Employing Differences, Episode 196: What will repair this?

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

[00:00:11] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig.

[00:00:12] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:13] Karen: Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, what will repair this?

[00:00:21] Paul: One of the things that I've learned over my years of working with individuals, with groups in any sort of set of relationships, that one of the most important things that you can have as a group is an understanding of how you want to repair things when things go wrong, because things always will. Right. We can talk about how we want to work together. We can talk about what we want things to be like. And we know that those things are aspirational. Something will go wrong at some point along the line. 

[00:00:50] Paul: And so it can be really good to have some skills and some agreement around how are we going to repair things when things go wrong, when when you do something that isn't what I wanted, What am I going to do about that? And how can I approach that in a way that actually helps the relationship rather than damages it? How do I make things better rather than worse when something has gone wrong? So we want to explore a little bit today, things that we've discovered about how to do this, about things that work, things that tend not to in terms of when something happens in a in a pair, in a partnership, in a group, in a team that isn't what you wanted. What can you do to help repair it?

[00:01:33] Karen: And I think one of the tricky things about this is that you have to figure out what will repair it. And I think the tendency and the sort of cultural norm is just to get pretty stuck in, you shouldn't have done that thing. And so the thing that in that frame, the thing that I theoretically want is for you to turn back time and make it so that you haven't done that thing. And of course, that's not very useful because nobody can turn back time.

And the thing that happened is the thing that happened.

[00:02:05] Karen:  And so there are some steps one can work through to kind of try and get to being able to ask myself and answer myself, what is the thing that would help? Like, I'm not happy about this. And, and it may be that, that the person I'm working with that they did the original thing. that I'm not happy about. It may be that I did something that they're not happy about, but then they responded in a way I'm not happy about. So it can be sort of reactive in two directions or it can be one directional.

[00:02:32] Karen: But if I'm not happy with another person, the likelihood that they're going to magically figure out what it is that would solve this for me or make me feel better is really small. And in fact, if they try, the likelihood that they'll get it wrong and make it worse is frighteningly large, which is why things can domino into like, years-long grudges, which is what we don't want. So we I think want to think about what will repair this is a super important question.

[00:02:58] Paul: And it's not something that we're often used to thinking about. It's actually it's a growing edge thing for me. That's something part of the reason we're having this conversation is I've been having a couple of situations recently where I need to do this, where something has happened. I need to know an expectation that I have wasn't met. And and I then I tell myself a story about what that means. Right. And I get all emotionally worked up about it. And I'm at the point where I can talk to the other person about it. And I can talk to them pretty calmly and rationally about it. I'm usually at some distance from it. I'm like, hey, this thing happened. As we've talked about before, it affected me in this way. So what I made up about what that meant was this. And I got angry. right? 

[00:03:37] Paul: And unfortunately, I got to leave it there. And the other person is kind of left going, Okay, so you got angry and you're not angry now, but what do we do? And I get caught in this space of not actually being good at figuring out, you know, there's still some piece that needs to be addressed here and I can't articulate it, right? What do I actually want them to do now that would make it better? 

[00:03:59] Paul: You know, maybe I am still, you know, caught up in it or or there's a and usually that's a sign. Right. It's a sign that like I haven't gotten enough distance from it to be able to go, okay, what would actually counter that story that I tell? Right. The pattern that keeps coming up, the meaning that I ascribe to it, if you would be if you could do this or this or this or this. Right. You know, I need to get to the point where I can say what would make this better for me is if you could do these things.

[00:04:28] Karen:  And when you get to that point, there is, of course, the possibility that the person you're talking to will say, no, or I can do one of them. And hopefully if they can do one of them, like that's a good start, right? Hopefully there's some balance between here, all the things that might help. And if you can do any of them, that's great. And very often, actually, if the person who's unhappy can give two or three options, one of them looks super easy to the person who's, "Oh, you wanted that? Oh, no problem. I can do that."

[00:05:03] Karen: And not always. And I think one of the reasons that we can be have a hard time asking ourselves and answering this question of what will repair this is because that's actually a really vulnerable thing to do. It means like opening up what my needs are and asking to have them met. And honestly, if you have no idea what I need and don't do it, that's not nearly as painful as if I've told you explicitly what I need and you don't do it. That's way more painful. And so by saying this is what I need, I create the risk that I will be dismissed, ignored, hurt further by that thing not happening. And it's that vulnerability that makes the relationship work.

[00:05:45] Paul: And it's hard work because you also, I mean, ideally, if, you know, hypothetically, right, Karen, if you've done something that, you know, that I need some repair around, you're like, Karen did this thing again. I part of the relational skill is for me to know what's a thing that I might really want you to do that there is no way that you can do right and don't ask for that right think of do some other thinking and it's like wait a minute based on what I know about Karen about my working with her what can I ask for that she could say yes to easily that would actually help me? 

[00:06:24] Paul: And this is one of the things that working together more helps you get more of a sense of. But yeah, because obviously I can't ask you to turn back time. I can't ask you to undo what's the thing. And the more that I make it a demand, we've talked about the difference between demands, requests, and invitations. The more it becomes a demand that you have to do this thing, the less likely that any repair is going to happen here. 

[00:06:49] Paul: That's one of the places where we can spiral into this just getting worse, is it's a thing that you can't do and I absolutely need you to do it. So I need to get to that spot of, how can I make it easy for you to do the thing that will help me, that will actually help me feel better about the situation, that will help me get back into a right relationship with you? but it also means that I have to do some self-management around that first because my first instinct is probably to ask for something you can't do.

[00:07:18] Karen: Yeah. Yeah. And one of my favorites, and this is super common is, you know, Paul, you keep doing this thing that I hate. And, and by the way, I'm pretty sure, you know, I hate it, but you keep doing it. And for me to say, the thing I need is for you to never do that again. Well, you're doing it for a reason. The idea that something that you have habitually done for 50 years of your life, you're simply going to stop doing, because I am, and the odds that I'm the first person who didn't like it, really small. Like this might be true when you're 25, but by the time you're our age, it's been there. If I'm doing something that annoys you, I promise it's annoyed somebody else before. 

[00:07:58] Karen: And there's a reason I'm still doing it. And it may not be conscious, there may be a lot of things, but if the only way to solve this problem is for me to radically change a habit that's been with me for decades, I'm gonna say that's not the most viable. Like we want to look for a different solution than that, which isn't to say that I can't work on changing the thing. And it's not to say that the feedback isn't useful. I'm just saying that if that's the only solution, we're probably going to have trouble.

[00:08:23] Paul: And also that that's not a thing you can do immediately then and there. I am almost certainly, if I want you to change something, and if I say, I want you to promise me you'll never do this again, or I want you to never do this again, I don't know that you're never going to do it again. It might feel good if I actually hear you say those words. I promise I'll never do this again. But on the other hand, I probably got a thing in the back of my head going, I don't believe that. That's not really, is that really going to repair this? And so it can be like for me, oftentimes a thing that I want to ask for that the person can do right then and there is it would just be helpful for me if you acknowledged that you did the thing. 

[00:09:04] Paul: And they can say, yeah, I absolutely, I was late. I didn't call, right? I didn't deliver this thing on time. Like, I just want an acknowledgment without excuses, right? And I can say, as we've talked about on the show before, it's like, you know, there may be any number of reasons why this happened. And I honestly don't care about those right now. I just, what would be useful and helpful for me, for you to acknowledge that this was late. And you can say, yeah, it was late. I missed the deadline. 

[00:09:32] Paul: And that will often make me feel better. And then we can maybe, you know, again, we're starting to repair here. Now I'm going, okay, we're in the same reality. Let's start to talk about, hey, what I'd love to know is just what are you know, what are some of the reasons, right? Things like that. And so being able to ask for something that the person can actually do right then and there that will address and repair the relationship.  You're you're not trying to make everything perfect. You're trying to get back into connection with that person. You're trying to or the group. Right. You're trying to come back together and go, okay, we acknowledge that something bad happened, something we didn't want. Let's acknowledge that and start to come, start to re-approach each other and then start to figure out what are we going to do about all this.

[00:10:13] Karen: So another thing that shows up with this, yes, being able to just say, yes, I did the thing. The other, another piece that I just want to play with that is the apology piece. And there are people for whom they really want that. And there are people for whom they don't want it at all. And I'm actually in the camp of thinking apologies are less one of the less likely things to be the solution. I think too many of us somewhere in our childhood got told to say you're sorry and now it's all fine. 

[00:10:44] Karen: And it didn't feel fine then and it doesn't feel fine now. And that the power of just I'm sorry doesn't land necessarily. So I just want to point to what will repair this. I wish there was an easy answer. And there isn't and, and we're all different. And so this is why it's so useful for the person who needs the repair to say, this is the repair that I need. This is the thing that would help.

[00:11:10] Paul: Yeah. And the the challenge is that, you know, when you've when you've had that emotional upset, when you've gotten, you know, your expectation of that thing has happened. Right. It seems kind of unfair that you also have to do the work to figure out what would make it better. But, but in some ways, that kind of is what it is. Because the alternative is, right, you know, you kind of unload on the other person, right? And you're like, and you don't tell them what would make it better. And then they go off and do something because they're like, "Oh, my God, I want to make I want to make it better. And they do exactly the wrong thing." They do what you don't want to do. And that's the danger that that you run into. So it's really about recognizing that if you don't ask for what would make things better for you, one, you're unlikely to get it. And two, there's a good chance you're going to get something that isn't what you want, that in fact may make things worse.

[00:11:59] Paul: And so, you know, and that's really why for me, it's worth doing the work to get better at this skill, because it is a skill, you know, being able to recognize Here's what it was about that that, you know, that affected me in that way. And here is a thing that's going to counteract that at least a little bit that I can start to know that. And another thing is that when you start to do that enough, the people that you work with start to clue into that. Right. If you start to ask for the things that are going to make it better when, you know, when some repair needs to happen, they start to guess at it, right? So that if you're in that state where you don't say what you need, somebody says, I'm wondering if it would make things better if I were to, right?

[00:12:38] Paul: And then they say the thing that, you know, didn't quite come out of your mouth because you've said it enough before that they start to recognize it. And so they can guess at what would make things make that repair easier. So that's that's really the thing is that when you do this enough in a in a in a group, you know, with a with a partner in these in these situations, you both get better at it.

[00:13:00] Karen: Yeah. And there are two things in what you said that I really want to pick up on. And one is that guessing thing. It's a fair bet that when you need repair with someone, they aren't great at this. They aren't great at knowing what would help them. And rather than what you were describing of, well, they do something to try to make it better. It's really smart to go to the person and say, if I did this, would it make it better? I mean, you can ask what would make it better, but if the person doesn't know that they can just get further stuck with that. So if you have an idea, I'm wondering if this would help. Would it help if I did this thing? Can also be a strategy. And that's the putting both people's skill sets in the bucket together and not saying, "Well, you know, it's your job to figure out what you want. So I'll just sit over here."

[00:13:43] Karen: And that relates actually to the other thing that you said that I just want to highlight, which is this business about this isn't fair. What we are suggesting is a good idea to do here has nothing to do with what's fair. And in fact, I think a lot of the suggestion is to get out of what's fair or what might be called scorekeeping. Of, it's not my turn, I solved this last time, or, you know, they've done these five things that were a problem. It doesn't matter. What matters is what is the relationship that you want with this person? And what are you willing to do to get that relationship? And it's absolutely acceptable to say, I don't actually, the work is not worth the relationship to me, I'm not going to do that.

[00:14:28] Karen: As long as, with it, you pay attention to all the costs of that choice. If it's a one-on-one relationship, I mean, this is how married people end up divorced. It's not actually about whether it's possible to stay together in most cases. It's about whether they're willing to do what it would take to make staying together work. And the same can be true in work relationships. But of course, if you're in work or if you're in a community, the impact of your choice to make it work or not to do the work to make it work out with somebody has a lot of impact around you. And so part of the, is it worth it, is not just is this one person worth it, but is the impact that it has on the broader community that I'm part of worth it? And that's a harder calculation. 

[00:15:13] Paul: It absolutely is. So to track where we've been here today, we're talking about the idea that, you know, in in any set of relationships, repair skills are really useful, because when something happens that you wish hadn't, when somebody does something that you wish that they hadn't, it's not really useful for you to tell them, well, you shouldn't have done that as much as you might. You might think that and you might want that. And that it can be really useful for you to think about and to work through, "Hey, given that I've been affected by this thing in this way, what can the other person or the other people do that would help to repair that some?”

[00:15:47] Paul: What would make it better for me to do that work, to start to think about that, and then articulate that in as clear a way as you can. That can be hard work to do, and it's also vulnerable work to do. to put out there and ask for something that the other person might say no to, that you might not get. Which is why it can be really useful to think about, what are things they actually can do? How can I make it easy for them to do something that is going to help me? Could ask for something that I know is within their realm of possibility, rather than asking for them to completely change as a person in the next 60 seconds. 

[00:16:19] Paul: Ask for something they can do that can help them help you to feel better about this, to be able to move back into a stronger relationship so that you can continue to work together. If you're the person on the receiving end of this request for repair and the other person doesn't necessarily articulate what would make it better, then one of the things that can be really useful is to guess, right, is not to just go and do something that you think is a good idea, but to really ask, like, would it be useful if I were to do this thing, to articulate that, you know, based on what you know about them and your working relationship with them that repair is always kind of an ongoing process in any relationship.

[00:16:57] Paul: And one of the things you also need to do some thinking about when these things happen, when these things happen repeatedly is, is it worth the continued effort to do, like to think about this in the context of the larger relationship and recognize that there may be things that, you be willing to do what the other person is willing to do, but it may be on your capacity to really do to fully repair that and to take the larger view to that as well. 

[00:17:21] Paul: So it's complicated, as usual, but it can be really useful when something that's happened that's affected you deeply shows up to really ask yourself, what what could the other person do that's actually going to make this better for me and allow us to be in better relationship?

[00:17:37] Karen: And that's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

[00:17:40] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis, and this has been Employing Differences.