Employing Differences, Episode 187: Why aren’t we talking?

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

[00:00:13] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis  

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

[00:00:17] Paul: Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is Why aren't we talking?  

[00:00:25] Karen: So this is a question I have occasionally been asked in the midst of facilitation, when I have proposed that we have some silent time or quiet time, or non talking time, for another purpose. 

[00:00:39] Karen: And if someone has not followed the instructions or not tracked what I was saying about the instructions, they will get all curious about why are we sitting in a room, why did we all come together and then not actually talk to each other? So why aren't we talking? Why do we have this space where we're not talking to each other and what we want to explore today is as you're planning meetings. 

[00:01:03] Karen: So this is really speaking to a facilitation method that it can be incredibly useful to have times when, although we are all sitting in a room together or sharing some kind of space together, even on Zoom. That we are not actually using that space to talk to each other. And there are a lot of really useful things you can do with periods of time as short as 30 seconds, or a minute, or as long as half an hour or more, of being together without speaking in that space. 

[00:01:35] Paul: I think it's going to be useful for us to kind of go through a few reasons why we think that because I agree with you. It's the sort of thing that I try to build in, in the work that I do, as well. And I think one of those reasons is that our conversations with each other can be much clearer when we have an idea of what we are going to say. 

[00:01:55] Paul: If you and I are going to talk about some challenging topic, right? We have a disagreement about the future of the show, or we have a disagreement about what we're planning for the next coming year. I can come into that conversation, you know, unprepared and just kind of see what falls out. 

[00:02:13] Paul: Or, what I found is more useful for me, is to have a sense of 'What is it that I'm trying to say?' 'What's important to me?' 'What is it that I want to want you to understand?' in order to have that conversation. And quite frankly, I can't always count on myself to do that work before I get into a meeting.  

[00:02:32] Paul: It's lovely if both of us do that before we hop on a call and sometimes that just doesn't happen. And particularly when we're dealing with a large group, we can't rely on everybody having done those kinds of things ahead of time.  

[00:02:45] Paul: So it can be really useful to build them into the structure. Where we're just going to take the time in the meeting to give people a chance to get clear on what they think about a thing, what they're noticing about a thing, what questions they have before they actually start talking to each other about it. 

[00:03:03] Karen: Yeah, I think there are a few reasons why this is a good idea. Certainly the one you mentioned that if we asked everybody to do this in advance, they wouldn't. I mean, some of them would, but our experience is that if you ask people to do homework, I can't remember the last time I was in a room full of people who had been asked to do homework where everybody had actually done it. 

[00:03:23] Karen: And that's just the reality we live in. But there are better reasons than that actually, which I think have to do with mentally sitting at home alone in my own space. Not necessarily the same headspace, the things are not going to come to me in the same way. My brain doesn't work the same.  

[00:03:42] Karen: There is a thing about 'I'm in the context.' 'I'm in the moment.' 'This is the part of my life.' You know, 'I have segmented this time to focus on this.' And even just I'm seeing these faces. I'm in the space with these people. This group and its interests are much more present for me. I'm going to think about it differently.  

[00:04:00] Karen: There's also a time proximity thing. I could do my homework two days before, but it's not as fresh in my brain as it is if I do it right at that moment. So maybe if everybody did it for however much time it was going to take right before they walked into the meeting, maybe that would work. But there's real value in we've all just done it and we're all in the headspace. 

[00:04:24] Karen: And the other thing that I want to just throw out here is that we think that we can listen and then just immediately respond, but most of us can't. For most of us, we do our thinking better when we're not also trying to listen. This multitasking thing that I can come up with ideas while I'm also really taking in what somebody else is saying, not usually true. 

[00:04:47] Karen: And so, if I've had a chance, when nobody's talking, to think about what I want to say, the odds are then I can listen while they're talking. Whereas if there's always somebody talking for a lot of people, there's no opportunity to do good thinking. Because they're always distracted by what else is going on in the room. 

[00:05:09] Karen: So I think a lot of things can happen in silent spaces or non speaking spaces, at least, that help us be more present with each other. Potentially enjoying the presence of each other when we're not talking and then being much better speakers and listeners once we start talking.  

[00:05:30] Paul: And less people get this sense from us that this is, you know, just the sort of thing that is useful for a community group, or for a group of friends, or whatever it is. 

[00:05:41] Paul: Like, I want to point out that for a number of years, and this may still be the case inside the organization. Amazon had a practice. Where the way that they would start all of their sort of important meetings was by doing a group pre read.  

[00:05:56] Paul: Like, so they would have these six page documents that are sort of the 'Here's the thing that we're here to talk about the decision we're going to make. Here's where we're going to move it forward.'  

[00:06:03] Paul: They knew no one would ever read them before the meeting and that the meeting would not be well suited to doing them if you hadn't read them.  

[00:06:11] Paul: And so they just allocated half an hour at the beginning of every meeting for people to come into the room. To remind themselves, as you were sort of talking about, to get into that proximity of space and time and being with those people. Reminding themselves to prime themselves for this is the thing we're here to do, and then sit down and do the read, figure out what questions they had, what did they want to go through. And so this is one of the largest companies in the world does this. Because they find that it's an essential business practice. 

[00:06:39] Paul: So yeah, I think that if we really want groups to do their best thinking together, we need to remind ourselves that talking at each other is not always our best thinking. And that we have way more options for how to think when we are together, than just having a conversation.  

[00:06:59] Karen: So I want to kind of dive into some specific implementations of this concept. 

[00:07:04] Karen: So the one that I have just built into my facilitation practice, and I, you know, I do a lot of work with groups that use sociocracy structures or otherwise do rounds. Or we're going to go around and everybody's going to say what they think.  

[00:07:15] Karen: And one of the complaints that I get from groups about doing that is that people talk too long, and it takes too long, and people wonder and what they're saying and all that kind of thing. 

[00:07:24] Karen: And don't listen very well, because if it takes half an hour to go around the room, and the average attention span is maybe seven minutes, depending on which research you look at, clearly, you're not going to get 30 minutes of good listening.  

[00:07:35] Karen: And what I have found is that all of those things get an awful lot better if before I do the round, I say, we're going to take one minute. 

[00:07:43] Karen: In a minute, we're going to have a round on this prompt, and I'm going to give you one minute with nobody talking. To think about what is it that you want to say, or what is it that's important for this group to hear, or, if I worry that people are talking too long, I may even say, you know, jot down the one sentence that you want to offer about this. 

[00:08:04] Karen: And if people have done that in one minute, you've saved yourself. 10 people's extra minute of talking that they didn't actually need to do and increase their capacity for listening.  

[00:08:17] Karen: Now, do people still sometimes change what they're going to say based on what they heard earlier in the round? Of course they do. 

[00:08:22] Karen: And that's fine. But everybody at least started with a, "I've checked in with myself, I've thought about what matters. I've set some intention" and the round takes less time and is way more useful. So that's one example of just the "One minute think before you speak."  

[00:08:39] Paul: And I know that there are probably some people out there listening to this going, "But I work things out by hearing myself say them." 

[00:08:46] Paul: And I say that because I am one of those people and I have also, I've also adopted this practice. For a number of different, you know, I do it for myself, right? And it's like, Great, if I'm going to be speaking about a thing, I will take the time to figure out, just jot down the three things that I want to make sure that I say.  

[00:09:03] Paul: Because it makes me way less rambly. My point gets across much clearer. It was unnatural for me to do it first. And with practice, I got way, way better at it.  

[00:09:12] Paul: And that's the thing about these kinds of practices, is that groups and individuals, when you first do it, they're going to go, "Well, this isn't what we normally do." And "Well, this isn't how I like to work!" and whatever have you. 

[00:09:24] Paul: And that's just because it's different, right? It's not their natural way of working, but that doesn't mean you can't learn how to do it. And that the benefits of learning how to do it aren't good not only for the group, but quite frankly, for the person themselves!  

[00:09:37] Karen: Yeah. So I think all of that's absolutely true. 

[00:09:41] Karen: A couple of other strategies that I sometimes use depending on the topic. And of course, these are just things that you apply where they fit. I wouldn't necessarily do all of these at the same meeting or every time.  

[00:09:52] Karen: But another one is to do some kind of guided meditation. So everybody take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and think about whatever the topic is. 

[00:10:02] Karen: So if you're talking about budgets, think about how do you relate to money and how does money work for you and what are your values around money and posing some questions or thoughts. So that people are just in their own heads, not trying to figure out what everybody else is thinking, but a little deeper connection to self. 

[00:10:20] Karen: And another version of that, that I have sometimes done, is a written journaling exercise. So here is one prompt or three prompts or whatever it is. And in that case, I usually encourage people to get an actual pen or pencil. An actual piece of paper and writing implement. We know that brains work differently when we hold the thing in our hand and make letters out of it. 

[00:10:41] Karen: And just to spend five or 10 minutes. Doing their own writing journaling about a thing. And again, I use those when I want a little deeper engagement, I'm more apt to use those if I have more than an hour. You know, if I have a couple of hours, then I have more space for that kind of thing, and what I'm facilitating.  

[00:10:59] Karen: It's all the same premise. It's just to what depth do you want to use it?  

[00:11:04] Paul: And it's connected to the idea that we talk about fairly often is that multiple frames within a particular meeting are useful where one frame is "This is the whole group." There's another frame where we're doing stuff in small groups, right? 

[00:11:19] Paul: We may be doing things in triads or dyads or things like that. Moving between those is useful. This is just pointing that the smallest group is also useful where the group is just you. Where you're having, in a sense of conversation with yourself, where you're getting in touch with that sort of thing. And just recognizing that's just another addition to that repertoire of techniques that you may already have in terms of, it's not just the large group talking about things all as a plenary session. 

[00:11:49] Karen: So just to track where we've been. And we started with looking at "Why aren't we talking?" And the answer is because we can do really good things when we're not talking.  

[00:12:00] Karen: And it's very much about thinking, are there things that we can do individually in the same room that will help us have a better experience when we are collaborating or talking together in the same room? 

[00:12:15] Karen: So it might be, we're all reading a prep document together while we're in the room for as much as half an hour. It might be everybody's going to do a little journaling. It might be some sort of guided meditation piece, or even sharing of an art piece, or a poetry piece, or something. It might be just before a round at any stage in a meeting, take one minute for everybody to think, what am I going to share in that round to make the quality of the round better? 

[00:12:41] Karen: And what we think will happen is that the quality of the sharing will be better. The quality of the thinking will be better and the quality of the listening will be better. And thus the overall quality of the work will be far more satisfactory.  

[00:12:55] Paul: Well, that's going to do it for us today until next time. I'm Paul Tevis.  

[00:12:59] Karen: And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.