Getting to the HEART of the matter

"Why couldn't you just listen to me?"

Charlie rarely raises his voice. But in this meeting with Barry, his head of business development, he did.

Most conflicts look simple on the surface.
But like an iceberg, what we see in the moment is often only a small part of what is really going on.

1. The Situation

Charlie, the CEO of a growing company, had asked his head of business development, Barry, to prepare a prospectus for a real estate investment they were pursuing. The document would help Charlie raise capital from potential investors.

Several weeks passed before Charlie checked in.

When he did, he discovered the prospectus wasn’t ready. In fact, it barely existed.

Barry had taken a different path. He had already spoken with a potential investor and believed the deal could move forward without formal documentation. From his perspective, the problem had already been solved.

Charlie saw it very differently. To him, the assignment had simply been ignored.

The conversation escalated quickly.

Charlie rarely raises his voice, but this time he did.

“Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”

Barry pushed back.

“My opinion matters.”

Within minutes the meeting ended the way many workplace conflicts do: abruptly, and with both people feeling disrespected.

2. The Turn

A few hours later Charlie joined our regularly scheduled bi weekly coaching session.

He was still visibly frustrated and wanted confirmation that Barry had been insubordinate. Maybe even fireable.

Before going there, I asked one simple question.

“Other than this meeting, how is Barry as an employee?”

Charlie paused.

“He’s good,” he said.

That answer told me something important.

I smiled.

“Well, it sounds like we’re about to have a growth spurt."

That answer shifted the direction of the conversation. This probably wasn’t a performance problem.

Something else had happened in that room. The argument wasn't really about the prospectus anymore.

Then we slowed the story down and began walking through what had actually taken place.

3. The Shift

As we unpacked the situation, an important detail surfaced.

Charlie had already promised another investor that a formal prospectus would exist. That commitment created pressure he hadn’t shared with Barry.

But there was another unstated interest as well. Charlie didn’t just want a document for this deal. He wanted a prospectus that could become a reusable asset for the company, something that would help him scale future investments.

Barry, meanwhile, believed he had found a faster path to funding and thought he was helping move the deal forward. From his perspective, Charlie simply wanted to raise money for this opportunity.

Neither one understood the other’s interests.

Barry had solved the immediate funding problem. Charlie was thinking about building a scalable process for future deals.

Barry’s response in the meeting suddenly stood out in a different way.

“My opinion matters.”

That sentence wasn’t really about the prospectus. It was about something deeper.

At Charlie’s company, employees are evaluated along two axes. One measures how well they live the company’s core values. The other measures how well they execute against the responsibilities they are accountable for.

Barry believed he was doing exactly that. He had taken initiative and used his professional judgment to move the deal forward.

But Charlie heard something very different. He heard his authority as CEO being challenged.

Barry felt his professional judgment had been dismissed.

Once those buttons were pushed, the conversation stopped being about the funding strategy and became about defending identity.

4. AGENT in Action

Truth be known, Charlie didn’t immediately recognize that he had been triggered.

Even during our coaching conversation, remnants of that emotional state were still present. That’s natural. When people are early in their journey as Negotiating AGENTs, recognizing emotional triggers isn’t automatic. Often it takes a calm conversation afterward to see what actually happened.

With practice, that awareness begins to show up earlier. Eventually we start to notice the trigger while the conversation is still unfolding. That’s where the real shift begins. It’s the moment when intention starts to replace instinct.

A day or two after my conversation with Charlie, I had coffee with an experienced negotiator who teaches at both UNC and Duke. We weren’t discussing Charlie’s situation, but something he said stuck with me.

He talked about how many conflicts resemble icebergs. What we see in the moment is only a small part of what’s actually driving the disagreement.

That observation connected with something I had already been reflecting on after my session with Charlie. Many conflicts escalate not because of the problem being discussed, but because something more personal gets touched beneath the surface.

I’ve started thinking of these as HEART triggers.

HEART is a simple way to name five common emotional flashpoints that can drive a conflict without either person fully realizing it.
(I like acronyms ;-) )

H is for Heard.
Did I feel ignored, dismissed, or not listened to?

E is for Esteem.
Did I feel disrespected, diminished, or judged?

A is for Autonomy.
Did someone undermine my authority, independence, or ability to do my job?

R is for Role.
Did it feel like my contribution, responsibility, or place in the organization didn’t matter?

T is for Trust.
Did transparency break down? Did I feel blindsided, misled, or unsupported?

In Charlie and Barry’s case, several showed up at once.

Charlie felt his autonomy as CEO had been challenged.

Barry felt his esteem and professional role were being dismissed.

Once Charlie recognized this, the next step became clearer. He needed to return to Barry, repair the relationship, and refocus both of them on the shared goal.

Raising the money.

Next week I’ll unpack the HEART framework in more detail. For now, it simply helped Charlie understand what had actually happened inside that conflict.

AGENT, Briefly Mapped

AWARE
Charlie recognized that the surge of emotion in the meeting signaled something deeper had been triggered.

GROUND
Stepping back helped him reconnect with the real objective: successfully funding the investment.

EMPATHIZE
Barry wasn’t ignoring instructions. He believed he was exercising the professional judgment he was accountable for.

NEGOTIATE
Charlie could now return to Barry with curiosity, acknowledge the misunderstanding, and refocus on their shared objective. Barry’s approach might still produce a tactical win for this investment. The opportunity now was to combine that short term solution with the longer term asset Charlie had originally envisioned for the company.

TIE
They committed to clearer expectations and more frequent check ins to keep the project on track.

5. Practice for the Reader 🛠

Try This Before Your Next Conflict

When a disagreement begins to heat up, pause and ask yourself:

• Which part of HEART might have been triggered here?
• What pressure might the other person be under that you don’t yet see?
• Are we arguing about the problem, or about how we feel about the problem?

One practical leadership habit also helps prevent conflicts like this.

Don’t let too much time pass without checking in.

Silence creates assumptions, and assumptions often create conflict.

Closing Reflection

Most conflicts appear to be disagreements on the surface.

But underneath, something more human is often at stake.

That was the real issue between Charlie and Barry.

Like an iceberg, the part we see during a conflict is often only a small fraction of what’s actually driving it.

When you get to the HEART of the matter, the conversation usually changes.

See you in the win win moments this week.

Sam