Employing Differences, Episode 12: Why isn't this working?

Karen: 0:03

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:13

I'm Paul Tevis,

Karen: 0:15

and I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:17

Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is"Why isn't this working?" So, Karen, what is'this,' what do we mean by'this,' and what isn't working about it?

Karen: 0:32

So we're really charting this progress that organizations make when they start to say to themselves,"We want to be less hierarchical. We want to be more collaborative. We want more all-level participation in decision making" That kind of culture shift that they're looking for. And they adopt what I'll call a structure or a method or a way of doing things. So this would be Agile, Sociocracy, Nonviolent Communication... We could go on and there's long lists of possible structures or methods that get adopted that say,"If you do this and this and this and this, you'll be more collaborative." And that's the'this.' We adopt this thing. We've seen other groups adopt it. We've researched it like crazy. We've paid money for training to learn how to do all the steps or we've read the books and we're following it, by all the guidelines, the way that we're supposed to. And we're not getting the payoff, we're not getting the effectiveness, we're not getting the efficiency, and we're really not getting the sense of connection and relationship and feeling of collaboration that we thought we were going to get out of that structure.

Paul: 1:36

Yeah, I see that a lot. I see it sometimes in my own work where I'm like,"Oh, let me learn how this tool or technique or this way of communicating or this method works." And it's like,"Why is this not working for me? Why am I not getting the result that I want in there?" And I sometimes ask the question, with sort of any structure, tool or process," How could you follow the steps perfectly and still not get the result that you wanted?" How might you follow the steps perfectly and guarantee failure? And that can be a powerful question because it can reveal what are the assumptions that that tool or framework or process is making about sort of the culture that it's being deployed in. What are the things around it that it relies upon? I think it gets trickier when it's a more cultural tool or process that you're trying to use, because you're expecting that if we follow the steps, we'll get the result.

Karen: 2:45

I think one thing is that you used the word'culture' and I think that's super important because there is the changing the actual process that we follow– so for example, just the most basic example of a shift from a hierarchical structure to a less hierarchical or more even playing field kind of structure would be to go from a'boss makes a decision,' or even a'majority vote makes a decision' and replacing that with'consensus makes a decision.' That is a really good step and it will help a lot. I think it will make a difference. And I want to be careful here to not say that we think these structures don't work because I think they do work; I think t hey're hugely helpful. However, if you've done them and you're doing them pretty well and yo u're l ike"But wait, I did all the things the book said," or"I did all the things that coach said and I'm not getting the payoff"– I'm going to predict that your culture still looks a lot more like the culture you've always had, than it looks like the culture of highly successful collaborative groups. What I mean by that is mostly in the realm of power dynamics. Mostly we're talking about that the person who was the boss is still the boss and everybody still treats them like the boss. And I want to be clear that that is a mutual relationship. So I'm not blaming the boss. I'm pointing out that if we say,"Okay, we're all go ing t o m ake a consensus decision now," or"We're go ing t o u se Sociocracy to make a consent decision," but we all look to the boss to see what he or she thinks we should do and then we all agree to that– we're still in that same culture of where we were. And we do that because it's familiar and safe.

Paul: 4:31

Yeah. It is absolutely familiar and safe. We h ave done those things in our old culture because they were familiar and safe. And unless we do expect things that are explicitly overturning that– I've worked with some folks who talk about, if we want to do something that is explicitly, c ounter-c ultural, we will, unless we make explicit agreements about how we're going to make decisions or how we're going to distribute resources or how we're going to do that– if we don't make explicit agreements about those, we will inherit the default way of doing that from the enclosing culture. So unless we're explicit about making structures that force us to not be able to know what the boss wants, then naturally, because of the culture that we are coming from, we will sometimes unconsciously defer to that, look for those cues, because we've gotten really good at it over our lives.

Karen: 5:35

Yes, absolutely. I pretty much subscribe to the theory that most of what determines our behavior happened to us before we were seven or eight, that early childhood development. So it's, as you say, not conscious. And change is scary, change is vulnerable, change is a space where I'm not just going to say you could get hurt– I'm going to say you're going to get hurt. How, and how much, and how well it heals, and how much it goes along, but– Growth ain't cheap and easy. If you want to change how everything's operating, it's going to be scary. And it's not because you're scared of some possible boogeyman that doesn't really exist. It's because you're scared of a thing that's going to happen. You're going to get asked to do things you haven't done before. You're going to be putting yourself out there and, and people are not going to be ready for that. And they're going to respond badly in any of a number of ways. And, you know, hopefully our organizations are smart enough that it's not our job actually on the line, but our emotional sense of belonging and our sense of connection and our sense of acceptance in the group. If you aren't occasionally feeling like that's at risk, you're probably not achieving culture change. And so that's, I think the piece where we think,"Well, we adopted this structure, and so we weren't ever going to have to be vulnerable. It's going to feel good all the way."

Paul: 6:54

I often draw the distinction between comfort and safety where structure can help us to be safer, but it doesn't necessarily make it more comfortable. And in fact, it can allow us to get uncomfortable safely because that's where growth and change really happens. And so the idea that structures that help us to be safely vulnerable, I mean, it's uncomfortable, right? Being able to say to someone who's in a position of authority,"I think your idea is incorrect, I think your reasoning is faulty, I think this is a bad idea." That will almost never feel comfortable, but it can also feel safe. And I think those are really the things that, that we want to be looking to create an opportunity to have. I sometimes talk about the notion of useful discomfort, that that's where that growth happens. Are we engaging these tools and structures in a way that is usefully uncomfortable? Because when we do that, then they start working.

Karen: 8:13

Yeah. And I like to give people a little bit of a scale around that. If you're engaging in this practice that is changing to a new thing and you're trying to shift, if you are feeling like all of your subconscious is telling you to run screaming from the room, you're too vulnerable. It's too much, back off, shift slower. If you're feeling like you're uncomfortable and your skin's kind of crawling a little bit, and you're way more exposed than you ever thought you'd be willing to be in your workplace, you're probably right on your growth potential right there. So it's that clarity that easy and comfortable is not the goal, but within some level of safety, like it is okay to say,"This is too much, too far."We're not asking you to jump into the deep end, but we are saying changing the way we do things, changing the patterns that have been there forever will be uncomfortable. I want to point to another thing that I think pretty reliably happens in the cycle of adopting a new structure, which is we adopt the new structure because we want it to change. It starts to change and we all go,"Ack!"

Paul: 9:27

"We didn't mean it!

Karen: 9:29

And when doesn't feel safe, and it's out of control, we grab on to something that makes us feel safer. And we're trying really hard not to grab onto the old ways, so what we do is we grab onto the new thing. We always have to use rounds if it's Sociocracy or something. We grab onto the new thing and we apply it with the same sort of fervor and attitude that we would have used in the old way. And we use the new thing to create a sense of hierarchical structure, because that feels safe.

Paul: 9:59

Right. We use that tool in the cultural method of of the old way..

Karen: 10:08

And then we wonder why it doesn't work. Right? To get back to our original question where we started,"Why isn't this working?" It's because we're using the new structure to do the old thing.

Paul: 10:22

So what do we do about that? Given we know that that reaction happens– and it does, I've seen that a ton– and I love that notion that if your skin is just slightly crawling, you're probably in the useful spot. I have had those moments in my life and in my career where I've been willing to step to that edge and being able to go,"You know, this is not something I would normally say, and I actually feel safe to say it. So let's do that." And it's proven to be really useful and productive. But given that we know people are going to get uncomfortable, given we know that either we retrench horribly where we go,"This was a bad idea, we give up," and we go back– or we culturally go back while grasping firmly to these new tools, how do we work with that? Given that we know that that's going to happen, how do we prepare for it and how do we work through it?

Karen: 11:24

I think the first thing is know it's going to happen. It doesn't mean it's a failure. It doesn't mean you're a failure. It doesn't mean that the coworker that you witnessed doing that as a bad guy or that they aren't willing to try and do this thing. This is just a normal piece of what's going to happen. Go in knowing that, and expect it, and with knowing it, be ready to name it,"Something about this new thing isn't working, why isn't it working?" And particularly,"What are we bringing with us of the old?" Where are we maybe missing the culture o r the values piece behind it?"

Paul: 11:59

That is actually in and of itself a very vulnerable thing to do. To be able to say,"I think what's happening here is that we are superficially using these tools and not using them effectively at the deeper level. How do we need to change?" Rather than blaming the tools.

Karen: 12:22

Right, and I think this is a place where as much as we'd love to give you the answers in a 15 minute little moment, most groups are going to need some pretty significant consultants-type professional help to make that kind of profound transformation. So find somebody who knows the tool you're trying to use, is good at tracking the culture-relational pieces that go with it, and get them to help you through that. I think as much as I try to empower clients and folks to do it on their own, it's really tough to see how you are adopting your old unconscious patterns.

Paul: 13:03

Yes. I was talking with a client this morning who brought up– this person was explaining to his organization the difference between a book and a coach, and he's like"A book will give you some information, a coach will understand your context." Having someone who can see how you're applying that information in the context of your old cultural patterns as you're trying to shift, and be able to hold that empathically and compassionately, and basically say,"Hey, this is normal. This happens. You're doing this thing now, what do you want to do?" That helps put you back at choice. What do you actually want to do about it? Because when you're responding and really reacting at those very deep levels, you're not at choice. You're just falling into those old patterns without recognizing it.

Karen: 13:59

I think a few other things to look at: What are the parts of the new tool that you decided didn't work for you? I'd really go looking at those. Most of the time, the parts were all fairly well thought out and designed to work together. So if you're tossing one out, getting really curious about why you're tossing it out and maybe try a few weeks where you put it back in. That's a place to look as well in terms of why things aren't working. Often, you're tossing it out to protect the old way.

Paul: 14:32

That happens a lot, and again, for good reasons. Because the other thing is that anytime you go through that sort of change, there's a dip in not only comfort, but productivity. It's hard work. You're devoting energy towards learning new ways of being together, new ways of working. That energy has to come from somewhere and it comes from whatever it was you were doing. That is a very vulnerable thing as well, to be able to say,"We're willing to take the hit on accomplishment, on productivity, in the service of growing and longer term getting to a better place and making it more productive and more effective" and things like that. That conscious or unconscious t rade o ff is another thing that kind of pulls us to go,"We d idn't really need this part we can do without it." You're you're right: It's often the most uncomfortable piece– which is probably the piece we need the most– that we we defer.

Karen: 15:34

Yeah. The Imago Relationships realm frequently says that, you know,"Slowing down to do that work is the slower way to get there sooner."

Paul: 15:44

Well, I think that's going to do it for us for today. So until next time I'm Paul Tevis

Karen: 15:53

And I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.