My April extended business trip to speak and work with hiring teams across the country began in Alaska and it was the first of many conversations about the realities of recruiting and AI. You might be surprised to hear that hiring teams in Alaska, and all 6 of the other cities I visited, aren’t prioritizing AI adoption. They’re dealing with the same problem HR has been asked to step in on forever: conflict. 

In fact, during my recruiting Q&A after the keynote, the first thing an audience member said when I asked about what is important to them was, “please, no AI.” I get it. It’s not easy to be creative with new technology while you’re struggling to stay positive. Getting people to care about each other or the conflict that needs to be resolved is a job in and of itself when you’re working with the most unpredictable variable in the world: people. 

I could see it written on each of their faces as they listened to each other’s challenges. More than half the room had big conflicts on their desk. No one was surprised when someone said that the executive team simply doesn’t listen to him. There’s absolutely no shock when another person described a manager who won’t tell their team to use the company iPads. It doesn’t help that in Alaska, many of them are working against the elements, too. I heard some wild stories about running out of gas on rural highways and getting lost on mountains with bears. 

I listened as they tried to be helpful to each other by offering systems that worked for them, but something didn’t feel right to me. It felt like these problems, as much as they were logistical nightmares, weren’t really about iPads or ideas at all. It was about a whole company of people who weren’t addressing conflict. 

Conflict Is A Constant In Every Culture 

When I talk about navigating change with confidence, it stirs up the parts of us that fear conflict because the two work hand in hand. When there’s change, there will probably be conflict. Working in HR doesn’t make anyone immune to being scared or fearful of conflict. Our society has taught us that avoiding conflict is the right way. We get constant affirmation when people say things like “don’t stir the pot” and “that’s not a big deal.” Over time, I’ve seen this culture of ignoring conflict build up. People get triggered, problems go ignored, and worst case scenario? They quit. 

Environmental elements are only making conflict seem more challenging. Yes, I’m talking about politics. If I say “conflict” in the United States, the majority of people immediately think I’m talking about the political divide. I see it every day in people and even in the way AI responded to my query for this article. I asked multiple LLMs for research on conflict conducted over the last 3 years. Every report it could find with my criteria (used by colleges as a citation, more than 1,000 respondents, not produced by some vendor who sells conflict training, etc.) was about politics. 

That external tension bleeds into the workplace. So, as much as it’s inspirational when some speaker like me tells you that you can ask for help or change direction, applying that to real life scenarios where people have years of resentment built up isn’t so simple. But conflict is inevitable. How you handle it? Well, that depends if you can even spot the conflict in the first place. 

Diagnosing Conflict: Asking Questions Is Your HR Superpower

Resistance to simple tasks is the first red flag. It usually tells me there’s a lot more to a conflict than a one time event - especially when the team you work with is highly specialized or experienced. This is where too many HR managers jump to policy or systems before they ask a lot of questions and I think that’s a mistake. As much as threats might get you instant action, it also builds more resistance that makes people want to quit.  

Don’t ask “what’s wrong,” either. Ask questions that create contrast so they can show you what the difference between the status quo and the ideal state is. Questions like: How is that different from what you expected? Oh, you want 17 years of experience? What does someone with 17 years of experience know that they couldn’t after 16? 

Sometimes providing the contrast between what they’re telling you and what you understand can help people diagnose the real conflict and give language to what they’re really trying to say. Whether it’s mandatory requirements or a frustrated team member, these questions just help us get to a clear understanding of what we need, feel, and want. Do not be so scared to ask a lot of questions. We can’t solve problems if we can’t diagnose them and that starts with understanding.

Remember that figuring out the answer in the first 5 minutes isn’t the goal during conflict. Coming to a resolution is. That’s the biggest misconception at all with conflict - pretending it’ll all get fixed in a day. We’re humans living through a wild timeline, but ignoring conflict instead of diagnosing it is not an option if you want to keep your people. 

This is the first in a series of blogs I wrote while traveling to 7 cities in April to talk about recruiting and my book about how to navigate change with confidence. In a sea of headlines and half-baked surveys, I wanted to share what HR and recruiting practitioners are really talking about in cities across the US.