"There's a famous quote from Yogi Berra, who may or may not have actually said it: 'If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else.'"
Paul & Karen talk about the importance of defining the thing that we want and thinking about what's going to get us there.
[00:00:00] Paul: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.
[00:00:12] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig.
[00:00:14] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis.
[00:00:15] Karen: Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, 'What do I want?'
[00:00:24] Paul: So there's a famous quote from Yogi Berra, who may or may not have actually said it.
[00:00:28] Paul: He said, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up somewhere else." One of the experiences that we have had a bunch of, working with clients, working with other people, is the sense that there's something wrong. There's something that's happening that they'd like to be fixed.
[00:00:45] Paul: And in order to figure out what the right way to go about that, the thing that it needs to be happening instead, we need to figure out what this other person, with this group, what they actually want. Because we often have a strong sense of 'what I don't want is what's happening here right now and I just want it to be better.'
[00:01:02] Paul: But often in order to get to not having that feeling anymore, we need to know what we want. And for some of us, sometimes that's a really hard thing to be able to identify and articulate.
[00:01:14] Paul: So Karen and I want to explore here today, what gets in the way of being able to talk about, to understand and talk about what it is that we actually want, and how does that get in the way of us eventually getting what we want?
[00:01:29] Karen: Yeah. And I think this is one of those plastic, classic cultural things. First and foremost, the reason we don't know what we want is that nobody encouraged us to answer that question. Like, it's not part of what's expected of us. And in fact, the opposite is really nice, agreeable people don't have wants.
[00:01:47] Karen: And so we may live into that. And by not saying what I want, by not thinking about what I want, by not acknowledging to myself what I want. Either I'm viewed as nicer and kinder and more agreeable, or, and or, I don't have to do that work. I don't have to engage, I don't have to think about it, I don't have to be all that present for it.
[00:02:11] Karen: The problem is... If a client comes to me, as often happens, with, "I have this situation that I don't like, tell me how to fix it." I can't tell them how to fix it unless I know what they would like instead. What is the thing that you want? Maybe it's something you want from another person. Maybe it's the thing you want from the environment or the situation or the group. Maybe it's something you'd like to have happen.
[00:02:39] Karen: But whatever it is, when people don't know what they actually would like, there's no way to get there. There's no way to aim for that.
[00:02:49] Karen: And as a consultant, there's no way for me to tell them, you know, 'Well, if you do this, I think that will help you get to what you want or it won't'.
[00:02:58] Karen: Because I think there's this presumption when they come to me that I have this theory of best ways to do things that apply across the board. I am this magical consultant that I just have this set of recipes and I'll hand you the right one and you're all set.
[00:03:14] Karen: And that's just not the case. It's all very much about what works for the individuals, which is to say, 'What do they want?' And so if I can get them to answer this question about what do I want, then we can start figuring out how to get there.
[00:03:29] Paul: Yeah. Yeah, there is no right answer that applies in all situations. Like the tools, the techniques, the things that we recommend are all dependent on what it is you actually want. Where is it that you want to be going? We need to at least have a compass that's telling us if we're headed in the right direction. And that matters!
[00:03:47] Paul: I want to circle back a little bit to the thing you were saying. You know, for some people, the fact that we're asking this question is like completely nonsensical to them. They're like, I know exactly what I want.
[00:03:58] Paul: One of the things that I'd like to point out is that not everybody does all the time. And a lot of the time I'm one of those people. Like, this is actually an experience that I try to work through a lot.
[00:04:10] Paul: I had a situation with my parents were surprising us with a visit last Thanksgiving. I mean, by surprise, I mean, we told them not to come and they came anyway. And so my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do and how we were going to work through this. And, you know, there was a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of difficulties sort of going on.
[00:04:30] Paul: And at some point as we're trying to figure out what we're going to do, how we're going to work through this, she looks at me and just says, 'Well, what do you want?' And the words came out of my mouth. "I don't know what I want. I just want people to be happy." And I went, 'Oh no, like I've fallen into this trap.'
[00:04:47] Paul: And I think for a lot of the reasons that you talk about very much in my upbringing. Like, don't rock the boat, don't be too needy, right. Don't do the work of putting it out there. Because also, if you don't think too deeply about what you want, you're not going to be disappointed when it doesn't happen.
[00:05:01] Paul: And so it's a pattern that shows up for a lot of people. I'm one of those in certain situations. I think if you are one of those people who knows what you want at all times and can articulate it, when you're working with someone who doesn't, and who isn't one of those people, you need to have some patience. And you need to have some empathy.
[00:05:21] Paul: And I think I have to remind myself of that when I'm working with clients. Because I can see what I think they want, but they're not able to articulate it. For whatever reason, stuff gets in the way around it.
[00:05:35] Karen: Yeah. And I think this is one of those patterns that's so common in our culture that you can just kind of assume that it's there, it's in the space. It's probably in you, it's probably in whoever you're working with, to some degree. And there are various ways that we frame it.
[00:05:52] Karen: And the thing I just want to keep pointing us back to is, this isn't about good or bad behavior. This is about If we know where we're trying to get to, we have such a better chance of getting there.
[00:06:04] Karen: Step one is, 'Can I figure out what I want?'
[00:06:08] Karen: Step two, which is maybe even more uncomfortable within this cultural frame is, 'Tell someone'. So, 'I don't like this other person's behavior.' 'Okay, what would you like them to do instead?' 'Well, I would like them to do X, Y, Z.' 'Have you told them?' 'Well, no.'
[00:06:28] Karen: Very often. And because 'Wouldn't that be rude?' or 'Isn't that demanding?' or isn't like.. There's all this story that we attach to it.
[00:06:36] Karen: But in fact, most of the time we're working with perfectly reasonable people that if they can understand what we want, have some interest in accommodating that.
[00:06:47] Karen: Whether it works for them or not is another question, but it's amazing how often just saying what I want and they go, 'Oh, I didn't know! Okay. I can do that.'
[00:06:57] Karen: And it can be something that I've been fuming about for weeks. And if I just say it, they can tell me. And so it's both, 'Can I get my behavior aligned with what I want?' And also, 'Can I get alignment with somebody else around what do I want?'
[00:07:14] Paul: We often tell ourselves a story that telling the other person won't do any good, right? And oftentimes that is because it is deeply uncomfortable to express that, right?
[00:07:25] Paul: It's vulnerable to say what you want, because you're now exposing to the world, the possibility that you might not get it. It might not happen. Whereas if you just keep it to yourself, it is a less vulnerable place, but it also means you're much less likely to get it.
[00:07:39] Paul: And so I think we tell ourselves a story that, 'Oh, it wouldn't matter if I told them, so I don't need to, as a way of avoiding doing the vulnerable thing.
[00:07:48] Karen: Yep. Yep. And I think your point that it comes more readily to some people than others is absolutely right on. My first husband and I had this dynamic that would happen of, you know, we'd be talking to somebody and they would say something like, 'Oh, yeah, you come stay with us anytime.' And my husband would say to them, 'Don't say that to her unless you mean it because she'll do it!'
[00:08:13] Karen: Whereas in his world, that's just a polite thing people say, and it doesn't actually mean anything. And so that's just a model of kind of the difference of, are we willing to show up and ask for things, even things that have been theoretically offered.
[00:08:27] Karen: There is a whole thing about offering and giving and receiving and what we say and what's polite that we don't actually trust. That language is correct or is accurate or is real. And I think with good reason. I don't think my husband was nuts. I think sometimes they maybe didn't mean it. They just say it. And so that's the thing to navigate.
[00:08:49] Paul: And we were talking about this a lot in the context of personal relationships, but this shows up in the workplace as well. I have the situation of working with, I was an internal coach in an organization. I was working with a director who asked me to come and work with some of his teams.
[00:09:06] Paul: And I realized after a while he hadn't actually told them what he wanted. Like he hadn't told them why I was there. I was kind of, I was there to help. I was there to support them. But what he didn't tell them was 'You're doing these things and I need you to stop that. And I want you to do this other thing instead.'
[00:09:22] Paul: And so, for whatever reason. I realized that as a result, I was way less helpful and way less useful in him achieving his goals. And I think that's sometimes the way you can frame this. Like when we noticed that someone isn't articulating what they want or isn't, we might know it.
[00:09:39] Paul: I get into this situation a lot where I'm working with someone and they're going to be communicating stuff to their team, or to their larger organization. I'm kind of side coaching them on this. And I may have a real clear sense of what they want, but it's not coming out of their mouths.
[00:09:55] Paul: And so I can say I understand that you might not want to say this thing. You might not want to say 'I'm not satisfied with the level of performance that we're seeing out of this team right now. And what I want is X, Y, and Z.'
[00:10:10] Paul: 'I get why that can be uncomfortable. And I think by not saying it, you're undercutting your own goals.'
[00:10:17] Paul: ' It's not helping you because what you said is where you want to be, where you want the team to be, where you want to..
[00:10:22] Paul: If that's what you want, I think in the larger sense, by not having the conversation about what you want from them, you are not furthering your own goals. And in fact, you're selling yourself short.
[00:10:36] Karen: And I think there's another element of this, which is if you're not clear about what you want, for whatever reason, you know, you're not happy, your body's reacting, you're feeling irritable, you're whatever it is. 'I know I'm not happy.' Very often we'll go to, "Well, what I want is to be respected." Or that kind of language that is not going to help them.
[00:11:00] Karen: Like they don't think they're being disrespectful, probably. So, you know, an example of somebody who's like, 'People just come and ask me for stuff. All day long, no matter what I'm in the middle of. That doesn't work for me. I can't be available for those kinds of questions every minute of every day.'
[00:11:18] Karen: Okay. That's very reasonable. But when someone wants to talk to you about something, how do they know? Like, what can you tell them? What does that actually look like, that you would like instead?
[00:11:31] Karen: Because while it's absolutely reasonable to say, 'I don't want to be interrupted all day long,' that doesn't answer the question of 'What do you want?'
[00:11:41] Karen: And so I think it can be a starter. 'What do I not want?' 'What is making me uncomfortable?' 'Why am I irritated or angry?' Like, those are all good beginner things.
[00:11:51] Karen: But at some point you probably want to get to, 'You know, if I was following you around with a video camera, what would it look like?' The thing that you want, the condition that you want, the thing that would make you comfortable or happy or whatever.
[00:12:04] Karen: What does that actually look like? Or to the extent that people are engaging with me in a way that I don't like, what can they do that would give the result that I want?
[00:12:18] Paul: Yeah. Being behaviorally specific around that is super important. And I often break it down with my clients around things like, What do they need to do? What do they need to say? What do they need to ask? Because those are observable things.
[00:12:31] Paul: And I do think that sometimes we get stuck. I see this all the time where it's like, 'Well, I want them to take initiative.' Well, what would taking initiative look like?'
[00:12:40] Paul: And they have no idea. They can't describe the behaviors of taking initiative at all. And that's where I'll ask, 'So what are they doing now that's not taking initiative.' 'Oh, well, they're coming to me with all these questions. They always do this. They were like..' 'Great!' And we can actually start to describe the present behaviors.
[00:12:57] Paul: And then to be able to go, what are their replacement behaviors? Instead of that, what would you want them to be doing?
[00:13:03] Paul: And once they've gotten specific enough, I can often help with that kind of brainstorming. And be able to go, oh, so what if instead of always coming to you with a question, they led with, 'This is what I'm thinking about doing. Is that okay?'
[00:13:18] Paul: They're asking. They're giving you a proposal instead of asking for permission. And then the other person can say like, 'No, that's not quite right.' Okay. What would the tweak therapy? But like when we start to get specific, when we make it concrete, it actually becomes way easier to sort out what do we not want and what then we do want.
[00:13:38] Paul: And so I think we sometimes do get in that haze of 'I'm getting this thing that I don't want, and I don't know what I do want' by painting a lot of different possible, highly specific pictures. We can help ourselves and we can help others sort of see, 'Ah, that is what I do want. That's what I want instead of what's happening now.
[00:13:59] Karen: So what we're saying is that very often we work with clients and with other people in our lives and with ourselves in these moments where we're saying, 'I'm uncomfortable', 'I'm unhappy', 'I don't like the way things are right now and I want to fix it'.
[00:14:17] Karen: But there's this tendency to skip over the step of defining what is the thing that I do want, where do I want to be instead of here?
[00:14:25] Karen: And so there are a lot of reasons in the culture why we don't do that. Many of us were taught not to pay attention to our wants, certainly not to speak them out loud. And we're going to try and disrupt that. I mean, I think our overall message here is this is 1 of those questions that we're asking because we're encouraging you to ask it.
[00:14:43] Karen: What do I want is a really important question. And having identified what you want, then you can begin to think about 'What's going to get me there'.
[00:14:52] Karen: And if what you want relates to other people, we're proposing that very likely a big, important step to getting other people to do what you want is to communicate to them what you want. To share that information.
[00:15:04] Karen: And if they have that information, then they can respond. Then you can engage. Then it can follow through.
[00:15:12] Karen: And if I realize I want something that's not happening and it's complicated and I want to talk to my coach about it, giving them that clarity will help both my own brainstorming about how to get what I want. And my coach or my friend or my colleagues brainstorming about how do we get to the thing that I really want.
[00:15:30] Karen: And so getting comfortable with what is basically a pretty vulnerable thing of knowing what I want and saying what I want turns out to be a hugely helpful tool.
[00:15:42] Paul: Well, that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.
[00:15:46] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.