Employing Differences, Episode 72: Is that what you really want?

Karen: 0:06

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

Paul: 0:14

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:16

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:18

Each episode, we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Is that what you really want?"

Karen: 0:27

This one's coming from an experience that Paul and I sometimes have, as we're working with clients, and a client says,"We'd like you to come and do this thing," whatever it might be. And often, in my experience, at least, it's pretty prescriptive. We want you to facilitate in exactly this way.

I've had one recently: 0:49

we want you to do this as a hybrid meeting, some in person and some online, by zoom or whatever, various things, and in my head I'm thinking, "I think I know the outcome you're looking for. I'm pretty clear on what it is you're asking me to do. And I think it's very unlikely that the thing you're asking me to do will get you the outcome you want." And so I find myself sort of saying to them, "Is that what you really want me to do? Is that what you really want this workshop to be? Is that you really want?"

Paul: 1:28

Which is a disguised way of saying, "I think you're wrong." It's a statement disguised as a question. It's an interesting space, in the kinds of work that we do, where people are working with us because they actually want to get a particular result. They want to do something. They want to get to a particular place. And they may or may not have strong ideas about what they need to do to get there. When they do have those strong ideas, sometimes I've worked with clients where I had someone I was working with just this last week, where they basically said, Hey, we would love it for you to come in and do this kind of thing. "We want we're trying to get here, we want you to do this." And I was like, "Yeah, that's exactly what I would recommend doing. So great, let's go with that." And sometimes it's, "So yeah, so we were trying to get to this place, here's what we want you to do." And I'm just like, "I don't think that's going to get you to where you want to go." But the first thing that I have to do, or the first thing that I find myself trying to do, when I'm hearing that, when I'm hearing, "You say you want A, you say you want to do B, and in my experience, doing B is gonna get you the opposite of A," the first thing I need to do is just go, "Okay, let me be clear about what it is that you actually want to get." And then I will often ask them to show their work, like, "How do you think doing this is going to get you there?" And trying to do that from a place of real curiosity? Because one of the things about coming in as someone from the outside is that I'm an expert in a lot of different things, but the thing I'm not an expert in is them, in their situation. They know way, way more about who they are than I do. And I need to rely on that. I need to use that. I need to take advantage of it, which means I need to get curious about it. So when I'm at my best, when somebody says I want to do this thing, and I'm going that's Is that what you really want, I just need to ask, "Walk me through this. Show me how you think doing this will get you what I think you want. And also what do you actually want?"

Karen: 3:45

Yeah, and I think that framework is so important, because I really think that we're conditioned in our broader culture to come in and say,"Well, this is what I think. And you know, we're not going to hedge it, we're not going to do anything different." This is what I think and take a stand and push that sort of agenda. And what you're pointing to is being really clear about what I don't know. So I have some thoughts. I have some concerns. You're asking me to do a thing. So I've got a place in this somewhere. And also, there's a lot about this, I don't know, you're asking me to come into a system into an environment and honestly, this could be with my best co-worker that I've worked with for a long time that I actually do know pretty well who's asking me to do a thing and I'm like, "I don't think that's going to get you what you want" that really the first step is for me not to assume that I know what's in their head, that I know everything they know. So if somebody's saying to me, I want you to do a thing X to lead to Y and I'm like, I don't see any way that X leads to Y, the first thing I need to understand is why do you think X will lead to Y? Why do you think this thing you want me to do will lead to this other thing that I don't see any way it's going to happen that way. But if I can slow myself down and get really curious about what are they seeing that I'm not seeing? What do they know that I don't know? And then the other piece, which I probably was aware of from the beginning is, what do I know that they don't? Which is what I always want to lead with, and of course, I can get myself in trouble. And I think then, once you've gotten that curiosity and built some rapport, then the next thing is to sort of feed that back, make sure I've got it now. "Yeah, okay, so what I think you're telling me is that you want this thing," and laying it out. You want better communication, you want conflicts to happen less often, whatever is the thing, you want to get to decisions more efficiently. And what you want me to do is go through a step-by-step consensus process structure, and you think that then everybody will know the consensus process, we'll use that and we'll get to decisions more efficient. It makes a lot of sense. And really track, you know, it absolutely makes sense that if you had a consensus process that everybody followed every time and everybody knew it, that that would make decisions happen more efficiently. And this is the place where I have to be careful about how I show up because even though I'm pretty confident that's not the thing that's in the way. And what needs to happen is that I've got to just show up with my best self, meaning I'm not predicting actually, that that is going to result in what you're asking for, and my experiences and this is very different than saying, "You're wrong, I am the expert, you're supposed to trust me what I want to be doing is setting up a collaborative space, where I'm saying, "I've got a different take on this, tell me how it lands for you. So my new take on this is, maybe the structure isn't the thing, or the shared knowledge of the structure isn't the thing that's missing. Maybe the thing that's missing is that the structure that you have is too rigid, and it doesn't apply to all situations, and we need to be looking at something with that. Or maybe the problem is that we're not hitting the emotional spaces." And you know, we could go a long way about what might be wrong in a consensus process. But for our purposes, today, what I'm saying is, get willing to explore, "Okay, this is the thing that you want. Let's get curious about what it is that's keeping you from getting it, because maybe there's more to it." But keeping my own humility of this is just one more set of ideas I'm throwing into the mix.

Paul: 7:37

That idea of of being humble about it, and being curious, of standing in inquiry. And also being able to bring what you have and put it into the pot. You're not keeping it secret, so that later on, you can go, "A-ha, I was right!" You're putting that out there, but in a way that is useful to them, as well. There's a piece from the Human Systems Dynamics Institute, where they talk about"transforming disagreement into shared exploration." And that's actually what we're talking about here is going, "We disagree whether or not doing this thing will lead to the result you want. Let's explore the roots of that together." So what is it that you're seeing that I'm not that's leading you to one conclusion? What are the things that I'm seeing that you're not that are leading me to a different conclusion? And how can we both or all if it's more than two people do that together, so we can start to see the same things? We still might not come to exactly the same conclusion, but that process is way more useful than debating and arguing about it. And is much more likely to lead to something that's useful. Another thing that I will do that process is I really try to put my cards on the table around a lot of these things. Even at the beginning of that, when somebody comes and says, "We want X, we want you to do Y." There's probably an emotional reaction in me where I go, "You want me to what now?" And even if I don't say that, I have to assume that part of that is leaking. So I'll often even before I start to ask them to do that shared exploration, I'll just say, "So you're aware, I have some concerns about this. I think we can work through them, but I want to come to understand a few things." And just be upfront about like, rather than starting with this whole series of questions that can sometimes turn into an interrogation which is kind of what you were talking about, being your best self it's really about creating that space for exploration that is for our mutual benefit, not just for me to learn something so that I can say, "Hah, I was right! or "This is why I was asking those questions." I'll be up front about why I'm asking those, because what I'm doing when I'm doing that is I'm actually holding their goal and their purpose. And I'm saying, "Hey, look, the reason you've hired me is to create this result. And the reason why I'm here is to help you. When my sense is that we're going off track from that, part of the agreement is that I will steer you back towards what I think is going to help you get that." That's also a place where it's useful to talk about that upfront. Is that the agreement you have? Is the agreement you have with them that you are really a Partner in helping them get what they want? Or are you an Order-taker, in terms of whatever they ask you to do, you're going to do? Because if they think you're an Order-taker, and you think you're a Partner, that's gonna be a problem. Then they're like,"Why are you asking all these questions about all this stuff? Just do what we want." That's usually the point where I when I discover that is usually a point where I forgot perhaps this is not a client, I will continue to work with.

Karen: 11:05

Yeah, and that's really pointing to the the last piece I wanted to make sure we get to with this, which is the idea of boundaries. Yeah, at some point, if I don't think the thing that they're asking me to do even if I think I can do that thing if I don't think it's going to get a result that they're going to be happy with, or frankly, that I'm going to be happy with, I need to get real honest with myself: I'm not going to do it well. I'm not going to feel good about doing it. And I've landed myself in that situation before and just ended up going back to the client afterwards and saying, "They seemed happy with what they got out of it. I wasn't." And I just felt like, even though its in my skill set, it's not the thing I like. It's not the thing I'm valuable for. It's not the thing I want to be bringing. And that can be in a client-consultant relationship, but can also be in a regular work environment or community environment of what do I actually want to do here? What do I feel good about doing here? What makes good use of what I actually have to bring. And if you're asking me to do a thing that sure I can do it, but it's not really what you want, or the way that I would do, it isn't going to be giving you the result that you want, for me to get clean with myself and be ready to say, "That's not a thing I'm willing to do." We're not yet to a contract in whatever way, whether it's a formal contract or an informal contract I've got to be prepared to know what my boundaries are. And when we get to that point that everything about this just doesn't feel good, doesn't feel successful, doesn't feel aligned with how I want to work, that I need to be prepared to say, you know, "I bet we could find somebody who would do that thing for you better than I would." .

Paul: 12:55

Yeah. So to track where we've been here today, we've been talking about when someone asks you to do a thing if you're a consultant, or partnering with people or working with them that you think is not going to lead to where they have said they want to go, or where you think they want to go, the first part is to be a little humble about what it is you really know about their situation and what's really going on with them. To get curious about that, and to sort of explore with them. "So what is it that that leads you to believe that doing this will get the thing that you want?" And again, doing that from a place of genuine curiosity and humility, not from a place of"I'm going to find the flaw in your logic and expose it to you, ha-ha!" because that's not useful. And then also to share your perspective. What is it that you're noticing? Why are you asking these questions? What is it leads you to believe that? When you can both show your work and engage in that shared exploration of your disagreement, that that's a much more useful place for you to figure out what you want to do, rather than just falling into a place of debate and argument. And as well, when you reach the end of that exploration, recognizing where are your boundaries about what you're actually going to do for them? What is the arrangement you have with them? What is the nature of the relationship that you want to have? What is it that you really are willing to do? What can you do well for them? If that really is the thing that they want, if you can see how that might get them to what they really need, are you the right person to do that for them, and being able to be really clean and clear about how you want to approach that? Because ultimately, if you are trying to help them to get what it is that they need, you need to be able to figure out once you've landed on what the right way to do that is are you still the right person to do that for them? You can still hold their agenda and hold their goals. That's important to recognize how you fit into that.

Karen: 15:01

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

Paul: 15:05

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