What to Do When Someone Doesn’t Want to Collaborate

Last week, I hosted my monthly reAGENT Labs clinic at ReCity. It’s a 90-minute gathering in a safe space where we discuss real conflicts happening in people’s lives. Together, we work through them in community using the AGENT framework. Some people come to prepare for hard conversations. Others come to debrief conversations that already went sideways and wonder how they could have been managed better.

The magic of these reAGENT Labs clinics is that they are practical, not academic. The focus isn’t really on teaching the AGENT framework, although that naturally happens. It’s about helping people get unstuck in the many and varied situations we all find ourselves navigating during the course of everyday life.

A difficult landlord. A frustrated spouse. Workplace tension. Wet towels on the bathroom floor.

The AGENT framework becomes the language we use to explore those situations together, but the real value comes from the collective wisdom in the room. People start realizing they’re not alone in their struggles, and in the process, they exercise their AGENT skills in a safe environment where nobody has to get everything perfectly right.

I suspect that even if you didn’t come intending to share a conflict of your own, you’d still find yourself thinking about one during the session. That’s part of what happens when people start speaking honestly about the tensions they’re carrying. It becomes hard not to quietly reflect on your own.

Every session teaches me something too. This one reminded me that as much as I teach collaboration, there’s still a competitor living inside me. I’m a work in progress, same as everyone else who walks into that room.

It also confirmed something I’ve been feeling for a while now. There’s something almost magical that happens when people sit together physically and talk honestly about conflict. Maybe it’s a leftover reaction from the isolation of Covid. Maybe it’s the energy of the ReCity space itself. Whatever it is, people soften a bit when they realize they’re not the only ones struggling with difficult conversations.

The Situation

This month, the group explored two very different conflicts. The first involved a tenant trying to wrap up a lease with a landlord while preparing to move into their first home. The second involved a college student home for the summer who kept leaving wet towels on the shared bathroom floor.

One involved thousands of dollars. The other involved wet towels. But underneath both conflicts sat the same question: what do you do when the conflict you’re facing feels bigger than the issue itself?

For the sake of keeping this issue readable, I’m going to focus on the landlord story. But if readers are interested in the wet towel conflict, hit reply and let me know. I may unpack that one in next week’s issue because, honestly, there was a lot more going on underneath those towels than anyone expected.

The landlord story carried real emotional weight. As the tenant described the situation, you could feel the frustration building in the room. The landlord was deducting money from the security deposit for landscaping work and property cleanup that the tenant believed had never been part of the rental agreement. He was also strictly enforcing the lease’s notice requirements, forcing them to pay an additional month’s rent at the exact moment they were trying to transition into their new home. The money mattered because they were about to begin a new chapter of life as first-time homeowners, and that deposit represented resources they wanted to put toward their future.

But underneath the dollars was something much more human happening. Their HEART had clearly been activated. Their sense of Autonomy felt threatened because decisions were suddenly being imposed on them without agreement. Trust had broken down. They didn’t feel Heard. And as they told the story, the emotional energy started spreading through the room.

That’s something I’m becoming increasingly aware of in these clinics. Emotional energy is contagious. You could feel the room change as they talked. Someone shifted in their chair. Another person's jaw tightened. A few heads started nodding in that slow, knowing way that means I've been there. Nobody said anything yet, but you could feel the verdict forming. The landlord was already on trial.

And honestly, I could feel it happening to me too. In my head, I was already building the brief. He can't charge for landscaping if it wasn't in the lease. Document everything. Send a certified letter. Twenty years of teaching collaboration, and my first instinct was still to win. I didn't say any of that out loud, but I noticed it.

That noticing is the whole game.

The Turn

At first, the diagnosis seemed straightforward. The tenant had become AWARE that collaboration was probably not the landlord’s preferred approach.

Grounding helped clarify the reality of the situation. This wasn’t a deeply important relationship they needed to preserve long term. But the issue itself mattered because it involved real money.

Their BATNA also became clearer. In the worst worst case, they could walk away, lose some money, move into their new home, and leave the conflict behind emotionally. Walking away from the money would be a small price to pay to start a new life unencumbered by the emotional baggage of an ongoing fight with a landlord. Five years from now, although painful in the moment, the amount of money they forfeited would likely feel insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

But that wasn’t actually what they wanted. They wanted to compete for as much of the deposit as they could recover.

My instinct was still pulling toward competition. I wanted to help them construct the perfect argument, expose every inconsistency, and maximize the amount of money they recovered. That instinct isn’t necessarily wrong. Sometimes competing is appropriate.

But what I’m learning is that if I don’t become aware of my own emotional escalation early enough, empathy and curiosity quietly disappear. Everyone starts preparing for battle instead of preparing for a conversation.

Fortunately, something shifted when the room slowed down enough to stay curious.

The Shift

We moved into the EMPATHIZE step, not because the landlord necessarily deserved empathy, but because curiosity changes conversations.

At some point, and honestly I don’t even remember whether it was me or someone else in the room who asked it, a different question entered the conversation:

“What else could the landlord be feeling here besides trying to take advantage of you?”

That question changed the emotional temperature of the room.

At first, nobody really wanted to engage with it. The emotional story already felt complete. There was a clear victim, a clear villain, and a lease that seemed to support the tenant’s position. Asking the group to consider alternate explanations almost felt like asking them to abandon the tenant emotionally.

But that’s part of the value of community in these sessions. Sometimes someone else asks the question you’re too emotionally activated to ask yourself. Sometimes another person’s curiosity helps interrupt the emotional momentum carrying the room toward certainty.

And once that happened, we stayed with the discomfort long enough for curiosity to reenter the conversation.

Eventually the group began brainstorming possibilities. Maybe the landlord was under financial stress himself. Maybe previous tenants had left the property in terrible condition before. Maybe he was overwhelmed trying to prepare the home for new renters and was acting more from anxiety than malice. Maybe he genuinely believed the landscaping expectations had already been communicated clearly.

None of those possibilities automatically made the landlord right. But they changed something important inside the room. The tenant stopped preparing for battle and started preparing for a conversation.

That distinction matters because when we enter conflict assuming bad intent, we usually create the exact resistance we expect. Curiosity interrupts that cycle. It doesn’t guarantee collaboration, but it creates the possibility for it.

And honestly, that’s where the real work of AGENT begins. Not in controlling the other person’s behavior, but in noticing when your own emotional state is quietly taking control of the conversation. We still don’t know exactly how this conflict will resolve, but by the end of the session there were at least visible pathways for moving forward that didn’t immediately require escalation. At least conceptually, there was now a way to approach the landlord collaboratively even if he didn’t initially appear to be approaching the situation that way.

We’ll probably find out over the next couple of weeks how the negotiation actually went down. But regardless of the outcome, the room had already shifted from emotional reaction toward intentional preparation.

AGENT in Action

What Made the Difference

The breakthrough wasn’t really a negotiation tactic at all. It was awareness. The tenant realized they could remain collaborative in mindset even if the other person wasn’t behaving collaboratively.

That shift preserved their ability to think clearly, stay emotionally grounded, and approach the conversation with curiosity instead of escalation. It also reminded me that the AGENT framework isn’t about becoming perfectly calm or endlessly patient. It’s about noticing what’s happening inside yourself early enough to choose your response intentionally.

Outcome still mattered, of course. They still wanted their money back. But so did who they became while navigating the conflict.

AGENT, Briefly Mapped

AWARE: The tenant recognized both the external conflict and the internal emotional reaction rising alongside it. The room noticed how quickly frustration can spread when people feel threatened.

GROUND: Clarifying interests and BATNA reduced some of the emotional panic. They realized they had options, even if none were perfect.

EMPATHIZE: The shift happened when the group explored multiple possible explanations for the landlord’s behavior instead of locking onto a single negative story.

NEGOTIATE: The preparation changed from “How do I beat him?” to “How do I stay calm, ask questions, and advocate for myself clearly?”

TIE: The actual resolution is still unfolding. But the tenant left with a clearer mindset, a stronger plan, and less emotional reactivity.

The conflict hadn’t disappeared.

But the person entering it had changed.

Try This Before Your Next Conflict 🛠

Before your next difficult conversation, pause and ask yourself:

• What story am I assuming is true about the other person?

• What part of my HEART feels threatened right now?

• If I stayed curious a little longer, what else might I discover?

And maybe most importantly:

• Am I preparing for a fight or preparing for a conversation?

Closing Reflection

I left reAGENT Labs reminded that collaboration is not a personality trait.

It’s a practice.

Sometimes our inner lion still shows up first.

The work is noticing it before it takes over the room.

Conflict doesn’t define us.

How we show up in it does.

I would genuinely love to see more people show up for the in-person version of these reAGENT Labs clinics. They happen the third Tuesday of every month from 11:30–1:00 at ReCity, and the next one is June 16th, 2026.

If you’d like to join us, you can sign up here: https://calendar.app.google/VTHmNq2HNdRBKbnZ8

At the same time, I’ve started wondering whether it’s time to experiment with an online version so people outside the local community can participate too.

If that’s something you’d be interested in, hit reply and let me know.

I enjoy experimenting with new ways to support our growing AGENT community, and I’m curious to see what might emerge if we created a space for these conversations online.

See you in the win-win moments this week!

Sam