Calm isn't the same as healthy

Hi Reader, Daria's here.

"I hate conflict." I even said it to my coach.

And you know what came out of that conversation? I don't hate conflict. I hate aggression.

It's the word that does it. Call it "conflict" and it's frightening. Call it an important conversation and it stops being a problem and becomes a challenge. Not easy. But manageable.

That's why I wanted to talk to Dr. Irvine Nugent on this week's Built by People Leaders. Irvine is co-founder of ConflictEQ, a former nonprofit CEO, and someone who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles — so he learned avoidance early. He calls himself a "recovering conflict avoider," which is part of why the conversation felt so honest.

We tend to treat conflict as evidence that something has broken. As Irvine put it: "When there's conflict, something's gone wrong. And I say that's bogus." Conflict emerges from the friction of different perspectives — and for a scaling company, that friction is fuel. For creativity, for sharper decisions, for the ideas you'd never reach through agreement.

Calm Isn't the Same as Healthy

Here's the trap most People teams fall into. When leaders never build their own capacity for tension, HR becomes the permanent referee — pulled in to settle every dispute, again and again.

But the work isn't to eliminate conflict. It's to build the capacity to stay in it well — "if you're missing conversations, then that's costing the organization."

Building Your Team's Conflict Capacity

Here’s a practical way to develop that capacity in three moves, each one trainable.

1. Build the vocabulary before you need it

Most of us have one word for the whole spectrum: “angry.” Start naming the gradations — a 4-angry is a different thing from a 10-angry — and name what set it off.

Why it works: you can’t regulate what you can’t name. And the naming itself buys you a beat between the trigger and your reaction. As Irvine described it: “Once you become aware of patterns, we introduce just a little bit of space for more choice.”

2. Know your default under pressure — then pick another one

Everyone has an untrained instinct when tension spikes: fight, freeze, flight. Write down what triggers you and think of a constructive alternative before the moment arrives.

Why it works: the instinct fires whether or not you’re paying attention. Awareness is what gives you a second option. In Irvine’s words: “Conflict is not the problem, how people respond under pressure is.”

3. Practice where the tension is real

When you learn conflict skills in a calm workshop, they collapse when you get back to the real pressure. The practice has to carry actual stakes and actual discomfort, that’s how you learn (see our conversation with Maria Kolesnikoff on how to build programs that really change behaviour — practice is key).

Why it works: a skill you’ve only rehearsed in comfort isn’t available under pressure. As Irvine said: “You’ve got to make the training realistic. You’re training with real tension.”

What This Looks Like in Practice

When you need to give negative feedback, don't start with an accusation — "Your behavior is a problem," and you'll get a defense.

Try opening with "What are you overwhelmed with right now?" Surface the pressure first, and you get a real conversation instead of a wall.

And also let go of the idea that every conflict has to end in agreement. Some tension will stay. "Sometimes the tension's going to be there, and it's always going to be there, and that's okay." The skill is staying in a working relationship across a real disagreement, without needing to convert the other person.

So here's the question for you: which conversation have you been avoiding? Rename it from difficult to important, and notice what changes.

Because, "the ability to deal with conflict is a key skill set that is needed in this century." For a growing team, it might be the one that matters most.

The full conversation is out now on Built by People Leaders. If you lead a team where the hard conversations keep getting avoided, this one's worth your time.