Employing Differences

Employing Differences, Episode 151: What leads you to that conclusion?

April 04, 2023 Karen Gimnig & Paul Tevis
Employing Differences
Employing Differences, Episode 151: What leads you to that conclusion?
Show Notes Transcript

"In order for groups to make good decisions, they need to go through that process collectively so that they're actually in sync with each other at each stage."

Paul & Karen talk about how to handle disagreements and differing conclusions in group decision-making situations. 

Paul: [00:00:07] Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Karen: [00:00:13] I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: [00:00:14] And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:00:16] Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "What leads you to that conclusion?"

Paul: [00:00:24] Sometimes on the show we ask questions where we actually recommend that you ask them. And this is one that I find myself using more and more when I'm working with somebody, particularly when I find that I disagree with them. Because I tend to try to make the assumption that the other person that I'm talking to is a reasonable human being, who has reasons for doing the things that they're doing. Even when I don't like what they're doing, and even when I disagree with where they've landed with, regards to some particular conclusion.

Paul: [00:00:54] And so what we want to talk about today is handling disagreements, differing conclusions. When we find that we disagree with somebody, how can we work through that? And one of the suggestions that we like to make in situations like this is asking people, how did they get to where they've gotten to?

Karen: [00:01:12] I think this is really important because very often, and I think this is kind of how we're trained, I can think of some elementary school lessons that came out this way. We're kind of taught to make your case and defend your ideas, say what you want to do or what conclusion you've come to, essentially. So basically jump to the end of the decision making process, state a position and then defend it.

Karen: [00:01:38] And when we do that, we really set ourselves up for sort of head on debate. And there's not a lot of content to work through. The collaborative space that comes from understanding is really lacking. And since that's so much a part of the culture, I'm going to predict that if you're in meetings with any regularity sometime very soon, going to be in a meeting where somebody says something definitive, "It is this way. We have to do this thing", that kind of statement.

Karen: [00:02:09] And you're going to be thinking, "No, we don't". Or, "Where did that come from?" And rather than sort of jumping into that oppositional response, which is pretty common, if you can instead engage and sort of, "Okay, so can we walk back that decision?" Like, "You've come to a conclusion? What leads you to that conclusion?" "What makes you think that? Where is that coming from?"

Karen: [00:02:35] And ideally in a frame and a tone that doesn't make it- doesn't imply that we're being disagreeable and, you know, it doesn't challenge or that sort of thing. But that really what we want here is more curiosity. There's that word we use in every episode nearly. 

Karen: [00:02:50] So that we're just getting curious about where did that come from? Because what I think happens is that if we can walk that back, what we get to is actually some sort of need. Some sort of goal, some sort of objective. Something going on that we're trying to achieve. And we may then find multiple directions we could go for how to achieve it so that the conclusion becomes more open for debate, even as the underlying need and objective gets honored.

Paul: [00:03:18] I've landed on this statement, or this question, really, over the years, in part. Just because I've been exposed to so many different frameworks and tools for conflict resolution and group decision making. That all seem to kind of get to this point that in some way or another, take us out of that realm of confrontation, as you framed it, that head-to-head confrontational thing. 

Paul: [00:03:42] 'I think this, you think that' and try to reframe it into the place of collaboration of seeing the same things, of looking at the same data. Of going, "Okay, I have landed in the space that I've landed in. The conclusion I've come to, from the experiences that I've had, from the things that I've seen in this situation, those sorts of things." "There are lots of things that have led me to the conclusion that I've landed on, and there are a number of things that you've experienced that you've seen, data you're working from, that have led you to the conclusion that you've landed on."

Paul: [00:04:13] And the idea is that we may be able to work through that disagreement simply by sharing the data that we've worked from. Or the experiences that we've had, to start to try to understand if we can each be curious about the other one. About how they got to the conclusion that we may disagree with. Then we can probably see a little bit more. Well, I can see it's reasonable that you would come to that conclusion and then we could start to go, "Well, given that, given you've given me information I didn't have and I've given you information you didn't have, now what might we do with that?"

Karen: [00:04:48] And I'll just offer as a correlation to this that, you know, we kind of came in at this from the back door, which is how we see it arrive in a typical meeting.

Karen: [00:04:57] But a good facilitator, certainly when I'm facilitating, one of the things I want to start with, if I've got a complex topic, is the data. That instead of having to go back and get it, if we can start with "What is our shared understanding?", "What history has come that's relevant to this?" "What facts or information are relevant to this?"

Karen: [00:05:18] And I, often as a facilitator, will try to gather that even ahead of a meeting. So that I can open a meeting with a little presentation about "So here's what I understand that I think we all agree about. Do we all agree about that so we can get to sort of a shared basis of data?"

Karen: [00:05:35] Then we can begin to try to draw meaning from it and eventually get to a decision or a conclusion. But if we aren't grounded in the same data, and worse, if we don't know that we're not, the odds of it going sideways are pretty high.

Paul: [00:05:48] Yeah, it's funny because there's- like I said, there's a number of things that I've run into over the years. So things like crucial conversations where they talk about how when safety starts to leave the room, the thing that you really need to do is to establish enough safety that you can start to put things into the shared pool of meaning. So that we're both working from the same data around that. 

Paul: [00:06:08] Or things like the focused conversation with the idea of the ORID framework, which is sort of a sequence that you want to go through when you're asking questions.

Paul: [00:06:16] So the O is Observational. What have we observed, What have we noticed? What's the data? The D at the end of that is Decision Making.

Paul: [00:06:23] And very often, what we tend to do, we kind of go through this process naturally as human beings. We land at that decision making, that conclusion thing, without necessarily even realizing what led up to that. Because we're so good at it, we do it so well. So instinctually, we go from 'thing happens out in the world' to 'I make meaning of that thing'. 'I have a feeling about the meaning that I have made'. 'I come to a decision about an action that I'm going to take as a result'. You know, in the blink of an eye, we do that. 

Paul: [00:06:54] And we don't even realize we're going through that process. We're really good at it. And it serves us really well in a lot of situations when we're by ourselves.

Paul: [00:07:01] The thing is that in order for groups to make good decisions, they need to go through that process collectively so that they're actually in sync with each other at each stage along that. And we get relatively little training and little support for doing that. And so it is very, very often one of the things that I do as a facilitator, is help groups to go through that same process that we would go through as individuals, to come to those conclusions.

Karen: [00:07:30] Yeah. And I think it's worth saying here that like any of these sort of lengthier processes that we recommend on this show, "Think about where it fits and where it doesn't".

Karen: [00:07:42] I've also sat in meetings where people were so determined to share their thinking that, you know, there was a proposal that was actually not objectionable at all. Everybody kind of saw it like, "Sure, yes, we can do that". But before we heard the proposal, we had 15 minutes of, "Well, this is the problem I was seeing and this is all the information that I gathered. And this is why I, you know, sort of making the case" and burying the lead.

Karen: [00:08:05] And I think there are times when the thing to do is say, "Hey, this is what I was thinking. Would that work for anybody?" Like, and then you can use the question, "What leads you to that conclusion when it doesn't work?"

Karen: [00:08:16] So, I think some discernment here about how much of a process we need. So, being clear about "what are my reasons", "what data am I working from", where, you know, having that, getting a little more conscious of my own thoughts with that. But also, just paying attention to the room, and "how much time do we actually need to spend on this?" The more complex it is, the more we're going to need to slow down and take apart and get to shared data. But there are certainly times when somebody says, "Hey, I think we should do this thing". And everybody goes, "Yep". And you're done.

Paul: [00:08:48] Right. Right. Because there isn't a disagreement there. I absolutely agree about burying the lead. And it's actually one of the things that I coach a lot of leaders to do, and I try to do this myself a lot, is the "state your conclusion and then walk people through it", right?

Paul: [00:09:05] "This is what I'm thinking we should do." "Here's how I got there." "Show your work." The degree to which you need to do that is probably the degree to which you sense that there is disagreement, or the sense that there is complexity.

Paul: [00:09:17] But if people don't know where you're going, when you're giving that whole narrative and that story, a lot of people will lose it. They can't follow you. You've lived that experience. You've come to that conclusion. You've seen all this stuff and you know where it ends.

Paul: [00:09:30] So, what I coach a lot of people to do is to say, "Here's my conclusion. Now let me walk you through how I got there so that you can ask me questions along the way. About the linkages that led me there so that you can tell me where you're experiencing or seeing something different that I'm missing. Because my conclusion may change based on that."

Paul: [00:09:50] "So by doing that, it allows me to create a space for the other people to engage." And I think that's particularly important when you have someone who has some position of some structural authority but still doesn't want to be dictatorial. Right? They don't just want to say, "Here's what we're doing", they actually do want to engage the rest of the group. 

Paul: [00:10:10] But they also need to use their authority and their decision making power effectively. To set direction for the group, and to be open to be influenced by the group. When they notice, when they discover that there are holes in their thinking. And so, I love that idea of not burying the lead and showing enough of your work that is useful to bring the group along.

Karen: [00:10:31] So I just want to track kind of where we've been with this. So we started with the place that we think you'll run into this concept most often, which is someone naming a conclusion as a standalone "This is how it is", and there is some disagreement about that. How do you handle that?

Karen: [00:10:48] And a really good way, we think, is to ask the question "what leads you to that conclusion" or some similarly curious question that's not going to put anyone on the defensive, but it's really trying to track back to the data and the reasoning. 

Karen: [00:11:01] So, that we can check to see "are we all working off of the same data?" And that very often will reveal the underlying need and objective. So we can honor that.

Karen: [00:11:09] And it may often reveal differences in data. That, "What data I have and what data you have may be different". So that's one place that this shows up.

Karen: [00:11:20] And then we can also sort of pre-emptively use this same concept as we're facilitating. We can start by trying to get a shared basis of data and then work forward through the disagreement. That can be really useful.

Karen: [00:11:34] It can also be useful as a presenter to be thinking about "We need to give that how we got there". And an awful lot of the time, we're going to want to start with the conclusion. And then go back and sort of backfill with what the reasoning was as a way to make ourselves open to the feedback that could really come from the group.

Karen: [00:11:53] So just being thoughtful about like a lot of things that we say, this can be applied in a number of ways. And depending on the situation and the amount of agreement, or disagreement, there is how much of this work is really necessary, or even useful, will vary.

Karen: [00:12:06] But thinking in terms of- we know that as humans, we start with data, move through some processing and get to a decision. And if we're going to do that collectively in a group, we need to be transparent about all the steps so that we can work together through all of the steps to make good decisions.

Paul: [00:12:23] Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:12:26] And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.