“Going from Conflict to Collaboration in the Workplace” with Liz Kislik | Ep. 061
Never Miss an Episode — Subscribe to our weekly newsletter
Episodes + free resources + your opportunity to chime in delivered to your inbox every week via Amir’s weekly newsletter
About this Episode:
In this episode of The Transformative Leader Podcast, I’m happy to bring you a conversation with speaker, executive coach, and management consultant, Liz Kislik, about the importance of empathy, collaboration, and curiosity in creating harmonious and productive workplaces. For 30 years, Liz has applied her valuable insight and methodologies to help clients such as American Express, Orvis, The Girl Scouts, Guthy-Renker, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Highlights for Children solve their thorniest problems while strengthening their top and bottom lines. Liz is also a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Entrepreneur, and is known as the author of the Workplace Wisdom blog, where she offers valuable perspectives and tips for developing leaders, managing teams, and improving the customer experience. She spoke at TEDxBaylorSchool on Why There’s So Much Conflict at Work and What You Can Do to Fix It, and has served as adjunct faculty at Hofstra University and New York University.
Liz’s specialty is developing high performing leaders and workforces for organizations, from the Fortune 500 and national non-profits to family-run businesses. Liz has coached and mentored employees from the C-suite to the contact center — vice presidents, human resource professionals, and department supervisors — motivating them with her wit, wisdom, and humanity. Her unique approach is a human-focused one that holistically brings in elements of introspection and self-awareness, empathy, emotional intelligence, and so on, to help unlock the potential of individuals and of organizations. And rather than being written off as some “kumbaya“ touchy-feely stuff, her work has been recognized by a wide range of established business publications, including articles in the Harvard Business Press books The Harvard Business Review Guide to Motivating People, The Harvard Business Review Guide to Dealing with Difficult People, and The Harvard Business Review Guide to Power and Impact.
This was a wonderful conversation with someone I consider a truly kindred spirit. No doubt as a result of her decades of experience as a consultant, Liz has such a clear grasp of the cultural issues that plague so many organizations, as well as the skills and practices that are needed to resolve them. It is honestly difficult to pin down Liz’s work and approach into just one or two categories, simply because it is so all-encompassing and multi-faceted. But the one thing that brings it all together is a focus on the human element, and the recognition that it is one of the most important factors when it comes to not only satisfaction and fulfillment at work, but individual and organizational performance as well. It was energizing and inspiring to talk to someone who really gets that “soft skills“ and genuine empathy are such indispensable and powerful tools in a leaders’s repertoire. I know listeners will feel the same way, so suffice it to say, this is an episode you should be sure not to miss.
Some topics discussed in this episode include:
Liz’s journey to where she is today, from discovering her passion as far back as junior high and managing a call center to creating her consulting practice of 32 years.
Why empathy, trying to put oneself in someone else’s shoes, is such a fundamental skill to cultivate for consultants, intrapreneurs, and, really, everyone in the workplace.
Why culture transformation must be others-focused to be be truly effective in the long run, and how important it is to build a coalition of allies rather than simply imposing change on the organization.
Some of the misconceptions we have about conflict, and why it is important focus on systems, and not just people, when it comes to resolving conflict.
How cultivating attention and curiosity can help leaders create more stability and harmony in their organizations.
Liz Kislik’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Morning Download and the Washington Post’s Work Advice column, and she has also written for the European Financial Review and the Forward. She has also been interviewed for The Muse, European CEO magazine, The Financial Times Ignites, and Thrive Global, and has presented multiple highly rated appearances for The World Business & Executive Coach Summit (WBECS), the world’s largest online summit for executive coaches. Liz is a graduate of Yale University and earned her MBA in Management from NYU.
Guest Links:
To learn more about Liz and her work, you can visit her great website and read her blog. There you can find a free ebook for listeners, The Interpersonal Workplace Conflict Field Guide. You can also connect with Liz on LinkedIn and Twitter, and by emailing her at lk@lizkislik.com.
How you can Support the Podcast:
The Transformative Leader Podcast publishes every Thursday. If you enjoy the show and would like to help new listeners discover it, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform, and share the podcast with others. Would you like to suggest a guest for an upcoming episode, let us know here.
Never Miss an Episode | Rate & Review | Support
Subscribe on iTunes, Amazon Music/Audible, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Podcasts
This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission should you chose to make a purchase using my link.