Shifting from Conflict to Collaboration in Your Relationships

SUMMARY

Well, the end of the year is here. It is December already, and this tends to be a month where a lot of people feel a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, and you are coming into the end of another year in your life. For a lot of people, it is a time of celebration. Other people feel a little more uneasy and anxious about the people they are going to see, whom they do not normally see during the year, about the relationship issues they have, and about themselves in particular, as well as where they stand. So I am going to devote this entire month to helping you get yourself prepared so that you can finish this year strong and enjoy the process along the way.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to help you shift from conflict to collaboration in your relationships.

In my experience, it does not matter how far you go with AI, and it is a great tool. Relationships will always be a major component of everything that you do in your life. Humans were created to communicate and to cohabitate, and to collaborate and work together.

However, just like you, other human beings have their own experience that they are navigating, their own situations. So sometimes you can have clashes and butting of heads. It all comes out of those three universal fears: the fear of not belonging, the fear of not being enough, and the fear of not being loved. So, conflict is always going to happen.

So you need to be able to shift the way that you do things. You need to be able to make sure that relationships are protected, particularly the relationship with your own heart. As I talk about in Nine Shifts Leadership, I talk about what I call the Relationship Optimiser, where there are three key areas that you focus on to make sure that you do everything within your own power, because other people do not have the script right, to get on with others, to collaborate with people rather than have conflict all the time.

Those three areas are awareness, respect, and trust.

When you put those together, when you have an awareness around yourself and others, you can have relationships that are mutually beneficial, that are enjoyable, and that you actually want to stay in.

What I am going to do over this month is go deeper into these areas.

I want to make sure that you end the year on a high with actual strategies that you can utilise so that you can show more vulnerability and empathy and come out the other end having enjoyed an amazing rest, having recharged, having reflected, having refocused, and being ready to relaunch into a 2026 that is going to give you everything that you want.

So stick with me. Join the conversation. If you have not yet, you can connect through the link down below, and you will get an email from me that gives you some more tips. You can connect wherever you are and you can get involved in the conversation.

At the end of this month, on the fifth, because there are five weeks in this month, I am going to share that with you. I am going to open the doors on that for you so that you can see how I am going to come to you on the screen a little bit differently.

Relationships are key. I love the fact that I have a relationship with you and you with me. So I want you to work on these with me this month. I will see you in the videos.

TRANSCRIPT

Well, the end of the year is here. It is December already, and this tends to be a month where a lot of people feel a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, and you are coming into the end of another year in your life. For a lot of people, it is a time of celebration. Other people feel a little more uneasy and anxious about the people they are going to see, whom they do not normally see during the year, about the relationship issues they have, and about themselves in particular, as well as where they stand. So I am going to devote this entire month to helping you get yourself prepared so that you can finish this year strong and enjoy the process along the way.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to help you shift from conflict to collaboration in your relationships.

In my experience, it does not matter how far you go with AI, and it is a great tool. Relationships will always be a major component of everything that you do in your life. Humans were created to communicate and to cohabitate, and to collaborate and work together.

However, just like you, other human beings have their own internal dialogue, insecurities, challenges and all those things I have talked about. They have their own experience that they are navigating, their own situations. So sometimes you can have clashes and butting of heads where people are trying to defend themselves, even from a subconscious point of view. It all comes out of those three universal fears that I keep telling you about: the fear of not belonging, the fear of not being enough, and the fear of not being loved. So, conflict is always going to happen. Unfortunately, it is exacerbated at this time of the year.

I do not know about you, but there have been times when I had an event to go to that I knew I was going to run into people that I normally do not get on with all that well. Now, I know you are probably thinking, “Hang on, you get on with people.” It happens, right? I can offend people without even trying. But going into those events feeling that way was a self-fulfilling prophecy. My behaviour actually created more of a problem than there really was.

Here is something that I learned years ago: Even though you might still be carrying something about another person, they have probably let it go. They are probably not carrying it at all, and it is really eating away at you, and it is ruining your quality of life and not theirs. However, the reality is that some people are difficult to get along with. Some people just rub you the wrong way, and you may do the same to them.

So you need to be able to shift the way that you do things. You need to be able to make sure that relationships are protected, particularly the relationship with your own heart. As I talk about in Nine Shifts Leadership, I talk about what I call the Relationship Optimiser, where there are three key areas that you focus on to make sure that you do everything within your own power, because other people do not have the script right, to get on with others, to collaborate with people rather than have conflict all the time.

Those three areas are awareness, respect, and trust.

When you put those together, when you have an awareness around yourself and others, and you open your eyes to look and see and actually feel what is going on, rather than just go in there with a preconceived idea; when you respect the person, not the behaviour; when you look at them as a human being with their own uncertainties and frailties and their own strengths and areas that they are working on as well; when you trust yourself and the other person, when you trust the process of building relationships, and when you behave in a way that allows other people to trust you as well; when you put those three things together, you can have relationships that are mutually beneficial, that are enjoyable, and that you actually want to stay in.

What I am going to do over this month is go deeper into these areas.

I am going to have a look at, “Okay, that is what they are, and that is great,” and this week I will drop a short video on each one of those. I want to show you, as you go through the month, actual strategies around communication, conflict and how to navigate that in a healthy way, how to shift from conflict to collaboration.

This is going to be a fun month. I want to make sure that you end the year on a high with actual strategies that you can utilise so that you can show more vulnerability and empathy, so that you can look through the lens differently, and come out the other end having enjoyed an amazing rest, having recharged, having reflected, having refocused, and being ready to relaunch into a 2026 that is going to give you everything that you want.

So stick with me. Join the conversation. If you have not yet, you can connect through the link down below, and you will get an email from me that gives you some more tips. You can connect wherever you are, on whatever social media platform, or on LinkedIn, where you are watching this, and you can get involved in the conversation.

I stand in front of this camera and it is a one-way conversation, but I am talking to heaps of people individually, I hope. I want you to give some things back to me. I have got some big changes happening in 2026. I am going to be doing things differently. At the end of this month, on the fifth, because there are five weeks in this month, I am going to share that with you. I am going to open the doors on that for you so that you can see how I am going to come to you on the screen a little bit differently.

Relationships are key. I love the fact that I have a relationship with you and you with me. So I want you to work on these with me this month. I will see you in the videos.