It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People

High conflict behavior doesn't just disrupt your team—it follows leaders home, costs organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars, and gets worse when managers react without a plan. The question Part 3 of this four-part workplace series answers is the one every leader eventually faces: once you know conflict is in the room, what do you actually do?
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, are joined again by Michael Lomax, JD, lawyer, mediator, and HCI speaker and trainer. Together they walk through the BIFF response for hostile emails and verbal exchanges, EAR statements for de-escalating in the moment, the CARS method—Connect, Analyze, Respond, Set Limits—for structuring any high conflict conversation, and New Ways for Work® coaching as a measurable alternative to suspension. Whether you're managing a difficult employee, caught between HR and your team, or working under a difficult boss, these are the tools that shift the dynamic without making things worse.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
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Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(02:02) - Why Smart People Get Drawn Into These Conflicts

(08:00) - BIFF Method

(12:46) - Other Ways It’s Applied

(17:20) - CARS Method

(25:50) - What If It's the Boss?

(29:11) - Solutions and Methods of Application

(39:37) - Wrap Up

High conflict at work rarely announces itself. By the time it becomes a formal HR complaint or a leadership crisis, the patterns were visible much earlier—and the tools most organizations rely on to stay fair often make things worse, not better.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, are joined by Michael Lomax, JD, HCI speaker, trainer, and attorney, for Part 2 of a four-part workplace series. They break down the WEB method for early conflict assessment—Words, Emotions, Behavior—and explain why HR's focus on neutrality and incident-by-incident handling can inadvertently protect the person driving the conflict while penalizing the target.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(01:48) - Assessing Workplace Conflict Early and Accurately

(04:53) - Potential Costs of Getting It Wrong

(09:13) - Patterns of Behavior

(18:56) - Documenting Impact

(20:38) - Personality Disorders

(21:57) - Reactivity Drives Response

(25:29) - Managing Difficult HCPs

(31:02) - What to Assess First

(35:30) - Wrap Up

Workplace conflict is costing US businesses $359 billion a year—and behind a disproportionate share of that damage is high conflict behavior: the kind that ignores limits, escalates faster than most leaders expect, and doesn't respond to the usual playbook. This is part one of a four-part series on high conflict in the workplace, with Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, Megan Hunter, MBA, and Michael Lomax, JD—lawyer, mediator, and senior speaker and trainer with the High Conflict Institute since 2011.
Bill, Megan, and Michael unpack why conflict is surging right now—generational shifts, pandemic fallout, social media polarization, and AI giving people who demonstrate high conflict behavior entirely new tools—and make the case for why prevention has to come before the crisis, not after. If your organization is still treating conflict as something HR handles case by case, this episode is the place to start.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit a Question | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(01:29) - Why Workplace Conflict Is Rising

(02:57) - Trends Driving Workplace Conflict

(04:50) - Employees Changing Job Expectations

(07:15) - Affects of Social Media

(08:59) - Organizational Design and Friction

(11:57) - Make Work About Work

(14:32) - Divisive vs. Unifying Issues

(17:16) - When an HCP Is Involved

(20:29) - When the Organization Isn’t Aware

(23:55) - Leaders Avoid Conflict

(27:42) - Role Playing

(29:00) - Growing Comfortable

(31:25) - One Thing to Say

(32:55) - Wrap Up

High conflict relationships can leave you grieving something most people don't recognize as a real loss — not just the person, but the relationship you always hoped you could have. When someone in your life consistently cannot offer the empathy, accountability, or closeness you need, the question stops being "how do I fix this?" and starts being "how do I accept what this actually is?"
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, walk through the five stages of grief as they apply to high conflict relationships, why high conflict people get stuck in anger while those around them keep cycling, and how to make the practical decision between limited contact and no contact. They cover what to do with guilt and shame when pulling back, why sharing your feelings with a high conflict person usually backfires, and the self-affirmation strategies that interrupt the shame spiral.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:48) - Accepting It Won't Become What You'd Hoped

(02:13) - Why Do People Stay?

(07:59) - Five Stages of Grieving Process

(09:52) - Criteria for Choosing No-Contact Path

(13:36) - Watch Your Expectations

(18:45) - Getting Through It

(24:43) - Wrap Up

Fear of retaliation keeps many people trapped in high conflict relationships long after they know they need to leave. Emotional explosions, smear campaigns, threats involving children, financial punishment, legal warfare — the threat of what might happen when you finally say the words can feel more paralyzing than staying. The Betty Broderick case is an extreme example, but the dynamic it illustrates — unmanaged emotions, all-or-nothing thinking, and escalating revenge — shows up in milder forms in relationships every day.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founders of the High Conflict Institute, walk through what a safer, stepwise exit actually looks like — and why an abrupt in-person announcement is the most dangerous approach. They cover the biggest mistakes people make when leaving, how to document behavior and prepare for false allegations before they happen, and what courts and police actually respond to when you present your situation.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(02:26) - Betty Broderick Case

(11:01) - Why People Are Afraid to Leave Relationships with HCPs

(14:04) - Mistakes When Trying to Leave

(17:06) - Creating Escalations

(20:11) - When It’s Not a Marriage

(21:48) - Getting Prepared

(28:04) - Giving Warning

(28:47) - If on the Fence

(30:17) - Wrap Up