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: [00:00:14] And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: [00:00:16] Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Fact or feeling?"

Karen: [00:00:24] So Paul and I were chatting about this scenario where the conversation seems to be very focused in the factual, cognitive, logical kind of realm. These are the reasons and they're all "It's not about what I want, it's about what's true. It's about the data that we have", that kind of thing. But that as a facilitator, somewhat outside the situation looking in, it seems clear to us that those facts are very much influenced by the feelings.

Karen: [00:00:57] And so the person expressing the facts is hugely unconscious. They have no idea that this is happening. They think they're being completely reasonable and logical and not paying attention to the feelings at all. But in fact, the feelings are very much in play. And so the question is, is this really fact or is this really more about feelings?

Paul: [00:01:23] One of the things we know about human beings and the way that they make decisions is that very often we are led by our immediate emotional response, that we then find facts to support. Like this actually happens at an unconscious level. It's super important for survival, but we are decision makers, not with our prefrontal cortex first, like we make decisions at a much lower level of the brain that we don't even realize. So this is something that we know about, about the way humans operate.

Paul: [00:01:54] Daniel Kahneman's work in behavioral economics and things like that kind of exposes a lot of this stuff. And so it's super common that this happens. It's just that often we don't recognize it. And often we don't recognize it because we all kind of feel the same way about a particular thing.

Paul: [00:02:10] We're selecting facts based on the sort of impulse, or the need, or the thing that's important to us. And when we're relatively aligned in a group about what it is that we want, what we think is important, things like that, we don't notice that that's happening.

Paul: [00:02:25] And I think where we notice this most often is when we're working through some sort of decision-making process. Or something is happening in a group, or in a dyad, or something like that, where we each have different emotional responses to the options that are being presented or the things that are happening.

Paul: [00:02:43] And so it may be that Karen and I are trying to make a decision about what to do. And one of the options that is on the table is something that I care very, very deeply about. And I may not realize that I'm really presenting a very selective set of arguments to move that thing forward. And Karen can notice it because she doesn't have that same emotional response to it.

Paul: [00:03:06] And so this is a thing that we should expect to happen when we're working with people who think differently than we do, who care about different things. This is one of those things that we should expect when we're working with other folks. Either inside as a member of a group, or if we're sitting outside as a facilitator, we should expect that it will happen. And we want to work effectively with it when it does.

Karen: [00:03:30] And one of the things that I see happen when I'm in the place of being driven by feelings but thinking 'I'm just in facts', I tend to think everybody else is being unreasonable. 'The facts are very clear.' And why aren't they? 'Why aren't they convinced by this very obvious factual basis that I am presenting?'. 

Karen: [00:03:53] And the answer is that something about how I'm presenting it either, you know, probably the facts are facts. I mean, probably that's true. But boy, are we selecting the ones that apply? Or where we're naming as the primary premise or the primary objective or something like that? Is this thing that that actually isn't the agreed primary thing? 

Karen: [00:04:16] So we're framing it in some way that while there's some logical cohesion to what we're saying, there is early on usually some kind of fallacy. But if I'm sitting with that sense of 'I'm giving everybody like a totally clear, obvious path to this thing, why aren't they seeing it and why are they being so unreasonable?' That's probably a good hint that I should check what's going on with me, possibly bounce it off of somebody else. But, you know, 'Why am I so out of alignment with other people when I'm only dealing in the facts?' Yeah, probably. Either I'm not only dealing in the facts, or the facts aren't the most important thing. Could be either of those.

Paul: [00:05:06] Yeah, the psychology term here is 'motivated reasoning', which is where we- yeah, those facts are true. But there are also other facts that we are unconsciously ignoring that we're not bringing in. We may be blowing some things out of proportion, but it's the 'We're using logic to support the conclusion that we've come to.'. 

Paul: [00:05:25] And that's one of the things that can be really useful to notice is if I've landed on a conclusion, we've talked about this before, and I'm attempting to show my work of how I got there. I'm presenting this argument, I'm presenting this set of facts, and other people aren't following along. You're right, that should be a clue that there may be some gaps here. And if I'm engaging in this, if I'm noticing, "Oh, maybe I'm doing some motivated reasoning here."

Paul: [00:05:51] Which of course the challenge of noticing that is you're already you know, you're down two already. The first is "I care very deeply about this thing." The second is "I'm frustrated because people aren't listening to me." So the chances of you noticing that you're doing it in the moment are not really the best, but it can happen. And so being able to watch for that is useful.

Paul: [00:06:11] I think another useful thing around that is noticing if you have done that, like you come out of the meeting, you come out of the process later on. You know, as you sort of cool down a little bit, maybe you call a break, because it's clear that you're not making any progress on this thing.

Paul: [00:06:28] That may be an opportunity for you to notice. "Oh. Huh. This pattern is happening. I'm putting this stuff out there, but people don't seem to be buying it." The useful thing is always to ask yourself, "What am I doing that may be motivating that?" or "What's going on?" And you may be able to come back and you may be able to say like, "I'm noticing that I seem to be standing alone on this."

Paul: [00:06:48] However, it's always great when the person who is engaging in this behavior notices it, but I think the more common thing is I'm, you know, Karen's dealing with me and I'm all wrapped around the axle around this thing. I have to imagine most listeners are thinking, "Great, What could Karen do about Paul at this point?"

Paul: [00:07:07] When I'm in this situation, and I notice this other person is really claiming to be logical that their logic has 12 million holes in it. From the way that I can see it, doesn't align with the facts that I see it. What do I do about it? Because just telling people that they're wrong or even worse, that they're emotional, is probably not going to get you anywhere closer to an effective solution.

Karen: [00:07:29] Yeah, I mean, that's totally true. And I think one of the things that is most common that happens and not particularly useful is that we debate the facts. "But you're leaving out this thing" and "You're leaving out that" and try to have a logical argument. And the problem is that you're trying to use facts to solve a feeling problem, that the disconnect is somewhere in the emotions. 

Karen: [00:07:52] And it can be tricky to get to those. So one thing that I look at is 'Where are we coming from?' 'Are we trying to solve the same problem?' 'Are we trying to achieve the same objective?' 'Do we value various outcomes in the same way?'. 

Karen: [00:08:11] Like, if we're not aligned in what we're trying to accomplish, or where we're trying to get to, then it's not at all shocking that we have different ideas about where to go. Or which path to take, or how to approach it.

Karen: [00:08:22] So if you can take a step back and get out of the sort of minutia argument that you may be stuck in and get a little bit more macro. Or a little bit more, you know, 'where do we actually want to be'. That can reset the whole conversation and you can find some common ground there. So that can be really useful. And then the other thing I'd be looking for is 'where is their common ground?'

Paul: [00:08:48] Yeah, the being able to take a step back and just see like, "Wait a minute, are we even aligned on what we're trying to do?" is certainly useful. Another thing that can be useful to do is to potentially, without using the 'feelings' word, find out what is it about the thing that's important to the other person. You know, I may ask. It's like, "Seems like there's something in this that's really important to you, and I'm not clear on what that is. Could you help me understand that?"

Paul: [00:09:14] And you're actually asking them to take a step back again out of the minutia, but into their motivation. Because they may not even realize that this is important to them in some way, or what is important about it to them. Because as you start to come to understand that, now you have a broader set of possible acceptable solutions. 

Paul: [00:09:35] Because usually what happens here is the person has latched on to "This one solution is the only way that my needs will get met, that the thing that I care about will occur." Because it's the only one that's currently on the table that they can see that will actually do that.

Paul: [00:09:48] And they're often going about that argumentation in such a way that it doesn't allow for creative problem solving of going "What else might we do? Because clearly there's something about that solution that doesn't work for everybody else." Or they have concerns, whatever it is. 

Paul: [00:10:03] And being able to step back and ask about like, "Help me understand what about this is important to you" often will calm people down. Because they do get a sense of like, somebody else cares about me and what's important to me. You need to ask that question from a place of genuine curiosity that can help rebuild a little bit of that connection.

Paul: [00:10:22] Because when you feel like you're arguing for your logical thing and you're all on your own, you're disconnected from the rest of the people that you're working with. And so if you can have a little bit of that connection back and that can bring your anxiety down and then for you to step back and go, "Oh, okay, wait, what is important about this to me?" 

Paul: [00:10:40] That all of that kind of gets out of that cycle that we're stuck in when we're engaging in motivated reasoning and no one seems to agree with our reasoning.

Karen: [00:10:50] Yeah. I think another approach, similar outcome, but another approach is to say, "Okay, we've got a few options on the table here. Let's look at each of them." Like, so take it apart a little bit. So if we did that thing that this person wants, what would be the pros and cons of that? What would work well, what would achieve? What do we expect the results would be? What do we like about it? That kind of thing.

[00:11:14] And starting with the one they want will again help them calm down. They'll feel heard. Other people are suggesting positives about it, even if they don't think that's where they want to go. Everybody's collecting those ideas. 

Karen: [00:11:27] And then look at the other one and have the same conversation. And that can be an entry point for this person to think through what the pros and cons of that are, and to hear some different things.

Karen: [00:11:37] So it's again, getting out of the sort of oppositional or debate kind of style of we're fighting over the facts and into a space where we can be on the same side. So we can together have the conversation about the pros and cons, and maybe even just the pros. Sometimes the cons for one are the pros for the other. So like, maybe you just do the positive side of each one. But getting into that.

Karen: [00:12:00] So now we're on the same side of generating those positives and then hopefully we can all be on the same side of generating the positives for the other one. And that gives us that connection again. So that's another strategy for getting to that place that we're back in a connected space.

Paul: [00:12:17] Yeah. As usual, when you find yourself caught in a pattern in the minutiae, and you're kind of stuck taking a step back, and taking a little bit more of a meta view, is always useful. And what we tend to recommend on the show.

Paul: [00:12:28] The other thing that I want to point out is just really that it's important not to treat the other person as though they are wrong. And we don't want people to come away from this episode thinking, "Oh, you know, when there's one person who seems like they're engaging in motivated reasoning that therefore they're wrong", they may actually be seeing a lot of really useful things that it's useful for the group to know about.

Paul: [00:12:50] But because of the way that they're engaging in the conversation, those aren't becoming apparent. And so there's we've talked about this on the show before. There may only be one person who's objecting to this course of action, and they may have really valuable information that when it becomes available to the rest of the group, the rest of the group agrees with them.

Paul: [00:13:09] So it's more about the how we're interacting and whether or not that that's getting us to the place that we want to be and helping us make good decisions as a group. Not about the fact that there's just one person, therefore they must be wrong. And so we have to convince them to stop doing what they're doing. That is not at all what we are saying here today. And didn't want to leave without giving that disclaimer!

Karen: [00:13:32] I think that's a really important disclaimer that the goal here is not to get to one outcome or the other. The goal is to get to connection. To where we're all having a conversation on a plane where we can engage with each other and hear each other. Super important.

Karen: [00:13:47] So to track just kind of where we've been, we started with the question of what happens when we have someone who is using facts to argue for the thing that they are emotionally driven towards wanting, or that is their bias. And so the facts aren't connecting for everybody else that way. And the feelings that aren't being talked about are actually driving the conversation.

Karen: [00:14:10] So what are some hints that I might be doing that motivated reasoning? And one of them is if I'm making a perfectly logical argument and nobody else seems to understand the conclusion that so obvious to me, that's a sign something's amiss. And I might want to be looking at that, and thinking about how that's going.

Karen: [00:14:31] And then what do I do if I'm on the other side of it? And someone seems to me like they're engaging in this and we want to get reconnected with them. 

Karen: [00:14:41] And again, we're not trying to dismiss them or shut them down. We're trying to get reconnected so that the things that they're seeing are useful, but also the things we're seeing are useful.

Karen: [00:14:51] And one way is to check in with that person, "What's important to you about this?" "Why does this matter to you?"

Karen: [00:14:57] And another is to step back into the kind of macro. What are our shared goals and objectives and where are we getting. And a third is to look at the pros and cons of each of the options as a group. So everyone, as a group is collectively on the same side, same task, of getting to what are the positives about each thing. And that can create a connected space again.

Karen: [00:15:21] And finishing just with that disclaimer that make sure that what you're trying to do is not to shut down, or dismiss, or win, against someone else when you see this, but that what you're trying to do is to pull that person back into connection with the rest of the group so that we can have a good discussion about all the things that are useful.

Paul: [00:15:41] That's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:15:45] And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.