Employing Differences, Episode 78: How do they not know that?

Karen: 0:06

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

Paul: 0:13

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:15

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:17

Each episode we start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "How do they not know that?"

Karen: 0:27

I suspect we've all had this experience of where we're sitting with a team or a client or some group of people, that we come in thinking that we're all on the same page in some way, to some degree, and then as the conversation evolves, you sort of realize, "Boy, do they not know," like, "How do they not know, this piece of information that theoretically, I thought, as we walked into the room, all of us already knew." And so that moment of discovery of we are not in the same place in terms of what we know. That's a whole different thing than in terms of what we'd like to see happen. But today, we're really wanting to focus on when we discover that we're not on the same page in terms of what we understand to be true, or what information we have about a thing.

Paul: 1:25

So there's a piece in what you just said, that I think is fascinating, which is the "what we know to be true." And I think what we're kind of talking about with this or what we're often talking about this is not just like the purely observable facts. Often it's an understanding of how things work, of what's going on in the system, of the assumptions we make about the way the world works, about the way the team works, about the organization works, things like that or how these processes works. Oftentimes, a lot of that is implicit. It is stuff that we don't talk about, because we all know this stuff, so we don't have to. And it's often only when someone kind of enters from the outside, that we even run into a situation where somebody could not know it. But I think it's useful in those moments, when you suddenly discover,"Hey, this person or this group that I'm working with just has very different assumptions about how this is supposed to work, or what we're really trying to do, or these kinds of things," I think it's really useful to ask yourself, "Well, I used to not know this. How did I come to discover it?" Like, what's the process by which I came to know whatever this thing is?

Karen: 2:40

Yeah, I think that is really useful. And I think that might be part of a bigger process that I'm just going to call "deal with your own frustration." And we sort of got to this topic because I just came out of one of these experiences and realized, yeah, the first thing I wanted to do was just sort of unload on Paul,"I just came out of this meeting. Ugh." And I think there is an element of it is very frustrating to realize that I know some stuff that others don't know. I even think they probably should know, or at least they need to in order to be successful in the thing we're doing together. And it really wasn't my job it's not in my job description to bring that knowledge or to educate or to whatever. So I'm in this sort of frustrated, angsty kind of spot. So I'm gonna say the first thing when you get in this spot is deal with your own stuff. Slow down, find somebody to talk to you, whatever your process is of realizing, you know what, it's not their fault. They don't know what they don't. However, we got here, we got here. It's not because they were cheating, or it's not because they were lying, or trying to misrepresent themselves. This is where we are. We're in the roles we're in. They don't know what they don't know. How could they know what they don't know? And so I got to deal with my own whatever my frustration and energy around that is, and my like, "It shouldn't be this way." All of that I got to sort through and there's, I think, plenty in previous episodes about kind of where to do that work, but definitely slowing down and getting myself clear about, "Okay, whatever I thought should have been that's not the world I'm in. Reality check. This is the world I am in. Who do I want to be now? How do I want to engage? What impact do I want to have, given the situation that I'm now aware exists?"

Paul: 4:31

Years ago, I worked with a really great engineering manager who I learned a ton from. I was actually in a coaching role with the team that he was managing. And he was tremendously experienced, particularly on the IT operations side of things. And so the team that we were working with was primarily thinking about it from a development standpoint of like,"What do we need to build like? How do we solve this particular problem in front of us?" He was super experienced in the, "Well once we deploy that, how could things go wrong?" What are the t ings we actually need to think about in production, and thing like that. What he was reall great about was never shami g the team for not think ng about those things. I think he had sort of inter alized so well, this idea of, " ell, they don't know this stuff and it doesn't really matte why they don't." He could do tw things really well. One is he could just introduce those as co cerns, right. He could say thing like, "I really like the direc ion that you're going with this. One of the things that I'm think ng about is some scala ility issues with regards to th s piece of it. How might we de l with that?" Which was a way o basically I mean, the way y u could have said that was, You haven't thought about scala ility at all, you idiots." And h didn't. And it's because he ha just been through that so many imes, that it didn't faze him. nd he was able to put that into he space in a way that the group could now work with it. And y u could see people go like,"Oh, yeah, you're right. We di n't think about that. What could we do about it?" So there was s mething about the inner work hat he had done of dealing with is own potential frust ation that he could just do th t in the moment. It was amazi g to watch. And it was amazi g to watch the effect that that ad on the group.

Karen: 6:19

That reminds me that I was just yesterday out with my teenager doing a first driving lesson. And so here I am, and I've done all these things, and I've been driving for years, and I have all this down. And if I can remember, he doesn't know those things. So instead of the instinct, which is "Stop, stop, stop! Don't you see the stop sign?" I just calmly say, "Stop sign." Not throwing more at him than he can handle, not the shaming that, but just "stop sign," a little louder, "stop sign." But there's no shame in it. There's no expectation that he knows what he doesn't know. If I can get clear about, okay, this is the reality that we're in, and how can I be helpful? And then I think the next piece of that going forward is okay, knowing that we're in this situation, what is my role? Yeah, with my son, my role is to teach my role is to provide practice, my role is to give information. That may not be my role in another team or another environment. So I think the next thing to really do is pause and say, both, what would I like my role to be? And also, what am I being asked for? Like, what role? Where am I really with the group? And if those don't match, getting serious about some contracting about that.

Paul: 7:44

Yeah, it's that alignment that clarity around the mismatch is something that I think is really hard for many of us who like to be helpful. We've talked before about the dangers of inflicting help, where it's just like, Yeah, my I might want my role to be in a particular situation that I'm in, I might want it to be to educate the senior leadership about the ways that they're approaching this and about how that might not be particularly effective. And I find myself thinking a lot, how do they not know these things about empowerment, about alignment about humane uses of authority? Like "How do they not know that?" That goes through my head a lot. And then I go,"Well, it doesn't matter. I would love it if my role were to do that. But that's actually not why they brought me in. They brought me in to do something else." Now, I will mention those things. But it's more casual, right? It's to bring it to their attention. I'm actually there to do some strategy work. I'm there to do some work with this group. But one of the things that is sort of in my remit is to be able to mention things like,"You know, one of the things I'm noticing is that your decision making process doesn't seem to be very clear. And I think that might be causing you some trouble here." And then move on. If they choose to say,"Actually, could you help us with decision making?" Then we can get into a different place. But if they choose not to take that.. So I have to be really clear about what role do I want to be playing? What role are they actually asking me to be playing? And who am I trying to make this easier for? Because there are absolutely times where I get brought into a situation, and I'm working with some other people, and I realize, "Wow, things would be easier for me if that person knew this thing that I knew, but that's taken me like 10 or 15 years to develop. Well, that's not gonna happen." And so I can maybe try to nudge but sometimes it's like that really would just make it easier for me. It actually wouldn't necessarily make it any easier for my client. So I think there is a piece there that both mastering your own frustration and understanding like my emotional response to why do they not know this? How do they not know this? But also going? Why do I want them to? Why do I wish they would? Is it for the client? Is it for them? Is it for me? Who is that for? Because I think that can also help us kind of work through, what do we actually want to do, given that we're in the situation that we're in now.

Karen: 10:24

So if we sort of fast forward through all that work, and we've decided, okay, I got myself settled, I'm clear that it is my role to do something about what they don't know. So I've got some sort of educational role here, and it's for the right reasons, and for the right people, and all of that. Now, how am I going to go about it? And I think there's sort of probably any number of ways for teaching. But one of the really key things I think, and we've kind of touched on this already is, "Does it help for me to tell them?" Can I just say, "I think there's a thing you don't know, and this is the information?" And there are cases where that absolutely will help. If I go back to my son, and driving," I think you don't know the speed limit here is 25." Speed limit here is 25, or whatever that is. Sometimes it's that, but sometimes they just have to learn it. So when he hits the brake too hard, it doesn't help for me to say, "You hit the brake too hard." He just knows that he did hit brake too hard. Telling him that every time doesn't give him new information, because he has to learn the feel of it. And it's just gonna take repetition. At some point, I might be able to say, "You know, you can ease off just before you hit stop" or whatever, but mostly, he's just gonna have to learn the feel of it. And so I think as we work with groups, there's this similar thing of some things can't be learned by being told,

Paul: 11:59

It would be way easiet if they could. I would have learned a lot of stuff way faster. I was working with another engineering director recently different than the first person. He was actually talking about, he says,"Look, I'm at a spot in my career where I've done a lot of these things before, I understand a lot of this stuff. But I also remember how I learned it. And so when I'm working with a team that doesn't understand it like they've got these ideas, I kind of need to let them learn the lesson. I need to be able to go okay and I need to balance that with like, what could go wrong. Like, if I give them the free rein to try this stuff out, I've got a pretty good idea of how it's gonna turn out." You and I have talked before about sort of our things where we're just like,"I've seen this enough that I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen." And sometimes telling people doesn't help them learn the lesson, doesn't help them internalize, it doesn't help them to get to the same understanding that we have, or that we had when we first started on this path. And so he was just kind of saying there are times when I really just have to let it go and let it go the way that I think it's gonna go, and then we'll be able to correct on it. But he's also always balancing that with, does that put into jeopardy the results I'm being asked to create, and holding both. And I think that's a key part of it. If I just sort of let this unfold, is that going to help them learn and grow? And is that going to cause problems for whatever it is we're working together on? And I think that's also part of the role, too. Am I in a role where I'm actually supposed to help them learn and grow or not? But if you are, then I think you still have to balance will help them learn and grow and will this get in the way of the results we're trying to create? There's another piece kind of around that, which is the you know, just telling them doesn't work that I use a lot, which is actually figuring out what is it that they do already know? And what is it that they do know that might be in contradiction to the thing that I know. When we go back to that place of truths about the way the world works oftentimes, when I'm working with somebody, and they seem to not know something, it's because they have had a set of experiences from which they have learned a different lesson. And I need to understand that because they're probably thinking the same thing about me, how does he not know this? Right? One of the things that definitely does is it helps me to see where they're coming from. But then also, how can I shape the thing that I might say, so that is consistent with their previous experiences? How can I get how can I hang it off of a thing that they already know, or that they already believe to be true? And it might not be the same way that I think about it. It might not be the same words that I would use when I describe it to something else. But how can I get curious about their experience and their worldview, so that I can present the idea that I have in a way that is compatible with that?

Karen: 15:16

Yeah, and I go another, just a slight tweak on that, which is, what are the things they know they want? What are the things they know they're working toward? What are the pain points that they're aware of? And if the thing they don't know can be tied to those? So yeah, yes, it doesn't seem like this would help with that, but actually, if you do this, that'll address this pain point or whatever that if you can connect it to the things they already know they want to be working on, that's another way in?

Paul: 15:46

Yeah, it's the what matters to them. Because quite frankly, if what I'm trying to help them to see and help them to understand doesn't matter, then they're not gonna pick it up. And so framing it in terms of things that, you know, matters to them, I think is a really important part of that.

Karen: 16:09

Yeah. And the last piece, I think I'd add here is know when they're just not going to know it for a while. That's also within that framing of what they already have. I was working with a group building a consensus process, and they were making it so incredibly convoluted. I'm talking to some of them and others are in a different place. And I finally just said to the folks that really wanted to work with me and were ready to listen to what I had to say I just said, "You know, what? This process, it's way more convoluted than it needs to be. At some point way down the road, you're totally gonna trip over it. I think there will be a moment that you're sorry that it's like this. But even then it won't be a disaster. And right now, to try to force getting to agreement on it, when none of you has enough experience to actually know, it's just not worth it. This is not the moment to learn this lesson. If I could just tell you, and you believe me right now, I that would save you some pain later. I think that's true. But you're you're not there. It's just not going to happen." Especially if there's not alignment in the group, there's times to just say, okay, either either I'm wrong, and then more power to you're doing the right thing, and great, or I'm right, and you will eventually see that and learn it for yourself. And I may never get credit for knowing. That that's fine. But down the road, and if I'm right, it's going to turn up and it's not going to be a disaster. And that's that discernment you were talking about of if it's really going to be a disaster, let's help them see that it's going to be a disaster. And if it's not, then maybe it isn't worth that learning curve right now from where they are.

Paul: 17:53

Yeah. So to track sort of where we've been through here: When we find ourselves in that situation, where we're going,"How do they not know that?" One, don't let those words come out of your mouth. Not in front of them. Work through your own stuff around where is your frustration coming from around this? What is it that that particularly gets you. Get to a place where you can actually potentially start to introduce some of the things that they may or may not know, in a way that isn't shaming or blaming, in a way that expands the conversation, which is really hard to do when you're in an emotionally charged space. And then sort of think about when you discover, "Hey, there's something that they don't know," is it actually my role? Am I being encouraged or welcome to actually help them to know that, to help them grow, to help them come to understand these things that they that they don't see, or that they don't know. Assuming all of that is true, also getting curious about where they're coming from. What are the things that they know, and that they see, so that you've got a cognitive framework to sort of hang the idea off of, but also understanding what matters to them what's important so you can talk about these ideas from a framework that they actually care about that. When you can do that you've got some traction and still being clear around,"Well, what if I don't try to help them to understand this? What's the worst that could happen? Is that going to send things completely off the rails? Can I sit back, and even if it would be way better for me, if we all came to understand this stuff together, it'll still be good enough for the outcome if they don't, or if I'm more in a spot where I do really need to help them to learn, help them to grow, help them to come to understand this thing they don't, because if they don't, we're actually all going to be in really big trouble around that." So it's lots of pieces of discernment, of self management, and and really exploring it wouldn't be an episode if I didn't say curiousity engaging in curiosity about what's going on over there, rather than just getting wrapped up entirely with this idea in our own head.

Karen: 20:11

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

Paul: 20:17

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