De-escalating Chaos: How True Leaders Build Bridges in the Middle of Crisis

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:00:59

What if the key to winning in leadership wasn't winning the argument at all? What if the moment everything feels like it's falling apart?

The heated meeting, the difficult conversation, the relationship on the edge, is actually the greatest opportunity to build trust.

Today's guest has mediated thousands of conflicts, trained maximum security inmates to become peacemakers, and now teaches leaders how to stop arguments instead of winning them. If one conversation could cost you trust, talent, even a deal, you wouldn't want to miss this.

Welcome to Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we equip you to build stronger relationships, lead with clarity, and navigate even the toughest conversations with confidence. I AM your host, Dr. Keith Haney, and today we're diving into one of the most powerful leadership skills you can develop.

Empathy, but not the kind you've heard about before. Our guest today doesn't just teach communication. He teaches emotional precision under pressure.

Doug Knoll is a lawyer turned peacemaker, the person executives call when one bad conversation can cost you everything. After 22 years as a trial lawyer, he stopped trying to win arguments and started stopping them.

He's mediated over: 1500

And his upcoming book, Empathy the Powerful Skills that Drives Winning Results, reveals how. Why empathy isn't soft, but a competitive advantage. Doug, welcome to the podcast.

Doug Knoll: 00:02:37

Keith, thanks for having me here. I appear on a lot of podcasts. This is the first time I've had shivers down my. Yeah,.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:02:48

Well, that's good, I guess.

Doug Knoll: 00:02:51

Yeah, thanks for that and for everybody who's listening, five star reviews. Put it right now. Don't screw around. Apple, Spotify, five star reviews. Do it now, now.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:03:04

Thank you, Doug. I appreciate that. I am looking forward to this conversation.

I work a lot with organizations, especially churches mostly, and conflict is one of the things that can end so many wonderful ministries and partnerships. I'm looking forward to you giving us some helpful advice so that we can not have those kind of problems.

Doug Knoll: 00:03:26

Right. I've done my share of congregational disputes.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:03:29

I've done mine, too. None of them were fun.

Doug Knoll: 00:03:31

No.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:03:33

So, Doug, take us back 22 years as a trial lawyer built around winning arguments. What was the turning point that led you to become a peacemaker?

Doug Knoll: 00:03:42

Well, it was an evolution. It wasn't something that happened overnight.

ok up the martial arts in the: 1980

Well, that didn't compute for a while. And then some years later, I was in a courtroom cross examining somebody, and the thought came to me, what the heck am I doing in here?

I left the practice of Milan: 2000

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:04:53

I love that. I'm curious, having done this for so many years, what was the most difficult conflict that you had to navigate?

Doug Knoll: 00:05:10

There have been a few. I can't remember anything.

Well, actually it was a congregational dispute and there was a big blow up between two groups in the congregation and one side was supporting the pastor and the other side wasn't. I completely failed that one. Completely failed. Learned a lot.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:05:45

I'm curious as you think about this, because this is always critical for me when you're dealing with conflict. What's the one thing that most people misunderstand about conflict?

Doug Knoll: 00:05:58

What people misunderstand?

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:06:01

What?

Doug Knoll: 00:06:01

Yeah, what people misunderstand is that conflict is not about logic. It's not about logical reasoning or anything like that. It's all about nervous systems.

And until we can learn how to regulate nervous systems, we're never going to find peace. And that's the secret.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:06:29

And I think sometimes you're right about that, because we think about conflict. We do think it's about a right and wrong always. And it may not be about right and wrong.

If you're trying to deal with conflict, about trying to figure out who's right and who's wrong, who wins, who loses. I think you've already approached conflict the wrong way.

Doug Knoll: 00:06:47

That's right. It's not about whose narrative is right or wrong. It's about with how people feel and learning how to recognize that.

And precisely naming what people are feeling is the secret.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:07:04

And how do you work at when you're dealing with conflict and make sure people are heard? Because I think that's also important because when you're in the middle of a conflict, one person always feels like they're not being heard.

They're not. Their opinions aren't being honored. How do you make sure that you get around to getting people's emotional feelings, emotional status out?

Because if you don't deal with that, you can never get beyond the who's right and who's wrong to get To a solution.

Doug Knoll: 00:07:31

That's correct. The secret is called affect. A, F, F, E, C, T. Labeling. It's the ability to recognize and name the emotional experience of another person.

So, Keith, I might say something like, you're really angry, you're frustrated, you feel completely disrespected and unappreciated and unsupported, and you don't feel heard, and you're really anxious and scared. And that process regulates nervous systems, calms the brain down.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:08:12

When I hear that from the person who's across the table from me, that raises my anxiety. So I'm curious. As you, as you help people deal with the other person's emotional pain, you gotta also realize that you're.

You're raising the other person's emotional pain right in the process.

Doug Knoll: 00:08:31

That's. That is what what people think, but that is not what people happens. Okay, so I'm in a mediation, and I've got two parties.

I'll go to this party over here and I'll listen to them. You're angry, you're frustrated, you disrespect all.

And it might take me five minutes, I turn to this person and say, you're angry, you're frustrated. One minute. Why?

Because this person over here has mirror neurons, and they are experiencing the de Escalation experience as I'm talking to this person over here. And rather than being offended or upset or whatever, they calm down. It's magic.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:09:19

Well, that's great to know. See, that's a misunderstanding I wouldn't have gotten.

Doug Knoll: 00:09:23

What's really interesting is that people hear about this idea and they immediately go reactive. How could this possibly work? And it's what's so true with neuroscience. Everything we think we know about ourselves is not true. Right.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:09:41

I love that. Before we get too much deeper in this, because we're going to get deeper. Going to ask you my favorite question.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Doug Knoll: 00:09:50

Ooh, I don't remember. You know, there's a reason for that. I was born with some very severe disabilities, and I did not get a lot of support from adults when I was a child.

And I really didn't have very many good leaders. I kind of had to do it all on my own, which led me to some really maladaptive behaviors and attitudes that's taken decades to work out.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:10:38

So.

Doug Knoll: 00:10:40

Not unlike most people, I wasn't giving good. I wasn't giving good advice.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:10:46

And what's the worst advice you ever got?

Doug Knoll: 00:10:51

Worst advice? Can't remember that either. That's There you go.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:11:04

So you teach something very different when you call it naming emotions. Get back to that. That's right, you name it.

Name emotions to calm the nervous system down, help us understand what actually is happening to the brain during conflict. I want to get back to what you were talking about with that. What's going on during conflict.

Doug Knoll: 00:11:23

So neurophysiologically, when we get triggered, a threat response fires on our brain in a part of the brain called the amygdala. And that sets off what's known as the hpa, the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal axis, cortisol, fight or flight.

Prefrontal cortex becomes unaccessible, can't think anymore. We have a dysregulated nervous system. Sounds weird because I've got this echo going on.

motions. I discovered this in: 2005

And a brain scanning study out of UCLA showed what was happening in the brain, everything that I had been observing as a mediator.

And it shows that when you name emotion, you inhibit the emotional centers associated with negative emotion and activate one single prefrontal cortex region that's associated with emotional self regulation and self awareness. Literally, you help the other person calm themselves down. And it happens in every single human brain. Universal.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:13:05

That's fascinating. So tell us, why does you talked about a little bit that logic fails when emotions rise. Tell us why that is.

Doug Knoll: 00:13:16

So when we think about logic, reasoning, critical thinking, all that high level stuff, it requires a functioning prefrontal cortex system. And when the threat response goes off, that system becomes inaccessible to us because we're only focused on the threat.

Our brain thinks that it's being attacked by a saber tooth tiger and we can't think. So we have to engage at a lower level, not by reasoning or logic or persuasion. We have to be at the emotional level and name the emotions.

That's what's going on.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:14:08

So I love this. So let's get practical.

Doug Knoll: 00:14:11

Of course.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:14:13

So walk us through what someone should say in a critical conflict moment.

Doug Knoll: 00:14:19

Right. Number one, use statements only. Don't use I statements, don't use passive voice, don't ask questions.

So I would say something like, keith, man, you're really angry, you're frustrated, you feel completely disrespected, nobody's listening to you, and you feel unappreciated and unsupported and you're really Anxious and you're a little embarrassed and you're sad, you want connection and it's not there. So it's really upsetting. And at the end of the day you feel like you've been betrayed and rejected and the whole thing just really pisses you off.

Now we're going to do that and I'm going to watch for four relaxation responses. I'm seeing a nodding of the head, some kind of verbal response like yeah, dropping of the shoulders, sigh of relief, the body's yes.

When I see that, then I think I'm done. But I gotta check. So I ask a question, anything else? And if the answer is a grounded no, that's it. Then we can move on to problem solving.

If it's not quite grounded or it's equivocal. So tell me more. And we go back into it and that's how we do it.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:16:01

So I like that. How do you. Does this require who's leading this? Is this a person that's in the middle of the conflict or is this a neutral mediator? Who's doing this?

Doug Knoll: 00:16:12

It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I could be a leader and have somebody really mad at me and I'm going to label them.

I could be a neutral third person, either a professional mediator like myself or just somebody else. Maybe I'm a leader and I've got two vice presidents who can't stand each other's guts, right?

So now I'm mediating between them and it'll work there too. Or maybe as a leader I walk into a meeting and I see that I got nothing but dysregulated nervous systems.

I'm going to affect, label the whole group and start calming them down.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:16:54

And so once you've got them through that emotional piece, you say you get to problem solving. So is that where you get to what brought us here?

Doug Knoll: 00:17:04

That's a good question. How did this all start? Where did this come from? What's it gonna take to fix it? How are we going to approach this problem?

What do we need to do to make things right? All open ended. And we really resist giving advice or telling people what to do. Really resist that.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:17:32

And if you are the problem, then you are asking the question, what heck can I do to improve the situation?

Doug Knoll: 00:17:38

I guess that's right. And that's when, if apology is appropriate, that's when it's appropriate, not until then.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:17:49

So how do you end this? Because you know, we get to the point sometimes where we've identified it, we've named it how do we bring this to a conclusion?

Because I'm always like, okay, can we leave now? Do we hold hands? Do we sing Kumba? How do we wrap up this, this session once we've identified it and we've named it?

Doug Knoll: 00:18:11

Basically, we have to ask a question. Anything else? Is there anything else we need to talk about? Are we good?

And if it's a more formal circumstance where we're going to have a written agreement, then we got to get the agreement done. People sign in and you know, you're done, that stuff's done. But mostly it's just asking the questions for closure. Anything else we need to do?

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:18:40

Do we need to set deadlines or check in to.

Doug Knoll: 00:18:43

Oh, sure.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:18:43

Cause I'm curious because, you know, a lot of times we kind of leave things dangling, you know.

Doug Knoll: 00:18:48

Yeah, no, that's not good.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:18:49

Yeah. So how do we make sure we just don't like, oh, we had a nice meeting.

Doug Knoll: 00:18:53

It depends on. Yeah, it really depends on the circumstance, but I'm a big time in action guy and I'm big on accountability, so we could say something.

So let's check in next week and see how things are going. And then I'll say, do you want to call me or do I. Do I call you Zoom or in person? All right, let me set up the zoom link right now.

And that's the accountability piece. And here's what I, I was going to say. When you set up accountabi, when you set up accountability, it.

More people are going to do what they say they're going to do just because you set up the accountability.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:19:38

Right.

Doug Knoll: 00:19:40

It's like being in a kindergarten cop.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:19:44

I like that. Amazing. Yeah, no, that's good because I think that we sometimes don't.

Don't tie the end of office conflict, and we just kind of leave it there and people walk away going, well, I got my emotions out, but we didn't solve anything.

Doug Knoll: 00:19:59

That's right.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:20:00

We don't want to leave people not having solved anything.

Doug Knoll: 00:20:03

Right. Well, what I find is that in 95% of the cases, when you engage in affect labeling and you de.

Escalate people and you engage in this nervous system leadership, the problem solves itself. Most of the time. That's all people need. They just need to be heard and validated and then the problem goes away.

And what's really cool, if you're a leader and you start doing this practice consistently, the chaos goes away in your organization.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:20:37

And we all want the chaos to go away.

Doug Knoll: 00:20:39

We all want it to go away.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:20:41

That's right.

Doug Knoll: 00:20:43

That's right.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:20:45

So let's talk about your upcoming book, empathy Leadership.

Doug Knoll: 00:20:50

Yeah.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:20:51

So you argue that empathy is not a soft skill. And I've heard somebody else say that too, but it's a leadership advantage. So what inspired you to write this book? Right now?

Doug Knoll: 00:21:03

I learned of the interview between Joe Rogan and Elon Musk in which Musk said empathy will destroy Western civilization. And that pissed me off.

And then I started looking at how the journalists and the business press like Inc and Fast Company and Forbes were talking about empathy in the HBR Harvard Business Review, and they had it all wrong. And then I went out and did a literature review and there are hundreds of books on leadership empathy, all wrong.

Most of them wrong because they talked about the what and never talked about the science or the why or the how. And I have that knowledge. So write a book.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:21:57

Let's talk about that. What do most books have wrong about empathy that your book tries to correct by giving you proper understanding with science backed empathy?

Doug Knoll: 00:22:09

A couple of things. First of all, there's no such thing as rationality. We are emotional beings. Every decision we make, every behavior we engage in is emotional.

Got to make that mindset shift. Second, when people come into your team, they are not rational beings. They are emotional beings. They're nervous systems.

You have to regulate those nervous systems. Nobody talks about this.

Third, the only way that you can regulate nervous systems systems is through affect, labeling, name the emotions and here's how you do it. Nobody else talks about that.

So you'll hear people talk about empathy in leadership and they'll give you all kinds of examples, but they'll never tell you how to develop the skill or how to measure the skill because empathy is learnable and measurable. It's measurable. And that's what distinguishes empathy leadership from everything else.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:23:26

What I like about the way you approach this is a lot of leadership books talk about, you know, what to say, you talk about what to hear. So as a leader, how do you teach leaders, especially in positions of authority, how to hear and be better leaders?

Doug Knoll: 00:23:43

Because they're hearing better, Number one, they have to be motivated to learn, of course. Number two, it's a simple skill. Learning how to listen to emotions, not words, takes a little bit of practice, but not much.

Most of my clients can master this in eight to ten weeks, an hour, a week.

So you're changing the way you're looking at the world and your people and you're looking at logic and persuasion and reasoning and analysis as tools, but not as communication. And you're really working on the emotions, not the problem. And when you make that shift, everything changes.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:24:40

So how do you convince leaders that empathy drives results, not just relationships? Because that's got.

Doug Knoll: 00:24:47

It's it. That's right. So. So there's a real paradox here. There's one study that says leaders hate empathy. It makes them look weak, vulnerable, indecisive.

They lose their authority, they lose their power. They become vulnerable to being exploited.

And then there's another study that says that the single most crucial determination of leadership success is empathy. So how do we get leaders to engage in a practice that gives them everything they want. Safety, trust, loyalty, productivity, retention.

And the secret is science showing them that what they had thought was empathy was not empathy at all. It was something else. And that what they were taught was empathy was not empathy at all, but something else.

And that the science of empathy shows us how human beings actually connect with each other at a neurobiological basis. And that's what they have to learn. And it comes down to one skill.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:26:17

What's that?

Doug Knoll: 00:26:19

Listening to emotions and then naming them precisely with the use Debin.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:26:28

So I'm curious when I hear this, if you aren't leading with empathy as a leader, how do you deal with conflict in your organization? If you don't have empathy figured out really well? So what are you seeing with people in terms of bigger mistakes they make with conflict?

If they're not using empathy as a way to deal with the conflict, they're.

Doug Knoll: 00:26:51

Not resolving it and the conflict gets ignored. Or people shout and scream, or you assert your authority as a leader and say, it's my way or the highway.

All of these different mechanisms, none of which work. And you know, it's hit or miss whether or not the enterprise will succeed. That's the problem.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:27:19

Yeah, that's very helpful. I can think of times in my organization where empathy was not the way I led in the middle of a conflict.

And I remember how painful that situation was.

Doug Knoll: 00:27:28

That's right. So here's the thing, Keith. At any given moment, our brains are asking three questions. Can I trust you? Am I safe with you? Do I matter to you?

If the answer to any of those questions are no, I'm going to get dysregulated, and I can't think and I can't perform. I'm dysregulated. And your job as a leader is to prevent that from happening. And if it does happen, regulate me.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:28:01

Wow. Anything else about the book you want to share with us?

Doug Knoll: 00:28:07

I'll share this. 80% Of the women that read this book will love it. 30% Of the men that read this book will love it.

30% Or 40% of the men that read this book will say, not sure. 30% Will hate it.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:28:29

So you just got to get the group in the middle. They'll like it.

Doug Knoll: 00:28:32

That's right. Because this is not about rugged individualism. It's not being about the commander in chief.

It's about nervous system leadership, being human, treating people as humans and doing it well.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:28:52

So I know for men, like you mentioned, you kind of alluded to this. The fear for men is that empathy makes us look weak. So how do you get men over? That sense of being empathetic is not a non masculine thing.

Doug Knoll: 00:29:08

Right.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:29:09

So how do you work around that mental block?

Doug Knoll: 00:29:14

I'm in a room, guys. Do I look weak? I'm a secondary black belt. I'm a tai chi master. I'm a level three certified ski instructor. I've got two graduate degrees.

I'm 75 years old. I still sail. Anybody want to call me weak? Go ahead, call me weak. That's how I do it.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:29:46

So I want to talk about your work in Prison of Peace project. And that was incredible. You train inmates at maximum security environments to become mediators. What did that experience teach you about human nature?

Doug Knoll: 00:29:59

Oh, my God, so much. Taught me more about myself than it than anything else.

The first time I walked into a maximum security security prison, those doors slammed shut behind me. Scary as can be. You get used to it after a while, but in the beginning it's intimidating.

What I learned was the worst of the worst can be reformed and rehabilitated. I taught some pretty amazing people. One of my best mediators was the founder of the Aryan Brotherhood.

I worked with guys coming out of violent gang all tatted up, amazing peacemakers. I taught women coming out of South LA and East LA gangs, murderers, fabulous peacemakers. In fact, one of them stopped a gang riot. We weren't there.

We didn't hear it, we just heard the story.

So the story goes that these two gangs in this women's prison were lining up to go at it, and all the correctional officers were getting their SWAT outfits on.

And our mediator walks out into the yard, grabs the two ringleaders by the ears, walks them 20 yards of the fence, throws them against the fence and mediates right there and ends the conflict. Pretty crazy. So it was amazing work. Exhausting, difficult, frustrating. But personally and professionally, the most rewarding work I've ever done.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:32:07

That is amazing. So I'm gonna ask you some lightning Round questions. Kind of some fun stuff. As we've kind of wrapped this up.

This has been a great conversation, by the way.

Doug Knoll: 00:32:16

Thank you.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:32:18

One word that defines great leadership.

Doug Knoll: 00:32:22

ut Easy ANSWERS. Ron Heifetz,: 1996

And he talks about the three psychological services a leader provides. A group direction. Focus, safety. Focus on the safety.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:32:53

That's great. Morning routine or night owl?

Doug Knoll: 00:32:59

Morning, 5:00am well, maybe six. Three shots of espresso. Hot tub. Watch the sun come up over the mountains.

And every now and then a red tailed hawk will sit right on the post above me and I get to throw my disc to my little border collie.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:33:23

That's great.

Doug Knoll: 00:33:24

Book that changed your life.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:33:25

Book that changed your life.

Doug Knoll: 00:33:29

There are a lot. I would say the first book that comes to mind is Lisa Feldman Barrett's book. She's a neuroscientist out of Northeastern University.

How Emotions are Made. The Secret Life of the Marin. Extremely influential on my thinking. And then Matthew Lieberman, Social and what others?

All the early neuroscience books by Joe Ledoux and Antonio Damasio. All those guys. Pretty influential.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:34:13

Awesome. Biggest myth about conflict.

Doug Knoll: 00:34:20

Biggest myth probably that it's unavoidable.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:34:28

I've heard that a lot.

Doug Knoll: 00:34:30

It is not unavoidable. In fact, when I work with my clients, my guarantee is you'll never have a fighter argument again in your life.

But it's based on thousands of years of experience and we've only had the neuroscience for 20 years to stop it.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:34:52

Makes sense. Best way to reset after a hard conversation. For you,.

Doug Knoll: 00:35:01

I think getting exercise. Get out and walk, swim, run, lift weights, do something. Get your body reregulated. And exercise is the best way to do that.

And the reason for that is because when this threat response occurs and we've got all this cortisol, the only way to get it out is by exercise. Because that's what our body's primed for.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:35:25

That makes sense. One habit every leader should develop.

Doug Knoll: 00:35:33

Humility. I'm not sure that's a habit, but. No, humility is everything. I. I used to be one arrogant SOB to the degree that I became a peacemaker.

I started learning humility. But it was the prison project that kicked it out of me.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:35:58

Yeah, I could see that.

Doug Knoll: 00:36:01

So learn humility.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:36:04

What makes a conversation for you unforgettable?

Doug Knoll: 00:36:08

Somebody actually listens to me, and that's really rare. I mean, my wife and I will go to social events and we'll come back and Compare notes. Did anybody listen to you? No. Anybody listen to you? No.

How much listening you did? That's all I did is listen.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:36:26

That's great. So I'm going to ask you my other favorite question, Doug. What do you want your legacy to be?

Doug Knoll: 00:36:33

I want every human being on this planet to know how to listen someone into existence.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:36:42

That's great. That would be phenomenal if this.

Doug Knoll: 00:36:46

It would be. Imagine what our communities would look like, our faith communities, especially if people took the time to listen each other into existence.

It'd be very different.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:37:00

So would our political, so would our society.

Doug Knoll: 00:37:03

Everything. But let's start on that. Let's start where we can fix things, Right?

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:37:08

Start in our churches, right?

Doug Knoll: 00:37:09

That's right.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:37:11

So, Doug, where can people best find you? Pick up your books and learn more about you.

Doug Knoll: 00:37:16

Dougdol.com I've got a big YouTube library, so check that out. Books can be found everywhere.

And Empathy Leadership is available for pre order so you can go to Barnes and Noble, Amazon books, a million, all the usual outlets. And pre order it de escalates in five languages so you can find it wherever you are in the world. And again, all the usual places.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:37:47

Awesome. So we have something new on the show, Doug, It's a surprise question. Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your surprise question.

Doug Knoll: 00:37:54

Okay, I'm going to pick number three.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:37:58

Would you rather have unlimited sushi for life or unlimited tacos for life? Ooh, ooh.

Doug Knoll: 00:38:09

Probably sushi only because I can cook. I can cook tacos. I'm not so good at sushi. I've messed with it, but I haven't done it enough to get good at it. I'm a cook.

Rev. Dr. Keith Haney: 00:38:27

There you go. Well, Doug, thank you for joining us and equipping us to become better bridge builders.

If you found today's episode conversation helpful, I know what you need to do. Here's your next step. Share this episode with someone navigating a difficult conversation.

Subscribe so you don't miss future episodes and start applying what Doug shared today. Because one conversation can change everything. Be sure to check out Doug Knowles new book, Empathy Leadership, releasing this September.

It might just transform the way you lead and connect. You don't build bridges when it's easy. You build them when it matters most. I am Keith Haney and this is becoming bridge builders.

Doug, thanks so much for joining the show.

Doug Knoll: 00:39:11

Thanks, Keith. Been a great conversation.