Ep.19 Harmony vs. Conflict

In this episode, Katie talks with CRR Global faculty members Rebecca Hou and Jie Zhou about harmony and conflict. Across the conversation, they discuss:

• The relationship between harmony and conflict
• Why we need to embrace both as systems coaches
• The challenges that can arise if we are biased towards one or the other
• The importance of holding the voice of harmony and the voice of conflict as coaches

Rebecca Hou is an ICF Master Certified Coach, Executive/Leadership Coach and Training Consultant. She is also a faculty member and Front of the Room Leader at CTI and CRR Global. She leads professional coaching certification programs: including Co-Active Coaching, ORSC, Neuroscience Consciousness & Transformational Coaching. She is also a mentor coach, supervisor, and examiner for certification coach students. Her major focus areas are one-to-one leadership coaching, team coaching and the design and delivery of training workshops. 

Jie Zhou is a leadership trainer and team coach, and CRR Global faculty. After working for 20+ years in government, start-up, and multinational corporations, she realized the value of unleashing individual and team leadership potential. Encouraged by her hands-on coaching and training experiences for her team, she made a career change from Strategy, Market & Technology Head to a freelance coach and trainer. She has a bachelor's degree of finance from Fudan University and an MBA from Darden Business School at the University of Virginia, USA.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman

RH - Rebecca Hou

JZ – Jie Zhou 

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode, I'm talking with CRR Global faculty members Rebecca Hou and Jie Zhou about harmony and conflict. Across this conversation we discuss the relationship between harmony and conflict. Why we need to embrace both systems coaches. The challenges that can arise if we are biased towards one or the other. The importance of holding the voice of harmony and the voice of conflict as coaches. Rebecca Hou is an ICF master certified coach, executive and leadership coach and training consultants. She's also a faculty member and front of the room leader at CTI and CRR global. She leads professional coaching certification programs including co-active coaching, ORSC, neuroscience consciousness and transformational coaching. She is also a mentor coach, supervisor and examiner for the certification coach students. Her major focus areas are on one-to-one leadership coaching, team coaching and the design and delivery of training workshops. Jie Zhou is a leadership trainer and team coach and CRR Global faculty member. After working for 20+ years in government startups and multinational corporations, she realized the value of unleashing individual and team leadership potential. Encouraged by her hands on coaching and training experiences for her team, she made a career change from strategy market and technology head to a freelance coach and trainer. She has a bachelor's degree of finance from Fudan University, and an MBA from Darden Business School at the University of Virginia in the United States. So, without further ado, I bring you Rebecca Hou and Jie Zhou talking about harmony and conflict. 

KC – Jie, Rebecca, welcome to the Relationship Matters podcast, season five. I am so excited to have you both on the show today.

JZ - Thank you, Katie. It's been a while since my last time so I'm very, very happy today to be here.

RB - Yeah, same for me, even though we just had our conversation not long ago.

S1 - This is quite a different topic from what we were discussing on your separate podcast last time. So today we're talking about harmony versus conflict. I want to start by asking you why this topic? What made you both think about this as a topic for our conversation today?

RH – So, Jie and I were discussing what should we talk so we can benefit other people. And then Jie mentioned that she's supervising all the certification recordings. She says many coaches have a tendency for harmony. So then, as a system coach, we lose the opportunity to deep dive into the conversation, to review the system. So, then we miss the opportunity to grow the system. So, she mentioned about that. Then after I heard her thoughts, I realized personally I had to really grow myself, my ability of facing conflict. So, I thought this is the good opportunity to reflect on my own, not only as a coach, but also as a person. That's why we say oh, we must talk about it, to benefit people, to benefit professional coaches.

JZ - Yeah, and harmony is one of the most important values of Chinese culture. So maybe in China, a much bigger proportion of people tend to be biased towards harmony. 

KC - Would you say that's the case for you both? Are you both quite biased towards harmony?

RB - For me, yes.

JZ - For me, it's no. I'm more biased toward conflict.

KC – Ah, this is excellent. So, we have the range represented on this podcast today. That's really interesting. So, we're not going to have a bias towards harmony then, at least.

RB- Yeah, Jie mentioned, ‘Rebecca, why you want to do it with me?’ I didn't realize this but then, I just thought I have been wanting to do something together with Jie for a while, but I didn't realize we're actually different as a person in terms of the preference. So, I guess that's why…

JZ - That's why we are attracted with each other.

RB - Yeah.

KC - I love that. So, we have the power of diversity on this call today. I wonder then, given that you represent these two ends of the spectrum, what do you feel is the relationship between harmony and conflict?

RB - You know, it's not the two extremes. We were talking about this. Harmony, on the surface for Chinese people, we may think is making each other happy, without getting into the ‘no’, without getting into the discussions, agreeing with each other, is what we call harmony but only on the surface. As an ORSC coach, I think real harmony is we really pay attention to relationship. It doesn't mean that we cannot disagree, especially when we're doing work together. However, apart from the work, the task, the result, we're consciously paying attention. We're consciously nurturing the relationship. We're consciously putting deposits into an emotional bank so that we trust each other, so that we have the courage to speak out. That's what we think a real harmony is so that when we're having different opinions, when we're working together, without hesitation we can express our opinions.

JZ - Yeah. It reminded me of an iceberg when Rebecca was talking. On the surface we have different opinions, action plans, ideas, it can easily go into conflict. Usually, people don't feel happy about it. Why? So, we look deeper in the iceberg. Oftentimes, people think ‘I am my idea. I am my opinion’. So, when people disagree against us I feel like I'm inferior to other people, I'm not good enough. I think that's the origin of many unhappy feelings which make conflict unhappy. So ideally, I would say let's express our disagreements in a happy atmosphere. But in reality, it's just very hard to do.

KC - This is really interesting. It makes me think of toxic positivity and how that can actually be so damaging in our relationships, when we really force this off fake positivity and then we marginalize conflict that needs to happen, so called ‘negative emotions’ that need to surface. And what happens to that relationship over time if we just push it down, push it down? Eventually the metaphorical lid of the pot blows off as opposed to being released over time. I wonder, then, why do we need to embrace both systems coaches? Why can't we just stand in one or the other and that be our stance as a coach?

RB - Do you use a grid metaphor? The iceberg model, that reminds me how in ORSC we have the three levels of reality. So, obviously, the surface is the consensus reality. I notice, including myself, when we're getting into what we call conflict, having different opinions, arguing, we tend to narrow our attention into the conflict or the different opinions itself. Then, especially in those hot moments, we forget to look at the dreaming level, the underneath of the iceberg. In the dreaming level there's a common interest, common longing, common vision, or even common purpose behind this conflict. So, it's important to know that conflict is not bad. For many years, I personally think, ‘oh, conflict, different opinions will make other people unhappy’. So, it's important to know conflict is not bad. Positive conflict means that we can still relate to each other as persons, as human beings. We're still nurturing our relationship. So, at the same time we can express our opinion and looking at the common interest, so then we can find a way to move forward.

JZ - Yeah, that's how important having conflict is. To me, if we don't have enough positivity in the relationship, the conversation just cannot be sustainable. So, we need harmony, we need trust to start with, but it should not be reinforced or artificial. It has to be genuine. So, that's why we need to embrace both as a systems coach. 

KC - I don't think I realized, coming into this conversation, that harmony and conflict can be both sides of the same coin. They're not so separate and on other ends of the spectrum. It’s really interesting because I think we do tend to go conflict = negative, and harmony = positive. And it's not necessarily the case, when we really look and work with the relationship. 

RB – Jie, while we're preparing this dimension, a good tool, we talk about the leadership circle, the leadership assessment tool. As long as the discussion, the conflict, is coming from the creative part, vision driven, purpose driven, system driven, team driven, community driven, as long as it’s authentic, for a bigger purpose, that's a good conflict. 

JZ - Actually, I had an example a few months ago. When I did the system interview assessment there were a lot of complaints like the company is going to do IPO. So, the founder is saying that the management team are always talking with me about how many options they should have, how much bonus they should have. They always talk about money, money, money - no one talks about vision! So, I asked the founder, did you talk about vision to your team? She said no! I was very surprised. So, during the team coaching day, I first asked him to do bring down the vision which let them talk about their visions, why they were in this industry and where they want to take this company to. It’s just like magic because the topic of money actually never showed up. The founder was really moved and surprised. They just moved on to talk about the operation issues they should solve for this company. The conflict automatically disappeared. So, for me, one technique as system coaches is really talk about the vision mission, connect underneath the iceberg. It actually dissolved maybe 90% of the conflict, then made the coaching itself a lot easier.

KC - That's really fascinating. Because if you'd been biased towards harmony, you might have spent the whole day focused on how can we make everyone happy around pay and you've actually missed the issue that's really going on in the room.

JZ - Yeah, it's underneath the iceberg.

KC – So, on this note then, what other challenges can arise if we as systems coaches are biased towards harmony or conflict when we go into to work with systems? 

JZ – We obviously have a lot of challenges. Like, if we focus too much on harmony then we might not go to the real issue. If we’re biased towards conflict then people might not have enough courage to open up. So, Rebecca and I were actually talking a lot about, as a system coach ourselves or as human being ourselves, how do we embrace both?

RB – Yeah. How do we discover our preference and embrace both? That's what we discussed. Personally, as I mentioned, I'm a more harmonized person. Even expressing different opinions, for me, already causes conflict. So, I had to learn really expressing myself clearly, in one-to-one coaching or in system coaching. In the very beginning it was very hard, because harmony is my value and I notice, when I overuse this value, I tend to sometimes even please the other person, even though a lot of time I gave my authentic acknowledgement and championing, but then certain times I notice something, and I hold back rather than speaking out directly. Because of that I actually lost some opportunities to go to certain projects. I used to have one boss who thought I'm too polite, too nice. I wouldn't speak out directly, so she didn't put me on what we call Development Centre, where she thinks it needs a lot of direct feedback and opinion. So, that was my first time I noticed the impact to me in professional life. Last year, I had a team coaching where I learned that system is naturally creative and resourceful. Because the first time when I did the two-day kickoff, that's where they actually had a lot of conflict. I know that before, when I did the interview, so I know between several members, they actually had a lot of conflict. So, I was a little bit scared because of my harmony value. So, then I went, and we kicked off the two days. I notice they're sort of speaking out, but not to a 100%. I encourage them to say more to each other and when we did the four toxin quadrant, they had some realization. And guess what, a few months later when we did the follow up session, I interviewed them again. Strangely enough, there's one lady who was very scared of other people that she thinks they all don't like her. So then after the first two days, she had a big transformation., and she was actually getting closer to the team. And she actually opened up more. So, in the follow up sessions, she started to talk more, she started looking at other people's eyes. That's a great learning for me, as a system coach, we really have to trust them. Good conflict, embrace the relationship, it revealed the system to themselves. So, as a system coach, we need to have the meta skill of trust. So that's, that's a great lesson I learned. 

RB - To be naturally biased to conflict, when I was very, very young, I was told that I was very direct, and people might get hurt or they might feel like I want to keep distance from people. So, from time to time, especially since I started to do a coaching, I remind myself that I need to acknowledge people more. I need to smile a lot more so that people can feel relaxed. It’s very important. People talk more when they feel relaxed. So, my homework is really to remind myself to do a lot more acknowledgement to the system, the clients, than in my usual life I would. So, it's a different challenge. To me naturally, I think, not my idea if the people feel hurt or sad about the things I said, they might feel bad at the moment, but later on, they might feel great about it because they find something new. So, my belief is getting hurt now is better than getting hurt in the long run. That's my belief. So, I feel quite relaxed, when I thrust different ideas. But still, as a systems coach, I know I have my homework. 

KC - I think we all do, and what you were saying their Jie makes me think of when you've got a pot and you're releasing a little bit of steam, as opposed to the whole lid coming off. I think for me, I wasn't afraid of conflict, but I was biased towards harmony because I only knew the negative kind of conflict, it was very fiery. It was quite destructive. I think many of us have maybe had this modeled to us growing up, that there isn't really a way to do conflict that's positive. And that's why this work is so helpful because it shows us, actually, that we can have constructive conflict and conflict that's positive. That blew my mind, that actually, wow, I can have an argument with my husband, and it can be really constructive to our relationship. And I don't think I realized that that could go hand in hand before.

JZ - Yeah, I also love the ORSC tools of antidotes that help us to skillfully express different opinions without hurting that much. Like you said, I’m maybe lifting the pot too quickly, but with the skills we can do a little bit faster than the average but people still feel okay about it.

RB – Jie and I were talking about where do we get this preference, whether we're bias to harmony or we're bias to conflict? I notice, in part is because it's the core value of Chinese society. It has to do with my original family a lot. I remember, my mom, she's a very generous and genuine lady. I hardly hear her saying bad things behind other people, like other family members, and also she always tells me that's her belief and my father's too. They always tell me in school, listen to your teacher. So, don't say different things. Don't say different opinion. That was a very traditional thing. So, I realize when I grew up as kid, I always listened and followed rather than being encouraged to express my own idea. But I think China has changed a lot in terms of this. Now, young kids, they're not afraid of expressing themselves. I mean, generally. And also, if I look at my grandmas, both family grandmas, they're very traditional Chinese women, they sacrifice their own needs for the family, for their husband, for their children. They hardly express their own opinion. So, then they turn around and realize unconsciously, I learned that from them as well.

KC - That's such an interesting point, Rebecca, and I think harmony and people pleasing can get conflated. And actually, when we're people pleasing, we're not owning that we're a voice of the system as well. I've certainly fallen into that trap and I have to work on it. But I noticed, with my clients and with my friends and family members, even, when there's that people pleasing in play that sort of guises itself was harmony, actually, eventually under the surface, that that system of me gets very frustrated, angry, and it eventually needs to be heard in some way. And it might manifest in terms of an illness, or you might end up blowing up or breaking down. But it is just interesting how that, culturally has started to seem like it's harmony, but it's not. That's not harmony, because we're not listening to this system.

JZ - When I was a kid, I had different role models. I remember when I was 10, I had a Chinese teacher and a math teacher. They both really spoke their mind, even to the headmaster. They unconsciously became my role models. I want to be like them. I want to say what I think. 

RB - Interesting. This reminds me of one coaching case. This lady, she told me when she was a kid her parents took her to all kinds of competitions, because that's typical Chinese style, how some of the parents raise up their kids, they want to take them to competitions and, of course, they want their kids to win the competitions, right? So, she told me she learned to win all the competitions. So as a result, later on, when she grew up as a leader, she tended to compete with the peers, peer managers. And that definitely leads to conflict. But then it's not a positive conflict, it’s about my win. Not our win. So, I realized our preferences has quite a lot to do with our original family and how we were raised up.

ZJ - In China particularly, for us the college entrance exam is a national exam. If you are just one point higher you might be in the 1000 people. So, people are so used to measuring their success or merits by point. There’s only one dimension in their mind. So oftentimes, individual coaching clients tell me ‘I want to know how to beat other people, I want to know how to be better than people, I want to know how to convince other people’. So, with this kind of mindset you might look confident, but you’re actually very fragile, right? Once you find out that you don't like my idea, then automatically some secret self will pop up and become angry. 

KC – It makes me realize it's so important for us to interrogate our biases as coaches, because I often say when we're coaching, we're like a mirror, we're there to reveal the system to itself. I know when I'm trying to please my clients, when that shows up in me, I don't say certain things that actually might be really useful bits of information. The other day I was working with a team and two of the members of the team didn't have their cameras on. Initially I pushed down that urge to just reveal, ‘I notice some people are on camera, some people aren't’. I didn't because I didn't want to upset them and then eventually revealed that and then it opened up a whole conversation that needed to happen. It's just fascinating that, isn't it? That when we're actually marginalizing those bits of information, we're not leaning into the system being naturally intelligent, generative and creative.

JZ - That's why in supervision I think being aware of harmony and conflict at the same time really makes a big difference in the quality of those coachings. 

RB - So, while we're having the courage of reveal that system, even though there may be certain conflicts, we’re bringing in the meta skill of deep democracy. We talked about this last time. Deep democracy often opens up and reveals the system even more. The system grows, relationship grows. 

KC – So, how can we as coaches help systems hold both of these voices? The voice of harmony and the voice of conflict. How can we model that so that the teams and the couples and the individuals that we work with can also hold both of these important parts of our relationships?

JZ – I think it has to go start with our self-exploration. Like in our childhood? How many secrets have we had? In what kind of situations have they got triggered? Why is that? What unmet needs do I have? So, I need to really do something so that I can feed the secret self the healthy foods so that they can always play by themself and not to bother me anymore. It's like lifelong homework but I think it's very important. Otherwise, during our coaching, if any of our secrets related to these two things pop up, then we cannot really help the system client that much.

RB - Yeah, totally agree. That's exactly what we talk about. I notice as the older kids in my family, I was always acknowledged by being a good older sister, giving the food to my younger sister and looking after her. So, I realize, part of me was pleasing the family system because I was afraid of being a bad kid. I still remember, my father took me to hospital when my younger sister was just born, to see her. He had to stop the car to buy something to take to hospital. He left for, to me, to a kid, very long. So, or a while I thought he will not come back. For many years, that's a nightmare in my memory and I didn't know the impact on me. But only in the recent year I noticed, part of the pleasing me has to do with that incident, that I was afraid of being left, being separated…

JZ - Being abandoned. 

RB - But for many years, I didn't know. I just thought that was a terrible, terrible memory. But I didn't know the impact. That's one thing. So, what I'm trying to say is I totally agree with Jie. We can really do some of our own exploration with our coaches or coach colleagues. The more we discover ourselves, the more we can build the competence. Also, it's about self-acceptance, self-compassion. That's one thing. The other thing, as a professional, what I realize, at least for me, the more competent in terms of coaching skills, the more competent I am when facing conflict. So, one way of dealing that, for me, is I’ve learned and practiced all kinds of related skills. Then I vent, I can stay into conflict more. I find my own way to review the system, to mirror the system. And for many years, I have developed myself to be a more humorous person. So, I notice that meta skills help a lot when there's a conflict, to do it in a light way. 

KC - That's such a great example, Rebecca, what you were saying about really doing that work in yourself and looking below the iceberg, we could say, the iceberg we can see at least. Because even if we do avoid conflict, say, we come away from a coaching session and we go, ‘how annoying, why did I do that?’ There's an opportunity there to learn and grow as a coach and as a person because there probably is something underneath, probably something that threatens our human values around belonging or feeling enough. If we can use that as a doorway, wow, the growth that we can then get from that moment too. 

JZ - You just described the interpersonal process recall we did for certification. That's the exact purpose and function of that. So that's why we need to have coaching supervision or mentor coaching, to help us grow. 

RB - I find another tip that works for me is to find someone who we can co-lead with, people like Jie. Last time I had this co-leading with Uri, I often find when I have a competent co-leader, I feel much more competent, ready to face the conflict, because I know we can relate to each other, we can back up each other.

KC - That's such a good point. I've noticed in some of my co-leading dynamics, particularly when we're quite different, that if we're quite open about those differences we can then share those roles. So, if I typically take on, say, the peacekeeper in that dynamic, maybe we can swap for half the session. And that's a really lovely way of us not getting that role fatigue, but also for it to belong to our relationship as opposed to Katie does this and the other person does that. 

JZ – Well, I want to experience it in the future sometime.

KC - I think we should all co-lead together, that's what we're designing up here. I want to close by asking one final tip for listeners tuning into this and thinking yeah, I'm definitely biased towards conflict, or I'm biased towards harmony. What tip would you offer them as an opening to this work? As a way of holding both. 

RB - You mean a practical tip?

KC - Yeah. So, someone who has not thought about this too much. Around am I biased towards harmony or am I biased towards conflict? What would you suggest they do to start this process of opening up to both?

JZ – I’m thinking before you walk into coaching, what belief do you have? Do you believe, you’re happy, I’m here and support them or do you believe that somehow hard truths will help them? If you agree it's hard truths, then how would you make it lightly? The hard truths. 

KC - Yeah, I like that point Jie because it comes back to our intention. What's the intention that we're taking into this coaching session? Is it to be light? Is it to make peace? Or is it to help raise awareness within that system? 

RB – For me, be curious and be kind to ourselves too. At the same time, really be aware to practice the EI first, then to build up to an RSA. Sorry, I'm using the term. Be curious to ourselves, be curious to other people and be curious to the system. So, consciously aware of what's happened, and also to build that competence little by little. To me it’s a self-discovery journey.

KC - I appreciate that point you make there, Rebecca, about this being a journey. It's not something that we're going to suddenly do tomorrow and that we've ticked that box and yes, we've done it now. It's a constant evolution and I'm sure you're both still very much in the midst of those journeys as I am to.

JZ - Yeah, absolutely. 

RB - Absolutely. 

KC – Well, thank you for this beautiful journey today, both of you. I have learned a lot and it's making me think so much about actually how these two seemingly polar opposites actually aren't so opposite at all.

JZ - Well, thank you for saying that.

RB - Thank you, Katie for inviting us. It's a nice experience.

[Music outro begins 33:31] 

KC - Thanks to Jie and Rebecca for that really fascinating discussion. Here are my key takeaways. Notice if you have a bias towards harmony or conflict. How does this show up in your work and in your life? And what beliefs might be driving this behavioral pattern? Harmony and conflict can be two sides of the same coin as they can both be positive and negative, depending on the intent and the impact. If you notice that you view harmony as positive and conflict as negative, how might you upskill yourself so that you can lean into conflict in a much more constructive and skillful way. Conflict is not necessarily bad, just as harmony is not necessarily good. When we can hold the voices of conflict and harmony in a more neutral way, we hold that all voices are a voice of the system as opposed to marginalizing one voice over the other. When we fall into people pleasing, we're not creating harmony within a system as we may be marginalizing certain pieces of information. Revealing the system to itself is when we as a coach, act as a mirror for our clients, and trust their naturally intelligent, generative and creative nature. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. CRR Global’s unshakeable belief is that relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole. For more information please visit CRRGlobal.com. 

[Music outro 35:34 – end]