Episode 39: 5 Tips to Help Resolve Conflict
The episode opens with Vonda freshly through Hurricane Sally — recording on a neighbor's borrowed internet, grateful for electricity and for a bayside neighborhood where everyone helped fish each other's dock boards out of the water. As she jokes, the only conflict that week was with Sally, and Sally wins every time. Human conflict, though, is another story — and after last week's episode on comparison, Vonda and Lori turn to its noisier cousin. Conflict and disagreement on teams are inevitable; both of their recent member shop-talk meetings surfaced owners struggling with workplace drama. This episode covers what causes it and five tips for resolving it.
What causes workplace conflict
The hosts identify five common sources. Interdependence conflicts — when your work depends on someone else doing theirs your way, on your timeline. Lori remembers a college group project where one older student redid everyone's work to his standard; in the shop it's the designer frustrated that the person prepping setups doesn't do them "the right way" (and sometimes, as Vonda admits, that frustration is really your own issue). Differences in style — during Flower Prep School filming, Lori was taught to make the same bow three different ways by Vonda, Julie, and Ellie, and every bow came out fine. Differences in background, gender, and culture — we were all raised differently and see things differently. Differences in leadership style — you'll butt heads with leaders you're not comfortable under. And the overriding one: different personalities. You're called to love everybody; you don't have to be best friends with everybody.
One member shop's blunt prevention strategy got a laugh at shop talk: when COVID forced everyone home, they only asked back the people who don't cause drama.
Tips 1–3: Don't try to be right, do it anyway, check your assumptions
Don't try to be right. The goal is never "who started it" — it's solving the problem. Leave your ego behind, and watch your tone: Lori's teaching-days trick is to channel Winnie the Pooh, that calm, even-keel "low expressed emotion" that de-escalates instead of escalating.
Accept that it's going to be awkward — and do it anyway. This is why so many owners avoid the conversation and let the problem continue. But when a leader ignores a conflict, the two people involved start recruiting the rest of the staff to their sides, and the whole shop turns toxic. An attorney friend offered a useful test for real resolution: both parties should leave the table feeling like they gave something up. If one person walks away knowing "I was right, I won," that wasn't a negotiation.
Check your assumptions. Sometimes your gut about who's instigating is dead-on — Lori tells a cheerleading-coach story where she put two eighth-grade instigators in a classroom with calm parameters and a fifteen-minute check-in, and they solved it themselves in one round. But even when you're sure, don't let it show: stay neutral, keep an open mind, and stick to facts. "I don't want to know how you feel — I want to know what happened. Who was supposed to deliver the flowers? Where did the wires get crossed?"
Tips 4–5: Don't run, and remember confrontation is healthy
The more you run, the bigger the problem becomes. Unaddressed problems only grow, and the longer they fester the harder the conversation gets — one listener wrote in that he'd been a "horrible boss" not because he was mean, but because he wouldn't deal with conflict, and it made his whole team dysfunctional. Employees notice too: the rule-followers on your staff are waiting for you to intervene, and when you don't, they lose respect — and eventually walk away thinking "if this person can't deal with it, I don't want to be here." Vonda's approach as a shop owner: take each person aside one on one, ask what's really bothering them (it's often something tiny — the uncleaned worktable, the small daily habits of working in close quarters), then bring the parties together. Deal with problems as close to when they appear as possible, and make sure your team knows you're approachable and that you expect issues to come to you rather than fester.
Realize confrontation is healthy and normal. Nobody's perfect, and the research the hosts reviewed agrees: unresolved anger releases cortisol, driving up stress and fatigue — with migraines, high blood pressure, heart trouble, and relationship damage along for the ride. Find your release valve. Lori's husband takes a midday bike ride after tough meetings and comes back with better perspective. And Vonda's best trick for heated moments: type the angry email, then send it to a trusted colleague first instead of the recipient — by the next day, you'll probably be glad you did.
Key takeaways
- Solve the problem, not the blame — nobody needs to "win," and your tone sets the temperature.
- Have the awkward conversation early; ignored conflicts recruit sides and poison the whole shop.
- Stay neutral and stick to facts, even when your gut already knows who instigated.
- A real resolution means both parties gave a little — if one walks away victorious, it wasn't resolved.
- Build healthy outlets for frustration, and never send the angry email without a second set of eyes.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
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