Disagree with a Healthy Dose of Goodwill for Those who Differ
It happened just as I was about to introduce our discussion topic. So moved by what I observed in the crowd, I tossed my notes and invited the group to share why they huddled around a peer. Why were they suddenly celebrating Jake, a rather introverted guy they’d often ignored? It was no secret that Jake stirred up a conflict with angry teammates who ranted about his lack of contributions to their project. Last I heard, Jake was blamed for missing all due dates, now he’s hailed by the same suspects? While slapping hands they raved about Jake’s crazy art contribution, and shared enthusiastic plans to implement the project after landing a win for best innovation award.
Most agree that conflicts point to an absence of care, so it’s no stretch that care contains conflict’s finest elixir to advance as a team. Jake’s intrapersonal IQ stretched into care when he used his talent for art to help build a bridge over conflicts that limited the team’s project.
Here’s how you too can step past a conflict or rut and flip your conflict coin into a care-filled venture headed for higher peaks.
Dig Deeper into Shared Treasures that Warm Congeniality and Reboot Care Between You
What’s one trait you admire in another person that could become a beam for the bridge you hope to build together? In spite of his past tendency to hold back, Jake pondered a two footed question:
What one thing could I add to this poster that would improve the project?
That two-footed question helped Jake to see the team’s concerns, to face his penchant for passivity, and to spot an opportunity from his DNA pool to toss his digital design flair into the team’s talent pool. In so doing Jake flipped the conflict coin over to show its opposite side – care. The brainy results? Jake rebooted his brain with the confidence it takes to help bring a team together for a successful outcome.
Sadly, we sometimes take offense when others complain about our deficiencies, rather than dig deeper for a possibility that could fix a broken situation.
Armed with a two-footed question, brain based strategies can converge into practical possibilities for a new priority. Increasingly more mindful leaders use brain based tactics, such as two-footed questions to awaken curiosity and re-frame insights into lived experiences. Jake used art to mint wellbeing and it worked.
Check out this brief video that describes two footed questions and then ask a disagreeable person, What could I do to show how much I genuinely value you and admire your unique abilities, beyond this problem we face?
Next, get ready for an encounter that deep dives into your brain’s amygdala and comes up with care to line your next step forward.
Find a Face-to-face Moment to Listen with Your Brain Until You See from Your Heart How Care Tames an Amygdala 
In an increasingly networked-reliant online world, we can still find face-to-face human encounters to flash trust and toss appreciation into heated disagreements. By simply stepping back to tame your amygdala you begin to re-frame heated issues through the other person’s perspective. You begin to see with their capabilities in mind. At that moment you’re not only listening with your brain, but suddenly you heart more compassionately from your heart.
Listening and relationship-building moments change the tone so that you tend alter the question from, How smart are you? which infers heated competition or hierarchy – to ask instead, How are you smart? The latter question raises curiosity about a person’s unique abilities and views, and shapes a tone that can carry diverse ideas forward together. 
Perhaps you thank the other person for sharing views that differ from yours. Or you might offer new ideas respectfully as a way to show benefits that inspire the other person. Have you ever affirmed differences with the goal of optimizing goodwill and then watched tone jettison the group to higher ground? Any time we extend insights through cool tone tools we also motivate people to share wonder in a safe setting. Innovation rockets where personal attacks peter out!
The conversation might start with – Have you considered…? What if we…? Communicate in ways that inspire people to respond with delight while motivating you to listen with your brain until you hear from your heart. How so? You can be sure you’re listening with your brain and hearing from your heart whenever you see a controversial issue through another person’s view.
Have you seen the way compassion will follow?
Tap into Collective Intelligences to Discover Which Caring Comeback to Cherish Most
What held you back in past? Likely you considered an entire list of solutions in order of popularity, from your perspective without considering the other person’s strengths. For instance, each person brings a different mix of intelligences and in different stages of development.
Sadly, we can crave calm and care – while looking past our multiple capabilities to make it happen. Increasingly more Americans are living on their own, tethered to their personal perspectives, awhile craving convivial conversations with somebody close to share their lives, especially to offer support for shared passions. Good news is that we can simply do what we’d like others to see in us, and the brain’s plasticity (or ability to change itself) will do the rest. Yes, we can literally change conflict into calm – by simply extending kindness toward those around us.
It starts by tweaking bits of inner talk and ends with a dynamite filter change to reboot flawed beliefs into new outcomes that include another person’s interests, intelligences and perhaps their hopes too.
Mentor Care to One Another and Head Toward a Shared Star
Consider adapting your personal story in exchange for cultivating and weaving together innovative team strengths. At the Mita International Brain Center – we call it mind-guiding, a sort of mutual mentoring by picking your way past old assumptions in order to guide new possibilities together through one another’s viewpoint.
For example, Dr. Andy Anderson and I mind-guided when he needed to publish and what I needed to participate in more physical activity.
What a delight when we exchanged brainpower to guide one another toward a co-published article which covered brain based skills wiggled into athletic strategies for golfing well. The result appeared in JOPERD.
I learned golf that day and now play in tournaments and Andy mastered how neuro discoveries impact sports. Together we ended up with a product neither of us could have achieved alone. We had fun, laughed a great deal and both learned as well as taught one another.
Did I just say LAUGH?
Finally, Turn a Conflict into a Laughable Exchange that Fosters Fun
Laughter can melt away tensions in a team, the way afternoon sun melts a snowbank.
Start by shifting sarcasm into a belly-laugh and you are off and running. Ask others what makes them laugh, and welcome comical stories into any conversations. My teams sometimes track the changes we see when people laugh together as they work. However you approach laughter, go for benefits the whole team will value and laughter sets you up for growth mindset opportunities.
Oh, and the next time conflicts creep in. Simple flip the coin once again until it turns into care – across differences – for your entire group.
Looking for further two-footed questions that convert conflict into care and innovative solutions? See dozens additional unique questions at my TpT site. 
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Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset