Episode 044: A Conversation on Conflict with T. Maxine Woods-McMillan, Part 1

Join Sarah Noll Wilson and guest T. Maxine Woods-McMillan, Esq. as they explore conflict. Why do we struggle with conflict? What harm do we cause by trying to avoid it? And how can we better prepare ourselves to deal with difficult situations before they happen?

About Our Guest

Throughout her career, T. Maxine Woods-McMillan has been known as The Great Translator – finding ways to make parties with differing, and at times, competing interests understand the position of the other. And when that has not been successful, her talented advocacy skills make her equally effective at getting the fact finder in a dispute to see the position of her client. Maxine’s practice focuses on employment law, business dispute resolution, and workplace equity and equality. She represents employees when their rights have been violated and is also a trusted advisor and trainer for employers and their staff to help prevent the violation of those rights before it occurs. She is a compassionate yet formidable advocate in the areas of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, pregnancy, religion, national origin, and age, as well as sexual or racial harassment and wrongful/retaliatory termination. She also brings niche understanding to the distinct dynamic created when the workplace intersects with a family relationship or is a part of a faith community, and is particularly equipped to assist with legal advocacy in those areas.

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Episode Transcript

Sarah Noll Wilson
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Conversations on Conversations where each week we explore a topic to help us have more powerful conversations with ourselves and with each other. I’m your host, Sarah Noll Wilson and I am so excited for this week’s conversation. I’m ready to be a student. I am ready to be inspired and just engaged in this topic of conflict mediation. And joining me and coming back to the show, being gracious enough to come back to our show is Maxine Woods-McMillan. So let me give a little bit of background. Some of you may be familiar, she joined us last year when we were talking about all the firings and how they were happening terribly in the workplace. And so she’s come back. So let’s, let’s review her bio so we can be anchored in the great, great insights that she brings to us. All right, throughout her career, T. Maxine Woods-McMillan has been known as the “Great Translator” finding ways to make parties with differing and at times competing interests, understand the position of the other. And when that has not been successful, her talented advocacy skills has made her equally effective at getting the fact finder in dispute to see the position of her client. Maxine’s practice focuses on employment law, business dispute resolution and workplace equity and equality. She represents employees when their rights have been violated and is also a trusted advisor and trainer for employers and their staff to help prevent violation of those rights before it occurs. She is a compassionate, yet formidable advocate in the areas of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, pregnancy, religion, national origin and age as well as sexual or racial harassment, and wrongful retaliatory termination. She also brings a niche understanding to the distinct dynamic created when workplace intersects with a family relationship, or as part of the faith community and is particularly equipped to assist with legal advocacy in those areas. Welcome to the show. Maxine.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me back. I’m so excited to be here.

Sarah Noll Wilson
I am, I’m, I’m so so excited to jump into this. Now, before we get into it, what else would you like people to know about you?

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Oh, boy. At this exact moment, I’m being tortured. We’re recording this and you know, in the office when they say the rules about what you can’t put in the microwave? Well, I’m a huge popcorn nut and so as part of my Valentine’s Day present, my son made me a big, big thing of popcorn. And it’s smelling right now –

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs)

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
So as much as I’m enjoying this time with you, I’m craving popcorn.

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs) I mean, he can just bring in a little bowl, and we can just edit out the crunches. (laughter) I’m all about, you know, lets honor human needs. Let’s meet each other where we are at.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
I really wish that I had the kind of restraint and decorum that I could just take one kernel and you know, very lady like munch it away. But you know, usually, it’s more like I’m devouring and you know, a finger might get lost. So let’s just wait till the end.

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs) Okay, wait. So have I have so many questions. So any kind of popcorn or is there specific kinds like, oh, traditional butters? Like the more butter the better?

Maxine Woods-McMillan
It has to be the traditional butter. I do not do microwave popcorn. That’s sacrilege. So either it’s from the kettle, or we actually have more than one. This is embarrassing, but we actually have more than one popcorn maker machine in this house. (laughter)

Sarah Noll Wilson
I love it. Are they running at the same time? Like this is what I’m curious about? Like, is it, so you have a backup in case one breaks or you’re like –

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
No, no. There’s one upstairs and downstairs depending on where the craving hits me?

Sarah Noll Wilson
Okay. Yeah,

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
But that kind of, once you say it out loud, you realize you might have an issue if you have to have an upstairs and a downstairs popcorn machine. (laughter) So maybe probably not what your listeners were like, okay, she’s an attorney who likes popcorn. It’s probably not what they wanted to know. But at that exact moment.

Sarah Noll Wilson
I love it.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
I just was like, did he have to make the popcorn like right when I was going on air? (laughs)

Sarah Noll Wilson
I love it. I love it so much because that’s just a beautiful example of life and being present with and meeting the moment. I –

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
You know, I just I don’t do fake well anymore. I think it’s like, you know, when I was younger, I would have never said that. But I don’t know. I heard it so many years. And I think it’s true. There’s something about hitting that certain age. You know, once you become a lady of a certain age that you just like, this is me.

Sarah Noll Wilson
This is where I’m at. It’s always like, don’t ask me how I’m doing if you don’t want the real answer. I have a terrible poker face. Right? And it’s just like, ah, I’m having digestive issues right now actually is where I’ve, you know, or whatever the case is like, there’s not not much off limits. See this is why I love you.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
See, but don’t you feel closer to the person? Like once someone shares the digestive issues with you, and then – because that’s happened to me, and I’m like, “Really? Girl, listen.” and I’ve given them the pills that I take.

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs)

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
You know, first of all, they feel better, because they realize they’re not the only one because I’m telling you, when you become a woman of a certain age, all kinds of things. It’s like, everyone leaves the building –

Sarah Noll Wilson
Everything changes.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
– at the same time in your body. And they’re all just like, oh, yeah, I’m on break all at the same time. And so you’re taking all kinds of stuff and whatever. And I’m, you know, I can’t tell you how many times it’s been like, “Oh, really, girl, take this.” And then they come back three days later, and I’m their new best friends, because they’re like, it’s worked!

Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s too much information. I was like, well, for who? I’m actually good with it.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
(laughs) We’re all doing this thing together.

Sarah Noll Wilson
It you know, I really love how you said, I don’t do fake well. You really love that because one –

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
It’s too much work.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, and life’s too short. And you you can tell I mean, authenticity just like, is such an important part of, of building relationships and having that connection of are you are you who you say you are? Or are there some walls up that I can’t get past? And I’m not sure right, who you are. So I just I appreciated that we started with that. It’s, it’s funny, actually, I don’t actually have digestion issues. But I do want to eat popcorn. So I think the reason that came up was because I was having such a memory of I love popcorn, and my body doesn’t – think – I love it so much, but my body rejects it.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
And I’ll give you a secret for that when we get off to cause.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Mmm, I love it. We’ll put it in the show notes for everyone else who’s listening who’s like, I want to know her secrets. Okay, so let’s let’s let’s get into our topic, because there’s so many places that I want to explore with you. But first what I’m, where I want to start is just the beginning. What, what has been your journey to this work that you’re doing and you’re so passionate about and so skillful at?

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
(exhales) Gordon Gekko. So you remember Gordon Gekko, you remember the movie, right? And Gordon Gekko goes, greed is good. And which seems kind of like antithetical, right? What are you talking about? Greed cannot be good. Because we are conditioned that if someone is greedy, that is obviously bad. Now, I am not saying that I believe greed is good. What I’m saying is, I believe conflict is good, right. And I know when I say that people usually kind of look at me like, either she’s weird, or she’s selling something. And it’s neither, right. But if we immediately see conflict as the bad to be avoided, then we don’t – who develop strategies for the bad, right? Who looks ahead to the bad, and who sees the bad as inevitable? The only thing we put that category, put in that category is death, right? We accept that it’s inevitable, but we don’t really want to talk about it too much.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Hmm.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
You know, how many people have really fun conversations about when I die? (laughs) It’s practical, it’s wise. It’s a good strategy. And just like you plan for the inevitable. I think you should also – in death – I think you should also plan for conflict. I would love to say that I always thought that, I did not. I came to this place because I avoided both intrapersonal conflict, conflict and interpersonal conflict. So intrapersonal conflict is conflict within yourself internally. And when you don’t handle your intrapersonal conflict, it becomes increasingly hard to deal with your interpersonal conflict, right. But both should be expected and both should be strategize to handle. So that’s kind of like my evolution is one, not realizing that conflict is inevitable. Humans develop, we socialized differently, we experience the world differently. And, and so it should not be looked at as something to avoid at all costs. That it is, it is inevitable. That just just like we should expect to have conflict with one another, we’re gonna have conflict with ourselves. And you know, earlier we were just talking about as we grow, as we change, as we age, our bodies change. When I – sometimes I call myself having a conversation, the T, in my name, I have myself having a conversation with Tammy. Right. Tammy was what everyone called me when I was a teenager and in my early 20s. It’s my first name. And I when I think about who I was at 21, the 21, 22-year-old Tammy versus me now, I don’t even know if I’m the same person, but I guess we both live in the same body. But I have changed so much, you know, from when I was that person. And if I were to say that I had to stay rigidly adhered to everything that that person thought, and I didn’t wrestle with myself internally, then I would not be very well equipped to wrestle with others. And I would not see that as reflective of a necessity to end the entire relationship. Just like I didn’t end the relationship with myself, I understood that I fought, I evolved, I changed. And the conflict was something that didn’t mean that there was something wrong with me at either point. That conflict can be a separate entity outside of the individual.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Hmm. I, I don’t know that I’ve heard somebody articulate and focus on the intra conflict when talking about conflict. I’m, I’m pausing and reflecting because so, so much of the work when I think about things I’ve read or work that we’re doing, and, and people you know, we’re following, it’s always the interpersonal, not the intrapersonal. And that point you made is such a important one of, if we cannot navigate our internal, like, our conflict with ourselves that intrapersonal, it’s going to make it way harder. And boy that’s resonating. You know, I I always say I’m an in progress, reformed avoider of conflict. It’s not – I wish it was a, I wish it was a switch that could just flip. I wish that it could just happen. But, you know, speaking from my lived experience, as a white Midwest woman, it’s all about a level of perfection of of keeping a false sense of harmony, of, right? And lived experience of how how I was raised was very much, you either, you avoided it out of fear, or you avoided it because of anger. Right? Like there were, the reasons were maybe different, but, but –

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
The Midwest nice?

Sarah Noll Wilson
I hadn’t thought about that – oh, yeah, I call it violent politeness. We’re very violently polite. That that just like, we’re gonna keep things, we’re gonna keep things calm. And I hadn’t, I hadn’t hadn’t made that connection of –

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
So, here’s the thing. I love what you just said about we keep things calm. Because when we know that there is conflict, and we don’t develop a strategy, and I’m really intentional about using the term develop a strategy to deal with that conflict. If at the, when the goal is to keep things calm, what you’re actually doing is because you want to avoid an external war, you’re just increasing the likelihood for internal wars. I mean, that’s what you’re doing.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
It’s not gonna go anywhere, right.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Matter does not move. And emotions are not going to dissipate, right? Because, you know, it’s kind of like, you remember when you were a kid, and you would cover your eyes when something scared you, put the blanket over your head. It’s like the monster that I believe that can fly through the night and break through the walls and permeate the roof. But darn, when he gets to that cotton blanket, he’s just not gonna be able to get to me.

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs)

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
That’s kind of like as adults, how we handle conflict. Right? It’s like, it’s you’re making entire life decisions. You’re, you’re navigating, you’re in my case, you know, what I see, you’re navigating your workplace entirely differently. You’re reorganizing your calendar, you’re redirecting resources, you’re doing all of these things to avoid this person, or to avoid this issue. You know, and if you just keep avoiding it, it’s just gonna dissipate.

Sarah Noll Wilson
You know, it’s, I yeah, that that point of when you avoid the external war, it just shifts to the internal war, right, and the resentment that builds up and the frustration or disappointment. I had a friend in high school who would always say, I’m always really flattered when somebody ignores me. And I was like, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. And he goes, because they’re spending so much time and effort paying attention to where I’m at. And I was like, damn, that’s a really good, kind of a good perspective. Like, it’s a different perspective. But the cost is there. Yeah, we so let’s, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of the work that we do around it. But I want to hear from you and your perspective. Why is it so prevalent? Because – well, let me be clear, why is it so prevalent in Western culture of the conflict avoidance? I mean, I know that there’s layers to this, but I can’t tell you how many times people will be like, oh, we get along really great, our relationships really great. We never have disagreements. I’m like, oh, let actually, that’s a little bit of a red flag for me that we can’t disagree, and we aren’t disagreeing or we aren’t navigating it. And, yeah, so just like, what’s, what’s been your experience of why is it such a taboo thing? For so many, it’s not everyone, but for so many.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
I don’t think it’s necessarily bad if you have relationships in which you don’t disagree. And again, this is kind of one of those things, when you get to be a lady of a certain age. I have plenty of relationships with with, with people with whom I have no disagreements, do you know why? Because I’m not invested enough in the relationship for us to warrent disagreement. Like, I have a great relationship with my mailwoman. She’s been my mailwoman years. We see each other we say hi, you know, it’s a real great surface level relationship. You know, for Mother’s Day and Christmas holidays, I give her a little envelope, she brings my mail, if something’s really big, she’ll ring the doorbell. I mean, we got a good thing going. It’s really surface level, right. So not every relationship is one in which you’re going to be vested enough for a disagreement to even resonate, for it to even register. I mean, let’s think about it, like using that same example, if my mailwoman was upset with me, and we had a disagreement, would I, how long would it take for me to notice, I mean, as long as she’s dropping off the mail, I probably wouldn’t know. Until like, I don’t know Christmas, and she doesn’t say thank you for the envelope or something. I don’t know. So not every relationship, not every person that we interact with is even going to warrant a disagreement. And so we have to recognize that relationships really are tiered in our emotional hierarchical structure. And the ones that, you know, I have a saying, I have to respect you enough to be insulted by what you said. If I, if you cannot compliment me, you do not have the credence or credibility to criticize me. And so I need that level of investment. I need that level of involvement, for you to impact my life, and for me to care what you think. (laughs) Right? So that’s the first thing. But to answer your – so that’s the secondary part of your question. But to answer the primary part of your question, why is it so taboo? I think it’s so taboo, because we have been conditioned and socialized, and when I say we, I mean collectively in our society. And I know, this is definitely how I kind of experienced it, grew up, that if there’s conflict, if there is, if you and I have an issue, it’s because one of us did something wrong.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Ah, yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
That someone is wrong, that someone is culpable, right? Because if they’re, if we have zero some propositions, that the presence of conflict means the presence of culpability on the part of one of the people involved in the conflict. And we live in a society that has trained us to win. You know, that’s, that’s kind of the Western patriarchal model, right? You got to win. And so if I win, you have to lose. It’s the added linear adversarial nature of, of how we perceive and how we work through, how we define conflict. And so I think that’s the first part is immediately part of that calculus is, okay, who’s wrong? Because if you’re wrong, then I’m right. And I win. Right? And if we’re both thinking that, then it’s kind of like the tug of war over this really, really big pile of poop filled water. (laughter)

Sarah Noll Wilson
And if I avoid it, then I avoid ever being wrong.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
But you don’t avoid it. You just displace it.

Sarah Noll Wilson
No, right.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
That’s the thing. There is no such thing as avoiding conflict, right? Conflict does not get avoided. Conflict doesn’t get avoided, it gets replaced and when I say replaced, I don’t mean – it gets repositioned rather, right. So either either you and I are going to have interpersonal conflict, or I’m not going to address it and that interpersonal conflict is just going to hang in there. But the weight of it is going to internalize here or internalize there, or even worse, and this is where usually I get called in, it’s gonna start spewing out to everyone outside. So the periphery gets it, and they’re just getting splattered with it. So you know, to use my very crass analogy, and they’re just going, –

Sarah Noll Wilson
With the poop water?

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Why is this hitting me in the face? What is going on? The poop filled water. Why am I getting hit with this? (laughs)

Sarah Noll Wilson
That’s such a, that’s such a, that’s such a great point. There are things you’re going to say that I’m just going to sit here and go, uh hmm, because I’m still like processing it and reflecting on it. And my brain can’t catch up with with where my mouth is. It’s – that – what an important call out. Because I think so often, right, that it’s, you know, I read I read somewhere, this idea that, you know, the classic phrase of time heals all wounds. And, you know, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t, right, but a good conversation can. Having, you know, whether that’s a conversation with ourselves, whether that’s a conversation with some someone else, and the thing, that’s the thing that is has been interesting for me on my journey. And again, like, it’s still it’s still something I have to push against in my DNA. It’s something that I have to – literally, I feel like sometimes I’m in situations where I have to push out and say, you know, actually, I disagree agree with that, or, you know, I have a different perspective. And the thing that I found is that, in relationships, where that is present, there’s a sense of liberation of, of being able to just like, oh, no, I can, I can share, and I can exist, and you can share, and you can exist, and we can have these conversations. And we know we’ll be okay, right? That we can have these tough moments, we can disagree, we can navigate like, oh, wow, that was actually really hurtful, and have those conversations. There is so much more freedom that I feel in those relationships, where we are able to step into the heat together, so to speak, compared to the ones – the very thing that was like, oh, I’m afraid so we’re going to keep the peace, we’re going to keep things calm in this false sense of harmony, because that will make things better. And now that I’m starting to get on the other side of it, I realized like no, that’s actually not better. And so your your whole point about it just gets displaced or reposition is very resonant for me right now.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
An d so everything you said makes total sense. I love it. In my work most of the time, well, I would say half of the time, it works really well. So what you said works really well, if we’re on equal footing in terms of power structures and hierarchy.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
But it doesn’t, it doesn’t have the same – it requires a different internal conversation and a different normalizing, a different locus of normalization, when there are different levels, right? Because it’s one thing to say, you know, we can both exist, when I’m not dependent on you for my livelihood. Right. It’s one thing to say, you know, we can – so I’m not disagreeing with you at all, I’m, what I’m saying is we have to be mindful that conflict doesn’t always come when people are when people are in equal positions in terms of power structures. It’s distinctly different when you can control my livelihood, when you controlled, you know, my money, my I might make – my career progression. When that power dynamic is different how do you still – what’s the conversation? How does the conversation change in terms of conflict? And so whereas whereas one requires an awareness, I think the next step of that when there’s a power dynamic change or shift is a certain amount of courage. It does require courage. It requires courage and it requires strategizing. It requires courage to say to someone who yes does have the power to impact your livelihood, your future, however, you may perceive that. When that power dynamic is different, it requires a certain level of courage to say I am going to have this conversation, despite what might be an unfavorable possibility.

But you also have to strategize because, you know, again, you’re you’re in a certain place in life, we have to be realistic. We can’t just all just handle conflict, you know, in a way that doesn’t take into perspective, doesn’t take into consideration that everyone is not going to be where we are. Everyone is not going to think the way that we think. And they may not be as evolved. And so how am I – if I know that’s a possibility, how am I planning for that? Am I having the conversation, for example, am I confronting this conflict in a way that might exacerbate an already tenuous situation. That might put me in a place where I might lose my job. Now, you’ve just created another set of conflicts, because now you have to, you know, figure out how you’re going to navigate your life. You know, if you’re, you know, personally, you might have to share that news with someone else, it’s going to impact someone else’s life. So this is why, you know, at the top of the show, we talked about planning for conflict, planning for conflict at times requires us to be kind of practical, kind of really brass tacks about, okay, this is not just about how I feel, but taking it a step further and making sure that I develop the structures around my feelings, to support my feelings. So being courageous enough to confront that internal feeling, those internal feelings, what I’m feeling, why I’m feeling it, and then being aware enough of it to validate like, okay, you know, what I’m I am, I’m not even angry. I passed angry about 20 minutes ago, two months ago, you know, three emails ago, I’m officially pissed now.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. (chuckles)

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
You know, and then, and then feeling, feeling justified enough, like, and I want to say this – it took me a long time to accept in myself, that it was okay for me to feel what I felt. Period. It does not mean everyone’s going to agree with what I feel. But it took a while for me, for Maxine to accept, okay, I am going to quiet the external annoys enough to be able to internally look at myself and name my feelings. That is a process that takes time and discipline. It takes time and discipline, to interrogate your internal feelings, and then name them, and then accept them. You know, like, I don’t have to give 5000 reasons why that’s okay. This is what I feel, period. End of paragraph. No further, that’s it. You know, like, no is a complete sentence, yes is a complete sentence, this is how I feel. End of conversation.

New conversation. (laughs) Now, this is how I’m going to deal with it. And when we give ourselves as you said, that kind of liberty, that kind of freedom, to be fully accepting of what we feel, and treasure and value ourselves enough to say, this is what I feel. And, and so therefore, because I feel this, if that feeling is not positive, I love myself enough, I love the people around me enough, or I value the work that I do in the context of of how I do this work, I love the people – I value the work that I do and the environment I do it enough that I am going to pursue health for this relationship, for this dynamic. And that means that we might have to address something that is that is conflict. Also, if you name if you name the feeling, then you get to name the conflict separate.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Say more about that.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Name your feeling. Then you get to name the conflict separately and you can separate them. Conflict is its own entity.

Sarah Noll Wilson
There’s one, I’m I really am glad that you brought up about the power dynamics because that was something I wanted to explore with you. And I want to continue to examine that especially as we talk about strategies.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Sorry I jumped ahead.

Sarah Noll Wilson
No, no.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
You know how passionate I get.

Sarah Noll Wilson
But I think it’s really important especially from the standpoint whether it’s formal power dynamic or informal power dynamic because I think that that is something that is often missed in this body of work and, right, like I own that as a gap that I constantly have to be paying attention to to go well, this is what I have learned and no works for me and or who that works when you’re part of the dominant culture, right. A lot of the books that have been written about how do you navigate difficult conversations? How do you have conflict? When I think about advice that I’ve been given has largely been from white men who are in power. And that’s a different, there’s a different privilege, there’s a different you know, there’s there’s a, there’s a privilege I have in situations, there’s a privilege, I don’t have in some situations, and there’s a different calculation, and risk, right. You know, you’re speaking to that courage and so that’s something that I want us to continue to examine in our conversation of just – because I think that one, there’s well, and you push back on me. So with something that I’ve been wrestling with is, how, how do we how do we explore and speak to some of those nuances? How do we, you know, in our work with leaders, and you, you are working with people in leadership, like how do we become aware of ourselves and also help others become aware of that, what might not feel risky, to us actually a significant risk to them? You know, something as simple as something as simple as, you know, we want a culture of feedback, we want feedback to go two ways. And it’s like, well, feedback from a team member to a manager always carries a very different risk than the other way around. And, and unless we’re aware of that, and unless we’re prepared for that, and paying attention to that, right, it’s so easy – see, I’ve already decided our next episode, (laughs) just so you know, I’m naming it and putting it out in the universe, is talking about retaliation in the workplace. And so, so I – just sorry, just my brain went there for a second, I just wanted to, to name that. And now I’ve lost my train of thought. But I just I wanted to one, like, acknowledge, and thank you for bringing up that power dynamic. And that is something that is really important. And it’s something that that sometimes is a blind spot for me, that I have to be aware of, of like if I’m predominantly working with like, senior leaders means I’m predominantly working with white men. And that dynamic is very different and navigating conflict, when you’re not the person in formal or informal authority and power. Yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
So So to answer your question, if I can just kind of reconnect, you said, you lost your train of thought, but I don’t think he did.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
I just think that you were evolving your thought process there. How do we how do we handle that? I think how we best handle that – so you’ve heard that the old saying, right, the best time to plant a tree was yesterday, right? The second best time is today. The best time to plan for conflict was yesterday. Before, when there was no conflict. The second best time to plan for conflict is as soon as you can! But the absolute – because here’s the thing. The reason why conflict is so challenging for people is because most of the time they’re building the parachute while the plane is on fire. The plane being the proverbial relationship in whatever context, it is now on fire. If your ass is on fire, you’re not thinking clearly. (laughter) I’m sorry I said that.

Sarah Noll Wilson
No, you’re good.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
And then I repeated what I said. Edit that out, okay. (laughter) Do you see my point? Like, can you imagine –

Sarah Noll Wilson
Totally!

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
If the plane is going down, and then you hear someone over the loudspeaker, like, oh shoot, we really should figure out what we should do if the plane crashes, like you’re gonna freak out even more.

(laughter) Right! It’s such a, it’s such an apt analogy. It’s such a great metaphor, because like, in our work we’ll often say, like, we – in the workplace, we focus so much on the task that we don’t spend enough time on the togetherness. And then we don’t we don’t tend to the relationship until there’s a problem. And by then it can be too late. And it’s exactly like the point you’re making. It’s way too late then.

Sarah Noll Wilson
Your airplane analogy is great.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Have you ever gotten on an airplane? But if you get on an airplane, right, imagine as much as you zone out, you’re texting, putting those last text in before the plane takes off. In the back of your head there’s something kind of comforting that there’s this person droning on, “In the event of an emergency air will dropped down, put it over your mouth,” you know. If you’ve flown a few times, you kind of know it to the point where worst case scenario you may not be able to do it as good as as the flight attendant, but you could kind of you know, get your way through it. Imagine how you would feel if you got on an airplane, you got in your seat and the captains came on and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to take off. We’re going to ascend to a height of about 30,000 feet. It should be a flight time of about two hours and 45 minutes. So just sit back, relax and enjoy your flight. Thank you for flying with us.” And then he hangs up and then they close the doors and they’re like, okay, we’re off. And you’re like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, should we be saying something here? Should there be some kind of? Not that you want it. No one wants the plane to crash. But dagget we should have a strategy if it does, should we not?

Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
Now if you don’t need it, you get off the plane, you get your carry on, you hope that your gates not you know, behind God’s back somewhere. And you truck it to baggage claim and you go along your business never thinking about it again. But hot dog gone it? If you need it, you do not want to be on the plane where you were like, oh, man, they didn’t go over it. What do I do? Do I blow into this? This thing’s not inflating! What do I do? That’s how we usually handle conflict. Right? You know, there’s, there’s a chance it might happen. What’s your plan for it? I don’t know. How effective is it?

Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs) Okay, I, I love I love all of your metaphors. I love– like this is such a gift. Although I’m not sure how I feel about talking about plane crashing when I have so many flights coming up. But that’s I’ll work through my own anxiety with that.

T. Maxine Woods-McMillan
But what we’re talking about is is you you’re gonna listen to the flight attendants now with a new level of appreciation.

Sarah Noll Wilson
I totally am – I’m gonna – yeah, for sure for sure.

Our guest this week has been T. Maxine Woods-McMillan. And our conversation was so in depth that we’ve decided to extend this into two parts. So be sure to check us out next week for part two of our conversation exploring conflict and mediation. As always, we want to hear from you. What resonated with you? What came up for you? What became clearer for you? Maybe you’ve interrogated your system of how you navigate conflict and learn something. You can send us a message at podcast @ Sarah Noll Wilson dot com. You can also find me on social media, where my DMs are always open. And if you’d like to find out more about our work and how we can help your team have conversations that matter. Be sure to check us out at Sarah Noll Wilson dot com. You can also pick up a copy of my latest book, Don’t Feed the Elephants! wherever books are sold. And if you’d like to support the show, which we greatly appreciate, please consider becoming a patron. You can do that by going to patreon.com / conversations on conversations, where your financial support will support and sustain this team that makes this podcast possible. And you’ll get access to some pretty great swag. And if you haven’t already, please be sure to rate review and subscribe to the show on your preferred podcast platform. This helps us be able to increase our exposure so we can continue to bring on amazing guests like T. Maxine Woods-McMillan.

A big thank you to the team that makes this show possible. To our producer Nick Wilson, to our sound editor Drew Noll, to our transcriptionists Becky Reinert, our marketing consultants ksn marketing services and the rest of the SNoWCo. crew. And just a big wholehearted thank you to attorney Maxine. Just bringing lots of new perspectives and language and gifts for us to think about our relationship with conflict differently. This has been Conversations on Conversations. Thank you all so much for listening near and far. And remember, when we can change the conversations we have with ourselves or others, we can change the world. So please my friends, make sure you rest, rehydrate and we’ll see you again next week.