Employing Differences, Episode 193: How bad is it?

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

[00:00:11] Paul: I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:13] 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, how bad is it?

[00:00:25] Karen: So this is a question that Paul and I have talked about in various framings that we both use a lot in our work with consulting, and it has to do with the experience that we have that people can get really stuck on an idea. 

[00:00:41] Karen: So often this shows up in disagreement spaces where there are two ideas in play, and I see that this choice A is better than choice B, but somebody else really wants to do choice B. And we dive into the fight, or we say, well, we can't do that because it's too expensive, or it's too time consuming, or it's too difficult, or whatever. 

[00:01:04] Karen: And what we're proposing is that when you get in that spot, stop and ask yourself, how bad is it? How expensive is it? How much time will it take? How much money will it cost? How bad is that? How much of a problem is that other idea? Like I may like mine better, but what's the actual cost of doing it the way that the other person wants of that choice B option? How bad is it? Because once we know that, we can weigh what we want to do about it.

[00:01:38] Paul: Yeah, what I tend to notice and sort of where this conversation came from is that when there is a thing when there's a decision to be made or an action we need to move forward with, and it's going to have some consequence, or it's going to entail something. There's two things that we really need to consider. One is, what is that actual thing? Sometimes this is an assessment, right? It's like, here's how much it would cost. Here's how long it will take. Here's what the implication of doing that would be.

[00:02:08] Paul: Right? And then there is the what's the emotional judgment we have about that thing, right? It's too much or it'll be too painful or it'll take longer than I would think that it should. Right. There's often this is very judgment-heavy land. And the problem is that in discussion in a group, usually we just get that latter part. "Well, it's too expensive. right?" Or that's not worth it, right? And we never hear the other piece. What is it we're actually reacting to? And the idea of asking how bad is it, how much does it cost, how expensive is it, is that that creates a spot for collaboration and shared understanding.

[00:02:49] Paul: If I'm asking Karen, you know, what do you think about moving forward with this proposal? And she says, it's too expensive. And I don't even know how much it costs. I might agree with her. Yeah, that's more money than we want to spend. But me just taking her at her word of it's too expensive means now I don't have to collaborate with her around it because I don't know what not too expensive looks like. And so what we're really pointing to is this idea of, can we get concrete about what the thing we're reacting to actually is?

[00:03:23] Karen:  Yeah. And I think that's especially important because very often the person whose role in the group is making sure we don't spend too much money or making sure we don't spend too much time, which is a really useful role. But they are also likely to be the most concerned, the most conservative, the most cautious. 

[00:03:44] Karen: And so the fact that that person says it's too expensive may not be the only data we want involved in that decision. We may want another perspective from someone who is less cautious, but also we want to take in what is the real information. So we do want to hear from the person who knows what it will cost. And we don't want to dismiss the most cautious person, but we don't want to just always do the most cautious thing because somebody says that's too dangerous. Well, what is the danger?

[00:04:14] Karen: What is it that we're actually talking about? And the other place that I see this is in the land of disagreements where people just get stuck. It's not as good an idea. We have to do the best idea. And the problem is that there's a cost to the disagreement. There's a cost to that process. There's a cost of other people not getting the thing that they think is best. 

[00:04:35] Karen: And so even, and I have done this, I have to say any number of times where I've been in communities trying to make decisions, and I have been absolutely sure that choice A was the better choice. And if I could remember what they are, I probably still would believe that choice A is the better choice but not at the cost of dragging people into something that they don't feel good about, not at the cost of lengthy meetings that it takes to get there, not at the cost of people feeling disregarded, possibly not at the cost of them not learning what they would learn from making the worst choice and experiencing that worst choice, right? 

[00:05:12] Karen: There are lots of things that come with it. And I've just said, you know, if the community isn't ready for choice A, which I'm just so sure is the right choice, but if they're not ready, then even though it's not the best choice, it's the right choice for this group at this time. And I can do that because I know that it's not that costly. And I can only do that if I get out of the which is the better idea and into the what is the full picture of all the ideas. And then I can make a choice that's actually the best for the situation.

[00:05:46] Paul: And it's actually about seeing the full cost, right? It's not just the cost of the decision, it's the cost of making the decision, right? It's the, do we really step in? Do we undervalue that? And do we recognize? And it's super easy when we're in these situations to lose sight of that right we often fall into that cycle of of of I just know that I'm right. And now and it moves and this is always the dangerous thing right in any group where we move from the we're trying to make a good decision to, we're trying to win, right?

[00:06:22] Paul: Now it's not just, you know, I used to teach workshops about conflict where we talked about escalation of conflict and levels. And one of them was, you know, we go from this space of, I think you are wrong, or we go from, I think I'm right, to I think you're wrong, to I must win and you must lose. And that's often what happens in this, is that we get caught. because we're not really recognizing that that conflict part of it is part of the cost. It's part of the badness, you know, that it's that that is worth avoiding more than the thing that we, you know, the downside we see of the choice that the other person is advocating.

[00:07:06] Paul: And that's where we get caught up in it. And it makes sense, right? Because we get hijacked and all kinds of things. We're in the middle of it. We can't see it. 20 years later, we look back and go, oh, why did I argue about that? That was dumb, that kind of thing. But it happens. It happens for a lot of different reasons. But kind of the point that we're talking about here is that like, The the more that we can talk about those things that are concrete, the less likely that is to happen, because we're going to stay ground and other people can kind of bring us back. Right. And just kind of go, yeah, but is that really that bad?

[00:07:42] Karen: Yeah, and the one other example that I'll throw out of this, which is in the risk realm, but that we could get sued like this terrible thing could happen. And and yes, we live in America. It is always true. We could get sued. One of you could sue Paul and I because you gave us because we gave you terrible advice on this program. This is a risk we choose to live with. But that's one of those things that we we throw out this. It will be catastrophic. And if somebody says, well, wait a minute, what what if we were and what does it cost us to try to avoid that? 

[00:08:19] Karen: What do we lose by not doing the thing that might get us sued? So again, that how bad is it? What is the real risk? And trying to get the concrete, not because we're going to ignore the emotional elements, those matter too, but it's important to treat them differently and not that, as you're talking about that merging of the assessment and the judgment all together, separating those out so that we can work with both the sort of concrete what's real, and the emotional what's real and make a good choice with all of the information.

[00:08:58] Paul: Yeah. There's this weird thing about how it's like if I have the same information you do, I might actually come to the same conclusion. It's weird. Not guaranteed to happen, but there's a better chance of it. And that's one of the things that we're really talking about here. So to track sort of where you've been, talking about this idea of how bad is it? How risky is it? What would the danger be? What would it cost? How long would it take? That when we ask questions like that, we can start to uncouple the assessment of a thing from the judgment about it. And that creates a point for collaboration, for actually working together. 

[00:9:38] Paul: When I know what is the danger that Karen is worried about, I can then think about that too. And I might come to a different conclusion. I might come to the same conclusion. But more importantly, I find a way to work with "Oh, okay, this is the thing that she's reacting to, this is the thing that she cares about." What could we do that might actually create some shared path forward there? That can be really useful. And so asking about how bad it is can help us get there. It can also help us to notice when we're digging in our heels, in a situation where the conflict that we're going to need to go through to get to our, quote, better solution isn't going to be worth it.

[00:10:19] Paul: The conflict that we're going to need to go through, the emotional damage that we're going to do to the group is actually worse than the thing we're trying to avoid, the danger there. And so it can be a useful clue to ourselves to notice when we're maybe arguing too strongly for a thing that isn't actually as bad as it seems. 

[00:10:40] Paul: And so to be able to let go of that, so that we can actually have a more helpful process, so we can move through, so we can continue to work together in ways that are more effective. So the idea of thinking about how bad it is, is useful in that relational space, both because it helps us make better decisions, but also to stay more connected with the people we're trying to make decisions with.

[00:11:05] Karen: And that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

[0011:08] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis, and this has been Employing Differences.