Karen: [00:00:06] Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: [00:00:13] I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:00:15] And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: [00:00:17] Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is Where is the gold?

Karen: [00:00:26] So an experience that Paul and I have both had. In fact, it's it's more usual than not, is that when we are, either as an external consultant brought in, or within an organization working on facilitating a meeting, kind of wherever that might show up. And somebody says, "We need to deal with this topic". 

Karen: [00:00:48] That, very often, the topic needs some work before we really know what we're going to do with it. It's either too broad or it's focussed. Maybe it's focussed all on the emotional or all on the cognitive or one side or the other of that. Or it's asking kind of an impossible question or it's too narrow or in a particular, or in the wrong place, that kind of thing. And so we want to explore today, how do you know where to go? How do you help someone, who has a topic they want you to deal with, figure out the useful piece of that?

Paul: [00:01:26] And the, you know, to dig into the metaphor a little bit, right. There, the idea that 'there's gold out there somewhere'. Where do we dig that gives us the best chance of actually finding it? And because sometimes people will engage, you know, us as consultants or as facilitators, and they'll have a plan for where we should dig.

Paul: [00:01:44] And I think one of the things that happens, very quickly, is that based on our experience, we might get the sense that there's not a lot of gold where they would like us to dig. And so that process of sort of figuring out. Like, what lies underneath where things are? 

Paul: [00:02:01] The given, the topic, the presenting problem, as it's sometimes talked about, is a skill. Learning to be able to hear what people are saying. And then to sort of hear what they're not saying. Hear what's happening in the larger environments, to get a sense for whether or not you should take what they're saying at face value, where you should get more curious, what are useful questions to ask to kind of start to redirect them?

Paul: [00:02:30] It's a thing that, you know, I've had to, to learn over the years, both as an internal coach and consultant and now, now being external. I've really gone, 'All right, based on what you're telling me. How can I help you make use of the limited time that- honestly, that the group has available for digging with this?' 'What's going to be the doorway into this' that gives the best chance of the group actually getting out of it, what they need to. Or my particular client getting out of it, 'what they need to', 'what they're hoping for'.

Karen: [00:03:08] I think this is one of the trickiest topics we've brought actually, because a lot of it is intuitive. For me, I think- and I suspect for you too, Paul. And at the same time, I'm going to say it's really important to think about it.

Karen: [00:03:23] It may be a thing you have to learn how to do over time and through experience, but to be asking just at the start, what is the right approach to this? I feel like a recipe for a really bad meeting is to say, "Okay, somebody wanted to talk about this topic. We've allotted 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour", whatever the amount of time is. "Okay, we're set!" And then see what happens.

Karen: [00:03:45] I think this is a place where it's super useful to just pause and say, "What is the outcome?" And we've talked about that before. What are we aiming for? And sometimes we don't 100% know that.

Karen: [00:03:58] But let's explore a little bit. 'What do we think might come out of this?' And then the next piece is 'Where are we?' Where are the various individuals, the various teams or sub teams or parts of this, that 'where are people now?'. 

Karen: [00:04:15] You know, if everybody's finger pointing and blaming, that might be where the kind of gold is, around this. If everybody's, you know, dodging. You know, "We're not blaming anybody!" 

Karen: [00:04:28] And then, then that may be a place to go. Like, but also it may be a particular part of the topic. It may be looking at the big picture that's missing. But just to begin to ask those questions, 'what's going on here', and ideally in getting a few different perspectives on it.

Paul: [00:04:47] Mm hmm. I think that part is really key. And it's very common as an external consultant, that my initial contact with an organization, will be one person. Who is the decision maker, the person who is actually going to decide whether or not to bring me in.

Paul: [00:05:03] And they have a perspective on what it is that they want out of this work, and particularly when it has to do with their organization. I recognize their perspective as one of many. Now, it's a perspective that absolutely matters. And also what they say is not the only story about what's going on.

Paul: [00:05:23] And so I do find it really valuable to talk to multiple people. It's one of the things that I build into a lot of my process, is just kind of saying, "Hey, you know, if we decide to move forward with this, then I'm also going to want to talk to 3 or 4 relevant folks who you think will have other perspectives on this that are useful for me to understand."

Paul: [00:05:43] You know, ideally I'm going to talk with the whole group before starting to dig into something, but it really depends on on what the nature of the work is. Because, you know, I want to get as full and as contradictory a picture as I can. 

Paul: [00:05:57] Because I want to get that early! I don't want to be surprised by that when I come into the room, or when I really start working with the group. I want to get a really rich picture. And so one of the ways that I do that is that I, you know, I try to meet with multiple people to get multiple perspectives on it.

Paul: [00:06:13] But I also, when I'm talking with any of those folks, as I kind of said before, I listen for the perspectives I'm not hearing. I listen for what are people talking about, but what are they not talking about?

Paul: [00:06:24] So if I'm talking with, you know, an executive sponsor who wants me to come in to do some work to help them figure out what they need to do better around this process next time. And they're not talking at all about the emotional state of the group, who has just gone through this unpleasant thing. If they're talking purely at that level of planning and lessons learned, I'm going to ask some questions about "So, you know, what's the emotional tone in the group right now? Where are they at?"

Paul: [00:06:54] I had a prospective client recently where, you know, we were talking about some of this work. And I just said "How much blaming is happening?" That was language that this person was not using at all. And I was kind of going, "That's a thing." Like, based on my experience with humans and working in groups like this, I know that something is going on.

Paul: [00:07:14] But if I'm not getting any information from the person that I'm talking to about it, if they're not volunteering it, it may just be that they don't think about things in that way. And they're just not volunteering it. Or sometimes they go, "Oh yeah, there's that." And then they tell you everything, which is often useful. But so, it's talking to as many people as I can, getting as much perspective that I can, and asking about perspectives that I don't think I'm hearing.

Karen: [00:07:39] Yeah, and I think that's really important to look at. Also, what part of the history are you hearing or not? You know, did something go badly when we just instituted a bunch of new stuff. Or, you know, has something been "We've been rolling along just fine for years with this and then something went badly." Huh! You know, like, just that kind of big picture question, whatever that might be, just to kind of feel out.

Karen: [00:08:10] So, be prepared to ask some open ended questions. And also some very blunt kinds of questions. Look for the things that people naturally avoid. Conflict, judgement, blame, kinds of things. 'What's there?'. 

Karen: [00:08:25] And then I think, you know, based on that, you gather a plan of attack, so to speak. You pick a focus, pay attention to how broad or narrow it is. If it's too broad, or you're just going to skim the surface and not get anywhere. If it's too narrow or you're going to miss the key thing, that turned out to be important. So you're gauging that. And then having picked that focus, go into the experience expecting to be wrong.

Paul: [00:08:53] Mm hmm. Yeah. And I do think it's important to pick a thing and put it out there and see what reactions you get to it. It can feel weird because as an outsider, you know the least about the situation, about what's going on. And so to have a strong perspective about where you think the gold might be can feel weird.

Paul: [00:09:15] And I think it's useful to put forward a useful theory and then see what reaction you get to it. Holding that lightly, being curious about the reaction you get to it and being willing to pivot.

Paul: [00:09:27] And I've done that, you know, in consulting engagements several times, where I did have kind of an extended discovery process. Where I said, "Look, you said you want me to come in and help you with this thing." "I've met with a bunch of people based on that, that thing that you said that you wanted me to focus on. I believe that's a symptom of this larger thing. And I think where it would be useful for you to focus is here" and then see what reaction I got.

Paul: [00:09:53] And usually the reaction is, "Oh yeah, actually that does make sense", right? And I'm sharing with them, then like, "Here's what I heard, here's how I came to that conclusion." But I think you also need to be open to the "You're right. That is probably something that's there. And here's why we don't want to dig into that right now." 

Paul: [00:10:14] Because there are things you don't know about what's going on. It's like, it's a "Yeah!" And I've had this all the time with clients, right, where it's like, "If only they could deal with this one thing", but they're not ready to do it. They're not capable of doing that from where they are right now.

Paul: [00:10:27] And that's another part of that, uncovering, as you said, like, 'where they are'. It's like, learning where their capabilities are. Are they ready to dig into this? Are they ready emotionally? Because it may be it would be super useful to find out what really happened around this incident so that they can learn from that.

Paul: [00:10:46] But if they're in a hot spot where it's just like there's way too much blame going on, there's way too many emotions around it, then I'm going to come back with, "Look, the most useful thing I can do at this point, to help you in the limited time you have, is to help people process. And to build some empathy to help defuse the situation. Would it be great if you could take some concrete learnings from this?" "Absolutely." But don't think you can. Certainly not in one meeting!

Karen: [00:11:13] Yeah. And I think what you're describing there, on a couple of different levels, is setting expectations. So people come in often without clarity. They think it's going to be this big thing. They might know something about the topic. 

Karen: [00:11:27] But having figured out where we're going to go after the gold, setting up the expectations of "This is where we're focused. This is how much we think we can get done. This is what's realistic to get done. This is the direction I'm headed." 

Karen: [00:11:39] And just making sure those expectations are in alignment with what folks are wanting. And being prepared, as you say, to be flexible and pivot, when it turns out that it's not. But also to be willing to chew through it. You know, just because they say they want to pivot doesn't mean they do. Or that that's going to be the right thing.

Karen: [00:11:59] So, again, leaning into that intuition that you have as a facilitator that says, "Huh." And then, you know, "Would you be willing to try this thing?" Or, you know, "I think there's going to be a benefit. Can we explore this for a little while and see where we get that kind of thing?"

Karen: [00:12:16] So it's that mixture of being the voice in the room that keeps them from running away from the useful thing, but also is super responsive and paying attention and flexible and able to shift when that's the thing to do.

Paul: [00:12:31] One of my teachers like to say that working with groups is like, it's like working with an 800 lb gorilla. "Don't try to arm wrestle it, but nudge and see where it wants to go."

Paul: [00:12:45] And so I think that's the sort of 'in the room' piece you really need to be ready for, is kind of going "I thought that what we were really going to do here is dig into, you know, what was the sequence of events that led to this? How is this different? What can we learn from it?"

Paul: [00:12:59] And as it turns out, they're not ready to do that. I don't try to force them to do that because that's, that's steering like- if I'm wrestling a group that's moving them away from the gold, it goes back to that whole idea. That like, this is one of my trainers liked to say, that "The best workout is the one you'll actually do."

Paul: [00:13:16] It's like when I'm in the room with the group, are they capable of doing that is going to be useful for them. It's going to help them move forward in some way. I like having a theory about that. I like testing those theories before I get there with them, but also being ready to notice in the moment that I was wrong or that I was off base a little bit. Like, for me, that's always the goal, is going "I was almost right!" Most of these things were right. I was just missing this piece and then being responsive to that when I'm actually working with them.

Karen: [00:13:47] So just to summarize where we've been, we're paying attention to the idea that very often the topic that we're asked to discuss isn't really quite where it needs to be to be useful. And so how do we, as a consultant or facilitator, go searching for the gold? For the way in that's going to give the useful result? That's either what they know they need, or what they turn out to need, or what is feasible given where they are.

Karen: [00:14:15] And we're saying that a lot of that is intuitive. A lot of it is 'feel your way'. But some hints to help with the intuition are talk to multiple people, get multiple perspectives and listen for the thing they're not saying.

Karen: [00:14:30] Bring up the things that they may be avoiding and ask explicitly. And then also ask the open ended kinds of questions so that they do speak freely. 

Karen: [00:14:39] And then think about where is the cognitive and emotional. Think about where is the breadth or the narrowness of the focus that's needed. And what's ready. What do they have the capacity for? What's the 'real rich thing'?

Karen: [00:14:54] And then go into the meeting prepared to follow the group, have a direction in mind. And be prepared to follow the group where it goes, while also holding the group in that rich space. Once you find it or when it seems to be headed there. So just that, and you'll be all set!

Paul: [00:15:16] Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:15:20] And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.