Employing Differences

Employing Differences, Episode 56: Who's driving this bus?

June 08, 2021 Karen Gimnig & Paul Tevis
Employing Differences
Employing Differences, Episode 56: Who's driving this bus?
Show Notes Transcript

"When we get anxious that things are not going the way we want them to, the counter-instinctual but really useful response is to release and expand our vision and ask, 'How do we create space between the two of us to actually make this work?' Because that's where the real solution is probably going to come from."

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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, "Who's driving this bus?"

Karen:

I hate that feeling. That sense that no one is in control, that no one is, no one has a direction. I think I sometimes get accused that I have to be in control, because I have such a strong need for someone to be in control. That if there isn't that, if there isn't some sense of direction and guidance, and someone is driving this bus, that for me, that goes into high anxiety producing territory.

Paul:

And I think one of the things that happens when we don't have a sense of who's driving the bus is we all try to. One the things that I found in in groups that I've worked with, and particularly a couple that I've been working with recently, is that when there's not enough clarity around what we're doing, what we're working on, who's doing what, that does make people anxious. And one of things I like to distinguish between is clarity and certainty. So certainty means we know what's going to happen. Clarity means we know how we're dealing with what's happening. So it's more about process than about outcome or about content, but we know approach we're taking. And so even when we're working in areas of high uncertainty, we can actually have clarity. We can know what direction we're moving in, we can know how we're working together, we can know what it is we're trying to do, even if exactly what that looks like is uncertain. But when there's lack of clarity around that, then I think what I've noticed is that we all start trying to help in various different ways. And that's when it feels like we don't know who's driving the bus and everybody is trying to grab for the wheel.

Karen:

Yeah. And I think that grabbing the wheel I actually don't know that everybody's grabbing the wheel. I think somebody is grabbing the wheel and somebody else is hitting the brakes, and somebody else is opening the escape hatch. I think we're all doing these different things. because we all have different coping mechanisms. Like that anxiety, like I think we feel the anxiety. I think it's contagious, I think when one of us feels that the other ones do, and it sort of spirals in that sense. But we all cope differently. So we all have this sense that something's not right. Anxiety is really the best feeling. best word I know for that. We all have that sense. But we're all going to cope in our own different ways. And unless we're really, really lucky, odds are my coping mechanism just makes it worse for you. And yours for them. And them for me. Whether it's two of us or four or eight. The way that I cope is not going to be the thing that's useful for somebody else. So we don't know who's driving. And honestly for me, I'm a facilitator, a leader kind of person. So for me, the anxiety is, "Who's driving?" For somebody else the anxiety is,"What am I supposed to be doing?" or "What is my part of this?" or "Where are we going?" There's all these different ways of that manifesting, and then we cope very differently.

Paul:

I'm reminded of the line from Virginia Satir, who said,"The problem is not the problem. Coping is the problem." It's actually what happens a lot in groups. And it's the thing that I know, both you and I have seen that when we start to work with groups, whatever the presenting problem is the thing they tell us is the problem that's never the problem. It's actually the ways that they're dealing with whatever that problem is. And also and this is the thing I work with groups a lot on what are the patterns of how they're interacting that lead to that being a problem in the first place. Because those patterns are persistent. They're going to produce more of that as they go on and on and on. And so often we feel like, "Well, we just need to solve this problem and we'll be okay." And in fact, what we need to do is kind of step back and go, "What are we doing that keeps ending us up in a situation where nobody knows who's driving the bus or we all start reaching for the wheel or all of these various different coping mechanisms show up?" And it's actually understanding how each of us will deal with whatever these anxiety producing situations are. When we can start to see, "Oh, when this thing happens, I'm going to tend to do this, which is going to increase your level of anxiety, because it doesn't match with how you would deal with it. So you're going to do this other thing, which then that screws up the third person who then they do a thing that then..." and you see this swirl of anxiety around it, as I sometimes talk about. It's this reinforcing loop that actually makes the situation worse and worse and worse. And so these tiny things, when we don't have a good structure in place to actually help us identify, notice what's happening, step back, see the patterns, and figure out how to actually shift those if we don't have a system for that in place, things just kind of spiral out of control.

Karen:

Yeah, and I think another lens on that same pattern is we all have the sense that things are spiraling out of control and so we try to control. So my response to anxiety is to come in and try to control it. And I would say, in our culture, nine times out of 10, the way to try to control it, is to come in and try to control someone else's behavior. To come in and fix it by making that person you know, "That person needs to stop talking too much," or "That person just needs to get on board with this plan," or whatever it is that we go in and try to control, which doesn't tend to make anyone else feel more in control. Their anxiety isn't going down with that. Because now they're even more out of control, because now they're whatever is already spending and on top of that this pesky person over here trying to make me do a thing that doesn't seem to me like the thing that's going to be helpful. And so there is this instinctive, "I'm going to control something." And the irony there is that what you're talking about identifying patterns is the thing that you do specifically by letting go of control. By trusting the group as a whole and we mostly don't trust the groups that we're in when things start spiraling, our natural instinct is not to say,"The group's got this. If we grab on hands, and we all jump together, we'll get to the other side of this together. And if we'll all just sort of dive into it." And so the thing that we instinctively do is exactly the opposite of what we actually need to do, which is let some things flow, get some vulnerability rolling there, so that you can begin to identify what's going on in the relationships and in the group. And it's that sort of finding space, creating space, possibly even holding space, putting some structures around it, that allows that group thing that unpredictable, unknown undefinable out-of-control group wisdom to flow that's where we're gonna get out of the thing.

Paul:

There's two things about that. One is it requires a letting go, like a release, but not a retreat. It's still staying engaged with the group. But sort of releasing our control, our hold. But not avoiding, not stonewalling, not retreating out of it. It's still staying in there. years ago, I used to do a lot of improv theatre, and I went to this amazing workshop that I've probably talked about before. But one of the things the very beginning was the instructor had us all sitting in a circle on the stage. And he gave us these three impossible tasks to do. They were all about of physical movement, sorts of things. He had a background in mime and physical theater. And so he had us do these things that we were pretty much guaranteed to fail at at least one of them. So he had us do this. And then one of things he said is, "So what did you notice about what you did as you started to get more anxious about the fact that you were failing?" And one of the things that we eventually figured out was that all of us, as we started doing the thing, our focus became narrower and narrower and narrower. And among the many lessons from this, one of things he said is, "So when you're on stage, and a scene starts to go wrong, what is your greatest resource in terms of getting out of it?" And we're all like, "Oh, our scene partner. The person we're on stage with." But what happens when we get stressed out is that we tunnel vision into ourselves and how we can solve the problem. And so it was really interesting, this idea of when we get anxious about the fact that things are not going the way we want them to, the counter-instinctual, but really useful response is to release and expand our vision and go,"How do we create space between the two of us to actually make this work?" Because that's where the real solutions probably going to come from. And that's one of the parallels that I'm hearing in what you're talking about is finding that wisdom and tapping into the wisdom and the resources that are between the group rather than retreating into ourselves, or still retreating into ourselves but taking control.

Karen:

Yeah, and it's unfamiliar. And I'm not sure that would be true in every culture, but it isn't ours. This trust in the group. To absolutely believe that the group will find its way, that the answer exists, that the the path forward that will actually work for us and will not eat me alive, exists in that space between in that stopping. Just sort of stop and hands off and curiosity that word had to show up in this episode, or it wouldn't be one of our episodes that like what might happen there, that curiosity space. But that's scary space. And when you're already scared, and you kind of need every resource you know how to have to resettle yourself. And that's probably a whole other episode about how to get out of it, how to just sort of settle. But there is this piece of, for me at least, when I feel that instinct to step in and control a thing, I have learned to stop and say, "Wait. Probably, what's needed is exactly the opposite. Probably what's needed is for me to find the way to open up the space where the thing is released, not controlled."

Paul:

One of the things that I've started to learn about myself is actually checking in. When I feel that urge and just kind of going, "Have I tied myself physically in knots?" Like one of the things I've learned to pay a lot of attention to is actually where my feet are. Are my feet like pronated out and I can feel all the tension and my IT band and all those things? Because I'm doing that and my shoulders and all this if I'm doing that, then probably my need to control the situation is coming from an anxiety response in me. But if instead, I'm in that spot where my feet are flat on the floor, where I'm actually in a calm, relaxed place, then probably what I'm noticing is I want to just nudge what's happening in the space a little bit and it's probably useful. I'm much more likely to want to trust that instinct than the one that comes from here.

Karen:

Yeah, like so much of what we talk about a whole lot of this is about noticing what's going on in us and just bringing that consciousness and awareness to it. And then the answer sort of flows out and we can begin to shift our own patterns, which shifts the patterns of our groups.

Paul:

Yeah. So we started off by by asking sort of who's driving the bus and what our responses are when things don't go as we hoped that they would, or as we expected, they would. When things get ambiguous, when things get unclear, what is it that we do to try to help? And how do those sometimes those things not help very much? What effect does that have on other people in the group? We talked a little bit about sort of noticing, when we're going into ourselves and acting from out of our own anxiety, when our anxiety is the thing that's driving the bus, rather than what is true and useful for the group. And about how to tap into the resources that we have: the group, to trust the team, to be able to kind of relax, but stay engaged, to give up control so that we actually aren't so locked up. So that we actually have room to maneuver in a lot of different ways. And recognizing in ourselves when we're actually doing that. What are the signs that are telling us that we're acting out of that place that's about working with our own anxieties, rather than necessarily something that's going to be helpful for the group?

Karen:

That's going to do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul:

And I'm Paul Tevis. And this has been Employing Differences.