Paul: 0:08

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

Karen: 0:14

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:15

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:17

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "How do we choose?"

Paul: 0:23

So we've talked before on the show about decision making, and we will almost certainly talk more about it in the future. Because actually making decisions as a group, I think, is one of the hardest things that a group can do. In part because we don't necessarily think a whole lot about what are the factors at play when we want to make a decision as a group? And what are the things that we need to take into account as we're doing it? We often seem to act like, "Well, if we each just make our own individual decision, and then we add those decisions up – if we sum them together in some way – that will lead to the right decision for the group." And our experience is that that's not actually true. And so we want to explore a little bit today, when we need to make a choice as a group, what are some pitfalls that we occasionally fall into? And what are things that are actually useful for us to consider as a group when we're getting to this question of how do we choose? And what are we going to choose? What are we going to actually do?

Karen: 1:29

Yeah, I think we may start even worse off than then stating our individual preferences. I think often we start with, "Well, if we give everybody a chance to say what they think, and then we'll decide." Without even acknowledging are we in the individual preference realm or are we in the community mindset realm? And I think there are different cultures. Often, in the corporate culture people are very sort of individual-minded, looking out for themselves in that ladder-climbing kind of way. I think that can be part of a corporate culture. It doesn't have to be, we hope it's not, but it can be. But the flip side is, I think if you get to a committed consensus group, you often are in a culture where at least the language – at least the the visible value – is that only the community voice matters. You're only ever supposed to say what you think is best for the community and the individual needs don't have voice – or shouldn't. I will say, I don't know of any groups that are actually good at making that happen, but there's a shaming thing if you're just speaking your own, which means that people then take their individual preferences and dress them up in community preference clothing, and present them as though they're that. So what I'm hoping we'll explore today is how we can get explicit about when we're giving individual preference-type input and when we're giving "what I think is best for the community"-type input, because we need both. So how do we do that without getting it all muddled up?

Paul: 3:12

And I think the first step of that is just recognizing that we need to tease those two apart. So when we're talking about kind of individual perspective and group perspective, I mean, for me, what that really means is, the individual perspective is,"Here's what I would pick." Here's what I would prefer, often based on what's easier for me, what do I like better, what's my preference. From my perspective, what makes the most sense? If we're making a decision, what's going to impact me? Do I like the result from that? Is that good for me or not? Do I thrilled by it? Am I"eh" with it? All of those things are kind of going on. And that's different than "Do I think that this is the best decision for the group?" If I think about us collectively, and our collective goals and our shared goals, do I think that that's going to move this forward in the best way? We've talked before on the show about this, that one of the lenses that I bring to thinking about working together effectively as a group is, am I able to see and understand and hold both my individual viewpoint and the collective viewpoint? My individual goals, the things that I'm trying to do and move forward with in my life or in my work, and also the group's goals and be able to hold those not as fully separate, but to see the interconnections between them. But at the same time, not conflate the two and think that,"okay, they're absolutely and in the same." I think being able to observe both of them and hold them both in tension, notice where they're complementary notice where they're non identical, I think that's the first step is for me individually to tease apart. When I'm when I am speaking, when I'm expressing something, am I expressing that from my individual perspective – which is super valid – or am I speaking from the group perspective? Because I think that it is rare that I have worked with a group that gives mechanisms and creates room for both of those things to get expressed. And I think that's actually super useful.

Karen: 5:34

I do think that making space for each of them separately really matters, and in general, I'm going to be a fan of the individual preferences piece first. The reason for that is that the individual preferences are what tell you – I mean they feed – what's best for the group. If we haven't talked yet, I hopefully– hopefully I've done some thinking and I – know what my individual preferences are. But if we haven't talked, I don't know what anybody else's are. And so how can I know what's useful for the group? And another way that I think we can think about that is not just as individual preferences, but individual impacts. It's easy to imagine a decision that's going to make one person's work bigger and another person's work smaller. Or that's going to make one person's work more complicated, or, frankly, impossible. It's going to have different impacts, for personality reasons, and for job description reasons, for all those things. And the likelihood is that the person who knows the most about the impact that it's going to have on them is the person. I can make some guesses about how things would impact others and hopefully, as we work in a team, I get kind of good at that. But at the end of the day, if we haven't asked the person who's going to be impacted, "How is this decision going to impact you?" then we can't take that into account. And the impact on each individual is extremely important to knowing the value for the collective group. So the idea that we can get to what's best for the community without knowing the impacts – and preferences, because they're related – of the individuals, I think is short sighted. So we want to make sure that we make space for that. Think about you. Think about what's this going to mean for you. And you don't have to dress it up in language about, "Well, if it was really okay with everybody else, then what I would just love to have..." You don't have to do that. This is the moment where all we're interested in is what's this going to mean to you. And then you can share. That is a really good starting point. And then making space for and letting people know there's going to be a space for once we know what it's going to mean to each individual, then we're going to talk about what works for the group.

Paul: 8:13

I think a useful way of framing that is that that expressing of individual preferences and impacts is about sharing information. It's not voting.? It's actually, "Hey, one of the things we'd like to do in order to enable a good decision is create a clearer picture of what the impacts of this decision are going to be on people, and also what people feel about it, and what their preferences are. And this is purely for the purposes of sharing information." It's about me becoming more aware of how you would prefer this thing and why. And you becoming more aware of the fact that I would prefer this other thing and why. Because now we are now both working with more information. So I think the problem that I see a lot in groups is they want to do that, but they want to do it purely as some sort of poll. Or even worse, they call it a vote, but it's not actually binding in any particular way. And what happens is it adds only minimal information to the to the collective. The rough version of this right is just,"We have three choices. Everybody which one would you prefer one two or three? If one is your preference than raise your hand. All right now if two is your preference... And you can't vote for more than one." So we just get a strict sense of three-quarters of the people prefer number one. Someone prefers number two, and the rest of the people prefer number three. Great, that tells us something. But it doesn't give us enough information to make a good decision. Because we don't know the strength of those preferences. We don't know the strength of the anti-preference. We don't know the reasons for any of those things. And so what I try to do when I work with groups is I want to create space for those preferences to get expressed but then explored, and more information being made available to the group through more effective means, because then that allows us to actually make a better decision.

Karen: 10:36

Yeah, I agree with all of that. And I want to say, I think, depending on the size of the group, there can be a real value in using polls and using voting-type mechanisms, particularly if we can configure them to give us more of the information that you were talking about. So if we replace that, which one are you voting for raise your hand, with a poll for each one where, you can use a scale or it can be, "I love it/ I like it / Please don't do that." And those are the choices. You can have some fun with it. But where you're getting a little more data. And then you can potentially follow that up by "Okay, so the people who really don't like it, let's hear from three of them. What's going on with that? Okay, is there any reason that we didn't get?" These are ways that you could be way more efficient about your info-gathering, and also then keep people attentive, keep things rolling. So we absolutely, I think, want the types of information that you're aiming for. "What are the reasons and what are the explanations?" But we may not need those reasons and explanations from each individual. And we may want to be organized or use some mechanisms that look a lot like voting – that are an awful lot like a vote or a poll – that just get started. I mean, spectrums are another one that we can use where people put where they are on a scale. And if we have as a facilitator, we have a guess going in what the likely areas, that's it likely to be better along these axes, then we can set up some things around that, too. So I think we can use mechanisms that doesn't have to be discussing forever. But if we can use those mechanisms with the frame,"Don't just vote for the one you like," or "The one you think we should do." Or we don't even know what the vote is. Be clear."Right now, this vote, this poll is for your individual preferences." And I've got one more flag in here, which is, if the decision you're making is likely to impact people who aren't in the room, for any reason, maybe they're employees who will join us later or community members will move in later or kids – because they don't come to meetings – or whoever it is, or there's somebody's just absent, having someone stand-in for that population or that person, "What impact do we think this decision would have on them?" as part of that naming of individual preferences can also be super handy. So individual preferences of who's in the room and best guesses of impact on people who aren't.

Paul: 13:21

Yeah, I think there's probably at least a whole episode in here about how do we make sure that the perspectives that are not in the room are being brought in when we are making decisions that will affect people that that don't have a say in it. There's a whole set of things in there. I think it's complicated enough even when we're making the decisions that are going to affect just us. I 100% agree with you around mechanisms to actually gather this information effectively and quickly. And the fact that we want to hear all the voices but that doesn't mean we need to hear from all the people. And so being able to say, "Let's hear from two or three. Great. Is there anything else that didn't get said that wants to be added to that? Is there anything missing from what we have heard?" I think is a really useful way of gathering that. Because there are ways of doing this relatively efficiently and quickly, and we've talked about some of them. One of the pieces that I want to add to this, – and we may have talked about this before – but it's kind of been a shift in my thinking recently around group decision making is, at the very least, what I want to make everyone aware of is what things people are willing to accept. And it's not just that I'll tolerate it and resent it. Right? One of the ways that I tend to think about this from my individual perspective is I've got option A, Option B and Option C. I'm looking at these things, and I'm going Option A is totally what I would pick, because that's going to be super convenient for me. I really like that. It's just kind of what I'm doing already. It's super great. Option B, no. I'm a hard no on that one. I'm not willing to live with it because there's problems. These are the impacts that it's going to have on me right now. And from where I'm at right now, I'm not going to go with that. Option C? Option C isn't the one that I would pick, but I am willing to live with it. It's going to be some additional work on my part. But if what I notice in the ensuing discussion, is that everybody else loves Option C, I may be willing to then go, "Okay, I can work with that." I'm not going to pick Option B. Everybody may love Option B, and I'm gonna go,"Hold on." But Option C is the one where I'm going, "I'm willing. I'm not going to resent people for choosing that one." It's not what I would pick, but because I may notice, "Hey, this really helps a lot of other people in the group, and it doesn't inconvenience me that much. I'm willing to do it." And so I think having a way for people to express not only what their preference is, but what their willingness is, I think is one of the things that makes that eventual group decision-making much easier.

Karen: 16:21

Yeah. And I think that where that shift is – like, "How hard is the hard no on Option B?" – we want to encourage everybody to get to the place where we can think about,"What's going to make the group work, because the group work is important to me?" Having group work is one of my individual goals. Yes, there are things that are a hard no, but it's probably a really small set. If, in fact, the rest of the group – having heard how difficult it's going to be for me – still thinks that's the best thing, then I gotta get really interested in "what are my resistances to it?" And this is the piece about making the shift. Okay, we've explored the individual preferences and the individual impact. And then how do we help all of us as a group really shift over into big picture thinking? That this is not about any longer me voting for the thing that I want or that I like or that I think would be best for me. This is about looking at, "What is our mission as a group? What are our goals as a group?" One of which is to meet the needs of everyone in the group as best we can. And often there's an element of that that's "How much am I willing to stretch? Or am I willing to sacrifice something for the success of the group?" I'm calling to mind a Star Trek episode in which they were doing officer training. And there was this simulation that they kept putting people through, and they failed it and failed it and failed it and failed it. And it turned out that the only way that that the Enterprise didn't die – or whatever it was – was for the captain to send a crew member to their death. That a good officer, a good leader in that frame, would be able to, in that moment, figure out that what's right for the group is to sacrifice a person. And we hope it never gets that dramatic or that serious. But I think that frame of not that I have to give up all of my value or dignity or anything, but that there may be a thing that in order for me to be a part of the group that I want to be part of, in order for that group to continue existing, in order for that group to do the thing that we're trying to do together, I may have to live with something I don't like very much. I may have to live with something that's really hard for me. And it's not that I'm less important than other members of the group. It's that the success of the group is more important – even to me – than the thing I have to give up to make the group successful. And so I think really paying attention to "How do we help the group shift into that 'what's going to be best for the group' kind of thinking?"

Paul: 19:18

And one of the things that I try to do around that is that if we treat that expression of individual preferences and willingnesses is as data and go,"Great, now we're all working with the same data. We've now made that transparent." And then what I will often do is ask people collectively to make sense of that data. "What do you notice from that?" We have all this, and oftentimes, someone will name the super obvious thing. "Well, it really seems like there are some people who really prefer this thing, but that also is a very polarizing choice because there's a lot of people who really hate that thing. But there's this other option where maybe it makes sense where, yeah, not as many people love it, but everybody's willing to live with it. And there are enough people who love it that I think maybe that's the sustainable solution for us as a group." And oftentimes, as soon as somebody names that, you just see everybody else in the group– including the people were that was not their first choice – start to go, "Right." And that gets to the thing you were talking about. They go, "Yeah, I'm willing to make that sacrifice, because I can see that this is a more durable, long-term, sustainable solution for the group. That's going to produce a result that ultimately I care more about. Hey, we're actually going to be successful together, rather than me getting my preference about what color we paint things."

Karen: 20:48

Yeah. So I think really, the theme of today's is tease out individual preferences and community direction. And make sure that there's space for both. Typically individual preference first, because it's not just individual preference, it's individual impact. What is the decision going to mean for each individual? And until you have shared that information in some form or fashion – which might be through polls, and it might be through discussion, probably a combination thereof – but until you shared that information, you don't really have any way to answer the ultimate question, which is"What's going to be the best thing for our group to do?" And so we're in that then group think. And it really does take a shift. Somebody in the room needs to say, "Okay, we've got all the individual impacts on the table. Do we?" Get that confirmation. Okay, so now we're all going to change our thinking. And you may want to do something to get that shift to happen. Lots of possibilities, including just giving people time to "Okay, now think and make a few notes about where you think things are coming from, from a community standpoint". But having made that shift, then really exploring, "What are we seeing in the data from individual impacts and preferences that tells us where we need to go as a as a group? And what's going to meet the needs of the group or fulfill the mission or work best about this decision?" And if we can do that, we'll actually end up with each individual likely won't get their favorite choice all the time. But they will get something that will work for them, even if it's a sacrifice, that it's a sacrifice they're willing to make because of their commitment to their goals of the group – or to the health of the group for that matter.

Paul: 22:38

I think that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 22:42

And I'm Karen Gimnig and this has been Employing Differences.