Employing Differences

Employing Differences, Episode 16: Do we have to have this conversation?

September 01, 2020 Karen Gimnig & Paul Tevis
Employing Differences
Employing Differences, Episode 16: Do we have to have this conversation?
Show Notes Transcript

Karen & Paul discuss: "Do we have to have this conversation?

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Karen:

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

Paul:

I'm Paul Tevis,

Karen:

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul:

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is,"Do we have to have this conversation?"

Karen:

So I think the starting point is what is"this conversation?" I suppose it could apply to any conversation, but I think it comes up– at least with my clients– most often around the emotional work. The feeling work, the values work, the sort of deeper, less comfortable spaces. We're pretty comfortable in the cognitive and the logical. That's what school was about. That's what we're raised in. We know how to have debates. But if you go off into that kum-ba-ya touchy, feely stuff, we begin to get that,"Do we have to do this?" kind of question.

Paul:

I remember working with a team a number of years ago, that was going through the early phases of really becoming a team. A number of people were new to the company. A number of people were right out of school, They were also grappling with some pretty difficult technical challenges as a software development team. And as part of that, as I was working with them, we were talking a lot about how they wanted to work together. They were also talking a lot about what it was like at that relational and emotional level. And I remember our product manager at one point coming out of a meeting and then walking into a small room saying,"I don't want to talk about my feelings for a while." Because we had been. I think there are other conversations, you know,– it's k ind o f like a ny t ime it's difficult, where there is a feeling that we're not making progress so maybe we should just talk about something else or we're having to examine why we're really doing something, or maybe we're being asked to reconsider what we will or won't be flexible about. Like for me,"Do we have to have this conversation?" shows up most often when it's hard, when they're not conversations w e're used to having,

Karen:

I think that's absolutely true. And, and it's the conversations we're not used to having them, and thus, we don't know how to have them. Totally out of our comfort zones. We're feeling pretty vulnerable. We may be sort of more blocked, so things are dragging and feeling slower. If you've got a good facilitator, you're probably getting some silence in there, that might not be too comfortable. So there's all of that in there. And then the question comes up,"Do we have to have this conversation?" And for me, the answer is"That depends." If I'm your facilitator, I'm not gonna tell you,"You have to." It's not my job, but it is my job to sort of predict for you what the consequences, what the outcome, what the impact of that choice will be. And I would say nine times out of 10, I'm working with a client who has very clearly said to me,"I want to be in consensus. I want to be a strong Agile team. I want a team where people can show up with ideas. I want creativity and I want integration across things. And I want communication to be really good." And I'm going to say that almost always avoiding"that conversation," whatever it is, is going to reduce the effectiveness of all those other things I just talked about.

Paul:

Yeah. My experience is that the answer to the question"Do we have to have this conversation?" is"Only if you want a different result than the one you've been getting." Because if the reason why, if the difficulty that you're experiencing is in having the conversations you're not used to, they're trying to use skills that you haven't fully developed yet, if they're changing the normal patterns of interaction that you might normally have– if you don't have the conversation, you're going to get the result you always get. You're g oing t o fall back into your old patterns and nothing's g oing t o change. That actually can be o kay. I will ask this of my coaching clients sometimes, b ecause they'll say"I want X– I want to grow. I want to do this thing. We want to work differently." I will ask them at various points when we get into those difficult conversations,"Do you still want that now? You said you wanted this. I'm okay with you changing your mind. If you want that, then I recommend you keep having this difficult conversation– or there may be some other things we can do about it." So I think the answer is,"Do we have to have it? If you want things to change? Yes."

Karen:

I think how holding that intention around it. I think often if we're asking ourselves,"Do we have to do this?" We're so good at coming up with,"But we could just do it this other way. Well, we could not talk about that part. We could focus over here." Often we bring a fair bit of sort of that expertise of,"Well, you know, good management practice, we should look at the budget" or, you know.

Paul:

When no one has been talking about money the whole time?

Karen:

Right. Yes, there's that, that sort of distractibility, or we can rationalize a thousand ways not to, and that might be the right thing. And it might even be that we have to have this conversation, but one of us just,isn't gonna. One of us can't, it's too vulnerable. It's too.. yeah. I think sometimes in groups like,"Oh, we're going to talk about our childhood insecurities and how those show up in the workplace." Well, that could be a super good conversation. And if somebody had a really traumatic childhood:"I'm not, I can be present. I can hang out with y'all, but I'm not doing that." That even can be okay. Not everybody has to get super vulnerable. You don't have everybody's dirty laundry on the line necessarily. You don't. So do we have to have exactly this conversation? Let's get really curious about why we think we don't want to. Let's get curious about why we thought we should. Where is the sort of discernment around,"Why are we avoiding? Where's that coming from? Is it gonna actually help us?"

Paul:

Where I land on a lot of this is about discomfort. A lot of times when I work with groups, one of the things that I frame for them is"discomfort is not an immediate sign of dysfunction." Simply because you're uncomfortable doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. In fact, sometimes it means you're doing it right. The discernment there is actually about asking,"Is this a discomfort which is serving us or not?" Is this the discomfort of"Change is actually trying to happen?" Or is this the discomfort of,"We are so far out of our depth that we can't learn from this?" I talk a lot with groups about how learning doesn't happen in your Comfort Zone, but it also doesn't happen in your Panic Zone. Recognizing when so much has come up and we're so far away from what is familiar and comfortable that we now no longer can even learn from this process and it is going to be traumatic and we're g oing t o re-trigger all sorts of stuff. I'm not saying,"If it hurts, do it." That's not it either. I think where what you're pointing to is that when we notice that discomfort, when we start asking,"Do we have to have this conversation?" it can be useful t o– if possible– step back and go,"So what is it about this conversation that makes it difficult? What might be a slightly easier version of that that would still be useful to us? What might be a little closer, might be a little safer, a little easier for us to do so that we're still pushing outside of our comfort zone, but not so far out of it that we aren't able to move forward at all?"

Karen:

Another way I frame that for folks is– you know a lot of the communication that I work work that I do is inviting vulnerability. We know that if we want to be connected and we want to have really strong, safe, trusting relationships that– ironically– vulnerability is the road to safety. The advice that I give folks is"You need to do your own vulnerability management." And so if you're in this space doing this exercise or having the conversation and, and you're uncomfortable, and it feels a little awkward and strange and vulnerable, probably that's exactly your g rowth spot. That's probably exactly where you want to go. If you are ready to crawl out of your skin and all you w ant t o do is run screaming from the room, don't go there. Don't go that deep. Don't share that much. So when I say stretch into vulnerability, it is within that safety parameter that you're talking about. Sometimes it is the level of feeling that tells you which way to go.

Paul:

Not all discomfort is useful.

Karen:

Yes. So once again, we're on the themes of curiosity and discernment and looking at what's behind and what's underneath and what do we think the likely outcomes actually will be.

Paul:

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

Karen:

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