Nicholas Bloomfield: Hello! I'm Nick Bloomfield. I'm the current Safety and Security Manager here with the organization. I'm also taking on the role of regulatory manager. It's my privilege to be able to address you today and to talk about a few skills, which have been very beneficial to me throughout my career, and I look forward to sharing those things with you today. During my prior career, working as a law enforcement officer, I had a unique opportunity to essentially learn a little bit about human conflict and human nature in that particular setting.

And today, what I wanted to do was share some insights into that. Often in the safety security setting, we get asked the question, "How do we deal with interpersonal conflict? How do we keep ourselves safe, safe in the workplace?" And so, those are some of the things that I want to explore with you all today.

So, I want to preface this discussion by telling a story, personal story. Prior to COVID, I was doing a lot of traveling and I happened to be flying out of Albuquerque and I was fixing to check my bag. I don't recall exactly which airline I was flying, but it's not necessary for this story, but something was going on. There was an interesting interaction that was happening as I was waiting in line. Up at the counter, there was a lady and she was absolutely screaming and just frustrated at the flight attendant who was assisting her. I didn't catch what the issue was; however, this was extremely disruptive. It was so disruptive, in fact, that I was fully expecting a TSA or Albuquerque PD to show up quickly to intervene, but neither of those things happened. As this irate customer, ended up leaving, she called this flight attendant a few expletives and then stormed off and I was next in line. As I set my bag on the scale, the flight attendant was so disturbed by this interaction that she couldn't even make eye contact with me. Her face was completely flushed, her hands were visibly shaking, and I could see that she was fighting back tears. And it took her about 30 seconds or so to compose herself before she would even interact with me.

And when she finally did look up at me, her first words to me were, "Did you hear what she just called me?" And I said, "Yes, I did. I'm sorry for that." And then, she paused for a moment and then she made another interesting statement. She said, "I don't have to deal with this." And she proceeded to turn around and walk away and exit out of an employee exit. So, I grabbed my bag and got back in line.

Very interesting interaction. And the thing is is that these interactions happen every day. Now, she did make a qualifying statement that I found to be interesting. She said, "I don't have to deal with this." And in one sense, she's right, she doesn't have to deal with this. She has the freedom and the power to change her circumstances anytime she wants per se as it relates to her job or profession.

But on the other end of the spectrum, I had a response in my mind, which is actually a counter to her statement, which is, "Well, if you want to be employed with this airline, you do have to deal with this. You do have to deal with human conflict," and that is ultimately the expectation for anyone who wants to be successful not just in their lives, but in their long-term careers.

And if you think about it, human conflict is everywhere. Now, I don't have any children of my own; however, I do have a lot of nieces and nephews that are getting up in age to where they're essentially starting out their adulthood, whether that be in starting out their careers, going to university. And I get to talk to them from time to time, and what's interesting is they all make similar statements about their experiences, and their similar statements could essentially be reduced to a simple statement about humanity, which is "Why are people so difficult? Why do I have to deal with difficult people?" And, you know, I explained to him, "Welcome to reality, you will deal with difficult people for the rest of your life." I tell them you're going to deal with them in your personal relationships. You're going to deal with them in your casual relationships. You're going to deal with them in your work, in your leisure time. However, there is a professional way to deal with interpersonal conflict. And there are some skills out there that professionals have learned over the years from interacting when human conflict is heightened. And it is a valuable skill and one that, again, I wanted to go into some detail and provide some insights in today.

But starting with, again, awareness that this is something that we shouldn't necessarily shy away from. We know that individuals that have the ability to deal with interpersonal conflict to handle these situations with a high degree of emotional intelligence, while at the same time not compromising operational integrity of whatever their roles and responsibilities are as far as their profession is concerned, that these individuals tend to be the most successful in life. They're given the most responsibility in the organizations that they work for. They tend to be promoted above their peers. They also report higher degrees of job and career satisfaction. And so, there is absolutely a benefit and a motive to wanting to develop these skills and to practice these things.

So, let's start off by having a brief discussion about professionalism. So, professional conduct, what does it look like? Oftentimes, we know professional conduct when we see it. We also know unprofessional conduct when we see it. And in some ways, it's kind of a difficult thing to define, but it is something that we all mostly universally recognize. And some of the characteristics of a professional is that professionals possess, essentially, the three areas of competency that ultimately define professionalism.

First of all, they have a high degree of IQ. IQ meaning related to their job or their profession, that they are masters of their craft, that they essentially have excelled and are subject matter experts in their areas of responsibility. They have a high degree of emotional intelligence or EQ, meaning that they're able to handle situations, again, being sensitive and empathetic to the human condition while at the same time not sacrificing operational integrity. And then, the last area is that they have a high degree of proficiency in adaptability or AQ, meaning that they're able to go into uncommon situations and essentially are able to navigate those situations sensitively, applying both their skills as well as their emotional intelligence to bring about a positive resolutions for not only themselves, but for the organizations which they represent. And so, there is a huge benefit to seeking to be competent in all of these areas.

Now, out of all of these areas, what we know is that IQ is largely fixed. Most of us are in these positions because we already possess the intelligence to be able to learn and adapt the skills to whatever our trade is, but what we want to really focus on as far as this topic is concerned is EQ or emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence was a term that was coined by Daniel Goleman. He wrote a book on emotional intelligence. I highly recommend it. He's actually written a couple of books on emotional intelligence. But emotional intelligence is essentially defined as the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.

And what Daniel Goleman discovered while he was researching emotional intelligence is that, again, while IQ is largely fixed, what he found was that EQ or emotional intelligence, that there is some plasticity there, flexibility, meaning that if conscientious individuals wish to pursue and practice these characteristics, they can actually improve their emotional intelligence. And in looking at individuals that he defined as being successful in their organizations, he found that individuals that had a higher degree of emotional intelligence tended to be more successful. And again, as we pointed to, these are the individuals that tended to receive more trust from the organization. They were often promoted, were sought out to handle, sensitive situations. And so, we see that there's a real benefit in practicing emotional intelligence. And so, I highly recommend researching this topic, looking up some of Daniel Goldman's work on the subject if you have further interest. Now, if we take that, that's kind of the theory behind handling interpersonal conflict.

Now, we want to talk about some actual skills that you can employ as an individual when handling interpersonal conflict with individuals. Most of this work, I'm going to borrow again from the realm of law enforcement. And there was an individual, his name was, Dr. George Thompson, and he was the president and founder of what he termed as Verbal Judo. And it was essentially professional communication skills. And what he put forth or proposed was that individuals and organizations actually saw an increase of professionalism, safety, decrease of complaints, less stress on the job, and an increase in personal and professional morale when individuals begin to practice principles of professional communication. And he noted that all professionals should have a common goal, and that goal is to essentially generate voluntary compliance. What do we mean by voluntary compliance?

Well, wouldn't it be nice that when we're interacting with individuals, to just have them be cooperative with us? We're trying to accomplish caregiving services. And when individuals come in, there tends to, unfortunately, be some form of conflict there. Maybe they don't trust the healthcare system, maybe something that is said is offensive to them, maybe they don't have good context as to what is happening. There's a variety of things that generate conflict and prevent us from getting compliance and cooperation from our patients and visitors who come into our organization.

And what Thompson said is that the primary thing that prevents us from gaining voluntary compliance with people is actually our personal ego. And so, it's no surprise that we all have an ego. And that when our ego gets in the way, we are actually creating a much more distinct barrier with individuals, and it makes it difficult for us to accomplish our ultimate mission. And so, Thompson says that there are three things to remember. He says, "As the ego goes up, power and safety will always go down. And as ego goes away, power and safety will rise." And then, he said that you must disappear to have influence over others, meaning that your ego must disappear, that we have to learn to check the personal ego so that we can accomplish the mission, so to speak, and do so in an emotionally intelligent way.

Now, Thompson also said that there's five universal truths to human interaction. He says to remember that all people want to be, one, treated with dignity and respect; two, asked rather than told to do something; three, they want to be told why they are being asked to do something; four, they would like to be offered options rather than threats; and five, everybody would like to be given a second chance. And so, if we understand these things about human nature, we can actually carry with us and take some skill sets with us.

So, the first skill set that I wanted to talk about in terms of professional communication and de-conflicting with individuals is we want to set ourselves up for success from the very beginning. And the way that we do that is through what's known as a professional introduction. And so, when we're interacting with people, we need to make sure that we are introducing ourselves to people in a professional manner and essentially setting the tone for how our interaction is going to go with individuals.

Now, a professional introduction has three primary parts. The first thing is that we need to make sure that we address people respectfully. Now, pronouns are a significant topic within our society right now. And it can be difficult sometimes to properly determine what pronoun would be appropriate in a given setting. And so, you can drop the pronoun when you are first interacting with people. You can just simply address them just with a greeting such as, "hello," "hi," "how are you," things of that nature, when you are first contacting individuals.

From there, you need to let them know who you are. The reason for this is you have to demonstrate to people what your authority and role is within the organization. The purpose for this is so that people can immediately be set at ease, that they understand that they are where they're supposed to be, speaking with the right individual. People come to our organization with a variety of needs and they're not familiar with our organization, the many divisions, where they're going. And so, we can immediately set them at ease by letting them know who we are and what our role is so that they can immediately understand whether or not they're in the right place.

From there, the last thing we want to do as part of our professional introduction is we want to set context. We want to explain to them why we are contacting them. This could also be, asking them a question about how we can assist them. And so, let me give you an example of what a professional introduction looks like. So, me being in a security role here with the organization, if I'm walking down the hall and I see somebody who looks lost or is looking like they may need some assistance. An example of a professional introduction would be for me to approach them and say, "Hello. My name's Nick. I'm the safety and security manager here. The reason why I'm contacting you is you appear to be lost. Can I help you with anything today?" And so, you see by essentially following the rules of the professional introduction, giving them a proper greeting, a respectful greeting, telling them who I am and what my role is. And then, also setting context or asking a question immediately helps to tear down these barriers of conflict. Because what we have to do for people is we have to answer the great American question upfront. What is the great American question? The great American question is why. Anytime we ask people to do something or we make a request, we have to understand that people want to know why. And so, we put the why upfront in the professional introduction.

The next thing that we want to do as part of our skill set is tearing down these barriers and gaining cooperation, even when there is a confrontation, that's already at play, is we need to set context for people. We want to put the why more upfront than what we normally would think is appropriate. And again, why is this important? The reason why this is important is because as professionals, we often underestimate that our trade knowledge and the routines that we have come to establish for ourselves, we falsely begin to believe that they're common knowledge and we forget that these things are not common knowledge to those patients and visitors that come into our organization.

And so, I always say that you can't tell people why enough. You can't oversell it enough. And a lot of times you can really diffuse a lot of tense situations by just simply explaining to people why. "This is why I'm asking you to do this. This is why I need your cooperation." And generally, again, it's always going to be in their best interests once we give them the why and they understand. And so, a lot of times when you're meeting resistance with people, you want to take the time to explain the why, to give them more information again than what you thought was necessary so that they can be comfortable with what's going to happen next or why you're making a request or why you need to accomplish a particular task.

The next thing you can do with individuals, the next skill is we can also present options to individuals. The reason why we want to present options is because people would rather be given options than be threatened. And although it may not be intentional, we may not view that we're giving people threats, but a lot of times we may give people ultimatums and not recognize that those ultimatums are coming across as threats to people. And so, one of the ways that we get around this and one of the ways that is more psychologically acceptable for people is for them to be given options.

Now, the thing with giving options is that we want to outline the positive first and downplay the negative second. But we want to be specific and we want to appeal to why it's in their best interest to cooperate with us. So, for example, if you have an individual that is being uncooperative, maybe they're refusing to allow a particular procedure to happen or maybe they are struggling, again, with understanding something and they're refusing any assistance. This may happen with visitors coming in who are concerned about the treatment that their family members or whoever they feel responsible for is receiving. A perfect example of presenting options could sound something like this, "I appreciate your concern. Again, I've explained to you why this is important, but I think we have two options here. Option number one is that we'd love to get your cooperation because the biggest priority is getting your family member the care that they need. And if we can get your cooperation, I promise you that we'll inform you with anything that's concerning to you as this goes on. But we really need to get this process moving forward so that your family member can be attended to."

Option number two is that if I can't get your cooperation, then I'm not going to be able to help your family member. It's going to cause greater delays in getting them the healthcare that they need. What would you like to do? So essentially, we're giving them a choice, but we're providing options and we're showing them why their lack of cooperation with us is really harming the situation. And that if they just be willing to cooperate, that we can get a lot further in the situation.

Now, with all this being said, and as we talk about these things, there are times when words fail. And we need to recognize those things about our personal safety, whenever individuals are making threats of physical harm or physical harm is actually being attempted, obviously, these are times when world's words fail. You need to take whatever appropriate action to protect yourself, your co-workers, some in security, some in law enforcement, all those things are absolutely appropriate.

However, what Thompson learned is that when we apply these skills to interpersonal conflict, he said that a difficult person will always tell you no the first or second time you tell them to do something. But somewhere around the third or fourth time, when handled properly, nine out of ten people will ultimately comply. Most people, he found that if we practice principles of professional communication while at the same time embodying professional characteristics of emotional intelligence, that most people will be reasonable. And that when it comes to essentially deconflicting with individuals and gaining their compliance, that we can actually be successful in those things.

In closing, I wanted to leave with you one more thought about the power of these principles, the power of emotional intelligence and applying principles of professional communication and really making it a point to practice these things and to improve these things, both for our individual benefit, but also for our career success and also for our organizational integrity.

Marcus Aurelius was known as one of Rome's good emperors. And he wrote a book called The Meditations and Marcus Aurelius was a stoic philosopher. And he embodied a lot of these principles, which is why he was viewed as one of Rome's good emperors. And in The Meditations, which was his personal journal, it was never meant to be published, he wrote, "Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference and gratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness." And what Marcus was essentially saying was, he said, "Remember, Marcus, today you will deal with difficult people. And as long as you recognize that that is going to be a part of your day, then you have a choice. And the choice is to do your duty, to practice self-mastery, and to learn to cooperate with people. And that by doing those things, you will achieve greater success in this life than by choosing to resist and to fight against those type of interactions.

Thank you for your time today. I hope this has been valuable and I hope that these things will help assist us as an organization and moving forward and accomplishing our core values each and every day.