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What kind of conflicts can occur when building a team that hurts the business? Should I have a flat organization or hierarchy? We spoke with a conflict resolution expert, author, mediator, and speaker, Jeremy Pollack to get some answers.
More about Jeremy:
Jeremy Pollack is a leader in the field of workplace conflict resolution and peacebuilding. He is a master coach, master trainer, mediator, and author. Jeremy coaches and trains executives and employees at a variety of levels and industries, from Fortune 500 companies to major non-profits. Jeremy has mediated conflicts between business partners, co-executives, and coworkers at all levels of organizations, aiming as often as possible to transform relationships and create Win-Win resolutions for all parties involved.
Learn more about Jeremy Pollack and his work at > pollackpeacebuilding.com/
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Transcription of Interview
(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)
Adam G. Force 00:03
Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam forest, co founder, a Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week, we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and like to go big, visit us at changecreator.com/gobig to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. I’m excited today because we’ll be talking to somebody that has experience as a expert mediator and you might be thinking, Adam, why are we talking to a mediator? This is really interesting, because he gets into companies. And they have different kinds of conflicts and challenges, you know, among teams and things like that. And he starts seeing different behaviors and what they lead to and how we can solve these problems. And, you know, is it better to have hierarchy in a company? Or is it better to have a flat organization and all these things come into play for us as entrepreneurs as we are building teams and cultures, for our businesses, right? So it’s a really fascinating conversation, and we’re going to jump into it with Jeremy Pollack, okay. He is a conflict resolution, expert, speaker, educator, all that kind of stuff. He regularly contributes on topics like leadership, organizational conflict management, and he, you know, his publications, you’ll find them in like Forbes, Fast Company, industry week, all that stuff. So he’s been around for a while he’s been doing this stuff for a while, he’s got degrees, and a PhD in psychology, all that kind of stuff. So hang in there, we’re gonna jump into that conversation in just a moment. Um, if you missed the last episode, so we did skip a week last week, actually. And so we apologize for that. But if you did miss the last episode that we published, it was a really great episode that you want to check out when you get a chance. And it was with Felicia Searcy on how to start living your dream life. She has an incredible background. And you’ll hear all that when you jump into that episode. But we get into a lot of mindset stuff. And it’s so important as we try to become that next version of ourselves. So we can grow as an entrepreneur. Alright, so, again, that’s Felicia Searcy, if you want to check that out. Um, yeah, so guys, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, leave us a review on iTunes, all that good stuff. We’ll be making some big changes, we actually if you go to change twitter.com, we did update the site with a new little ebook, which is the Insiders Guide to discover stories that matter for your brand. such an important part of business. And this is like a fun part to learn, you know, how do we start discovering those stories? And then we have a little workshop that you’ll be invited to if you want to check that out? where we get into Well, how now that I know how to discover the stories, how do I make them engaging? How do I get people to take action, and you’ll create real retention with my content. And we get into a lot of cool stuff about understanding the relationship between your brand and the stories that we’re sharing the types of story pillars, as I call it, and what that looks like. So really fascinating stuff that will help really shift your mind into this marketing world. So if you get the Insider’s Guide, you’ll get access and invites to those other things. All right. All right, guys. We’re gonna jump into this conversation with Jeremy. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, what’s up, Jeremy, welcome to the Change Creator podcast. How’s everything going today?
Jeremy Pollack 03:54
Everything’s good, Adam. Thanks for having me.
Adam G. Force 03:56
Yeah, man, awesome. You know, your information kind of really caught my attention. And I’m, I’m curious to really dig into this conversation. So just to get everybody grounded, if you can just kind of define the types of ways that you support entrepreneurs. Can you just give some brief descriptions there?
Jeremy Pollack 04:19
Sure. I mean, the the main way that I support entrepreneurs is now is through communication and conflict coaching. So helping entrepreneurs especially when they’re growing their businesses, they start to bring on employees, they want to have a good workplace culture, trying to help them establish some best practices around you know, managing conflict, also run communicating with their staff and making sure their staff is, you know, sort of happy in terms of relationships at work.
Adam G. Force 04:47
Yeah
Jeremy Pollack 04:47
That’s kind of the main way.
Adam G. Force 04:49
Yeah, cuz when I hear conflict, I have all kinds of thoughts that go through my head.
Jeremy Pollack 04:53
Yeah.
Adam G. Force 04:53
And there might be different definitions. And that’s, so it’s helpful just to hear how you kind of clarify that. I’d be curious to know, like, Whoa, how do we get in? How do we get into that? Like, what? Like, how does somebody become and build expertise on that kind of support?
Jeremy Pollack 05:13
Yeah, right, just like a lot of lots of communication now. So well, so I mean, so I started out, as you know, I’ve been an entrepreneur for the last 20 years. And so I kind of learned a little bit as I, as I went about, you know, what helps keep employees happy, or what kind of conflicts emerge and that kind of thing. But eventually, I got really interested in kind of studying it academically. I originally went to school, I started coaching, I had a, I built a coaching practice, alongside two businesses that around. And while I was doing that, I was interested in kind of getting into academics. So I, I started, I went to school for a graduate degree master’s degree in anthropology, because I was really interested in the psychology, the evolutionary psychology of cooperation and conflict, which is, which is one sort of main section of study in evolutionary anthropology. And then I and then I went and got another graduate degree, a master’s in conflict resolution, and peacebuilding, which is more of an applied degree and looks we’re looking at like how how to mediate, essentially, like mediate conflicts between people. And then just started studying communication theory. And, you know, and getting doing some certificates of coaching, organizational development, coaching, and that kind of stuff. So just sort of that thing, but then also simultaneously building my business and promoting myself as a conflict resolution expert in developing curriculum around it, for writing a lot about it. And just kind of learning learning as I go through both academics and for the real world.
Adam G. Force 06:44
Do you remember, I guess, now, it’s been a while, like how you first started actually getting paying clients? Like when you I know, like a lot of entrepreneurs, I always like to ask that when people have been entrepreneurs for a while, because a lot of people listening are in that world of like, the the customers trickling in with a lot of hustle, but it’s like, how do we start, like getting a more consistent, predictable flow of customers? I’m just curious about your experience and building that up and how that works.
Jeremy Pollack 07:15
Well, I’ll tell you, man, I can’t I come from a long line of marketing and digital marketing, especially I started when I started out after college, when I did my undergrad, I started working in a marketing company, direct response company, which is like infomercials and that sort of thing. So really hard core marketing, kind of understanding the theory of marketing, I learned from a couple of great mentors in that space. And then from there, I when I went off, and to do my own business, I had I had a Martial Arts Academy. And I grew that to a very large Academy in Los Angeles. And that was all through search engine optimization. I mean, basically, we just got a steady flow all through our SEO, I found the value in content and SEO driven content, and learned learned it from the guy that I hired to do it, I actually paid him to teach me. So it was not, you know, not as smart for him. But I ended up learning it and then kind of learning more on my own. And just like every business that I’ve had has been driven through SEO and including my current business, my coaching practice, my consulting firm, all of it, because we just ranked across the board for all types of claims. No, that’s that’s been the steady flow.
Adam G. Force 08:21
That’s interesting. And I’d be cured. Because that’s a long game to play.
Jeremy Pollack 08:26
It’s a long game. Yeah.
Adam G. Force 08:27
Yeah. Like, you got to invest a lot of either time or money upfront. And you might start seeing results. And it could it could take a year. Right. It can take a while.
Jeremy Pollack 08:37
Yeah. Depending on your space, and depending on the keywords in your geographic location a lot.
Adam G. Force 08:41
Yeah.
Jeremy Pollack 08:45
So by the way, like just just repeated. Every, every company that I’ve started, essentially, I started while I was still working in another business. So like I had a Martial Arts Academy. And I was like, I think I want to go into coaching eventually. So while I’m in the tail end of my, my Academy, I build a coaching website, I start optimizing for that. And after about a year of doing that, I finally got to the place where I was getting enough coaching clients where I said, Okay, I can let go. So I sold my modern Martial Arts Academy. And then I did the same thing with my consulting firm during my coaching, so I always had a steady income. Because I know that it’s a long term game, it’s good to take six months a year to start getting clients through SEO.
Adam G. Force 09:24
It does, it does. And we’re big fans of SEO over here at Change Creator and just to close the loop on this part of the conversation. I’m sure people will in their minds like yes, SEO is important. I get it and and a lot of people might shy away because of that long tail like you got to start getting money in the door if we don’t have another business, right or some other income. I mean over the year, is it like you’re putting one Cornerstone piece of content out a month, like can you give people a sense like, well, if you’re going to take that approach, like how much content are we talking about to really start making it work?
Jeremy Pollack 09:58
Yeah, I mean, the more The better, right but but yeah, so I mean, you know, I’m doing at least right now, I mean, here’s the thing I here’s what I tell so people try to do SEO, you find the keywords that you think you can rank for, you might need some help doing that from some experts and that comes up. But it’s really cheap to build content. I mean, I have I have writers that work for me, we we put up a piece, we put up a piece of content every single day. So whether it’s a blog, article, research, summary, video, something every single day, we put up a piece of content that’s now when I was in my coaching practice, I was doing at least twice a week, my Martial Arts Academy, you doing two to three times a week. So whether it’s a like a new landing page, or just a new services page, or new geographic city page, or a new blog article, or there’s something coming up every day, like not every day, but most days. So yeah, I and you know, you can if you want if it’s hard to try to start a business without having some capital to invest, even if you have 1000 bucks a month or 500 bucks a month to invest, spend that on getting, you know, you can find some great writers for 15 bucks a blog, like that’s what they just put up some content and it’s not bad content, it’s good content
Adam G. Force 11:13
You just give them a sense of the topics and stuff like that and
Jeremy Pollack 11:16
Yeah,
Adam G. Force 11:17
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Pollack 11:19
I just give them the keyword list. I go just choose a keyword for each blog mark it off that it’s done. When you’re done with it. I was like, 500, you’ll never get through it just
Adam G. Force 11:28
What’s your minimum word count that you want people just so SEO doesn’t ding you is like thin content?
Jeremy Pollack 11:34
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think Yoast says best practice 350 minimum, you know, so that’s kind of where I would stick to
Adam G. Force 11:41
Yeah. So okay, so that’s been a, your process, right, building up a foothold in the market, basically, by capturing certain keywords, being consistent with the content. And I wanted to bring that up. Because Yeah, we’ll talk about the conflict support that you give people. But as people were trying to start these businesses, like, there’s a reality like, this stuff does take time, it does take consistency, but you also need to know, right, Jeremy, like, you got to know what your brand, like, really the core of your brand. And if you don’t know it really well, you’re gonna have these random keywords that you think might be the right stuff. So you got to know like, what that should be? Otherwise, you know, waste a lot of time.
Jeremy Pollack 12:24
Absolutely. Yeah, you gotta think you gotta be, you gotta be clear on, I’m big on being in a niche, you know, of like, you know, and even if it’s not, like, like, we can serve any company, essentially. But we have a very specific specialty. And like, when I was coaching, you know, before my, my brand was inner warrior coaching, because I came from a martial arts background, and I use some martial arts, philosophy and coaching. So I wanted to get that niche, because people that found me that resonated with that idea, I want to build my inner warrior, inner power, that kind of stuff, that that I would stand out among the hundreds of other life coaches are something because people would resonate with that, you know, so I think that’s super important to find the niche. And then you go after your SEO and that kind of stuff. And then the last part of it is like, you can do all the SEO in the world and get tons of traffic. But if you can’t convert you’re into, into like, opportunities and your opportunities into sales. You know, you’re dead in the water. So that’s the whole other part of is like, how are you? How are you doing conversions? What’s your sales cycle? Like that? Kind of?
Adam G. Force 13:25
Yeah, yeah. Once you get on then what, and that’s where we come into play here at change. Still awesome. I appreciate you sharing that stuff. I think it’s just really helpful for people to hear, you know how that all works for people. So you know, as far as the types of coach, tell me about your ideal customer, your niche right now. I know you have a couple different coaching programs, but let’s focus on one of them. You can pick, tell me who that customer is, and the problem that you’re solving for them. I know there’s probably various but I’m sure there’s a core story of this is the kind of person with this type of situation that you’re really kind of like going after? Can you get into that a little bit?
Jeremy Pollack 14:09
Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, because we’re conflict and communication coaches. So who reaches out to us are either small business owners that don’t have an HR person, because either they or they have an employee in their small business that is just not getting along with people or not communicating well, or they have a couple of people that are just at odds with each other and in conflict, and there’s just like, they’re having trouble and they’re valuable enough not to fire to invest a little bit of money and to see if they can develop some of their communication styles. And then, when you get into a little bit of a bigger business into sort of like the mid range businesses. Our typical client is someone who has a very small HR team, so maybe one or two people in HR, they don’t have a large HR team, and they just don’t have the capacity to or even you know, They don’t have the opportunity to really because it’s like, you know, there’s there’s sort of mistrust with the company, and you have to have someone come on from a third party who’s independent, all that stuff, the HR person just doesn’t have the capacity to coach an employee who’s having a lot of problems there. And so they’re like, we need help, again, valuable enough. We don’t want to have to replace them if we don’t have to. So let’s find someone who’s an expert in communication and conflict coaching to help this person figure out how do I manage conflict better? How do I have better relationships? How do I rebuild trust your, you know, all that stuff? So that’s kind of what we focus on small to medium businesses with very small or no HR departments.
Adam G. Force 15:34
Okay, that makes sense. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a coaching company or an e commerce company, right? It’s just that the niche for you is really just the size and not having HR and stuff like that. That’s where you fit in.
Jeremy Pollack 15:48
Yeah, yeah. That’s kind of the Yeah, exactly. So like the Indus, we’ve worked in like every industry imaginable, like, you know, all across verticals. But yeah, it’s really about for us, it’s about the size and the and the size of the HR department, and who’s running HR. And a lot of times, it’s the owner, or like, the CEO, or something like that
Adam G. Force 16:04
Got it
Jeremy Pollack 16:04
You know, eventually we will try to get more into the larger companies, but it’s, they have, you know, big HR departments, and some of them have mediators on staff, on budget on staff.
Adam G. Force 16:14
Yeah, now, you did mention you do some life coaching, like people who are maybe in corporate trying to change what they’re doing, is that a separate pillar?
Jeremy Pollack 16:25
It is, yeah, like I have. So I have a separate coaching practice, aside from my consulting firm, that I don’t really promote that as much anymore, because I’m so busy with my consulting business, but um, but I do sometimes get referrals still. So I’m not doing any SEO on that anymore. But I do sometimes get referrals that I’ll take on, and a lot of times, it’s people that are just, you know, they’re they’re, they’re essentially unhappy with the circumstances in their life, maybe it’s the relationships they’re unhappy with, maybe they just, they’re not doing meaningful work or purposeful work. And that’s a lot a lot of times I’m dealing I’m, I’m coaching entrepreneurs, like small business entrepreneurs, who are either in a startup phase, or they’re in some, they’re in some business, or corporate business, they don’t like they want to get out of it, and they want to do their own thing. And I’m just kind of helping them, you know, a, on a psychological level, build some confidence that they can do it, and that they’re afraid of leaving their sort of steady paycheck. And that’s going to be okay. And there’s going to be a way to, to figure that out. And like, you know, create a budget for themselves to, to feel somewhat secure. And then be on just on an actionable level. Because a lot of people, they think about stuff for years and years, and they never do it. And so if you have a little you have someone coaching them and giving you accountability, working out the steps, what’s the first step we got to do here? What do you have to do you have to do some design drops, you have to do some research to figure out what people want, you know, whatever it is, let’s take a little step each week, so we can start making this a reality rather than just the dream.
Adam G. Force 17:49
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I, you know, one of the things that came to mind for me, as you were talking about the conflict stuff, your consulting business was a story I heard about the guy who actually he had an agency on big branding geek. And I love branding and storytelling, that’s what we’re all about. And so I can’t remember what book it was, I was reading a story about the guy who ran an agency that picked up Amazon and actually created the Amazon brand, right? But before that happened, they actually, he was telling us stories, like, yeah, his partner came, I think, you know, I got a group of these, these young guys, they’re working off the computers that their dorm or something. And he’s like, they’re like, well, they want to get out, they want us to help build the brand, do all this stuff. Okay, well, tell me a little bit about, you know, what’s their business model? Like, what’s what, and they had no answers for anything’s like, all right, bring them in, ends up it was Yeah. You know, they created the Yahoo logo, the branding, all that stuff. But the challenge was nobody at that team at Yahoo, as it grew, and everything else could make, could get on the same page with decision making. Like they had, apparently, they had an opportunity to acquire Google, but they never did, because they could never agree on how much to pay for it. And I see this, like, when I hear that, and I hear what you are supporting people with, I see that as a form of conflict as well, that hurts the business if nobody can get on the same page in the C suite. Right. So does that like come up at all with these types of like, everyone’s just on a different page? And it’s like, the business can’t move forward? Right?
Jeremy Pollack 19:31
Yeah, I mean, if especially if they have a more lateral type of organization, where there’s where they’ve where they’ve tried to be more democratic, there’s not a there’s not a clear hierarchy in terms of who’s making decisions about what that can get really messy, and that’s certainly an area ripe for conflict, you know, so So I mean, I we are what one thing we find a lot is, I think a lot of small to medium businesses don’t bother putting clear job descriptions together, or even or even sort of helping people stay accountable in their lane. And not crossing over or not knowing what their lane is. Because it’s like everybody’s kind of doing everything. It’s kind of like a, you know, a fire drill. But but that’s a that’s a place where we see a lot of conflict and something that we do and we come in a lot of times a week, that’s one thing we find is we have to sit down and get everybody’s job descriptions and their roles and duties and what they’re laying is really clear and on paper, and people agree to it. So that everybody knows, because if it’s if you don’t have that, it’s like, well, who’s making the final decision about this topic? And who knows? And then it’s gonna, it’s just like, nothing gets done, productivity falls out, the morale goes down.
Adam G. Force 20:36
That’s interesting. So you have Have you worked with, like, the flat organizations versus the hierarchy? like traditional?
Jeremy Pollack 20:44
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of organizations that try to have flat, you know, they call it flat, they try to have flat, um, I don’t know, it doesn’t always seem to work very well, when we’ve when we’ve done some organizational assessments in flat organizations. And typically, like, they were a hierarchy, and then they changed into a flat organization. And people just like, they’re not super happy with it, you know, because even even people that are even, you know, because people that feel like, Hey, I’m a senior, I’ve been here for 30 years, and this guy comes in six months ago, we’re at the same level, because we’re later, we’re…
Adam G. Force 21:18
Okay, yeah, I get that
Jeremy Pollack 21:20
This, this is not this is not like, they should know that I’m a senior level. And so they can come to me and I can mentor them. But if we’re not, if that’s not explicit, like, no one knows who’s like, kind of in charge, or who has more information than each other and stuff. Okay, so yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of there’s advantages to it. But there’s a lot of I think, I don’t know, it’s hard.
Adam G. Force 21:39
It always sounds nice. Like, yeah, we’re all just, you know, we have our areas of expertise. And but you’re right, like, who is the the mentor who, like if I’ve, if you’ve been there selling these products for 30 years, like, you know how to do this. So, you know, it’s nice to hear someone else’s ideas, but there still is that level of experience that you just don’t have in the company, right? That’s intimate with I mean, it’s, that’s interesting, because I’ve always liked the idea of a flat organization was like, you know, forget this hierarchy. It’s very traditional madmen, like years ago, yeah. But there might be some value to it. And it sounds like what I’m hearing from you is, you see more conflict, or different forms of conflict, kind of brewing in those types of situations.
Jeremy Pollack 22:27
I think so I think hierarchies work well. I think when when there’s leaders at the helm, and at the end of the day, because there’s there’s a, there’s a there’s a healthy mix, that which we find so we find, you know, if we there’s conflict is a lot of times it’s like, it’s one extreme or the other, it’s either no one knows what the rules are, everyone’s doing everything, or it’s like a flat organization, no one has different titles, that’s a place for conflict. Other place for conflict is total authoritarian, you know, regime, which is like one person makes decision doesn’t include anyone else in the input, and that kind of stuff. So there’s this healthy balance between, you can have a hierarchy where, you know, there’s a person making decisions at the end of the day, and the buck stops with them. However, they’re including people in a democratic process, to get input to weigh all the ideas and decisions and then eventually go, here’s the decision I’m coming up with based on everybody’s input, here’s why I think it’s important. And then, you know, creating that sort of conversation, making it a very collaborative process. So there’s a there’s a good, you know, I think there’s a good balance there. Listen, I the mind, the human mind is, is I think structure, so socially, to look for hierarchies to know who’s in charge of what and, and to have some structure. And yet, the human mind is also wired for a sense of autonomy and being able to, to feel like I have control over my own life. So I don’t want to be controlled by someone else. So we have to balance these two needs that are sometimes, you know, in opposition to each other.
Adam G. Force 23:54
I think that that’s that’s something to think about and makes a lot of sense to me, meaning you could still have if you know, like, yeah, there there’s a bad taste in people’s mouths that sound like when we have that authoritarian like, Oh, you guys are all making decisions in a bubble. My ideas are never heard. You don’t appreciate me, right? Like that kind of stuff
Jeremy Pollack 24:14
Really poor workplace with that.
Adam G. Force 24:16
But you could still have all of that open up in in hierarchy, you could still hear ideas, keep people included, you could still have collaboration. And it probably does help just keep things organized, in a sense, but you still can have like some of those benefits you might appreciate from that flat organization, it sounds like
Jeremy Pollack 24:35
Absolutely. I mean, listen, I and I will tell any entrepreneurs small business, especially as you take on employees where you grow and you have, like a small team of three or four people, like involving them in decision making, especially decisions that are going to affect them and most decisions you make for your business are going to affect them at that at that level, involving them and getting their input and hearing their ideas, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them. Letting them know that you’re considering their ideas. And you’re actually considering it, even if you don’t go with it eventually, is just a huge a huge factor in building trust with your team and a huge factor in building employee engagement, employee satisfaction, that sort of thing. So yeah, that’s a super important part.
Adam G. Force 25:17
Yeah, what and what have you and we’ll wrap up here in a minute, but what have you seen as, like, I like that, what you just said there, and I want to piggyback off it in the sense of this idea of keeping people excited about what they do and happy, which means they’re motivated. And I, I know, like I we know, if we all know, the mission, and we’re all way bought, we join the company, because we buy into, like, what we stand for and what we’re doing. That’s one way that everyone kind of is like, yeah, I’m part of this thing and especial what else like, like, kind of like what you just mentioned, like, what else is there that you see, is important for people to consider as they build their teams?
Jeremy Pollack 25:55
Well, I think, you know, looking at some basic psychological needs, you know, is really important. So, you know, how does how do people’s identity? How does their autonomy? How does their feeling sense of growth thinks or basic needs, get served by the company? But I think I think, an easy way to answer this is like, there, there are these, if you look at what’s called social identity theory, which is basically the theory that explains how people create a self concept. And the self concept is a merging between both one’s individual sense of self, like an individual identity, and the groups that they’re a part of. And so when you have an organization that people feel inspired by, like, hey, I want to be part of this mission, because I like what the what you’re doing, I I’m aligned with the vision, so they have that strong group identity. But we have to also balance that with a strong individual identity. So if they’re, if someone’s part of a group, that they feel like inspired by their mission is great, all that stuff, but they don’t feel like they have any input, they don’t feel like they have any significant contribution to the mission at all. So that’s going to be a problem, right? If on the other side, hey, I’m contributing a lot to what we’re doing. But what are we doing the company’s like, I’m really important here, but the company is like, has no mission, it has no like real purpose, or, you know, just making money. And that’s all it is, you know, that’s also going to be a problem. So if we can, if we can align both where people’s identity with the group and their identity as an individual are both sort of optimally balanced with each other and high levels, that’s important, you know,
Adam G. Force 27:21
Love it. Those are all really great points, I think there’s a lot of good, valuable takeaways, because a lot of people I think, listening, they are in the process of, you know, running their companies, maybe bringing on some team members. And I kind of find value in all this, even if you’re not hiring them for your company, but you’re maybe their VA is, or they’re like writers and designers that you work with on the regular, right?
Jeremy Pollack 27:46
Yeah
Adam G. Force 27:46
Um, all this still comes into play, right?
Jeremy Pollack 27:49
Or even even with customers, when you’re dealing with customers, like knowing, like, knowing that your vision as a company, like they want to do business with you as a vendor, or whatever. And also, that the customer has some input in the service that you’re delivering to them in some way. Whether whatever that is appropriate. But like, yeah, like, really creating that sense of your partner with your customer. So I think it applies on every, every relationship that’s going to help your business, whether it’s a customer relationship, an employee relationship, a partnership relationship. This is I think, applicable to all your relationships and in businesses, a lot about relationships. And that’s, I think, what small small businesses fail, like, their people are very technically proficient at stuff and they go, Okay, well, I can start a business. But if you don’t have the relationship skills, the communication skills, it’s, it’s probably not going to go very far unless you bring in a partner who will be with you. And they’re the relationship person, they’re the communication person, you know.
Adam G. Force 28:42
That’s a great, no, because building relationships is really, it makes or breaks a business. You know, it’s how you get people emotionally tied into what you do. And if you’re, you know, I that’s how I think of branding too. It’s about how we make people feel, it’s about the relationships we’re building. And everything we do in our companies is an expression of our mission, our stories, like everything. So I think you hit the nail on the head, and I love hearing it. So appreciate you just sharing some of those hiring insights, what to look for, and those areas where we need that balance, right. And I really love the flat versus hierarchy, because that’s always something I’ve noodled on and I’m like, well, it’s nice just to hear someone who’s worked with both companies and kinda I never really thought of those pros and cons. Like it always sounds nice. But there’s definitely an interesting balance and how you do it.
Jeremy Pollack 29:33
There’s an interesting literature on this. If you look at sort of the like, from an anthropology perspective, if you look at some smaller like hunter gatherer tribes, like, like communities that are living in, you know, 50 to 100 people and that’s their whole world. And a lot of them are egalitarian. It’s like this, this, the literature on how he gala terian societies work where there’s not a hierarchy. hierarchies are necessary in large systems, large organization, but in small organizations, you can have more gala terian ism, but there’s a lot of parameters around it a lot of things that constrain it and make it work. Like people get punished if they get too much. They, there’s leaders for certain things at certain times, and then they have to come back to flat or else they get punished if they try to get too much, too much like a power at some point. So there’s all kinds of constraints with egalitarianism, but it’s an interesting place to look at, because it’s kind of mimics organizations and how they might work.
Adam G. Force 30:25
That’s interesting. Is there any books on that kind of thing that you’ve read that stand out to remember,
Jeremy Pollack 30:30
You know, the read the most recent thing I read that just kind of mentions it, but it’s a really interesting book, and I think, I think it’d be worth reading is Jonathan Heights, The Righteous Mind, why people get divided over religion and politics. And he talks a lot about evolutionary psychology and anthropology and, and how groups cooperate and get into conflict and that kind of thing.
Adam G. Force 30:52
Cool, cool, cool. Jeremy, I really appreciate your time. Why don’t you let people know how they learn more about what you’re doing? Maybe they have a small team and they want to, you know, get support from your services and stuff like that. Where do they go to find out more?
Jeremy Pollack 31:07
You can go to our website pollackpeacebuilding. com and I also have a book that came out in the new year. It’s called The Conflict Resolution Playbook. It’s on Amazon.
Adam G. Force 31:16
Conflict Resolution Playbook. Awesome. Jeremy, thanks again for your time, man. Appreciate it.
Jeremy Pollack 31:21
Thanks, Adam. Appreciate it.
Adam G. Force 31:25
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