Paul: 0:07

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

Karen: 0:14

I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:15

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:17

Each week, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, "They'll never do that, will they?"

Paul: 0:29

One of the things that Karen and I occasionally swap stories about is consulting clients who bring us in, they want us to do a thing, and we have something in our toolkit that we generally want to use. Because it's something that we know is useful for the groups that we're going to be working with, it tends to get the results that they're asking for. And sometimes we get this pushback where that pushback often takes the form of a "Well, they won't do that; that won't work here," sort of thing. And so what we wanted to explore today a little bit is, where that comes from, and how we work with it. When do we say, "okay, you're right" and when do we get a little curious about it, and when do we maybe poke around the edges of it a little bit, and sort of how we deal with it. So we want to really talk about when we're coming into a group, and we're starting to work with a group and we are wanting to introduce something that maybe is counter to the way that that group is used to working, how does that go?

Karen: 1:32

And I think one of the things we're playing with here is the multiple truths of on the one hand, if you're a member of a group, you know that group better than I'm ever going to know that group, as a consultant. You are an expert there, and so if you're a white person for me, and you're telling me that that's the thing that doesn't work here, that's the thing nobody here does, that's not going to happen here. On the one hand, I totally respect your expertise and your knowledge of your group. You live in it every day, you know things about them I don't. And on the other hand, presumably you hired me because you'd like there to be some change to that. And so, for me, the question is okay, so I'm getting some real useful information here. And really, the thing that I'm going to push back on or question is not whether, in fact, you have good reason for saying it I believe that you do but whether it's as permanent and immovable, as sort of fact, as it feels like it is to you, or whether there's something here that is part of a system, responding to a system, is context specific, has to do with an environment. Is there a way in which we can either I as a consultant, or leadership, or just a member of the team that I happen to be talking to is there a way that that undesirable thing can shift that isn't apparent yet. And that may actually be the most useful thing that I can bring when you hire me.

Paul: 3:08

Kurt Lewin, who's sort of the foundational figure in organizational development, said"Behavior is a function of the individual and the environment." And so when we talk about how individuals are behaving, one of the things I start looking around for is what are the cues in the environment that are actually telling them that that's useful behavior, or that that's reinforcing the behavior. And so it's interesting, because in a workshop and working with a team for even a reasonable period of time, I can't change the people who are in there. But what I can do is I can tweak the environment so that I may get different behavior. It's funny. I was working with just a simple example. I was a few weeks ago, I was doing a workshop, for an organization, we're doing this over Zoom. And one of the things that, as I was setting it up with the person who is my contact for arranging all of this, one of the things that this person told me was, "Oh, people here don't use their video cameras. They're just not going to turn on their cameras during the workshop." And the thing that I said was, "Oh, tell me a little bit more about that." And I started to get curious about what were the situations in which they didn't do this? And I said, "Okay, well, that's good to know." Because that way, I'm going into the situation knowing that I might get a different result that I'm used to. That there might be some resistance to turning on your camera. And that's, for me, to be prepared is really useful. But then there's a sort of a set of things that that I do at the beginning of the workshops, that sort of clue people into the fact that actually they're gonna get more out of this if they have their cameras on. And so I took a screenshot in the middle of the workshop and everyone's camera was on. And so it was kind of a case of, "Well they'll never do that." Well, actually they will, if you approach it maybe in a different way than you've been doing it in the past. So I think it's interesting to think about. To get that information about what you are suggesting that this other person thinks that they'll never do, because it's useful to know, they might not do it as easily as you are used to having them do it with other groups. But then to get curious about what is actually going on, that you might tweak or play with, that might help that behavior to emerge.

Karen: 5:37

And there are at least three things that come up as likely causes for me. The one we tend not to pay attention to is,"They don't know how." I doubt that's true in the case you're describing, but yeah, they'll they never do this. A place I get it a lot is, "They're never going to go into emotional space with you." And that often is they don't know how. They literally don't know. They're they don't have experience putting emotion words to feelings. They don't have experience tracking their own emotional state. They literally don't know how to tell you how they're feeling because it's not been part of their lived. practice, for example. And it also can be depending on the tech abilities of the group you're working with it can be they don't know how to use their computer to do that thing. They don't know how to rename themselves on Zoom. So the first question I would ask is, "Is the thing that they'll never do, I thing that no one's ever taught them." Is it literally a skills thing? So that's the first one is they don't know how. And the second thing is, they've never been asked to. And I heard this in your example of we'd all like it and we all know that we'd all like it if they all turned on their video cameras, but nobody actually said, "This would work better, this would be ideal, we would like it, please turn on your video cameras." And there are a lot of reasons we don't

say what we want: 7:08

We're afraid, we think they'll never do it, it seems like not the norm here, all of that kind of stuff. But in fact, if we don't ask for what we want, we don't have any idea whether we might get it. So I think that's the second one. And the third reason that I think people don't do a thing or won't do a thing is they don't feel safe doing it. And that also rings true for me in your story. That there are things you do at the beginning of a workshop that give people reasons, that set a different expectation, and that create a safe environment in which something more vulnerable, like being visible on a camera, or something that requires more investment, like being visible on a camera you're not then making dinner while you're watching a workshop, you're actually sitting there and being engaged more accountable, all those kinds of things, we may be willing to subject ourselves to that, if there is more safety in the space, so that we feel like we can really step into it and be present. So those are the three reasons that came up for me as likely in a general way. I'm curious if you have others.

Paul: 8:13

It's sort of a subset of that. We've talked before about the power of invitation. That what I'm doing is I'm inviting people to do this thing. I'm not requiring them to. And I'm telling them why I'm invited them to. I think it's part of the making it safe, and it's also part of the asking, requesting that they do it. But it is a request. And then I know, when I'm working with the group, if I ask them to do it, I may get some pushback on it. And so I get to decide, how do I want to deal with those reservations? Do I just go,"Okay, that's fine." Or do I ask, "Are you having some technical difficulties? Do you need some help?" to go to your skill question. I think that it is useful to think about in terms of, do they have the skill? Have we asked them to do it? Do they feel safe to do it? I think that covers a lot of the situations that we encounter these reservations or these things where people just they will never do it, they won't do it. Really?

Karen: 9:23

I think you're touching on with invitation, a concept. I like the word agency. And that there's a big difference between sort of demand particularly if it comes with force of hierarchy, power, of leadership as compared to a request, and especially a request that is personal in nature. Either "I would like it better if you did this thing, I wonder if you'd be willing to?" or "I think we'll all have a better experience, would you be willing to trust my judgment here that this is going to go better, be more valuable, be more useful if we're all willing to do this thing. So might we be willing to?" And in that context, in your specific example, it has impact on everybody, right? So there is a group "can we all jump into this pool together?" kind of energy about it, while still retaining the individual agency. And that is counterintuitive if we're used to hierarchical structures like school, where most of us have spent a good bit of time once upon a time when we were learning how to do these things, where you weren't invited to do a thing, you were demanded to do a thing. And that's the energy that we sort of show up with, and how different people's willingness is. If you demand it, they say no. And if you invite it, "Sure I can do that," because I have my agency, and I can do it or withdraw from doing it, and and I'm choosing. So with choice, my willingness is very different than without choice.

Paul: 11:06

And what we're touching on is a lot of sort of fundamental stuff around change. We're asking for a change and a group. And one of the things is change is always an individual choice. You always get to decide whether or not you're going to do it. There can be coercion involved, that can make it incredibly unpleasant to choose not to do it. But change is ultimately an individual choice. And respecting that is important. The other thing that I'll add, I think, to our list of factors that change got me thinking about is just habit. We do these things, because we fell into these patterns, because there may have been things in the environment that were telling us this is how we should behave. Those patterns can remain even after those environmental factors go away. You see this in the corporate world where people react to their current boss because of the ways they interacted with previous bosses. And so those patterns still exist, even though the things that they're they were reacting to are not there anymore. And changing our patterns requires there is what sometimes is called habitual resistance, which is that any sort of change to a habit or pattern, there's going to be a resistance to that, even when we want to change it. We've talked about that some before. And so part of it is just recognizing that you're going to have to work with and respect that, but kind of recognize, when is it that I'm pushing against a thing and this is I think this where the discernment piece comes into when is it when I encounter the set of reservations, from people about doing something different, when is that just habitual, because this is disrupting my normal pattern? When is it "I'm not feeling safe?" When is it "I'm not feeling skilled?" When is it those things? Being able to discern the difference between some of those, because then I think your responses are going to be different based on the type of reservation you're getting.

Karen: 13:11

Yeah, and I want to wrap us up with one more thought about this, which is curiosity, which comes up so often in what we're saying. If I'm getting resistance to a thing that I think would be useful, I'm getting really curious about where that resistance is coming from. There is a reason and I can really assume that there is a reason someone's resisting or a group of people are resisting. So what is that reason? And once I really understand where it's coming from, I'm much better able to discern whether it's even a good idea to change it.

Paul: 13:46

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

Karen: 13:52

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