If you think conflict at work is something to avoid—or outsource to HR—this episode might just change your mind.

My guest, NadeenSivic, has spent nearly three decades leading tech teams across Australia and the UK. She’s known as “the fixer” of messy teams and offers a street-smart, no-nonsense lens on workplace conflict: not as a problem, but as a natural part of work that every manager needs to master.

We talk about:

• Why conflict is not the enemy
• The difference between contrast, friction, and true conflict
• Why most mid-level managers are thrown into the “execution mosh pit” without proper tools
• Nadeen’s dead-simple “Said / Done / Produced” framework you can try in your next Teams meeting

You’ll laugh, nod, and quite possibly see your last team meeting in a whole new light.

🎯 Ready to lead with more confidence and fewer HR escalations?

Join the waitlist for The Manager’s Lab: www.the-managers-lab.com

If you think workplace conflict is something to avoid, like

the plague or handoff to hr, Nadeen Sivic wants you to think again.

In this episode, australian Nadeen shares her views on conflict as

a natural, messy part of everyday work life that leaders are somehow

expected to do well, but no one ever teaches managers conflict mastery.

We talk about boardroom brawls, execution mosh pits, and wearing summer

tires on snowy roads, all while trying to survive your next teams meeting.

Let's dive in.

Nadeen, it seems to me that you believe we're thinking all

wrong about conflict at work.

Tell me more.

Okay.

I, I do believe that we're thinking wrong about conflict at work.

I think traditionally we have looked at conflict as a big bang event, and we've

conditioned ourselves into believing that, you know, the workplace should

be harmonious and perfect all the time.

And that conflict is more of an.

Admin place to be.

So it's a HR form to fill in.

Hopefully not, but it can end in people exiting in tribunals

and all sorts of things.

And as a result, it comes with a lot of discomfort and we don't

really like dealing with it.

We like to tuck it away in a corner and say, well, that's

where that lives, and let's just get on with the rest of our day.

And I, I don't believe that that's probably the right way to, to look at it.

It prompts the question, what's a better way

to think about conflict at work?

Well, I think we live with conflict.

I think it's a natural part of the human state, and it conflict actually

comes from this law of contrast that exists all through our universe.

And if we look at every object in the planet, um, everything exists

in contrast to each other so that we can see and recognize what it is.

So if we talk about things, you know, we've got color, so we've got depth and

light and dark and texture and smells and, and you know, we're given the five senses

to, to navigate that through the world.

The best analogy I can come up with, the way that we should look at conflict

or the way I certainly look at it is the tire and the road analogy.

So if we look at a tire and a road, these are two very, very different objects.

We have a tire that has a different purpose and a different

texture, and a and a road as well.

Now for the manager navigating the tire on a road should be about the skill between

the association of the tire and the road.

If you've got a summer tire with a nice, beautiful, perfect asphalt

road, everything's hunky dory.

But of course we know sometimes that that's not always the case.

So sometimes we'll find ourselves driving a car that we've got a summer tire on

and then it starts snowing and we think, well, how am I gonna get out of this?

And the idea is to be able to recognize those signs early doors so that you

can say, right, I've gotta bring a different set of skills to the table here.

Rather than just leave it and go hope for the best, and then

of course, you know, slide off into a ditch and, and away we go.

Yeah.

So, and that's not what we want and that's how I, I see conflict as part of our day.

Not a big bang event.

Lovely.

And so, so it is just an everyday part of life, an everyday part of conversations,

an everyday part of every meeting.

Okay.

So, but.

That seems different to Norm.

Why do you think we are so stuck on that older that that former

way of thinking about conflict?

Well, I think we do leadership very well and I think we

focus our attention on, you know, when you go into these large corporates,

there's a lot of training and coaching and mentoring around the people

dynamics and the team dynamics as you get up through the senior rank.

Mm-hmm.

But The poor managers that are left in the execution mosh pit, it's

a sink or swim situation, more or less.

And a lot of them, you know, God bless their hearts, they're just

thrown in with an employee handbook, uh, and how to fill in a status

report and, and hope for the best.

And then of course, they get in there in a few weeks in all of the,

the people stuff comes up and think, well, what am I going to do with this?

Not actually recognizing what they're dealing with now is

conflict, contrast and friction.

So what we really need to do is take the management and look at that pool

and say, how do we give them the tools and the habits so that they can

learn all the team dynamics and the beautiful people dynamics and make

that synergistic with their management function so that they're not just

writing status reports and ignoring all them the stuff that is actually causing

silent, compounded, you know, delays in delivery and, and reduction, in quality.

Oh my God.

So say that again.

So the three things that they need to focus on are, there's comfort

So we have, so we have contrast.

Usually it starts with contrast.

So every human is, in contrast, we're all different.

We're all little, you know, jelly beans in a bowl.

So we start with contrast.

So learning how to manage it at that contrast stage where we've got the

different personalities, the different approaches, beliefs, et cetera.

That's where the power is.

So we want to, to prevent instead of react at the end.

So we have contrast if unmanaged, it can turn into friction and friction's.

Okay.

But if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time or say nothing at

all, then it can actually fester.

And at work, what we find, because it's not okay to kind of, you know,

tops off and get into the 50 cuffs in an office, it will fester, you know?

Yeah.

Not that we haven't seen it, right.

But we can, it'll feer, right?

It will just sort of go underground in a very passive way, and then

it will start to manifest in ways that we haven't seen before.

And then we'll see things like weaponized delays and little

backhanded compliments and suddenly.

You know, you've got this little conflict kind of eroding slowly in

the background, so it's, yeah, it goes from contrast to friction to conflict.

Conflict.

And so one of the pieces of language I use a lot and I see

it in work is boardroom brawling.

And it doesn't have to be boardroom, but just meetings where there's

nothing but lack of appreciation of the contrast, lack of interest or

curiosity about the contrast, and there's nothing but friction that just builds

into something giant like conflict.

So I love.

I really love your work.

So if somebody is listening today and they've just heard the tiny tidbits

of insight and it's resonating with them and they want to do something to

become more adept at Conflict Mastery, can they do this week to start?

Okay.

So I always start with, 'cause I, I believe that you

can't fix what you can't see.

So we have to start with a little observational tool that

I call it said done produced.

It's nothing flashy It's not like a piece of technology.

You don't need a lot of, um, street smarts to use it.

It's literally an observational skill where you look at a situation

that you might have at work and you just take a little note and say what

was said, what was done, and what was produced, and then look for the

misalignment between those three points.

And it's, it's a tool that's very useful.

'cause it's not so much a leverage like, oh, you, you said you were

gonna do this and, and I'm gonna wrap you now because you didn't.

It's a tool to say, where do I need to shine a light to go a little bit deeper

and what's going on under the hood here.

So it's a very good a tool.

So it's said, done, and produced.

And all you need is your pen and notebook and your brain thankfully

and produced.

Lovely.

And that's something that we don't need to put a link in the show notes too, because

you've just told us exactly how to do it.

So someone could do that in their next teams meeting or the next Zoom

meeting or the next face-to-face meeting, and it would just shine

a light on, Hey, this is working.

There's no conflict here, there's no, or I need to do something

different and go a bit deeper.

Wonderful.

Thank you, Nadeen.

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my life satisfaction assessment.

It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas

of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you die.

I call it derailed.

It's a fabulous place to begin at joy at work redesign.