Win-Win Conflict: Scott Silk's Mediation Magic

Carlsbad, people, purpose, and impact, an essential podcast for those who live, work, visit, and play in Carlsbad.

Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone. My name is Brett Schonzenbach. I'm the president and CEO of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, and I am your host today. And I'm very pleased to have with me Scott Silk. Scott is the founder and principal of Ollage Branch Solutions.

Good afternoon, Scott.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me, Brett.

Hey. It's great to have you. I'm glad you could make it down. So, I was looking at your background and doing some research, and it looks like you're, a Michigan guy.

I am. Go blue.

Yeah? Grew up there and all the whole thing?

I actually grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, but my father was from Detroit, and I he had gone to the University of Michigan. I grew up going to football games, brainwashed at a very very early age.

Yep. Yeah. And that's how they do it in that so my wife's from Michigan. She grew up in Ann Arbor, and, her dad went to the university as well. So she grew up being brainwashed just like you just articulated.

That's great. And so, you went there for school, and then you got your law degree there as well or somewhere else?

I got my law degree at Denver University.

Okay.

So and then I actually made the transition into education and went back and got a master's in education at DePaul.

Very nice. Very diverse in your, schooling. I love it. You it's from what I could see, you've been a mediator for quite a long time, which we're gonna talk about, but you're also a founding faculty member at Pacific Ridge School.

That's right.

Yeah. Tell us about that.

So my wife and I were living in Chicago. My wife is a marketing executive. She was working for PepsiCo, and I was working in a French international school there. And we loved Chicago, but, honestly, we just got a little tired of being cold all the time. I had the opportunity to be a founding faculty member out here, and, it was just too good to pass up.

Haven't looked back since.

So Pacific Ridge is what brought you to North County?

It is.

Okay. Wow. And tell everybody, how many years ago was that?

This is gonna be the 18th year of the school. Okay. Shockingly.

Yeah. Man, time literally flies. So fast. That is so fast. So you've been a faculty member there at, Pacific Ridge.

And go ahead. Tell us what you teach there.

I teach history and social science, everything from US history to government and politics to Middle East history. Sometimes I even work with middle schoolers. Right now, I'm teaching 8th grade.

Nice.

I do model UN. I coach golf. I've been all over

the place. Oh, that's fantastic. So, I love your LinkedIn description that said, being frustrated with the litigation process, you figured there had to be a better way. Tell us about that and how that led you to, you know, founding Olive Branch Solutions and all your work in mediation.

Yes. So, I was in law school and was going through that traditional track and had my summer jobs and so forth and was getting more and more acquainted with the litigation process. And I just saw how long it took to get through that, how expensive it was. And, frankly, I saw a lot of people coming out with either lose lose or win lose, solutions to things. And then soon after law school, I was introduced to mediation in Chicago at the Center For Conflict Resolution, and it just clicked with me right away.

It made so much sense. And I could literally sit down in a room for 2 or 3 hours with the parties who were in conflict. And, you know, by the end of that session, more times than not, almost all the time, really, they would come out with a solution that felt good to everyone. You maybe don't get everything you want Sure. But you get a win win resolution and, just felt so satisfying.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I can understand that having seen it go from the lose lose to much more of a win win. So you were doing that the whole time you've been teaching.

You've been doing mediation from what I could tell. But then in 2023, you decided to start, at least that's what it looked like from your website, Olive Branch Solutions. Is that right, 2023?

That's right.

Okay. So why the shift? Because you were working with some other legal firms, during that time as it you were still teaching, but you're doing that. And then you take the leap. What what was missing?

What what was the driving force to say, you know what? I'm gonna do this on my own.

Well, you know, I love teaching. I always have. I always will. But, honestly, I just saw such a need in our society for, peaceful nonviolent conflict resolution. I've always really believed in mediation.

I've always found it incredibly satisfying and challenging, and I just I wanted to give it a shot to become really more of my professional profile, and I really just wanted to offer the service to more people in my community. So, at this point, I'm really focusing on workplace mediation, and I'm also doing a lot of dialogue work and communication training work. I have a partner in in a sub venture of Olive Branch called Olive Branch Conversations, And what we're trying to do is really teach people how to have conversations across differences. We're doing a lot of depolarization work. We've we've been very active since October 7th in working around the Palestinian Israeli conflict, which has been, a big passion of mine for many, many years in my work with an organization called Hands of Peace that actually used to bring Palestinian, Israeli, and American teenagers to Carlsbad every summer

I saw that.

For dialogue work at home stays and other activities. So so I'm really my my work at Olive Branch is kind of in those 2 big buckets. The mediation work with a focus on workplace and then this communication training and dialogue facilitation work, just trying to help people in in all facets of of the community communicate across their differences.

Making a better world. That's what you're doing. We're gonna take a brief pause, and we're gonna come back, and we're gonna peel those back a little bit more and dive into them because I'm fascinated by what you're doing. So stick with us. We're talking to Scott Silk, the founder and principal at Olive Branch Solutions.

We'll be right back. So, Scott, before we took a break, you were just kinda talking about, you know, what what you're really delving into, and I love this this dialogue facilitation stuff that you were talking about. And and you mentioned how heightened a lot this stuff is since October 7th. So walk us through what that looks like practically speaking in a company. Like, what do you what do you come in and do?

Like, what are those trainings or those discussions? How do they start, and then where does it go?

Well, so, Brad, we we think of different ways of communication. We think of there being a destructive cycle of communication where people are triggered. We're all triggered by different things, and then someone else feels an increased sense of vigilance.

Mhmm.

And, that person quickly either attacks or defends the person who triggered them. And around we go in a circle And we think of trying to convert that into a constructive cycle of communication where people are really focusing on asking questions to understand each other better. They're focusing on really listening deeply and in different ways to the other. They're thinking about pausing and reflecting and then responding in a respectful way that can actually be heard, and we call that a constructive cycle of communication. So we're basically really going into organizations and companies and trying to train people to think about that constructive cycle of communication and to hone those skills for questioning, for listening, for reflecting, and for responding respectfully.

So and then, you know, once we do this training, oftentimes, we're actually coming in and facilitating conversations in corporate teams or in different communities, nonprofit organizations. And we're basically trying to help people learn how to have a different kind of conversation.

Love it. That is amazing. That is amazing and so needed, right, today, where everything is very polarized. So another thing I saw on your website is you specifically referred to coaching through conflict. So do you have clients that'll, like, call and say, hey.

I'm having this specific, you know, issue. Walk me through it. How do I do this? I mean, tell me about that.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, in our experience in the workplace, all of us, right, have faced situations where we're not seeing eye to eye with somebody who's on our team or a boss or somebody who reports to us, and stakes can be very high. Right? People can end up losing their jobs. There can be lawsuits on the line.

There can be all sorts of things that happen. And so oftentimes, leaders just need somebody to talk to to to figure out a strategy of how to address whatever the issue is. Just that sounding board can be very valuable and thinking about things a little bit differently and, you know, thinking about what questions to ask and what steps to take for 2nd and 3rd and, you know, so forth. So I love that. I love being able to sit down with clients and just help them.

Yeah. That is fantastic. What I what I really love about what I'm hearing from you is, you know, you came from an experience of mediation. Well, mediation is, after the fact. Like, there's something that's blown up, and we're trying to mediate it.

Well, wait a second. Yeah? Yeah. So I'm so glad that you said that.

Yeah. Tell me.

Because I actually think that that is one of the things that one of the myths that I'm trying to dispel. Okay. So, you know, I see mediation and my focus in mediation in the workplace is before there's a lawsuit, before somebody loses their job, before the company takes a dip in their productivity. Right. Right.

So I'm trying to be that resource for for leaders, who can help them head off all of the bigger problems.

Right.

When they see 2 important people in the organization who they wanna hold on to locked in conflict, it's affecting their their workplace enjoyment. It's affecting how the team is working together. It's affecting their productivity. I say bring somebody from the outside in Yeah. Who's not perceived as a representative of management like sometimes HR can be.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. Who is totally neutral, has no stake in the outcome. And let me help these people work out their problems so that they can continue working there happily.

And, you know, one thing we all know is that in the workplace today, California employers are are fearing litigation all the time. Yeah. And it can be it can be, you know, something that sucks their time. It can be really stressful. It can be very expensive.

So why not do everything you can to head that off

For sure.

With mediation before.

Right? Yeah. No. When where I was going was, classic, you know, at least stereotypical version of mediation is there's a conflict, and you come in, you have to resolve it. But it this sounds like what the training you're doing and the the dialogue facilitation and the coaching, you know, you're you're helping them not get to loggerheads, you know, not get to that point where it's like, okay.

We're taking you to court, you know, and now we need it mediated. You know? Yeah. I feel like you guys are doing such great work. You can help diffuse situations before they need, at least in the legal sense, the classic version of mediation.

Yeah. So I think we can with a lot of the training work that we're doing, we can hopefully give people the skills to avoid getting locked in conflict. Yeah. But, I mean, let's be honest. Conflict is a is a normal part of life of

Yeah. It has.

Of the workplace. And, frankly, it's something that can oftentimes lead to really positive change and growth.

Sure.

Right? So we're saying, hey. Let's let's learn how to deal with conflict in ways that really propels it in the direction of growth and direction of change and new ideas and not let it get to this place where it becomes a destructive force.

Yeah. Love that. You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I saw it on your blog. You had the experience of bringing 54 high school students from Israel, Palestine, Mexico, and the USA together. Tell us about that.

That sounds amazing.

Wow. So the organization was Hands of Peace. I worked with them in many different capacities for 18 years, starting as a dialogue facilitator in Chicago and ultimately brought it to to San Diego, to Carlsbad at Pacific Ridge School. I was the founding director out here and then on the board. It was a huge part of my life for many years.

It was just so powerful to see these young people, these leaders of the future come together and they had so when they came together, they had so many life experiences and stereotypes and things that they had gone through in their lives that would make them regard the others as as the enemy in many cases or certainly as not like themself. Yeah. And sitting them down in these dialogue circles over the course of a a 3 week summer program, seeing all those walls and barriers fall and all those stereotypes go away and seeing them start to recognize each other as just other human beings, was truly, like, one of the most amazing things I've ever been involved with. And, we were lucky enough to have staff back in the Middle East too. And so these kids would be able to continue their education, their interaction, and exchange once they got back to the region.

As you can imagine, right now, it's it's very hard with with the events that are happening on the ground. Yeah. But, hopefully, they'll resume.

Yeah. That's powerful. Very powerful. And I love it. Like, when I look at your, you know, work in mediation and dialogue facilitation and all that, Here you are doing it with the younger generation so that they can hopefully get a good footing on how to have those conversations before they ever get to the workplace in that next level.

Fantastic. If people wanted to get in touch with you, your website, would that be a great place to start? I saw olivebranchedash solutions.com. Is that accurate?

That's correct. Yeah. There's a contact form that's on there. You know, I welcome all phone calls as well. There's that information is also on that website.

I really wanna be a resource for for the people of Carlsbad and beyond. And so

And beyond. You know, I was just thinking about that, actually, when you were talking earlier, the and beyond because I have a feeling you could probably do your services for people all over the US, not just here in San Diego. I don't know.

That's true. I mean, we can definitely work virtually. It's nice to be in person as much as possible. There's there's a certain power that comes from that sitting across from somebody in the room that you can't always duplicate. But, you know, we can really in this day and age, we can make it work in a lot of different ways.

Especially like the coaching and that kind of stuff, that could be easily done remotely, I'm thinking. Right? Somebody's got a conflict and you're gotta help them.

For sure. Coaching is one where, you know, the virtual is a is a great solution.

Yeah. It's fantastic. Well, that's awesome. Olivebranchdashsolutions.com, folks. And so besides teaching and, doing your this other professional work?

What do you what do you do for fun here in in locally?

I just like to be outside in every way. I mean, honestly, that was one of the big things that brought me to Carlsbad. I can usually be found down on the 101 on on my road bike or boogie boarding or playing golf or swimming or just hanging out with my kids outside in some way. So

Very nice. Well, this is the perfect place for that without a doubt. I really appreciate you, taking the time to come and share. Appreciate your work that you're doing and that you're part of our chamber. We love having you in our chamber family.

This is, you know, you're you are literally making the world a better place.

Brett, thanks so so much for having me. Really appreciate the opportunity.

It's our pleasure. Thanks for joining us today on our Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact podcast. If you got value out of our episode today, please hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app, and please tell a friend. Can't wait to see you next time on Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact.