rejected
- BBBrené Brown
... is very-
- AGAdam Grant
I love it. I love the fact that we can fight-
- BBBrené Brown
It's very-
- AGAdam Grant
... and get closer, which is what Priya's book is all about
- 3:28 – 5:10
How Do You Fight With People You Want to Belong To?
- BBBrené Brown
wanna jump in, um, to a line that is right at the b- at the top of the book. How do you fight with those to whom you want to belong? And why am I in so many rooms with so many people that say, "You absolutely do not wanna fight with people to whom you want to belong"?
- PPPriya Parker
We have been taught in this culture, myself included, that fighting is immoral, dysfunctional, messed up, only for bad groups out there, quote, unquote, and yet we all fight. It's a normal part of everyday life, and in part because we've been taught at some level that you only fight with the enemy. It's distorting what fighting actually is, which is to belong to any group, to any team, to any family meaningfully, you have to sort things out. And we have actually such a flat word, fight. I wish we had, like, 600 different words to describe all of these different types-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm. Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... of relevant tension. And-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
I'm a conflict adverse, conflict resolution facilitator, [laughs] so, so I have learned that conflict is a skill, and I've also learned that when you avoid it, there's a lot of loss. Avoiding conflict doesn't make your team or your group stronger. In fact, it increases the likelihood that it falls apart.
- 5:10 – 7:07
What Does Healthy Conflict Look Like?
- BBBrené Brown
It's so interesting, because I'm thinking about growing up, and I'm thinking about my parents and the parents of my friends.
- PPPriya Parker
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
And you write about this a little bit in the book. Um, I saw two things, no fighting, which is what I really longed for as a kid.
- PPPriya Parker
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
Or really shitty, hurtful fighting downstairs, muffled-
- PPPriya Parker
Yes
- BBBrené Brown
... when you're a kid. You're scared. It seems terrible. It doesn't seem productive. I mean, I didn't have the word productive. It just seems like your world's getting ready to end any minute.
- PPPriya Parker
Yes.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, and so the only thing I ever saw was, like, no fighting and my friends saying, "Oh, my God, my parents have never been in a fight in their lives," or, "Oh, my God, is my whole world getting ready to end because I don't..." ... understand what's happening. And so when Steve and I first got, first got married, and of course we've done a lot of counseling, 'cause neither one of us come from something where we saw productive... We don't, we've never seen the art of fighting.
- PPPriya Parker
Mm-hmm.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, and so the first couple of times when Ellen was maybe old enough to know that we were in disagreement, we were both like, "Oh, God."
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
"I think we're supposed to do it, but I think we're supposed to do it well."
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
"I, I, I, I don't think we're supposed to pretend nothing's wrong, and I don't think we're supposed to, like, go ape shit right now. I just think we're just supposed to be, like, productively doing something."
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs] Ah.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, yeah, no. Uh, but, but-
- PPPriya Parker
Well, and in a mo- and in a way, you almost wanna in that moment pause as if you're watching a soccer match or a football match and, like, get the coach in your ear and be like, "Now, okay, what do I say and what do I do, because this is relevant and I don't wanna mess up in front of my child, and I care about this person, but I'm also really mad," and, and we don't-
- BBBrené Brown
Yes, that's it
- PPPriya Parker
... have those coaches.
- 7:07 – 8:25
Healthy Heat vs. Unhealthy Conflict
- PPPriya Parker
We, we haven't been taught. We, we ha- we don't have a lot of examples of healthy heat. And, and so many of our families, so many of our teams do exactly what it, it sounds like was also happening in your family and your friend's, friend, fam- friend's families, is we oscillate between what I call unhealthy peace, which is avoidance.
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- PPPriya Parker
No one ever says the thing. Really important-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-mm
- PPPriya Parker
... conversations never get had. And s- or we oscillate to the other side and enter into unhealthy heat or unhealthy conflict, which is dominance, insulting, manipulative, abuse. W- a- a- a- and, and part, and, and we... But yet, conflict is actually relevance. Conflict, that's why I call it heat. It's dangerous, but it's also relevant, and what we actually need are skills and tools to begin to help hold the most important conversations of our lives. We don't fight with the people we don't care about, and we don't... They're not e- they're not relevant to us. I mean, this book isn't a- The Art of Fighting isn't about yelling at strangers on the internet. The Art of Fighting is how do you actually build resilient, fun, thriving, meaningful, connected teams.
- 8:25 – 13:49
How Can We Practice Fighting When the Stakes Are Low?
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, so this, I think, speaks to one of my favorite points from the book, which is y- w- one of the things you crystallize for me is that too often we end up on the two extremes, either unhealthy peace or unhealthy heat, because we avoid the conflict until it blows up. And [laughs] you actually suggest that we should fight more to practice when the stakes are low. How do we do that?
- PPPriya Parker
I once saw this actually done in a tech company. They were having their leadership retreat, and I have permission to talk about this. They, the vice president was responsible for hosting a three-day retreat, 5,000 leaders. They were at a huge crossroads in their company, and he realized that they were suffering from what he called toxic politeness, right?
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
As everyone knew there was deep difference and deep, uh, and a number of different perspectives in a really crucially important decision they needed to make. But their norms were such that if once it started happening, everyone would sort of look away or make a joke, like, right? A- and, and sort of, uh, keep it cool temp- temp- por- temperature-wise. And so what he did is on the first day, he went up on stage and he said, you know, "Welcome. I don't like doing this, but we're gonna start on kind of a heavier note today. We have some big decisions to make." I was in the room. Uh, you could see everyone sort of, like, tense up. Right, pay attention.
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- PPPriya Parker
And he said, "So we're gonna actually start with four really big debates. We're just gonna rip the Band-Aid off." And everyone's kinda, like, looking around, you know, pin-drop silence. Everyone who was normally texting, like, looks up. [laughs] And he says, "Because we need to really make some big decisions on, as a team." And then he, and he says, "And so the first debate within our, you know, historic company," and he looks up and he looks on the back of the slide and he says, and, and the slide appears, "Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?" And everyone's like, "What?" And h- and he, he's also, he's practicing being an artful fighter. He's, "Let, let's go. Groups of four. Duke it out. Debate." And I turn to the four people around me, and one of them's like s- you know, scrunching up their nose. Another one's like, "That's disgusting." Another one's like, "Do you not have any curiosity in your life? Like, pineapple on pizza-"
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
"... is amazing." And someone else is like, "You know, I'm Italian. I'm offended. Pineapple doesn't go on pizza." And it was this back, and everyone's laughing and ribbing at each other and not worrying about, like, walking on landmines. And then he puts up a second slide, and it's like, "Is a, is a hot dog a sandwich, yes or no?"
- BBBrené Brown
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
Third slide, and then they keep on doing this. They're, they're practicing their reps. "What is the right time for lunch?" And again, I'm like, "What's the right... " And people are just go, "11:00 AM. What are you, 11:00 AM? That's barely breakfast. No, no, no, 2:00 PM. If I eat before 2:00, I'm gonna fall asleep." Again, but what they're actually doing is they're practicing pro-social fighting. There's warmth.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
There's humor. They're practicing about s- hi- like, highly, strongly held opinions that don't matter. And pa- and as I was watching this room, the genius of what Lionel Morey did was he basically helped see that low stakes arguing actually helps protec- pr- uh, prepare us for high stakes arguing, in part because a lot of what we avoid in the fight isn't actually the intellectual or the language. It's how our bodies freak out when we're in the room.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
And so what he's starting to do and what that room did, and I now host hot takes parties for my teams, for teams. I, I have a newsletter called Group Life. We hosted a hot takes party a few weeks ago just to practice these skills. And, and the core lesson here is to approach heat, add warmth.
- AGAdam Grant
I love that example. It's so playful, and it reminds me of times when I've warmed students up in the classroom or, or leaders in teams just by saying, "Hey, is cereal soup?" It's, it's the-
- PPPriya Parker
Yes
- AGAdam Grant
... same exact dynamic. People are like, "Hey, we can actually disagree with each other and think it's hilarious, and not mind that the other person has a completely different view."
- PPPriya Parker
And part of doing that as a teacher, as a, as an educator at the beginning of a class is you are... This is now getting into Art of Gathering stuff. But the first 5% of a classroom, of a meeting, you're actually laying the pathways for how people behave and the norms for the rest of the time together. And so are, you're increasing their perception of warmth of each other, right? When we feel safe. One of the... I interviewed three types of people for The Art of Fighting, people experiencing conflict, which is everybody, [laughs] but, but groups fighting. People who study conflict, so researchers, professors, and then people who hold conflict, facilitators, trainers, lawyers. And Prentis Hemphill, who I know, uh, Brené knows, H- Prentiss said, "The most powerful body we have is a relaxed body."
- AGAdam Grant
Hm.
- PPPriya Parker
And so part of what you're also doing-
- AGAdam Grant
That's so true
- PPPriya Parker
... right? Part of what you're also doing is you're increasing your students or your leaders' ability to actually hold complexity when you're also somatically relaxing them and giving them pro-social experiences with each other. It actually changes the capacity for the rest of the meeting.
- BBBrené Brown
God, that's so interesting, and it's also... I mean, it
- 13:49 – 19:27
Can Healthy Conflict Help With Loneliness?
- BBBrené Brown
takes me to another point in this book that I just, when I read it, I called my husband, I called some of the facilitators we work with in organizations, and it's just, it's just a line that took my breath away, "Healthy conflict is the missing link in our struggle with loneliness." Like, I cannot, uh, every, with, with very few exceptions over the last 20 years, every organization that I go into to do really deep work starts with, "Well, we have a nice problem."
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
You know? And, and it's what you're talking about, about the toxic positivity.
- PPPriya Parker
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, and when I dig into it, there's always just this moment, so I say, "Well, you're, when you get angry or you're disappointed or you're frustrated and you're not talking to the person who's involved in this, when you're not talking to that person about how you're feeling, what are you doing?"
- PPPriya Parker
Mm.
- BBBrené Brown
And 100% of the time, the answer is, "We're talking about that person to someone else."
- PPPriya Parker
Right.
- BBBrené Brown
And oh, my God. Like, the distance created when people are n- so afraid to be uncomfortable with each other. Can, can you walk us through that?
- PPPriya Parker
I mean, so much of your work rhymes so deeply with, with The Art of Fighting. I, I mean, I can't tell you how many people say to me, "It's like what Brené Brown says, 'Clear is kind.'" Right? It's reframing the idea that we assume that the only way to be in relationship with one another is when things are peachy, and actually, the crucible moment of all group life is a fight. You can't... Like, I studied group theory for this, and there are f- there are stages of group development, and the second stage is called the storm. So part is you, it is you form as a group. This could be a trivia club, this could be a church group, this could be a volunteer group, this could be a new team. You form, then you storm. Conflict increases. Who are we? How do we share power? How are we gonna do this? What night a week are we gonna meet? Then you norm, and then you perform. And in so many of our teams, when, when... You know, I, I, I joke, like, when the group chat goes silent, it's usually 'cause there's a smaller sidebar. [laughs] Right?
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
And so a huge part of my-
- BBBrené Brown
The side, the side text, yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
Exactly, the side text. Like, "Did you see that?" Um-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... part of, part of what often happens is when we aren't taught the skills or given the social permission to, uh, to address whatever the issue is between us, or s- it c- this can also be about a product. Like, the number of companies or teams that avoid, if product fails, that avoids literally a debrief. What went wrong, right? A post-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... a postmortem, because there's so much assumed shame. So part of this is the way to kind of actually come back together is reframing it, but then saying, "Hey, I'm, I wanna talk with you about this because I want to work with you." Right? "I want to invest in you." One of the teams I looked at that I think is so interesting, it's a family-owned business, third generation, fine dining restaurant in the Pacific Northwest called Canlis. And I'd heard about them from other restaurateurs, and they were saying, "You should talk to them. The brothers there are doing something very interesting about how they actually hold heat." And they have two spaces in their restaurants. One's called the Cachet and one's called the Hooch, where if people, if, like, staff members are basically starting to bicker or get into it on the floor, someone rings a bell and says, "Take it to the Hooch." And they've created special, separate, private, not in front of everyone, one-on-one spaces where they don't just say, "Give each other feedback directly." They actually have normalized and act- It's in their employee handbook. Take it... Don't... I, I wish I could, I could read it in front of you. Uh, do not, take the person aside. Do not do it in front of other people. We are gonna have many m- moments of conflict every night of service. This is not a disaster.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, God. That's true.
- PPPriya Parker
This is actually how we team. And so starting by, a, a leader or manager normalizing and having people actually practice what I call molehill clearing, like small kerfuffles, to just, again, passing the ball back and forth, this is a massive part of communication, right? If we don't actually know how to communicate, we're not giving s- scripts, we're not giving tools. And the other thing I'd say is I see a lot of, in workplaces, something will happen, and not only do they talk behind be- each other's back, I've seen people post oblique stories on Instagram about what's going on in their team.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, Priya, one of the, one of the things that you just spoke to that I think very powerfully is, it, you were referencing the Bruce Tuckman work on, on stages of group development, right? On, on forming-
- PPPriya Parker
Yep
- AGAdam Grant
... storming, norming, and performing. And I think one of the things that a lot of groups get wrong is they think those are, those are linear stages, and once you've passed through stage two, you're done with it.
- PPPriya Parker
Beautiful.
- AGAdam Grant
Right? We have stormed.
- PPPriya Parker
Beautiful.
- AGAdam Grant
Now we can norm and perform.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And I think what, what, what you're, what you're-
- BBBrené Brown
Glad that's over with. We can put our umbrella away.
- 19:27 – 22:14
Why Conflict Is Part of Group Life
- PPPriya Parker
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
And I think what you're underscoring here is that we actually need to normalize storming as part of our ongoing communication process, and the Canvas example is such a fun one. And like [laughs] the, the idea of having a place where people can playfully shout at each other to go, it, it really takes the pressure off, a- as opposed to saying, "Okay, you two, you need to fight. You need to have-
- PPPriya Parker
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... a conflict."
- PPPriya Parker
You know, we think that a storm only happens once, and then it's like, "Okay, great. So now we can perform forever." But actually, storms happen all the time. And so often in, in group life, we have rituals, we have application processes to explain or articulate why we want in, right? A college application, a job interview. You get to hear the other side, who they are. You get to s- you know, sell yourself. And then we just kind of hope, like, "Okay, great. Now we're, now we're in." But actually, once you get into a longterm group, fights are the moment of articulation as to why we stay, right? There's no-
- BBBrené Brown
Wow
- PPPriya Parker
... midway interview. It's like-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm
- PPPriya Parker
... well, why are we doing it that way? Or I look at a Taiko drumming circle group. I look at all types of groups in The Art of Fighting, in part to normalize heat. All groups fight. It's not only super complex group. The, the groups you think have no difference within them, they, too, fight. And one of the, one of the, um... In group life, often a moment will happen that's a, that's call- I call a forcing mechanism, where everybody has to see the same moment at the same time. So in families, those are weddings, right? Oh, do they say the word God or not? What kind of ritual? Why isn't... An Indian family, she's not wearing red, right? All of these sort of like implicit norms are visibilized. But in companies it's like, oh, 30th anniversary. Why is everyone fighting? Because it's a forcing mechanism to debate who are we. Which product do we want to say is who we've been and what we want to celebrate? Who gets stage time? What is our vision? These are high-stakes moments that actually force us to articulate who we think we are. And, and if you block that conversation, it's not good for the body of the group.
- BBBrené Brown
God, the- these are, and these are fraught times. These are, these are... I mean, the, the, the times that you just named are times over the course of my personal and professional life where when heat is avoided, I have seen permanent fissures that people never come back from.
- PPPriya Parker
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
Yep.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, that, like, like...
- 22:14 – 29:09
Why Are We So Afraid of Discomfort?
- BBBrené Brown
Talk to me about this, this idea that I have in my head, and, and you write it, and you and I have talked about it before offline and I think probably publicly. The scourge of comfort. Like, this belief that a joyful, meaningful, good life is one that is free from discomfort.
- PPPriya Parker
Yeah, free from friction. It is something-
- BBBrené Brown
Where does this come from?
- PPPriya Parker
I don't know. I don't know. And I think it's a dangerous trope. Now, there is some conflict that is wise to avoid. I'm not saying have every fight.
- BBBrené Brown
Right.
- PPPriya Parker
I actually spent the first three chapters of The Art of Fighting saying, "Make sure you want to have this fight," because there's a lot of fights worth avoiding. [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
But-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... within connected, meaningful community, one has to engage across difference and be uncomfortable. I, I'll give a simple example, and this, you know, often it's actually in happy moments that I'm, I'm called in and people will say, like, "Why is this happening? This is supposed to be a happy moment," right? Or, "This, this is our wedding. Why is there so much-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... fighting? This is our championship game. We can't fight now." Right? And I call these moments sort of jokingly jackpot moments, because when you win the, when, when, studies show that when people win the lottery, they think it's gonna be this amazing moment in their life, and often it's full of massive conflict. Because all of a sudden, first of all, all of these people come around and say like, "Oh, great." Like, "Are you gonna share this in different ways?" Your values basically get brought up, and you have to actually ask, "How am I gonna spend this? What is money? How do I actually feel about this?" And similarly, but jackpot is also a forestry term, which means a building up of excess tension that can, is likely to explode. And so often these jackpot moments in our life are moments in which, in part, Brené, because they're also symbolic. The fissures you're talking about last for so long because the entire community sees, "Oh, I wasn't asked- To give a toast at their wedding
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- PPPriya Parker
"Oh, I wasn't asked to be on stage to discuss the product that I helped design," right? And everyone else also witnessed it. And I'll give a simple example. But, but there are also opportunities to repair. I- I'll, I'll take it to super simple. I, when I, uh, when I had my first child, I, um, someone very sweetly offered to host a baby shower for me. And actually, in The Art of Gathering, I talk about whether or not I wanted the baby shower, and how we reimagined it so that people brought meaningful advice to me instead of, like, pin the diaper on the donkey or, you know, whatever it is. But in The Art of Fighting, there's a part of that baby shower that I did not talk about in The Art of Gathering, which is a fight that happened. And I hosted my... I, I, you know, I invited, I thought about who I was gonna invite. My friend sent out the invitation, and I got a really upset call from my father. And he said, "I can't believe," I'm gonna change the name, but, "I can't believe you didn't invite Marsha." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "I can't believe you didn't invite Marsha." And I thought, "My stepfa- my stepbrother's wife? Huh." And, uh, she lives in a different state. We don't talk. Like, we're, there's nothing negative between us, but she's sort of not my, my community of psychological safety, and I'm not hers. Like, we're cool. A- a- and, and I had to think about it. Do I, should I invite her? If I invite her, who else from that rung of people do I need to invite? What I-
- BBBrené Brown
Uh-oh, 'cause you're, you're in a, you're, you're in a different... You, you've pushed out the concentric circles. This is very dangerous
- PPPriya Parker
Yes, you've pushed out the concentric circles
- BBBrené Brown
This, this is a door opener. Cool.
- PPPriya Parker
How, how am I gonna behave-
- BBBrené Brown
Movie
- PPPriya Parker
... if I'm in front of somebody where I feel like I need to perform instead of just be? How am I gonna behave-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... if I... Am I gonna say what I would normally say if I'm in front of my intimates? It just, it, it actually makes it a different thing. And I ended up not... Uh, but, but it forced me, as gatherings often do, right? These m- "Why wasn't I invited? Why wasn't..." And, and you can imagine whatever type of gathering, and it forced me to go through my own line of questions, which is, what do I want this thing to be? Do I wanna be closer to this person? And am I willing to sort of hold the line? I end up not inviting her, and afterwards, I had some repair to do, but not with her, with my father.
- BBBrené Brown
Dad, yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
And so part of what... And, and it, it was a few months later. We were in a coffee shop in Philadelphia, and I brought it up and I said, "Dad, I just wanna talk to you about this a bit." And he said he w- so he was still upset. It really hurt him, and he said, "You know, I think of my life and I have a circle of 11. You," and this is joint family, "you," his, you know, his stepchildren, "you and Anand," my husband, "and I don't know why you wouldn't invite all 11." And I said-
- BBBrené Brown
Hmm
- PPPriya Parker
... "Dad, your circle is not my circle." Right? And that's like a, it's a moment. I'm, I'm, I have children now. He's a grandparent. This is, to your point, Adam, like, these conversations don't stop. They take new forms because we take new forms.
- BBBrené Brown
Yes.
- PPPriya Parker
And so part of what I'm doing there is I'm actually finding the right amount of space and distance and community and overlap between me and my father. It doesn't end when I leave the house for college. And so whether it's your family or whether it's your team or whether it's, uh, neighbors, like, there are gonna be triggering events in moments of transition. And even if you... Not a- I don't feel like I messed up, but there was some difference and hurt there, and so I took the time, and it was scary for me to do some repair with my father, which didn't mean apologizing. It actually mean sort of coming to the river together and looking at the water.
- AGAdam Grant
Priya, this, this makes me wonder about, I guess, about two things. And you can take this in either direction. And, and Brené, I'd love to hear your reaction to this, too. One is it's really hard to fight with people who haven't read The Art of Fighting.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- 29:09 – 36:13
How Do We Handle Conflict Across Differences?
- AGAdam Grant
Maybe, maybe we can start there.
- PPPriya Parker
So The Art of Fighting and The Art of Gathering is my attempt. I'm biracial. I'm bicultural. I grew up in multiple countries. I grew up in multiple households. We are confused as a culture. We don't fully know how to fight. We don't know how to gather. And at some level, it's not our fault. This is the result of living in a culture and a country and teams of difference. And one of i- for The Art of Fighting, I studied traditional communities where they, people were born in the same place, died in the same place, pray to the same god, eat the same food. They actually had internal conflict rituals to deal with the airing of grievances. And what we have in common life is court, and court is a very blunt tool. Not everything should be taken to court. Or we have union negotiations in companies. Not everything is meant for a union negotiation. And so part of the call here is we need to, in diverse society, create temporary common hymnals. And so The Art of Fighting is my attempt to actually say... I mean, honestly, if you're listening to this conversation, share the conversation. This conversation creates a temporary shared hymnal that introduces just the i- beginning of an idea that, oh, there's something called healthy heat. And so y- I, I recently did an inter- another interview, and I've been having people slide into my DMs saying, "I sent My friend, or I said our team, I, our entire team listened to your interview on, on the interview. We listened it, to it together, and it gave us an inroad to say, "Huh, where are we in healthy heat, and how do we get better at it?"
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
And so, so much of the work, I mean, you both do this in your work, is you're, it's almost like we're giving each other conversational doorknobs to enter. Hel- having just the minimum bare idea that, like, oh, I'm investing in this. I'm scared, but because I care about you, and here, read, listen to this podcast. This is what, like, I'm in the business of culture change. So are you both. But we need a little bit of a fo- a common context to help people, like, reframe what they think is actually happening when heat rises.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm so glad you said doorknobs and not an aluminum pole. 'Cause when you said airing of grievances, I thought, "Oh, no. Are you gonna suggest we need Festivus, like George Costanza's parents did on Seinfeld?"
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
No. No, let's not go there.
- PPPriya Parker
Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
I mean, also in popular culture, we have these examples of people storming together. I, I looked at reality TV shows, because I actually think hiding in plain sight, one of the healthiest, with an asterisk, one of the healthiest conflict rituals we have are The Real Housewives reunions.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
They come together. They're contractually obligated to come to this reunion.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
They've been dunking each other all season. Yes, it's for entertainment. Yes, it's for ratings, right? Yes, they're paid to have heat. But I was looking at these reunions, and they basically match traditional conflict rituals. There is a different space. It's not the normal set. They dress up in boas and tiaras and ball gowns. They get preparation. There's a pre-conflict resolution. There's an elder, Andy Cohen, right? Go, Andy Cohen thinks about what questions they're gonna ask. And I, I ended up interviewing two of the executive producers of these reunions, and I was like, "Am I crazy to think, like, this is what you're doing?" And they kinda chuckled and they said, "This is what we're doing. The entire-
- AGAdam Grant
You-
- PPPriya Parker
... purpose of this is a clearing."
- AGAdam Grant
You, you are, you are helping me with my case to Brené that she needs to watch Survivor. Brené, Survivor does the same thing.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs] Yeah. I mean, a lot of these reality TV shows, they, there are elements that are deeply dysfunctional and there are parts that go into deep, unhealthy heat. And because these are group shows, many of the executive producers are doing what the rest of us should be doing, which is we're tr- they're thinking about the life and the dynamic of a group. And part of what I'm trying to do with The Art of Gathering and with The Art of Fighting is create a new bookshelf, so w- yes, we have lots of self-help books, but we also need group help books, and to grow our group intelligence about what does a group need? What is a clearing? What should a reunion look like? What does a cast that has been through this entirely, like, intense experience need to get something off their chest? And yes, it's for ratings, but it's also for them.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, I think, I think to your point about Survivor, Adam, and just thinking about this, um, the thing that makes me the most worried about this sometimes is when I've, when I'm working with a team over an extended period of time, one of the things that I have noticed... I mean, I'm going back to Prentiss and their work around the most powerful body is a relaxed body, and I'm going back to, in my mind, because we don't have the doorknobs and the bookshelf, we don't have ways to regulate our nervous systems during conflict that are helpful.
- PPPriya Parker
Yes.
- BBBrené Brown
The thing that, the, the thing that flags me a lot about reality television and those conflicts is I can see teams who cognitively understand the need for heat, but again, don't understand what it can look like and what it can deliver performing conflict. And I think sometimes reality television, because of the variables of ratings, can get very performed conflict.
- PPPriya Parker
A- absolutely.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah. And so I do think one thing I see is when you have scared people who don't have a lot of emotional vocabulary and not a lot of practice managing their nervous systems, they reach desperately for performance conflict.
- PPPriya Parker
Deeply.
- BBBrené Brown
And, and I think it just goes back sometimes to, hoo, how, you know, we do a lot of kind of from conscious leadership above the line and below the line work. And so, how do I, in conflict, stay above the line so I'm in a mindset of co-creation, productive challenge, coaching, co-coaching, as opposed to going below the line when I'm in conflict and all I know how to be is villain, victim, or hero? And so I, I think it goes to this idea that actually I, I had to read and re-wr- read and mark up and think about and walk away from in the book. Can you
- 36:13 – 41:58
Should the Most Offended Person Run the Room?
- BBBrené Brown
talk to us about this idea of not letting the most offended person in the room run the room?
- PPPriya Parker
All groups-
- BBBrené Brown
'Cause this, this is hard because I, I, I do wanna, I, I want you to c- if you can address this for me specifically, 'cause I'm thinking about something where I'm really struggling right now in a group facilitation. Very difficult when the offended person
- AGAdam Grant
... gets either overly villain or overly victim to not let that person suck every, I don't know how you measure, measure oxygen, but all the oxygen out of the room.
- PPPriya Parker
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
So give me, give me a facilitation lesson about how it happens, what the danger is, and how laypeople, how we can talk about this.
- PPPriya Parker
Um, first of all, this is why I sort of keep saying this is really group help, not-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... self-help. And one of the most-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... effective roles of an outside facilitator is to first help a group, including the villain-victim, practice low-stakes skills before they attempt the high-stakes conversation. And this is why teaching conflict skills is a leadership practice. Normalizing-
- AGAdam Grant
Wow
- PPPriya Parker
... conflict skills is a leadership practice. These are skills we don't have. There, we have a-
- AGAdam Grant
Oof
- PPPriya Parker
... massive education problem, starting even from our schools. And so the symptom is this villain-victim freaking out, right? And then everyone else is punished for it. But actually, underneath what is happening is we haven't been taught. We're just sort of like, "Oh, my gosh, there's been a disaster." But actually, we haven't prepared any of the soil. We haven't prepared... We don't think about normalizing heat. And so ver- I mean, in the book I'll, a, a couple of things. The first, I have an interlude called Preparing Your Body For A Fight. And facilitators-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... I'm sure you do this, facilitators, I, myself included, I am still conflict averse. So when the heat rises and, and I, I, I'm, I'm paid to hold heat, my heart starts palpitating, my tongue gets dry, my palms get sweaty. Like, it doesn't go away.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
And so the first thing is-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm
- PPPriya Parker
... I practice, and pr- I have an entire chapter and interview with Prentiss. Both of us share what our rituals are in our own bodies before we go in and-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... facilitate. And I'll, I'll, I mean, one of the things that Prentiss says is sh- they say, "The body has all sorts of reactions. Get ready for them. There's no such thing as non-physical conflict. When we are in conflict, our body knows and it reacts. This is very normal, and annoying." [laughs] And then Prentiss says, "Our bodies feel that something we care about is threatened. We may wanna leave the body out of it, but sometimes conflict is one of the first ways people even feel their bodies at all. It becomes a bit more uncontrollable." And, and, and, and so in the book we talk practice being in a regular body. Relax, take a breath, give a shake. But a- and, and, and, and much more, but what I'm saying is leaders should actually teach this as skills. And actually-
- AGAdam Grant
Yes
- PPPriya Parker
... when you frame conflict as learnable, as an important skill as a leader, it becomes slightly less scary. Uh, so s- a- a- and then the second thing is in terms of the offense in the room. If someone, particularly if they have power, is flipping out, the people who they have power over are rational to not wanna go there. I mean, I've worked, I talk about this in the book, I've worked with organizations and teams. I think of myself as a facilitator with group conflict almost as an acupuncturist rather than a physical doctor. So [laughs] work with me with the metaphor. I and my peers were kind of, like, looking at this body, and we're trying to figure out where can we intervene and what size needle, right? [laughs] And, and will, will the intervention hold? And sometimes it gets spit out. I was, during the summer of 2020, I was facilitating, as many of us, many Zoom reckonings, you know, virtual, digital.
- AGAdam Grant
Ugh. [laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
And I was going into one or- such organization, and everything my colleague and I presented they would reject. They were, they had, like, too much po- PTSD of all of these other, a- all of these other experiences they'd had. And finally I realized, okay, this group is not willing to do anything together as a group. It's too high risk. So we offered, uh, we tried to, we tried to find a, what I call in the book a hypoallergenic solution, something they're not gonna just reject.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
And we came up with, with teaching poetry. Poetry workshops. And we were, and, and the invitation was, uh, we ca- we brought an award-winning poet in, and she was gonna teach everyone how to name, how to name an ache, right? I was like, "Okay, this is brilliant. This is totally brilliant. We're just gonna approach it. It's a skill." No one signed up, right? And that's not to dissuade you. It's to say when, when somebody with power is villain i- uh, villain and victim, the people around them are, particularly if they have power over them, if they're, if that's the paycheck, like, this is a cultural problem. It's not the problem of the individuals to solve. That needs to go, at some level, to a higher authority.
- 41:58 – 52:55
How to De-Escalate Conflict With Preparation and Joy
- AGAdam Grant
Brené, I'm, I'm so glad you asked about that, 'cause I, I see this dynamic all the time in teams, where it's the loudest voice that gets heard when conflict is brought up, as opposed to the person who's actually trying to, [laughs] trying to solve the problem, in many cases. And pr- it makes me wonder, like, it's, it's really common to get on the wrong path. And, you know, you start to get, you start to see people, you know, get sort of into a space of unhealthy heat, and you can't just say to them at that point, "Hey, you're getting defensive," or, [laughs] like, "Hey, you're taking too much offense." How do you think about de-escalation?
- PPPriya Parker
A good question. De-escalation starts with preparation.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm.
- PPPriya Parker
And if you're only thinking about de-escalation, you're starting way too late in the fight plan So in The Art of Gathering, I say 90% of the success of every gathering starts before anyone enters the room. It is even more true with conflict. And in The Art of Fighting, one of the things I looked at was, where are modern associations, churches, institutions teaching their people how to hold a fight together? And one of my favorite examples, and I'll- this gets to de-escalation, is a minister named Martin Copenhaver. He, like many ministers in the '90s in the US, was, had their, their church was sort of coming apart over gay marriage, and he had to lead the church through a, a process to decide whether or not they would become what they called open and affirming. And he realized, again, he practiced group intelligence, that if they used their normal processes, which were literally Robert's Rule of- Robert's Rules of Order-
- BBBrené Brown
Of course. Of course
- PPPriya Parker
... right? Parliamentary procedure. Do we allow gay marriage? It wasn't gonna work. And so what he did, and this is such a beautiful leadership example, first, he didn't bring in some external process that's, that was gonna have the body freak out, right? The body of the church freak out. First, he looked back into their own archives to see, do we have practices, rituals, skills from our DNA that we could bring forward to today? He found that they used to 250 years ago have a process called congregating. He then told his church, "Oh, we're not doing this strange new thing and bringing out this outside process. We're gonna go back to our roots. This is a precious conversation, and we're gonna practice being together in a different way." He then hosted four meetings, not about gay marriage, but practicing this new way of being together, and one of the major structures was after everybody spoke, after each person spoke, the entire congregation had to say, "May the Holy Spirit speak through us" And part-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... of what that was doing was it was actually creating verbal structure and spacing. And he, and he, he said, "It was not saying we assume the b- Holy Spirit is speaking through us. It's just giving a pause. We don't... It's almost inviting curiosity and humility."
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, yeah.
- PPPriya Parker
So he's looking, he's watching. He's like, "Okay, I think we can now handle it." And so then he takes that practiced body and brings in open and affirming, and they start hosting debates. But through this process, after anyone speaks, they have to say, "May the Holy Spirit speak through us." On one of such session, a man stood. He hadn't listened to any of the rules. He was loud, right? He was, he was a elder in the church. He had a three-page notes against the rules and starts reading why they shouldn't allow gay marriage in the church.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
And someone else screams, "This is unconscionable," and the whole church freezes, right? Escalation, escalation, escalation. And he looks around, and the entire church, as Martin t- tells to me, Reverend Martin Copenhaver says, through grit- gritted teeth says, "May the Holy Spirit speak through us."
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs] And the guy looks around-
- BBBrené Brown
That, that, that i- that is the mo- that is the holiest moment of all.
- PPPriya Parker
It's also de-escalation.
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, totally.
- PPPriya Parker
But it's practiced, right? We're, we're, we're asking our... We're asking ourselves to be Olympic athletes when we haven't trained to walk. And so part of de-escalation was... And by the way, that church, he had a lot of intelligence. They, it would come to a vote, but he, though in their rules you could have, you could v- uh, have an absentee ballot, he banned absentee ballots because he said, "You have to be in the room, because you have to be altered or be open to the opportunity to be altered by what you hear."
- BBBrené Brown
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
And then the final thing they did is the day that they-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... had the vote, yes, and he didn't say, "The vote will be on this day." He said, "When we are ready, when I..." He used his authority as a leader. "When I perceive we are ready to have the vote, we will have it." And a- and then on the fourth session, he said, "We are ready." And he made another rule: whatever the verdict is, no celebrating. No celebrating. Because poor churches were being ripped apart at the time, and he said it was an incredible-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, our, our church was ripped apart
- PPPriya Parker
... it-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... and they went, and they ended up passing open and affirming, and no one left the church.
- BBBrené Brown
Wow.
- PPPriya Parker
And the final thing he said was, "Before you leave today, please go over to someone who had a different opinion than you and say hello and shake their hand, because other... I don't want you debriefing in the parking lot. I want you-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm
- PPPriya Parker
... debriefing here."
- 52:55 – 54:48
Why Are We Fighting So Badly in America?
- AGAdam Grant
All right. I gotta ask this one, 'cause I saw a version of it on the internet, and I, I thought it was... We, we had to go to the expert. It was something like the reason we have so many bad fights in America is that the left has purity tests and the right has loyalty tests. Agree or disagree?
- PPPriya Parker
Disagree.
- AGAdam Grant
Why?
- PPPriya Parker
I don't-
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, you're not get- uh, you're not getting off the hook there, girl.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
I just... [laughs] Good luck.
- PPPriya Parker
I think we have so many fights in America because we are trying something that a nation has never done before, which is to have a multiracial democracy where people are relatively equal, but also are free to chase their dreams, and it's a really, really hard project. And I do think that the left has purity tests, which, uh, many groups on the left are starting to really question and unwind. Anand Giridharadas' book, The Persuaders, talked a lot about the unwinding these purity tests. He gave this example. He's also my husband. He gave this example about how megachurches, uh, in parking lots leave their first three rows of parking spots for people who've never been to church before, right? The first, right? It's not a shame that you've never been before, right? How do you lower the drawbridge? And I, I don't, I don't know about loyalty. I think, I think we would... I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what they mean by loyalty tests, but I think that we fight because we fight about the things we care about, and I think the danger is we fight with people we don't know. And what I'm inviting you to do [laughs] is to fight better with the people you know, including across political lines, but with the people you love. Because where there is longing, there's a possibility for a way through.
- AGAdam Grant
Well put.
- BBBrené Brown
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
So well said.
- BBBrené Brown
Beautiful.
- 54:48 – 56:01
What Would Priya Put in the Curiosity Shop?
- BBBrené Brown
Last question. Oh, no, we have two more lightning rounds, 'cause I, I don't wanna skip either one of these with you. I'm so curious. You get to design the weirdest and wildest curity- curiosity shop item, anything you want. What's one thing you're gonna leave on our shelves of the Curiosity Shop?
- PPPriya Parker
Oh my gosh. Well, this isn't designed, but I feel you would love this, which is my mentor is a guy named Hal Saunders
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm
- PPPriya Parker
And he was a senior diplomat. He wrote the Camp David Accords, helped write the Camp David Accords, and then he retired and spent 20 years working with young people teaching these skills, dialogue skills. And he always told us, "Listen deeply enough to be changed by what you hear."
- BBBrené Brown
Mm.
- PPPriya Parker
And at his funeral, we were each given a stone that on one side said, "Listen deeply enough," and then you turn it over, "to be changed by what you hear. Hal Saunders," and then his, his birth years. And this book, The Art of Fighting, is dedicated to Hal Saunders. And so if I could-
- BBBrené Brown
Mm
- PPPriya Parker
... I would give the Curiosity Shop that stone.
- BBBrené Brown
We would accept gratefully. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Definitely.
- BBBrené Brown
I mean, just beautiful. Yeah.
- 56:01 – 1:00:24
What is Priya Grateful For?
- BBBrené Brown
Last question, what's one thing you're deeply grateful for right now?
- PPPriya Parker
I am deeply grateful for my children and my husband. We both, crazily enough, have books coming out in September. His is called Man in the Mirror. It is a wild thing to not have one, but two book launches in a month. [laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Ooh.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Girl.
- PPPriya Parker
And so I'm grateful-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- PPPriya Parker
... for our collective within our little foursome, humor and joy and, and kind of sense of fun. Because if you don't have that when things are also stressful, what do you have? So I'm, I'm really grateful for their sense of humor and joy, um, and always finding the fun in- when we can in each moment.
- BBBrené Brown
Thank you for joining us. What a treat.
- PPPriya Parker
Thank you so much for having me.
- BBBrené Brown
I'm gonna hold this up one more time. This is it. Oh, minus the Post-It notes, but you can put your own in.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Um, just so good. Thank you, Priya.
- PPPriya Parker
Thank you so much for having me. I, Brené, you, your, like, your books with Post-It notes in them is, like, the highest honor as an author. I remember you did that with The Art of Gathering.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- PPPriya Parker
And I'm like, "I've died and gone to heaven." So it's, it's really... I, I love how you read. It's so physical.
- BBBrené Brown
Oh, no, it's very, it's very physical.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
And I can tell you that i- in, in the, in the spirit of heat, your room got s- your, your book got some air time, meaning I threw it across my bedroom while I was reading it.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Um, while wishing you and your husband, but not your children, curses.
- PPPriya Parker
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Uh, but then I picked it back up and, uh, read it again, 'cause it just hit in some really hard places, but critically important ones. So air time, Post-It notes, all the th- all the ways I love a book.
- PPPriya Parker
Thank you.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, it stayed firmly on the ground for me.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
But immediately on my recommended fall reads list. And I-
- PPPriya Parker
Thank you so much
- AGAdam Grant
... I just, I just think, Priya, this is... it's a book that, like, no matter what kind of relationship you're in or what kind of group you're in-
- 1:00:24 – 1:10:52
Brené and Adam Reflect on Their Friendship
- AGAdam Grant
Brené, I am so glad you suggested that. It was so good.
- BBBrené Brown
It was so fun.
- AGAdam Grant
So good.
- BBBrené Brown
Um, yeah, I just... We did a, we did a couple of gigs together, like a tour, um, and I've done some stuff with her and her husband, and just the thoughtful, the, the, the... And I, I know this is, like, circular, but the thoughtfulness behind the contribution.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah.
- BBBrené Brown
You know? And her experiences and, yeah, I just thought it was a really... If I could have people eat this book before I come visit them, [laughs] that would be so helpful. I, I don't trust them to read it. If they could literally consume it, I'd be better off.
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, this is, this is for me the big takeaway on de-escalation strategy is just pause. You need to read The Art of Fighting
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah, I mean, pause and just humanity and joyfulness, and we're so much more the same, especially when it gets all the way down to our bodies and our fear and what we need and want from each other, um, to be able to leverage that as de-escalation. Like, like, here's what we have in common right now, we all want this to end immediately.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Here's what we have in common right now, we wish it was lunchtime. You know, it's like, 'cause we're human, so I think it's... And I, and I thought about us a lot when I was reading this, too, our four year, um, our four years of not talking to each other, the rounds of hard conversations we've had, um, the friendship that we're building. I, I did think about, um, I am grateful that we never walked away from heat.
- AGAdam Grant
Me too, and I think most of the time my impulse has been to walk away from it, and every time I think you are so good at this. Like, you're, you're so good at, at rumbling, and it's always, it's always helped us understand each other better and get on the same page faster. Like, what, why, why do I still have this instinct to run in the other direction? Because I'm afraid that it's gonna hurt the relationship, and I care about the relationship.
- BBBrené Brown
It's interesting, because you must process that internally, because every time I've reached out to you to say, "Hey, there's this thing going on, I wanna talk about it," all I, all I see is, "Can't wait. How does tomorrow look for you?"
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- BBBrené Brown
Like, I don't, I don't see that impulse to be like, "Oh." I just see... And then sometimes when we get on a Zoom or a call, you might start with, "I was kind of anxious about this, but it's weird, 'cause I know we're gonna end up better in 30 minutes than we were right now." And I, and so I don't, I just always saw willingness-
- AGAdam Grant
That's so interesting
- BBBrené Brown
... and interest.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, that, that's because [laughs] that's because the-
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... the uncertainty is worse than if the relationship was in jeopardy, right? Not knowing, it's like-
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
It's like getting called to the principal's office, and then the meeting is next week. Like, no, no, no. If I'm getting called to the principal's office, I need to see the principal now so that we can work out whatever the issue is, and I can resolve it.
- BBBrené Brown
Wait, am I the principal of this story? [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
Maybe. Maybe. I think you are.
- BBBrené Brown
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
But I mean, just w- once I know there's a problem, right, it, it activates the solver in me, which, you know, which you, you initiate with often. But it also just, I don't know, it's, it's interesting. I think y- you, you texted me a few weeks ago and described me as sensitive, and I think, I think you're the only person in my life who would describe me that way. And so it w- it actually led to some really interesting reflection about what is it about our dynamic that brings out that part of me. And I think some of it is you are more forthcoming about issues than, than most people. And some of it is I think there's just a vestige of because we got off on the wrong foot initially.
- BBBrené Brown
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
I'm always a little b- bit more-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... worried that I could-
- BBBrené Brown
Yeah
Episode duration: 1:10:52
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Transcript of episode MmQb0W7Dxds
