"The best antidote I know to a thing being functionally or socially forbidden, even though it's a thing we would like people to do, is for people to start doing it."
Paul & Karen talk about dealing with topics that don't seem safe to broach.
Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.
Karen:I'm Karen Gimnig.
Paul:And I'm Paul Tevis.
Karen:Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is "What is forbidden?"
Paul:In any group, in any organisation, there are things that we don't do and things that we don't talk about. In fact, sometimes it's the not-talking-about-things that we don't do that is even more problematic. And oftentimes we have to figure these out as we come into a group by sort of feeling our way around. By recognising what isn't being talked about, that we are not doing, or what are we running into. That's oftentimes, these things can be very useful, that certain things are forbidden. There are absolutely certain environments in which I live in and I'm very glad that it is considered a no-go zone to make overtly racist comments, for example. That is something that is, it is explicitly forbidden in a number of spaces. And there are also things that, for whatever reason, we don't do. Not because we have explicitly forbidden them, but because for whatever reason, we've decided it's not safe to do them. Or we're just not going to do them or talk about them. And sometimes those things get in our way of working together and working together well. And sort of being in community with each other. And so we wanted to explore today these forbidden topics. So really the topic of 'being forbidden' and what it is, how that shows up in the ways that we are, and work together.
Karen:You think it's useful to, as a starting point for this conversation. Just to get curious about the group that you're in, the organisation that you're in, the team that you're on. What are the things that we aren't allowed to do? And probably it's less interesting to talk about the things that are written down in a policy book somewhere. Really, what's interesting to me is, what are the things that "We just don't do that here"? It's in the culture, it's in the expectation. Or maybe it's even a thing that theoretically would be a good thing to do, but"I'd never do that", and "I haven't ever seen anybody else do that". And what effect does it having, that we don't do those things? So starting with "What are the things that are forbidden?" And then particularly the subset of "What are things that are forbidden that actually would be good to do". So, just by way of example, I've just moved into a co-housing community where everybody is very enthused about lots of social engagement and social activity. And for a number of things, reasons related to things going on in my personal life, I've opted not to participate in a lot of that. And I have said to the group, through our Slack channel, I'm not participating in things. It's intentional and you all have fun. But I'm- I'm not, right now. And someone else said to me, "I'm so glad you're setting that boundary. Because it gives me permission to set that boundary." That, that actually saying "I'm not interested in hanging out with you all" is pretty forbidden in the group I'm in right now. And I'm just contrary enough that I didn't follow that forbidden-ness of it. But if I had, and I certainly could have, and certainly could feel the pressure of what's expected to show up at this and that. And some comments have been made.
"Don't you know there's a huddle on 9:30 in the mornings?" And yes, I do know that. And I will not be there. But there has been some pressure on that that I could have given in to and didn't. And so it's interesting to think about what was the impact that I chose to do something that was not approved of. Was somewhat forbidden.
Paul:What's important to me around that is this idea that, you know, we- we often have these ways of working, the ways of being. That we want to kind of be the norm. That we want to be the default. This shows up particularly, you know, in collaborative and consensus spaces where it's like "We actually do want to make sure that we're going through these processes in a way that actually gets a lot of information out of people that people will feel on board with the decision." And that "Largely, by the time we get to a point where a decision is going to be made, that everybody is on board with it. Like, that's how we want it to be. And as you and I have talked about, if every decision gets to that point and no one ever objects and no one ever blocks, that's probably a sign that there's something going on that we don't want. That, those options. So, things like choosing not to participate in the social activities. Those should get exercised with some regularity, with some frequency. Someone actually blocking a decision in a consensus space. That needs to happen so that we know that it's working properly. And if we fall into the trap of those things 'being forbidden', then we very easily get into the space where things aren't actually working the way that we want them to be.
Karen:And I want to add to the mix here that there's the 'forbidden by external', which was more what was going on in my example. That if I hadn't done what was really right for me, it would have been because I didn't want to disappoint other people. And that that pressure was in fact coming from outside toward me. There are also things that are 'internally forbidden'. And one that I see come up certainly in the co-housing community world a lot, and I think happens in other environments as well, is we want to be spaces where we help each other out. We want to be spaces where we give people things and do favours for people. And, if we need a thing, that we get that thing. And lots of sharing and all that. Well, the thing is, often in these groups there is a forbidden-ness that's usually pretty internally driven by each individual. Not to ask. It is forbidden to ask for help. It is forbidden to be needy. Which, of course, means that all the people who want to help are foiled. Because they don't see the need. So you've got this whole group of people who have this really strong value around, "We want to help each other", and they don't do it very well because they don't get good information about what help is needed. Because there's an 'internally forbidden'- 'asking for help' is not a thing that we do. And in both cases, whether it's coming from outside or coming from inside. The best antidote I know to a thing being functionally or socially forbidden, even though it's a thing we would like people to do, is for people to start doing it.
Paul:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I'm going to take this into a slightly different realm, which is actually in the realm of, in the workspace, particularly when we do complex work. So things like in medicine, in manufacturing and things like that. And in this idea of safety culture. So when, we're actually looking at when problems emerge. Because in environments like that, there will always be problems. Mistakes do happen, system errors occur. And the only way that we can actually work effectively in those environments is to talk about them. Is to actually, I mean, and not just like "Something went wrong. What can we learn from it?" It's "Something almost went wrong. We had a near-miss." as they talk about, in a lot of different environments. We actually need to dig in and go, "What can we learn from that?" However, it's often forbidden to talk about mistakes we have made, errors we have committed. Sometimes it's really forbidden to talk about mistakes the boss has made, which is a whole other set of things. And so that's a case where that can be forbidden from my cultural upbringing, from the lessons that I've brought forward, you know, for me to do something wrong, is a moral failing, as we've talked about before. It may also be the signals that I'm getting in the environment. That there isn't a recognition of the importance of actually talking about these sorts of things, and maybe they're punished. And this is actually where a lot of Amy Edmondson original research on psychological safety came from. Was recognising that in surgical teams, the teams that actually got better results, that had better patient outcomes, actually had higher reported rates of error. And that doesn't mean that they were making more mistakes. Because when they dug in, what they actually discovered was that the teams that had worse outcomes actually had more errors but were reporting fewer of them. Because it was forbidden to talk about those sorts of things. And so one of the antidotes that we know about from that kind of work is for people, particularly folks in positional authority, to talk about mistakes that they have made. To talk about errors, to talk about these sorts of things. That when someone, who has the least reason to do this thing, to take cover under the sort of cultural prohibition against talking about these things, when they actually exercise the option to do it. When they do that, that models the behavior in a really, really powerful way that starts to tell us, "Oh, I guess this really isn't forbidden."
Karen:So, I think just travelling where we've been from this concept of what's forbidden, and like a lot of our questions, it's a question we're encouraging you to ask yourselves about your group. To take in and get curious about, and what is forbidden in our culture. What does the culture of this group that I'm in, say, is not okay? And other than the things that are forbidden, which do we like, and which actually are not serving as well? And then thinking about "What are the impacts of those things?" Is it forbidden because others in the community are reacting negatively to it? Is it forbidden because I am self restricting, or both? Could be all of the above. Is it somewhere in our hierarchy that the boss is discouraging or people are afraid of the boss in whatever way? Where is it coming from? And then, how do we change it, and possibly talking about it? And the number one thing that we think changes it is for people to start doing the forbidden thing. And then it becomes 'not forbidden' because the person did the thing and they didn't die or get banished or fired or anything. And, "Oh, maybe I could do it, too!" And so I think just that little piece can make a huge difference in how effective our groups are.
Paul:Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.
Karen:And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.