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, "Information or invitation?"

Paul: [00:00:26] What Karen and I are talking about here today is an experience that I had recently. I was at a conference. There was a bunch of people who I only see once a year at this particular conference, and we were all kind of catching up on various things. And so I was repeatedly having certain conversations where we were catching up. Or I was meeting some new people and I was telling them about some things, and I was sharing some stories and generally just connecting with people around stuff.

Paul: [00:00:51] And one of the things that as I was catching up with people, or as I was sharing stories, is that it didn't feel appropriate to sort of give the summary of the last year without referencing a rather important event that occurred, which is the fact that my father passed away in February of this year. And I've done my own work around this kind of is what it is. And in a lot of cases, I was intending to sort of share this as a bit of information.

Paul: [00:01:15] Sometimes I was sharing it as a relevant piece of information, to set up a story that I was then talking about that had some point. So I wasn't just casually throwing it out there. And I recognized that people might have some sort of reaction to it.

Paul: [00:01:29] And what kind of surprised me, and what Karen and I want to dig into a little bit here today, is the variety of reactions that I got. And also then me going, "Well, so what do I do about that now?" That "What could have happened?"

Paul: [00:01:43] And that sometimes does happen when we share something like this, that we're intending to just kind of be a piece of information, and that may turn into a conversation about sort of what the deeper meaning of that is. Or we actually might be sharing that not purely in an informational standpoint, but because we actually want to invite the other person in to have a deeper conversation about what that means to us. What that means to them is sort of in that space, and it sometimes can be difficult to tell which one of those two places we're in.

Paul: [00:02:14] So we want to explore that here. The idea that we're sharing something, there's some emotional charge to it that may be kind of universal, right? That it's not just a specific thing, but it may be that whoever we're talking to about this may have a reaction to it that is quite different than our own. When do we actually want to stop and dig in and sort of explore that together? And when, when do we not? And what do we want to do around that? So that's where we want to explore today.

Karen: [00:02:42] Yeah. And you, if you have been listening for a while, you'll remember that we touched on something sort of like this back in episode 145, where we talked about grief. And I shared there, as I may have in other places, that I lost my son a year and a half ago, which is its own conversation changer when it comes up.

Karen: [00:03:03] So I also have a good bit of experience with what happens when I have a piece of information about my life that very much changes the conversation in a way that the other person doesn't have it, and they're not having- it is inconvenient. Because it doesn't set up my story, because they just asked how many kids I have, and they just thought that was a friendly, casual conversation. How do I answer that? Right.

Karen: [00:03:30] So we land in this in lots of ways. And how do you work with somebody who is in that grief spot, is in episode 145, and we're not going to re-cover all of that here. But where we are touching on is people land in different emotional spaces about life events. And so death of a family member certainly is one, pregnancy is another, divorce is another. A loss of a job or that kind of thing can be another. Probably not at work as much, but in other environments, that same kind of thing can come up. So big life events that can be very good things can be, you know, moving from one place to another for any number of reasons. All those things can come up and have a lot of emotional baggage attached.

Karen: [00:04:15] And so the question that we're asking is, is the one that's often difficult to figure out, which is when an event like this gets mentioned, when something like this gets said. Is the thing in the conversation needing to just be information? "I'm just telling you this thing so you'll understand the story that I'm telling" or "I'm telling you that I'm pregnant because then you'll know why I'm saving up all of my vacation to use, you know, at this point or for planning whatever". Or, "You know, I'm telling you that I'm getting divorced because I'm going to miss some days for hearings or something", right? Whatever the thing is. Or, "So you don't put my husband's name on an invitation" or whatever. There could be lots of ways.

Karen: [00:04:56] But am I just giving it to you for information because you're not having it is going to get in the way of the rest of the conversation we're trying to have? Or am I sharing it to you as an invitation into my personal emotional feeling, space, experiential life? And then that's an invitation you can choose what to do with or not. 

Karen: [00:05:19] But it's a different thing. And I think where this goes badly is when a person is sharing it in one way- and it really doesn't matter which way. But if the person that they're talking to then receives it in the other way.

Karen: [00:05:33] So if you know, Paul, what you were talking about with your conference is you were sharing this information. And a certain number of people received it as an invitation to engage with you emotionally. Whether because of their shared experience, or because they were wanting to be empathetic, and be kind and caring toward you, and what must be a painful thing, that kind of thing.

Karen: [00:05:52] And I think it can flip the other way, where somebody does share it as an invitation. "I'm having a rough day. This is a hard time." And it doesn't have to be because it just happened. I have hard days still. You know, a year and a half later, things happen. And so I could be sharing it as an invitation to be empathetic, to be responsive, to be aware of my emotions or giving me, you know, I'm asking, 'Is this a space I can share my emotions', maybe that kind of invitational space.

Karen: [00:06:17] And if people think I'm just sharing it as information and roll right over it, that also is problematic. So it's one of these places where it is what's in between, and if what's in between is a mismatch, we're in trouble.

Paul: [00:06:31] And the question there is kind of how big of a mismatch does it need to be before we decide we actually want to do something about that? Because we, we often put these things out there assuming we're on the same page with the other person around this. That we may think- And I started doing this a bunch later on in the conference when I loved how you framed this, where 'It's inconvenient for you to not have this information'. And honestly, that's why I was sharing it, because it's like because I want to tell you about this thing, that that's an important thing for setting up.

Paul: [00:06:57] And the thing that I want to tell you about is relevant to something else we've been talking about that I think you'll.. But- so I started to preface it with things like, So I'm going to be a complete downer like I have been all week and tell you that blah, blah. And you know that my father passed away in February. And so part of what I was trying to do there was flag that 'this is information', right?

Paul: [00:07:19] But the thing is, as much as I might intend for it to be that way. And I might want it to be that way. It may not be for the other person. This is somebody that I've just met for the first time and we've been totally vibing, talking about something else and want to share this for whatever reason. I don't know if, you know, their father passed away the previous week, you know, unexpectedly, and this is just going to bring all kinds of stuff up for them. Like, it's a risk to mention that.

Paul: [00:07:47] And I kind of started to realise that over the course of the week, you know, the advantage of doing something like this repeatedly, is you get better at it. Or really, you learn what you were doing badly. And so like, because I kept getting surprised by people's reactions to it, I started stopped being surprised. I started going, 'Oh, actually, every time I mentioned this, this is going to be a risk'. Like, 'This is something that I don't know and can't predict how the other person is going to..' 

Paul: [00:08:13] And so what I actually kind of started to do, and I didn't have the language around this until we started to have this conversation, I started to be ready. For me, having accidentally offered an invitation. Right. That actually, I started to get to that spot of like if someone wanted to talk about it or share their own experience or like, that it became like the conversations going in a different way. I was ready to do that, and I think that we might not always be. Again, around this particular conversation, I got a chance to practice it a lot in a very short period of time.

Paul: [00:08:45] But that discernment about like, do we take the detour, or do we not? Does this now become the conversation when I intended it to be an informational detail? Like, that's a thing we kind of always need to be ready for when we're talking about things that happen in our lives.

Karen: [00:09:00] Yeah, and I think you're touching on the vulnerability of this stuff. And the vulnerability is both. It is an emotional thing. And I'll get teary just because it's an emotional thing and it's, and it's real. And my emotions are right there. And I can't- well, I probably could, but I don't choose to completely stuff that even if I'm not- even if I don't want that to be what this conversation is about.

Karen: [00:09:25] So there's that, there is some emotional. Like you were sad when your father died. There is something of that flavor when you remember it. There always will be, I suspect, as there is for me with my son. And there's the vulnerability of 'I don't know how that other person is going to react.' And also of, okay, I've got this emotional- well, I've got grief, I've got stuff that could get pulled up and they may pull it out of me, right. Like, I wanted to sort of roll over it and, you know, share the information conveniently.

Karen: [00:09:56] And they may not give me that choice, right. And they may feel bad if I don't. Like, if I you know, if they offer that empathy and I'm like, "Not right now." You know, what does that do? All that kind of stuff.

Karen: [00:10:07] So I think there's just this real vulnerability in this space, and I want to encourage us to embrace that, but also to be on the lookout for where is the match or mismatch. And I think what you're talking about is, you, choosing to still go into the vulnerable space. You still shared the information, but you gave context so that the person receiving it didn't have to guess whether it was invitation or information. That you gave them cues to say, 'I don't need this to be a big empathy session. I'm not inviting you into this big emotional space. I'm sharing some information that's relevant to the thing I want to keep talking about.' And I think as we share those kinds of information, it's very useful to give those cues.

Karen: [00:10:55] And on the flip side, if you receive information like that and you're not getting cues, here's our favorite word for this episode. You want to get curious about what's going on and instead of trying to decide, you know. So if Paul says something to me about that, and you know about his father died and I didn't know that. Instead of me trying to figure out 'What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to be empathetic?' Am I supposed to like, 'am I supposed to ignore it?' Am I supposed- what does he want?

Karen: [00:11:25] Get curious and find a way to ask that. And it can be "Well, that seems like a really big thing. Is that something you want to talk about?" Right. And if they say 'No', like probably believe them.

Karen: [00:11:37] And if you feel like maybe there's more there in the relationship, maybe you circle back on it later or something like that, but letting it be both okay to be in the information sharing space or to be in that invitational into emotional space is important, but somehow the information's got to get shared about where everybody is.

Paul: [00:11:59] And that it really is sort of about that negotiating process of just kind of figuring out like, 'Okay, so given that we both have very different reactions to this, what are we going to do right now?' Like, 'Where are we going to go with that? Is that okay? What are we going to do?'. 

Paul: [00:12:14] And I guess, you know, I was at least in the space of like knowing I'm going to need to do that negotiation. Like, because I know this is likely to bring something up for somebody, as opposed to the asking about 'How many kids you have?', right. That's kind of- that, that was a surprise for for people.

Paul: [00:12:30] Whereas I was- I was willing to be vulnerable and I was kind of going, 'I don't know how well other people are going to be around this with regards to vulnerability'. And what can actually be really nice is you said there is that, like, and I had this great conversation with a friend of mine sort of sharing this and we were talking about a couple of other things. And then she came to the session, one of the sessions that I ran at the conference. And then we ran into each other later, and then we actually did get into the conversation, where it was actually something from the session that she had participated in. That had affected her deeply.

Paul: [00:13:03] And so we started to talk and, you know, said, 'Actually, now I'm willing to talk about my father's passing in a way that isn't actually just information'. Like, 'We're kind of in this space. I'm willing to step into this with you right now.'. 

Paul: [00:13:15] And we actually, like really treasured the conversation that we had as a result of that. But it wasn't in the moment. But then at the same time I've kind of recognized, 'Okay, there was some unresolved things here. We can decide later.' You know, while I wanted to share this as information initially, later on I offered an invitation to step into that space, knowing she already had the information. And then we could kind of decide where are we willing to go, or did we want to? We did. And we had a really great conversation that was very useful and healing for me as a result.

Karen: [00:13:49] So just to kind of cover where we've been, we're talking about this space where probably it's a life event. There may be other kinds of news, but where there is information to share about a life event, and trying to sort out - do we just want to share it as information because it's relevant to other things, and go on? Or do we want to invite a space of emotional sharing?

Karen: [00:14:15] And so when we share a thing like that, how does it land? So both from the perspective of the person who maybe has that information, that it would be convenient if other people had. But that is likely to get a reaction in some way, likely to have emotional attachment. And probably does for me as I'm sharing it, that kind of thing.

Karen: [00:14:33] And that the key thing is to try to get alignment between the participants, the sharer and the share-ees, whether that's one or more, of 'Do we want this to be an information transfer, or do we want this to be an invitation into an emotional space?'. 

Karen: [00:14:49] And when there's a mismatch there, it can go sideways in a hurry, and somebody can get dragged into an emotional space they don't want to be in. Or somebody can feel sort of run over when they were inviting emotional space in that vulnerable moment, and didn't get it.

Karen: [00:15:04] And so what we're saying really is, it's super useful to give cues if you know that you're sharing information like this. To give some cues to the people around you so that they know what it is that you're wanting from them - Are you wanting it to be information only, so that we can just go on with the conversation? Are you wanting it to be a space of emotional sharing? Both totally fine. But if you give them the cue, then they kind of can know where to land in it.

Karen: [00:15:30] And on the other side, if you're the receiver of some information like this, and you don't know what's being wanted- as what's coming at the information, or is what's coming at me an invitation, to be able to ask to get curious about that. Don't try to decide. Don't try to make a guess. But to engage and ask and find out what is it that that other person was ready for.

Karen: [00:15:53] And there can be some negotiation back and forth in that because even if they thought they were sharing it as information, maybe it was emotional enough for me that I need to engage, or something like that.

Karen: [00:16:01] So being willing to have that negotiation about where are we going, so that we can get to the alignment. That either we're in information sharing, or we're in an invitation for emotional sharing.

Karen: [00:16:14] And that being an information now doesn't preclude the possibility that later on there might be a more emotional conversation. But just to be very respectful of where people are with that, because it's vulnerable territory for everybody.

Paul: [00:16:28] Absolutely. Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: [00:16:33] And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.