Employing Differences

Employing Differences, Episode 26: Are we done yet?

November 10, 2020 Karen Gimnig & Paul Tevis
Employing Differences
Employing Differences, Episode 26: Are we done yet?
Show Notes Transcript

"I think that can be discouraging, particularly when I see groups that say, 'Okay, we want to be collaborative.' So we adopt Agile, we adopt Sociocracy, we adopt a thing, and we really study it, and we learn it and it is better. Like clearly we are and it is better. But we're not getting what the pamphlet said. We're not getting what we thought we were gonna get. We don't have this beautiful flow. We don't all love coming to work every day. We still have conflict. We still have disagreements. We still get stuck on things. Why is that?"

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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 we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Are we done yet?"

Karen:

And what we're pointing to with this one, although we could do another episode, we may do an "Are we done yet? Part Two" that's about are we done with our project yet? But what we wanted to talk about today is are we done with our growth yet? Are we done becoming collaborative? Are we done learning to employ differences? Have we gotten there?

Paul:

Yeah, the answer is no. Spoilers. Well, it's almost like anytime we ask a yes/no question on this, the answer is almost always "no." But it's no, because there is no done. I think our experience has always been that my experience certainly has been anytime I feel like I'm growing a new skill or a new way to collaborate with people or a new way of working, it only just reveals like what it is that I don't know. I almost feel like I become more aware of my own ignorance, the more that I learn, which is why there's there's never a done. I think there's there's certainly a degree of that, that there's just there's always more to learn.

Karen:

And I think that can be discouraging, particularly when I see groups that say, "Okay, we want to be collaborative." So we adopt Agile, we adopt Sociocracy, we adopt a thing, and we really study it, and we learn it and it is better. Like clearly we are and it is better. But we're not getting what the pamphlet said. We're not getting what we thought we were gonna get. We don't have this beautiful flow. We don't all love coming to work every day. We still have conflict. We still have disagreements. We still get stuck on things. Why is that? And I think why is that is basically because you learned step one or step two, or step three or step four but there is more to it. And, and there's more to it, partly because we're just humans, and we can always improve. But particularly, there's more to it when you grew up in American culture, and you're trying to be collaborative. Because American culture is not we weren't raised for this, it is not a collaborative space. It's an individualistic space, it's a competitive space. And unpacking that is a series a long series of steps, as you get further and further. And the truth is, it's not that you took the wrong first step I don't think there is a wrong first step usually but it's the step that you're ready to take at one point is the step you need to take then, because the stuff you eventually want to get to you just aren't ready for yet.

Paul:

I think it can be very easy to get discouraged when we, when we go off and do a three-day workshop and we come back and everything isn't better. Everything isn't perfect. And actually, the thing is, well, I was gonna say things are probably better. Actually, they are usually worse before they get better, because we try to do the thing, and we do it in a really clunky way and in a way it is not authentic, where we haven't internalized it. I had a conversation several years ago with my spouse when I was at a 10-day intensive retreat workshop sort of thing. And she basically said to me, "So my concern is you're going to come home like you do for many of these things not sounding like yourself." And it's true, because I would go off, I would learn this stuff, and then I would try it, but I hadn't made it my own yet. I hadn't gotten it in my bones. So I sounded like a different person for a while. And it was really revealing. It was actually an incredible indicator of progress that she was able to say that and I was able to hear that for what it meant, for like what it was which is not an indication that I was done but that I've made progress. And I think we focus so much on, "Are we there? Are we done?" because we're used to there being things where there is an end point. And the thing is that these things have no end point, but there's always progress. There is no right answer, but there are better answers, and there are worse answers. And if we're moving in directions of better and when we can look back and see where we've come from and see how far we've come, we're not done. We often get discouraged by the feeling that we're not done, but I think we can take hope from the fact of seeing our progress.

Karen:

Yeah, and I think that's one of the pieces that we can build as a skill is the ability to see progress, the ability to share progress. I think if we do sort of look back on where were we? "Where were we? Where are we now? How is that different?" and be able to see those things. I think that there's also a piece of forgiveness of ourselves that it's okay to be a work in progress. That's another piece of, "In our culture, you just always got to go for the 'A' and get done and check the box." There's these very sort of, "I graduated, I finished, I got the degree," that sort of thinking. I think that's one of the pieces of shifting to collaborative thinking. It's not about "Did I check the box? Or did I get the thing?" It's about "Are we enjoying each other? Are we feeling connected to one another? Are we hearing each other?" And yes, if you're in a work environment, "Are we creating the product?" Or if you're have a particular mission, "Are we making progress toward our mission?" That's got to be in there. But I don't think it's the the be-all-and-end-all of did this work do what we wanted it to or was it worthwhile.

Paul:

There's something in that about the sort of ideas that are behind tools like Appreciative Inquiry, where it's like, how do we look at what's going right, rather than solely what's going wrong. Now, one of the things I do a lot of work with groups on is individuals and groups and organizations will often marginalize one or the other of those viewpoints. They will either say like, we only focus on what's going wrong, how things could fail. And you see this some by professions. So like, forensic accounting, for example, always looking for what's wrong. It's just an occupational hazard. But groups will either marginalize what's going wrong. I think that's one of the places where the question about "Are we done yet?" comes from is the belief that is the focus on what's wrong. And that can be useful to counterbalance with "Well, what is going well?" Now, I've also worked with groups that focus so much on what's going well, but they aren't focusing on at all on what's going wrong. When you over-rotate on either of them, you stop making progress, and you stop learning. But I think one of the possible answers to the question or ways of responding to the question of"Are we done yet?" is "What have we done so far?"

Karen:

I think that's so true. And yeah, what have we done so far? And what are we ready for next?

Paul:

What are we ready for next is a beautiful place to be. Because it's taking this sort of creative discontent. There is a next, there's a place we want to be going and moving towards. But how can we get from how can we take the positive emotional charge from that, the useful gap? What's the next step we can take? What are we ready to do now that we weren't ready to do before?

Karen:

Yeah. So I think as as usual, what we're saying is, as we're approaching this, you don't want to be any other extreme. You want to be in a place of balance. So are we done yet? Probably not. Have we done something? Almost certainly. And so where do we balance the two and look for what's the direction we want to go to next?

Paul:

Well, I think that's gonna do it for us for today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen:

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