Employing Differences, Episode 59: Who do I tell?

Paul: 0:10

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

Karen: 0:16

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:18

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:20

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Who do I tell?"

Paul: 0:29

So Karen and I both have a fair amount of experience working in groups and in organizations, where some people know something, and other people don't. And this is normal in groups. And also, we have noticed that groups behave a little strangely when some people know something, and other people don't, and we're not sure who we can tell, who we should tell, who needs to know, what do they need to know. We run into things around secrecy, or confidentiality, or transparency, or gossip. All of those words are about somebody knowing something and somebody else not knowing it, and how that information spreads and flows. So we wanted to explore a little bit here today what we have noticed around information being either held or withheld, or shared, and how it gets shared, and what needs to get shared, and what reactions we notice when those sorts of things happen. We've got a variety of different experiences, I think we're gonna dig in here to try and tease out some from some nuance from a really complicated topic. And I think we're only gonna skim the surface of some stuff here today.

Karen: 1:48

Yeah, I think that's true. So I think it's also worth saying, Paul, that you and I have a shared bias toward transparency. And I think for me, that comes from an awareness that information is power. There is a power in holding information. When we're trying to be collaborative, in general, sharing out that power and spreading it out and really disempowering the information, the secret, and making it known to everybody is generally what I would aim for them. And that's the direction I'd want to go. And if we're not feeling like we can do that, overall, like"nobody can ever know this," if that's the energy that I get really curious about where that is and why that is. I'd begin to ask about, do we really have safety with each other? Do we need to go back and do some safety building? Do we need to do some relationship building and that kind of thing. So that transparency becomes safer and more possible and authenticity and all that sharing. So I just want to give it that frame, that the bias is towards transparency, and you need a certain level of foundational safety in relationships to do that. So I'm going to suggest for this conversation, we're going to assume now that we're in a group that has a fundamental foundation of some safety, we've done some group relationship work. In general, we're a place where we can be authentic and show up.

Paul: 3:16

Yeah, and the thing that I will say about why the bias for transparency exists, is that idea that when I know that you have a piece of information that you are not sharing with me, that is detrimental to collaboration. That is detrimental to their relationship. Now, I think we can establish some safety around that when I know why you are not sharing it with me and I trust why. For example, you might be someone in an organization that has knowledge of why a certain person is no longer employed at that organization and for legal reasons, you cannot discuss it with me. And I can accept that. And still, I can want to know. So our our bias for transparency is largely because transparency enables collaboration, and withholding information and known withholding of information and discovered withholding of information is a is an impediment to collaboration. But yes, in order to be able to do that, in order for that to work well, you do have to have that foundation of trust, that most information can be shared. And I think where it really gets interesting is when we start finding those things where we start going, "I don't trust that this can be shared widely. I don't feel safe being transparent about this." And I think it's interesting to think about what some of those reasons are. Or what some of the reasons we tell ourselves are.

Karen: 4:41

Yeah, I mean, I think the first big source of reasons that we shouldn't we shouldn't talk about that are just societal norms. We don't talk about money. We don't talk about politics. We don't say negative things about each other. We don't talk about why somebody was fired. There's this whole set of things that we're not allowed to talk about because Big Bad Things will happen. And they're not The Big Bad Things will happen actually isn't proven out when there's been research done. I mean, there are companies that make everybody's salary public. And then everybody knows what everybody makes, and that actually works they think pretty well. And so there's there is that just social norm of "We can't talk about that." And I guess what I say with that one is, "Let's dig deeper." So you have an instinct about that. What actually is served there? And who is served there? And how does that play out? And is there actually a reason given how we are choosing to engage with each other in this space, that that information shouldn't be shared?

Paul: 5:44

Right, it's that shifting from the norm what we're used to to what's actually useful in this space? Let's get specific about us, here, now. Could we talk about that and would it be useful for us, rather than just going to that default. On that safety point, there's also the piece and this is where this idea of confidentiality comes up, where I'm feeling like there's some stuff that I want to say, but I'm worried about what the consequences of people knowing that I have said that show up. And that's where confidentiality shows up in a lot of different different environments that you and I both sort of deal with. And fundamentally, that is also secret keeping. Not attributing, you know what got said to whom. One of the things, for example, in a lot of workshops that I do, or things that I do our agreement about confidentialit, is that people can share what they experience what they learned, like what it was like for them because that story is personal to them. And they can talk about the outcomes that, you know, the group got to, but they're not allowed to share what somebody else said or who shared what, like no attribution. "Oh, Bob said that." And what you could say is, "The group discussed this issue and this was the conclusion that we came to," and oftentimes that's really useful to actually broadcast in a group. We discussed this issue, but not say, well, "Bob brought this up and made a very persuasive argument and so we decided to do it." That isn't always as useful. But it is interesting to think about, what are the things that I'm worried about saying that if someone outside the space that I'm saying them in were to know that I said them?

Karen: 7:34

I think there really are spaces for confidentiality, because confidentiality brings safety. When I'm working with consulting clients, and working through conflicts, if I'm in a room with somebody they can count on, I'm not going to go tell their story to anybody else. That isn't mine to tell, and I'm sitting in the position of I'm just a mirror, they can bounce things off of. It is not my job to go tell. And I don't. So there's that kind of confidentiality. But again, I'm not part of that system in a direct way. I'm an outside supporter of the system. So that makes it different. But I think there is the piece about where confidentiality, the flip side of that is, if for example, you're sitting in a meeting, and we say, okay, we're gonna make a decision, and everything that said here is confidential, and nobody outside this room is ever going to share it. But there are a few problems with that. One is human nature. I mean, that might work between two it will never work between 20. I want to say it was Mark Twain or somebody said, you know, a secret with one other person is a secret. A secret with a third person ain't ever happening. And I think that's generally true. And then the other piece of it is that what you're setting up then is when somebody else joins the group or like other people will be aware of it. This decision or this conversation will impact more broadly than just the room you're sitting in. And so it will come up and somebody will say, even six months later, when the energy of this shows up in the space, and somebody says,"What is that? What's going on with that?" I mean, they pick up that there's something touchy there. And everybody is, "Oh, it's confidential, we can't talk about it." And that new person is excluded. They feel left out and and they feel unsafe. There's something big in the room energetically, and I'm not even allowed to know what it is. And again, that power dynamic comes into play. So confidentiality, absolutely, I think has value. And there are dangers associated with it. And I particularly get concerned about it where it's more than a pair of people.

Paul: 9:46

And I think the useful question to ask in and sort of at the end of as part of any sort of confidential discussion is, "What are we going to share? With whom? How are we going to do that?" Because ideally the reason why that conversation whether it be you know, one on one, like with a coach or in a small group that's sort of making a decision they want to create that safe space to explore some possibilities, and then do something with that exploration. And they need to be very clear about what are they going to do with that, that they are going to communicate out? What are they going to say? So that's a thing that I will often do. If I'm having a conversation, for example, with a client, as a coach, and they're largely telling me about how things are going with one of their co-workers, my job there is to shift them back to actually being able to have a conversation with their co-worker. I talk about how my job is to help them talk with each other more than about each other. And this is where we get into gossip, right? Or it's like, "Great, that's useful if it helps you figure out how you want to engage with that other person." So I'm always going to be pointing back to "What have you shared with me, that you can tell them? And what has been discussed in this group that will be shared out?" The more we're actually able to share and be transparent around that

stuff: 11:13

This was the decision we made. This was the process we followed to go through it. These were the things that we considered. When you share that with the larger group, and you actually tell people about those things, they have less of a concern and less of a need to know of who said what. By being very deliberate about the things that we do share from a conversation that we're not fully transparent about, by being transparent about the relevant pieces of it, the pieces that actually impact the larger group, the rest of the group, that actually decreases the feeling by other people that they have some information that's not being told to them, that's being withheld from them.

Karen: 11:56

Yeah. And I think that brings us to the next point I want to think about, which is also the "How do you tell?" Often the transparency issue isn't are we ever going to tell? It's like some small number of us know a thing right now. And I do think it's useful to think about what is the way to do that? I mean, it's not like,"Well, I know a thing, so I'm just going to chat about it with whoever I happen to have lunch with that day, and then..." You know, there is a sort of order of things. There is some negativity that happens if somebody who was integral or had direct impacts sort of hears it randomly, accidentally, through somebody who actually didn't have nearly as much need to know is they did or whatever. So there is a like, "Okay, so this thing happened. And for whatever reason, some of us know and some of us don't. Maybe because we were in the room when the decision got made, or maybe I'm the receptionist who happen to pick up the phone, and so now I know the thing." There's a set of people who know for whatever reason that that occurred. Now, let's think about what is the timing that works. If a huge major budget problem came up, and we've got a deadline that our production teams are working on that's got to be done by the end of the week. We don't need to throw a bunch of job insecurity into that mix today."Let them get through their high pressure deadline and plan a meeting for afterwards" can absolutely make sense. And that's not about secret keeping. That's about being thoughtful about what is the impact that this information is going to have and how do we want to roll that out appropriately. And that also comes to "Okay, so now we're going to call a meeting to share this information," and,"Okay, there's a big meeting about this big secret thing and it's next week!" So just being really thoughtful about what are the impacts. And there's not good options here, I just want to say like. On the one hand, you don't want to tell them a little bit when they can't hear the whole thing and answer questions. And on the other hand, how do you get them in a room to tell them the thing. So I just think, recognizing it's gonna be messy, it's gonna be emotional, it's going to be triggering for people, and different people in different ways. But being thoughtful about it. I think the trend is to share, as quickly as you reasonably can, as safely as you can, and sharing with people in the order that works. You know, if somebody is losing their job, they don't need to learn that in a conference room full of people. So if there's something that's going to land hard on somebody that they need to hear about it one-on-one first, There's an order of who needs to know to think through. But in general, if it's gonna leak, then just say it. You're better off to have it just show up. And, if "Okay, we need to have a meeting. We've got some bad budget news. We're going to talk about it at this time, we'll give you all the detail then," as opposed to "We're gonna have a meeting. It's a big thing." I mean, the energy around it will come. So what is the topic of that? "We got some tough budget news. We do or don't expect it may impact whether we keep staff." Just that little bit of transparency, and here's where the detail is, or whatever that is. So just being thoughtful about how the information rolls out, in addition to what gets rolled out.

Paul: 15:31

Yeah. As you say, there's not necessarily a good way to do any of that. But there are better and worse ways. That is really the way to think about it. It's like, you're right, there's not a good way. But you've got choices about how you're going to do it and think about what the impact of those choices are going to be. Two things that I like to keep in mind around that. One is, when you know something, it is almost impossible to know what it's like not to know it. And so, oftentimes the people who are making the decisions about how this information is going to roll out, they've had the time to process it. They may have been part of the decision making, or it's gotten to them first. So they've worked through their stuff, and then they're going, "Well, how do we need to tell everybody else? and they can lose sight of how it's going to land with other people. The other thing that I that I try to think about with that is, when there's a lack of information, we fill it in with rumor, with speculation, with fear, with all of these things. Recognize people's tendency to do that, and head it off at the pass. For example, if we know we're going to have this meeting to talk about the impact of the budget cuts, know what people are probably concerned about, and actually address that first in the invite. "Probably a lot of you are concerned that there are going to be layoffs. There are not going to be. We will be discussing what some of the impacts of the budget cuts are going to be tomorrow at two o'clock." If you're worried that people are going to hear something that you're not going to say, then actually address that specifically. Call it out. I" don't want you to think this. We will be talking more about what this is actually going to look like the other day." Because when we know that something's coming, and we don't know what it is yet, we fill in all sorts of stuff in the middle there. And so that's a lot about that when we're going to tell people, how do we tell them? Yeah, you're right, there's often not a good way, but there's better and worse ways.

Karen: 17:35

So starting with, who do we tell, and this premise of sometimes I mean, it happens, it's a normal thing to happen that somebody has information that other people don't have, that they might like to have or might need to have, and how and when and who gets told about that. And so what we're saying is, be aware that it's likely to be messy. It's that there are power threads, power dynamics that play into this. The bias is towards transparency. And there's an awareness that safety comes into that. And so there is value to confidentiality. Be very thoughtful about whether that value is really there and what the downsides of confidentiality are. And there's a lot to be said about thinking through the better and worse ways to get from "people don't know" to "people do know" and that you may not be able to predict all of that. Be careful not to overestimate your ability to contain the information, because that's easy to do. And just be thoughtful about who needs to know in which order. Who might need to know in a safer environment, as opposed to a larger group environment, things like that. But that overall thinking really carefully about anything you think you can't tell. And if you can't tell, perhaps you need to say, "This is why I'm not telling." That this is the thing I'm not telling you, and this is why I'm not telling you, and that that likely reduces the anxiety around.

Paul: 19:04

Yeah. And the the last bit I'll add to that is that often it's useful to say, "Here's what I can't tell you and why. Here's what I can tell you that might address that same sort of need or curiosity that's sort of under that."

Karen: 19:17

I think that's going it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 19:21

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