The document provides advice for effectively managing interpersonal relationships and difficult situations at work. It suggests seeing complaints as opportunities, embracing new people and perspectives, handling criticism and mistakes with calmness and accountability, and having difficult conversations by focusing on understanding other viewpoints. Key points are that our capacity for error is human, we must choose our battles wisely, and cultivating happiness privately is important. Research supporting the concepts is also cited.

1. Enjoy working
with people
by controlling
the only thing
you can
Erik Gruber / Kelsey Lundberg

5. Complaints

8. Seeing complaints
as commitments
gives us a choice.

9. New people

10. Want people to like something?
Just say it’s old.

13. 3 friends4 friends 1 stranger
Q: Which is the better team?

16. New people make us better
at our jobs.
(Even though we don’t like it.)

17. Embrace the awkwardness.

18. Take responsibility.
You control your role.

20. 03
Apologies

21. It feels really BAD
when we make mistakes.

24. I’m sorry
=

25. The right apologies restore us.
The wrong apologies drain us.

26. 04
Criticism

33. You stink.

35. I don’t stink.
You stink.

36. Prospective Hindsight

37. Be Calm. Be Confident.
Be Fearless.

38. “Our capacity to screw up is not
some kind of embarrassing defect
in the human system, something
we can eradicate or overcome.
It's totally fundamental to who
we are.
- Kathryn Schulz
author of Being Wrong:
Adventures in the Margin of Error

40. 05
Losing battles

41. Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

44. Fighting every battle
will destroy you.

45. clout
reputation
energy

46. Think about the battles
you choose to fight,
and what you're
willing to fight for.

47. 06
Difficult
conversations

49. Flow

50. challenge = skill

51. challenge
skill

52. challenge
skill

53. skill = challenge

54. • Change your mindset
• Plan, but don’t script
• Be compassionate
• Acknowledge the other person’s perspective
• Listen
• Reflect and learn
How to Handle Difficult Conversations at Work
- Harvard Business Review

55. 1.
Observation

56. 2.
Have the conversation

57. Difficult conversation is a
skill to build
not a problem to avoid.

58. I choose

59. “Happiness is a condition that
must be prepared for,
cultivated, and defended
privately by each person.
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

60. People have a right to
be how they are.

61. “The only thing that is
capital-T True is that
you get to decide
how you’re going to try to
see it.
- David Foster Wallace

62. Thank you!
• MinneWebCon
• Scott Kubie
• Michael Vedders
• Tim Hammer
• Eric Jameson
• Suzanne Worthley
kelseylundberg.com / erik-gruber.com

63. Research
Complaining
• How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work - book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
New People
• "Longer is Better" - research study by Scott Eidelman, Jennifer Pattershall, Christian S. Crandall
• "The Pain is Worth the Gain: The Advantages and Liabilities of Agreeing with Socially Distinct
Newcomers" - research study by Katie Liljenquist , Katherine Williams Phillips, Margaret Neale
Criticism
• How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll Be Stressed - TED Talk by Daniel Levitin
• On Being Wrong - TED Talk by Kathryn Schulz
Apologies
• What Does Guilt Do? - article, Psychology Today
• Shame: A Concealed, Contagious, and Dangerous Emotion - article, Psychology Today
• Listening to Shame - TED Talk by Brené Brown
Difficult Conversations
• Flow - book by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
• How to Handle Difficult Conversations at Work - article, Harvard Business Review
• The Surprising Science of Happiness - TED Talk by Dan Gilbert
Opening and Closing Thoughts
• This is Water - speech and book by David Foster Wallace