Karen: 0:08

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 would start with a question and we see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Do we need clarity or flexibility?"

Karen: 0:27

Well, Paul, we need both.

Paul: 0:32

You're not wrong,

Karen: 0:35

Which, of course, is the dilemma here. And I think we often don't think of these as opposite ends of the same kind of spectrum. But I see them and, Paul, we were talking, I know you do, too that we see them showing up in our groups as opposite ends of the same spectrum. That when we aren't sure what that policy said, aren't sure what that procedure meant, aren't sure who was supposed to do what, our instinct is to write a better document, create a better structure, to put more clarity around it. And typically, with that "more," what we're getting is rigidity. We're getting a stuckness. Okay, so we're pinning down exactly who's going to do what when, exactly how we're going to do this process, exactly what the steps are. And as we do that, we lose the flexibility that we need to respond to real life when it happens. What we're wanting to talk about today is how we work with that challenge of keeping the clarity that we need and the flexibility that we need, and what are the cues that we've drifted too far in one direction or the other.

Paul: 1:53

I've also worked with groups where they go the other direction. When they discover we have this document and it doesn't really describe all the things that we need it to do, instead of saying, "Well, we need to add more stuff to it," they go, "Well, we just shouldn't write stuff down." They actually value flexibility so much, and they don't want to be pinned down. I worked in a company once where the president of the company was opposed to written policies because he believed that would cause people to simply do things because they'd always been done that way. That the existence of a written policy about anything in particular would cause people to stop questioning what they should be doing. And so he valued flexibility, because he was so concerned about rigidity, about falling into those non-thinking traps. And of course, as someone working in that organization, I find myself going, "But it's not at all clear what we should be doing!" And so that's really the challenge there is that again the idea that both are useful. And each of us this is where the differences piece comes out each of us has a different sense of whether or not we need more clarity or flexibility, in general, and also in a particular situation. So a lot of the challenge in groups is actually to figure out, given there are different senses of whether or not more clarity or more flexibility would be useful here (and in general), what do we do now? How do we get both? But also, how do we notice when we are managing the tension between those two appropriately? How do we know that we're landing at the right spot along the spectrum for what's happening right here and right now, rather than what we are each individually comfortable with in general?

Karen: 3:50

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And it's one of the advantages of groups is that if someone who's really comfortable with flexibility is working with someone who really likes a lot of clarity, that they will balance each other nicely. So I think that's that's one of the upsides. I tend to be a flexibility person. I've worked with a partner on a project for a long time who is a clarity person, and we balance each other I'd say, "But can't we go over here? and "But we've got the structure," she'd say."Okay, so can that structure shift?" And we's just sort of work through that. And I think the organization was served very well by the pair of us. And I think the thing that we want to be good at is noticing what are the signs that our need for clarity is getting in our way? And what are the signs that the need for flexibility is getting in our way? And so my thought about when clarity is getting in the way being a flexibility person, I'm really good at seeing when clarity is getting in the way and I think the

signs there are: 4:57

We've got plenty of clarity, but we're lacking flexibility when we are using a process that doesn't feel like it's matching the thing we're trying to do. When the the natural thing, that instinctively would be the way to get that thing done, the person who would be the natural fit to do it, isn't in the right role or isn't within that structure. So when there's sort of this instinctive, "This is the thing that would work," and we all agree, "This is the thing that would work." And somebody's saying, "No, no, no, our structure doesn't allow that," this is a case where we might have a lot of clarity, but we're lacking flexibility. And we're losing talent. We're dragging process down and getting things slower than they need to be, and really paying a cost for not having more flexibility in the system.

Paul: 5:50

Yeah, I think what's under a lot of those things for me is this idea that we can see where the structure is creating waste, where we're not able to adapt to the realities of the current situation. It's one of the things about standardization. Standardization actually creates waste. It creates some savings in the sense that there is only one process that people need to learn or roll out or manage or things like that. But it also almost guarantees that that process will not be the right process for any particular situation. Because it's not adapted. And so I think one of the things we will feel to what you're pointing at in that situation where where we would like to have more flexibility is when we're really feeling like we're not being able to do the thing that would make the most sense, that wouldn't create waste, that would allow people to actually apply their energies, their knowledge, their skills. This really does often show up around roles. Our structure says the person in this role has to do this thing, and then this group of people, they're not the right person to be doing that. That person over there is. So that I think that's the thing we feel a lot when we're when we're in that place of not enough flexibility. The other side of that is how do we notice when there's not enough clarity. And for me, that's where there's confusion. In the"we don't have flexibility" case, we know exactly what the process says to do. And we know that we're not doing it. So that's super clear. When we have not enough clarity, it's more that we don't know what we're supposed to be doing, or where we're going, or what's happening with this, or what's our process for it. And what's weird is that sometimes we don't know we're confused. Often the need for greater clarity only comes about when we notice that we all think it's clear but we all have different ideas of what it is.

Karen: 8:02

So this is one of the places where, as we've talked about before, conflict tells us where our problems are. If you're lacking clarity, likely you've got conflict doing you that favor of showing you when. And it's the thing of "You didn't do what are things said." You're outside of your role, you didn't follow the right process for making that decision. You're just trying to get your own way often that accusation comes with it. When underlying what's really going on is, "I was over here doing exactly what I thought I was supposed to be doing. And you were over there watching me thinking it was not what I was supposed to be doing." And and that might be because the policy was written 10 years ago, and I read policies and you don't. Or it could be because I was part of writing that policy and you weren't. Or it could be as simple as I understood the policy differently. Absolute clarity in documents is just not a human reality. Our brains are so good at interpreting language to mean what we would like it to mean, or what it would be convenient for us to mean, or what we're afraid that it means, but our emotional engagement with that content tends to influence our understanding of what it means. And so to say that we can have documents that will be clear enough the best legal minds in the country can't do that. This is why we have a Supreme Court. So in our groups and organizations, I'm going to take it on faith that we're never going to have a document that's so clear that two creative people can't interpret it differently.

Paul: 9:45

And that's another one of those things that lives in the space between. Our understanding of whatever this policy or document or mission statement or whatever the thing is that we feel either needs to be clear or it needs to be more flexible, we're always going to have different understandings of it. So I think we've touched on it a little bit like how do we notice when we're too close to that flexibility? And how do we notice when we're too close to the, clarity end. When we have an excess of one at the expense of the other. So how do we get to both? What are the ways that we can land in the right spot with regards to those two poles in any particular situation?

Karen: 10:31

Yeah, so I want to say we can have an insurance policy. The right spot can be a pinpoint where you just barely teeter, or it can be a really broad balance beam getting wider to a broad walkway. And that that breadth of walkway is called trust. If we have trust amongst us, if we are in the space of believing in the good intents of the other, and so when someone does something that seems outside their role, or against the policy, or whatever, that if we all sort of approach it of,"Huh, they must understand the policy differently," or"Something must be up there" or"What's going on"" and we just engage with curiosity these are all things you've heard in previous episodes. But if you build the trust so when there is a misstep, or for that matter, if someone's saying, "I want to do this a different way," where we have clarity, but someone's asking for flexibility, if there's trust to say, "Oh, yeah, we can step away from our written policy, because we trust that person to do good things with it," to keep everybody's needs in mind, that kind of thing, then that space in which we have enough clarity and enough flexibility gets a lot wider. And as trust diminishes, we get closer and closer to trying to hit that tipping point where the language is clear enough and we have when we're not clear planned. And I think that's, in the end, the default. Within the structure, that's where you get enough clarity and flexibility. That the language is concise enough that everyone will read it and understand it, and clear enough that we mostly read it the same way. And that it includes a "What happens if either we need to make an exception, or we don't all understand it the same way?" And if we have clear processes for what to do in those two cases, that's where we will build in the flexibility.

Paul: 12:41

Yeah, that points really usefully to what are core practices that help you build in some flexibility. One of the things that I'll add around clarity and I see this a lot in writing of policies or rule sets, or things like that is use examples. We often try to bring in this very abstract language, that tries to cover all these general cases, and then it's not clear how we need to apply them. So you're writing the rule, or the process or the policy with something in mind. Include that. Examples of how to apply these rules, these guidelines, these structures go a long way to increasing clarity. They really do help with that. The other thing that I'll say is that I think it's important to notice that we don't need the same level of clarity and flexibility in all of the things that we do. There are some areas where it's actually super important to not be flexible, to be very clear and actually rigid around certain things, because there are serious consequences for straying outside of those bounds. And there are many other things where it doesn't actually matter so much. And in fact that sometimes being vague or ambiguous can be useful. I do this actually a lot in some of my facilitation work, where I am very clear about the steps that I'm asking people to go through, the process they're going to go through. "You're going to talk with these three people, you're going to write down six things on these cards." That's all really clear. But the questions that I will often prompt them with are deliberately ambiguous, because I actually want to open up the space of exploration. So that's a place where one part of that clarity is really important, so we'll actually get to where we need to go. And there's another part of that where clarity actually wouldn't help. It would narrow us in too much. So I think recognizing within where we are working, that there is variation in the degree of clarity and flexibility that we actually want. So recognizing that even within one group, we're going to need to land on that in different spots in different times and in different places and with different pieces of work. And to call those out.

Karen: 15:05

Another strategy that I use for blending clarity with flexibility is criteria. So, particularly in answering the question of, "What do we do when we aren't clear?" when we're lacking clarity, we don't have agreement about how to implement this policy, or we don't know who decides that thing, or whose role that is you certainly need some clarity around who is going to decide, but you can add flexibility by saying, "OK, so they can decide, but they're going to decide based on this criteria." So they're going to decide based on considering maximum input from people and expedient process which of course, compete with each other, but you put those criteria in there. So it's not just, "Well, when nobody knows what to do, Paul will decide." Well, that might work well, but it kind of puts Paul on the hot seat and not great way. But Paul will decide considering these three values or these three goals that we have agreement about. So then when Paul comes back, he can say, "Okay, well, for goal number one, this was the kind of way that sent me. And for goal number two, it kind of sent me this other way. And, and now on the balance of looking at all of that, what makes sense to me is..." You're way more likely to get people behind that and feeling good about it, because it's based on that criteria that we set together. And I find that people are more comfortable saying, "Yeah, we're going to rely on an individual or a small team or a subset to get us out of this pickle," when we have told them something about how we're asking them to do the work, which is that criteria that we'll use to decide things. So building that into the policy, while there's a little less clarity because we're just trusting somebody to decide,s o it's not entirely clear what will happen it has enough clarity, because we're clear about what the values are, and what will contribute to that decision, while allowing for the flexibility that humans can offer to a thing that policies cannot.

Paul: 17:18

Yeah, and what that really points to is the the sort of general concept of enabling constraints. So the idea that,"Okay, Paul is gonna make the decision." Great, that gives me tons of flexibility. But I actually am not clear how I'm expected to make the decision. And so being able to say, according to these criteria, that constrains my flexibility a little bit, but it constrains it in a useful way. It gives me guidance, it moves towards, it narrows my vision a little bit in ways that are useful, so I know what's important to consider. And that's really the thing that I find really valuable for working in groups on clarity and flexibility is what are constraints that will actually enable the group to do a better job with it. Because they bring both clarity, and flexibility. Because you can see that they give you a range of options of what to do, but they also point you in the direction you want to be going. So that's an example of a technique that I will often use with a group is how do we figure out how to create enabling constraints that give us both clarity and flexibility and appropriate degrees of both?

Karen: 18:31

So I think we're I'm tracking here, we started out saying we want clarity and flexibility don't make us choose. And some people and some situations call for more of one or the other. And so by bringing people together and being thoughtful about what's the environment, what's the goal, what's the situation that we're in, we can figure out how much of each we need, and balance each other within that. We can broaden the space that will work by increasing trust in a group. And we can look for ways to get more clarity either by creating some criteria around delegating decision-making, or by getting clear about where we need that flexibility and really defining those pieces.

Paul: 19:23

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

Karen: 19:27

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