Employing Differences, Episode 119: Whose side am I on?

Paul: 0:08

Welcome to Employing differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Karen: 0:15

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:16

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:18

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Whose side am I on?"

Paul: 0:27

So Karen and I have both done a fair amount of work where we are involved in some way in facilitating a conversation, in helping to a group to resolve conflict – in a situation where there seem to be sides. Where there are people who have strong preferences, entrenched positions; where there are sort of factions and groups. You can see the fractures, sometimes very visibly, and sometimes not so visibly. And one of the things that is often asked of us– or that we find ourselves asking, if we're smart about these kinds of things – is,"Whose side am I on?" Classically, we hear a lot about facilitators needing to be neutral and to not be on anybody's side. We wanted to explore a little bit some of the experiences we've had wrestling with this question, because not having a point of view and not having an opinion is not something human beings are very good at.

Karen: 1:30

I'm reminded of my previous life as a third grade teacher, where a very common experience was for a kid or a couple of kids to come up and say, "Mrs. Gimng, So-and-So did this terrible thing to me!" And then So-and-So is there, "No! But I didn't! Or there was this reason!" So this conflict shows up, and everybody involved – including me – expected that my role was to pick a side. To be judge and jury and say, "Okay, Sally, you shouldn't have done that. So you apologize and then you miss 10 minutes of recess." There's some sentence handed out in this very judgmental sort of thing. And it wasn't until later on in my journey that I realized how absolutely pointless that activity is, and that the outcome was not satisfying to anybody. It didn't help them be friends, again. It didn't actually make either of them feel better about each other. It really didn't change behavior later, in my experience. It was just the norm. It's certainly how things were when I was in third grade, and it's how things were when I was teaching third grade. I expect a lot of us have had this experience, especially around kids thinking, "Well, we can go to the teacher or the parent or the adult in charge and they'll solve our problem." And what we mean by that is they'll declare that one of us is right and one of us is wrong. They'll take aside. And what I have found since when I've been using Imago Dialogue and other kinds of tools to help kids get their own work done is that if I can hold a space where they show up and hear each other, they'll figure out what they need. And I've had experiences where the parents asked me to come help with a thing, and they fully expected given where things were half of the kids were going to get in the car and go home – it's the end of Park Day, we're done with this thing – and certainly the kids weren't going to play together anymore, because they were so mad at each other. And it took us some time but without taking aside, I could hold the space and invite them to conversation. And the interesting thing is no apologies happened, but what they did say is "Yeah, we shouldn't have done that." And at the end of it, these kids all went off and played together. The relationships were resolved to whatever extent they needed to be. They continued to have that connection and that ability to play together, which is a way better resolution than if any side had been taken. So that to me has been a lesson in what the value is of opting out of the role of "side-taker." We get asked to be in it all the time. Ee all learned in third grade, that that's what you do. You go to the authority figure, you go to the consultant, you go to the boss, and ask them to take sides and that will solve the problem– especially if I'm right.

Paul: 4:33

Especially if I'm right. That very clearly points to what it falls into, when we when we get into that model. When we say, "Okay, great, I now I just need to get this authority figure on my side." Then it becomes about convincing that person who is sitting in that place of judgment, rather than actually working on the relationship with the other person – the other groups that we're in – and working with the real problem. What we're looking for is to win rather than to solve or resolve or restore the situation. Because that's the failure mode of that side-taking process. That is absolutely a thing that that anytime we're in a position of some type of authority with a group, it's very natural that people are going to want to pull us into that. And I think you and I both experienced how useful it is – and as your story illustrates, this is true with adults, not just children – how useful it is to opt out of that. To not play that. And it's very interesting, because early on in a lot of my coaching and facilitation work, I was working in an organization where one of the things that I occasionally got pulled in to do was to help create that space. Not to resolve the conflict, but to create a space where the conflict could be worked. And I remember one situation in particular, where I was actually asked by someone to come in and help resolve a difficult situation between this person and their manager. Which is super fun, let me tell you, trying to do that. But again, I took off of myself the responsibility of resolving it, and instead, my responsibility was to hold a space for for them to resolve it. To create whatever safety they needed to be able to sort of dig into it. That's what's really useful in that space. But I remember having the conversation with the person saying, "I'm willing to be there, I'm willing to be part of this, provided the other person is willing to have me there, and also would welcome my presence." And then the other thing that I ended up saying was, "You're asking me to be there as a neutral third party, and you need to understand that the fact that I'm neutral means that I'm not on your side. Because you're bringing me in there's absolutely going to be a perception that I'm going to side with you. We need to disabuse everybody of that notion." But that's hard. Staying in that place of neutrality, as I said, is super difficult, because we do have opinions. And we do have things around that. And so a number of years ago, I was in a workshop that was run by Miki Kashtan, who's one of the founders of BayNVC. She's involved in the Non-Violent Communications community. She did a workshop on facilitation and arbitration that introduced me to this notion that I now find very compelling which this idea of instead of neutrality and impartiality, of multi- partiality. If I'm in that space, and I'm in that role, my job is actually to be on everybody's sides. And that as it turns out for me is actually way easier to do. Because now I don't have to pretend that I don't have feelings or opinions. Now my job is to notice them and make sure that I'm working with them appropriately. So that I'm actually focusing on making sure that everybody actually is able to get what they need or they want. It really allows me to step back into the space a little bit better. So I find that that's a more useful

framing: 8:13

To help avoid being on anybody's side, instead try to be on everybody's side.

Karen: 8:19

I think what you're getting to there... you brought up just briefly that "everybody gets what they need." Which isn't the same thing. Often when you come into a conflict, there is a very clear dichotomous circumstances laid out. "We're either going to do this thing, or we're not going to do it." And there are people who want to do it and are people who don't want to do it, and we can't both do it and not do it. So how can you be on both sides? What we're pointing to here is that if we can stay out of the judgment place of deciding "these arguments are better or those arguments are better," and be in the space of, "Okay, so there's these arguments for and these arguments against. What's under those? What needs are behind those? What else is around all of that?" That we're not on the pro side and the con side, we're on all the peoples side. We're on the help everybody get to a place where they've been heard where their needs are in the room, and they can at least tolerate and hopefully can support this piece going forward– in part because they've been through a collaborative decision-making process. I think one place that I see facilitators go astray with this is to say, "Well, I have to be neutral. I can't be on anybody's side, which means I can't contribute anything." Like all I can do is call on people, basically. And I can't put in an idea that might solve a problem. Or I can't do suggest a path forward. And so that neutrality can actually kind of tie our hand, if we use it that way. And so I'm gonna pass it to you and let you talk about the alternative to that.

Paul: 10:14

Well, the alternative there is that if you really are tracking what it is that everybody needs – and ideally, you're doing this in a way that everybody can see that. Everyone can recognize that you are on, ideally, not only their side, but everybody's sides. Because part of what we're looking for in those situations is we want to trust that someone else is advocating for our needs. We want to feel like it isn't just us. The thing is that if everybody actually trusts the facilitator to advocate for all of their needs, that actually means that you're in a position where if you see something that you think would actually work for the group, you can propose it without breaking their trust. If anything, I think that makes them trust you more, because they can actually see how you have managed to weave together the thing that they're hoping for and the things that other people are hoping for to – and ideally in a skillful way. Where you run into the problem of facilitators making proposals about what people might do is when it's obvious that those proposals are biased towards some subset of the group or towards one faction or another – when they don't actually take everybody's perspectives and needs into account. And so do I think we have to be careful. It's important to ask ourselves,"If I'm about to make this proposal, is this actually something that I think would work for everybody?" Do I think this would address all of these things, which means to be clear about getting those things out on the table. But I do think that we can participate in it to the degree that, "Hey, I'm noticing this thing that maybe nobody else is noticing it." Maybe they're just they're not seeing it, it's not coming forward. If you can put it out there and then retreat back into that space, and then let the group sort of see what do they actually think about it? Not to be attached to your proposal. Because now you're on your side. Now you're on the side of, "My idea is so great. If only you would just listen to me."

Karen: 12:22

That feels so true, sometimes.

Paul: 12:27

Yeah. But I think that's the place you need to be. We've talked before about facilitators needing to be trusted by the group in order to make decisions about structure and process. Well, sometimes the decision about structure and process is,"I'm gonna put this proposal out there for you and you get to work with it now." And if you've developed the trust with the group to do that, I think that's perfectly appropriate and useful to the group.

Karen: 12:51

I think it often will help a group get unstuck. And to be clear, it can help the group get unstuck, even if it's a terrible proposal.

Paul: 12:59

I think terrible proposals are an excellent way to get groups unstuck. I do that all the time.

Karen: 13:05

Absolutely. When I've tried to train facilitators with this, they say, "But what if I get it wrong? What if I missed somebody's perspective? What if the thing didn't account for everybody?" And here's the thing: It actually doesn't matter whether you did account for everyone. It matters that you tried. That you thought you did, and that everyone knows you thought you did. It doesn't work, by the way, to trick them into thinking you did when you aren't really. That that's a very bad idea. But the fact that you are an imperfect human being who may have missed something is not a disaster for trust. If you've built up the trust. I've even done it in a case where it was pretty dichotomous, and I wasn't finding a way to make it less of a dichotomy. It really was a "yes or no" kind of a thing. And we talked about it in every which way that I could think of. And it was absolutely essential that they make a decision. This was time limited; they had to decide. And I said,"Alright, I'm gonna throw out a proposal to do it one way. And we'll see if that flies." And there were people who said, "But wait, that's totally biased." And said, "Well, we've got to try something. We just have to try something." And so it's if you can do it not from a frame of, "This is the right thing. I am proposing it because I so much believe in it," and do it instead from, "You know, this is the best idea I've got of how we might move forward. This is what I'm going to suggest," and then we'll do some kind of a consent round or some way to check in and work with it. And there may be lots of ways to work with it. But it's that framing of "I'm here to support and a way that I'm supporting is to make this suggestion or make this proposal." That can be I think one of the most powerful things a facilitator does. And like any power, be careful how you wield it. But it can be incredibly useful for getting to conclusions – particularly if, as I think a lot of facilitators are, you are the kind of person who can hold lots of different data points and congeal them into something that is a little different, a little bit interesting, a little bit creative, but still kind of holding the major threads and objectives in the room. If you've got that skill, don't squelch it in the name of neutrality.

Paul: 15:33

And the step further from there is that to the degree that you're able to hold that and do that, it's valuable. It's also extremely valuable for them to be able to do it. To the degree to which you can start to help people to articulate what are the viewpoints and perspectives that aren't the ones that they hold – to the degree to which you can get everybody in the room to be on everybody's side – that is the degree to which the group gets unstuck. I think is your role as a facilitator is to demonstrate that it is possible, and to show how it can be done, but then to invite them into doing it. And it may be that because of the nature of the group, the history of the group, there may be people in the group who never trust certain other people to hold their needs and perspectives as valuable. But to the degree that you can actually get them to start to recognize that they could hold other people's needs and other people's can be held by them, that helps them get out of that sense of, "I have a side; my side has to win," and to recognize that there are other possibilities. And I'll also say that even if you aren't a facilitator; if you're in a situation like this, the degree to which you can start to be on everybody's side – which includes your own. I will say that for for those people like me, who are totally willing to just jettison their own needs in order to move through conflict more quickly. You need to be on your own side, too. But the degree to which you can recognize that when we can be on everybody's side, that's the thing that allows us to transform the conflict that we're having into something that can actually work for everybody. And so you can hold that even if your facilitator isn't necessarily explicitly doing that. If they're standing more in that position of neutrality and trying to just hold process, you can do it as a participant. And in a situation where you don't have a facilitator and you're in conflict or in difficulty with someone. Again, it's about recognizing what's important to this other person and what matters to them. We've talked a lot about that in various episodes of this show. So this isn't just a thing for facilitators. It's a thing for all of us when we're working with these tricky situations, where it feels like we have these sides, we have these factions, we have these groups. The degree to which we can start to identify with all of them is the degree to which we're going to be more skillful at moving through these difficult situations.

Karen: 18:17

I think that piece that you're pointing out about that everybody can see it is also super important. Because there is a thing that happens where somebody comes up with an idea that meets everybody's needs. And so that gets agreed to, but it comes with the freight of"Well, we did it your way." Like if there's scorekeeping. You know, "We always end up doing it, Paul's way," and Paul's like, "But my way wasn't my way.My way was the everybody way. What happened here?" That can become a pattern that is, in itself, resentment building if we're not careful. So I just want to point to the real value of what you were saying about getting everybody to see it. The more that we can get to that place of everybody recognizes the conflict, everybody recognizes the various different opinions in the room, everybody sees the breadth of it. Because very often, when people are stuck, they simply aren't seeing the other side. It may have been said in their presence, and that's not the same thing as they're seeing it, unfortunately. If we can really get that deep, mutual viewpoint... but sometimes it is a thing of let the group see how stuck they are and what the differences of opinion are and why others are not just doing what they want to do, that there are reasons there. That piece of the process can be important. I mean, I've had times where I walked into a meeting and I knew the thing. I'd talked to everybody in advance and I knew the thing that was going to work for everybody. And if I deliver it at the beginning of the meeting, they will reject it. So there is this piece about get the group in that. And there are lots of ways to do that that we've talked about in other episodes and I'm sure we'll talk about more. I think that's the follow on.

Paul: 20:14

Exactly. We've gotten a number of different places here, but to follow the thread through what it is that we've talked

about: 20:19

We've talked about how when we're in situations that involve positions and sides and factions, we very often would like to have an authority figure on our side. We're often appealing to judgment. The contention that Karen and I have is that often is not useful for solving the problem and it's certainly not productive for the relationships. That might maybe get you what you want in the short term, but in the long term is going to be problematic for your ability to resolve difficult situations and for the relationships within your group, within your team, within your organization. So moving beyond that model, we've talked about the importance of as a facilitator, if you're able to stay out of the game of picking sides, that's going to be more useful to the group. And the degree to which you can actually be on everybody's side, the degree to which you can understand what are all the needs that are at play here, and hold each of those as important, that's often a better way of staying in a useful place than trying to stay neutral and just try to pretend like you don't have an opinion and that you don't have a perspective. We always do, so managing those is really useful. And then being able to show what you're doing to the group as you're doing it. If you're bringing a proposal that's actually going to you think meet everybody's needs being able to show how it does actually builds trust with the group. Each of the different groups or factions or positions is going to trust you more the degree to which they know that you actually care about what's important to them – even if you don't have a perfect solution that's going to work for everybody right off the bat. The degree to which you can point out how a proposal that even you are making might be insufficient means that people know that they're being held, they're being taken care of. And the degree to which you can do that also helps the people within the group to do that. It helps them to start to see how they can be on other people's sides, on other groups' sides, how they can take other people's needs into account, and have their needs taken into account by others as well. And when you're part of a group, if you can do that, that is the thing that helps to transform the difficult situations and difficult conflicts into situations that really allow you to come up with solutions that work for everybody. And you just can't just come with those from the get-go. Part of this is about the process that we have to go through as a group. Starting to recognize, "Hey, somebody else is actually paying attention to what matters to me." That can be a very foreign thing to us in difficult situations. And so being able to sit with the group as it starts to realize that a solution like this might be possible, and that it just takes time to move through for people to experience and to create the trust is a real thing that needs to happen.

Karen: 23:31

I think that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 23:35

And I'm Paul Tevis. And this has been Employing Differences.